Did you ever desperately need to be putting grades in your school computer, or grading final exams, or boxing the 7,230 books you own for transport to the house you just purchased, or reading Mansfield Park, or trying to catch up on sleep you've missed because you drive seven hours to graduate school twice a week?
Yep.
So here's the stuff I've found on the internet recently that's fascinated me . . . a hearty Dyersburg thanks to everyone who e-mailed in to contribute to this list -- oh yes, that's only me, Brad Denton, mad props. I am my own peeps. Holla!
(Can you tell I'm not sleeping well?)
1. Random Shirts, Home of the $10.00 tee!: Wow. I've already purchased the double sided "Calvinism -- This shirt chose me/Armenianism -- I chose this shirt" tee, so don't think you've cornered the market on individuality, hombre. I am more expressive than you are, by cracky! (If you know what "by cracky" means, please write in and explain it to me. Or should I do like that weird guy in my grad school class and refer to myself using the editorial and royal "we." Yep, I like that better. If you know what "by cracky" means, please write in and explain it to us.)
2. Lee's Useless Super-Hero Generator: Cresting the wave of popularity created by my mention of the Internet Anagram Server (see earlier post), I only fear that mention of this site will encumber web traffic to the point that all credit card transactions in the U.S. may cease. Hundreds of you -- nay, thousands -- wrote in to say that you enjoyed the Anagram Server, so I offer this to you, you one of many who adore me! Ha ha ha -- I've gone mad!
Ahem.
Anyway, here are my five randomly generated super identities:
Mad Enigma
Power(s): Glows in the dark, Hypnosis
Source of powers: Cybernetics
Weapon: Atomic Pitchfork
Transportation: Vibro 4x4
Wind Midget
Power(s): Super-human stamina, Super strength, Light generation/control
Source of powers: Unknown
Weapon: Foam Pellets
Transportation: Alpha SUV
Archfighter
Power(s): Energy blasts, Animate/control the dead
Source of powers: Unexplained
Weapon: Ether Hammer
Transportation: Insect Glider
Detective Tornado
Power(s): Seventh sense, Flight, Heat generation
Source of powers: Chemical
Weapon: Magnocarbine
Transportation: Crimson Chair
Stone Lad
Power(s): Friction manipulation, Psychic, Super jumping
Source of powers: Abnormal brain function
Weapon: Celestial Rifle
Transportation: Squirrel Catamaran
To be perfectly honest, I've always dreamed of sailing around the world on a catamaran made of squirrels. Uh, shooting foam pellets at people. Um, from my magnocarbine. Righhhhhhhhht. With my warcry of "Fear the Mad Enigma!" I will fight crime using only my manipulation of friction! Evil beware!
3. Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie: For protection against mind control, of course. Isn't it strange how you find these things? I had an eighth grader who was procrastinating on our career day; he was to have completed at home an online career survey called "Future Focus." Needless to say, he had not finished it and asked to use the computer in my homeroom. He started Internet Explorer, but he could not remember the name of the website where the survey was located. He decided that www.futurefocus.com was a likely site, and so he was directed here. This site, however, was for Future Focus, Inc., a corporate security and investigation site. Intrigued by the "case studies" they presented on the front page, I decided to poke around on the site. That's where I found the aluminum foil link above, and this: the greatest disclaimer in the history of mankind. After reading this, I knew that this site was being produced by one lone pasty guy in a cubicle and not the work of a shadowy organization whose resources rival those of the Central Intelligence Agency.
4. Trinkaus -- An Informal Look: From the Annals of Improbable Research, in itself a fascinating site. Trinkaus is a professor of statistics who has found the perfect way to circumvent the large university "publish or perish" mentality by publishing constantly -- about nothing. I love this guy, and the story is absolutely true.
5. The Political Graveyard: Politicians On Money: Who hasn't forgotten the name of the guy on the dollar coin? Well, I have not -- it's Eisenhower. Okay, what about the guy on the first $500 note issued by the treasury. Easy -- it's Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin, of course. Who was the "Poo Bah of the Confederacy," the man on the $2 Confederate note? Simple -- it's Judah Philip Benjamin. If you think for one second I knew any of those before I went to the site, well, you're correct, and I'm a huge loser.
Hopefully, like me, you can avoid most of the things that you need to be doing with these simple diversions. Rock on, people. Rock on.
Monday, May 17, 2004
More internet stuff. I LOVE the internet stuff. I decided today to "Google" my best friend Dustin -- you've "Googled" a friend, right? Or at least "Googled" yourself, you solipsist! (Even the fact that I've written this in the second person is putting a hop in your step, admit it!) I thought that a name like "Dustin Adkins" would be rare enough as to give me the current information about MY friend Dustin. So I went to "Google" Dustin Adkins, and here are the results:
1. Dustin Adkins, President of Mountain State University Students for Bush! (Not my Dustin, I assure you.)
2. Dustin Adkins, the losing pitcher for the Wichita Rattlers! (Hmm. My Dustin is an extremely unathletic Democrat. Not him.)
3. Dustin Adkins, 5th Place (Senior Division) International Conference 2001 Scenario Writing Winner, Future Problem Solving Program! (Well, Dustin and I graduated together in 1993 from Dyersburg High School in Dyersburg, Tennessee, so I'm hoping he didn't have to remediate for 8 years. In Kentucky. Wouldn't that be a slap in the face of Tennessee education? Your high school was so bad, you had to do 8 more years of it in Kentucky? Have mercy.)
4. Dustin Adkins, Champion Supreme Dairy Female, 10th Annual Livestock Expo-West! (Wow. How the mighty have fallen. Good luck having a future after you've been saddled [no pun intended] with that award by the Department of Agriculture. "What'd you win, Dustin?" "Uh, Supreme Dairy Female." "Dear Lord, what have they done?")
5. Dustin Adkins, Powder Metallurgy Technologist, Level 1! (What can I say here? I'm not even sure what this is!)
And there are so many more fun Dustins that time will not allow me to tell their varied and disparate stories. Suffice to say, you would be horrifically bored.
1. Dustin Adkins, President of Mountain State University Students for Bush! (Not my Dustin, I assure you.)
2. Dustin Adkins, the losing pitcher for the Wichita Rattlers! (Hmm. My Dustin is an extremely unathletic Democrat. Not him.)
3. Dustin Adkins, 5th Place (Senior Division) International Conference 2001 Scenario Writing Winner, Future Problem Solving Program! (Well, Dustin and I graduated together in 1993 from Dyersburg High School in Dyersburg, Tennessee, so I'm hoping he didn't have to remediate for 8 years. In Kentucky. Wouldn't that be a slap in the face of Tennessee education? Your high school was so bad, you had to do 8 more years of it in Kentucky? Have mercy.)
4. Dustin Adkins, Champion Supreme Dairy Female, 10th Annual Livestock Expo-West! (Wow. How the mighty have fallen. Good luck having a future after you've been saddled [no pun intended] with that award by the Department of Agriculture. "What'd you win, Dustin?" "Uh, Supreme Dairy Female." "Dear Lord, what have they done?")
5. Dustin Adkins, Powder Metallurgy Technologist, Level 1! (What can I say here? I'm not even sure what this is!)
And there are so many more fun Dustins that time will not allow me to tell their varied and disparate stories. Suffice to say, you would be horrifically bored.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
If you read the earlier post, you know that I'm back in grad school to finish my M.A.
What classes am I taking, you ask?
You'll all be glad to know that my two seminar topics have amazing relevance to my current career as a junior high English teacher. The first seminar boldly proclaims its message without omitting any extraneous details -- Seminar in the 19th Century English Novel: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte. That's right! I'm not just reading Emma, no ma'am! Nor am I just reading Emma and Mansfield Park, no no! I'm reading Emma, Mansfield Park, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre! If my eyeballs can survive this month without being forcibly self-extricated using a spoon, I count this month a raging success. Needless to say, I'm not exactly pumped about this half of the class.
However, I've found that I need to be forced to read novels out of my interest field, and I usually end up loving them. So far, I really enjoy the professor, and I love the eccentrics that work on a M.A. at GaSou.
The second half of the seminar promises to be much more exciting (for me, anyway!) -- Seminar: Flannery O'Connor. Now I adore O'Connor's work; she's long been a personal favorite. Plus, she's distinctly a Southern author, perhaps the prototypical Southern author, and I am more interested in Southern American than I am Southern British, 19th century style.
Next update? I'll let you know if the eyeballs make it.
What classes am I taking, you ask?
You'll all be glad to know that my two seminar topics have amazing relevance to my current career as a junior high English teacher. The first seminar boldly proclaims its message without omitting any extraneous details -- Seminar in the 19th Century English Novel: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte. That's right! I'm not just reading Emma, no ma'am! Nor am I just reading Emma and Mansfield Park, no no! I'm reading Emma, Mansfield Park, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre! If my eyeballs can survive this month without being forcibly self-extricated using a spoon, I count this month a raging success. Needless to say, I'm not exactly pumped about this half of the class.
However, I've found that I need to be forced to read novels out of my interest field, and I usually end up loving them. So far, I really enjoy the professor, and I love the eccentrics that work on a M.A. at GaSou.
The second half of the seminar promises to be much more exciting (for me, anyway!) -- Seminar: Flannery O'Connor. Now I adore O'Connor's work; she's long been a personal favorite. Plus, she's distinctly a Southern author, perhaps the prototypical Southern author, and I am more interested in Southern American than I am Southern British, 19th century style.
Next update? I'll let you know if the eyeballs make it.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Big things happening here. As most of you know . . . wait, wait, no . . . as NONE of you know, I am an alumnus of Georgia Southern University. Yes, that Georgia Southern University, the home of the finest English Department on the eastern seaboard! Uh, the eastern seaboard of Georgia. Hmm . . . finest English Department for a *public institution* located on the eastern seaboard of Georgia. No, the finest . . . well, you get the idea.
How did I choose GaSou, you ask? Hearken back with me to the dog days of Spring 1997: how well did you know your future then? I was getting married in June 1998 -- that much about my future I knew in 1997 -- and I had no earthly idea what I was going to do with my life. I had recently graduated from David Lipscomb University (the home of the finest English Department in an American-Restoration-Movement-derived college or university located within the city limits of Metropolitan Nashville/Davidson County) and the employment field confided to me by my college-entrance-mandated career survey (package deal with the Myers-Briggs; "Psychologist/Counselor" and ENFP on the same day, can you believe all the self-awareness I gained that day?) didn't really appeal to me. So: I had won medals at graduation (for something?) from the English Deparment; I was an English major; I was president of Sigma Tau Delta (STD!!!!!!!!) the English honorary society; my advisor and confidante was an English professor. Strangely, I somehow felt that graduate school in English was in my future.
But where to go? Somewhere close to Jami (who would be in Florida student teaching in the second semester of 97-98; also, the June wedding would be there. . .) Plus, somewhere cheap (Public!) and somewhere I could still be admitted, despite the fact it was late March of 1997. Florida State and the University of Florida? All materials due December 15, 1996, thank you very much. University of Central Florida, South Florida, North Florida? No admission after February 1, 1997; no exceptions. Even Valdosta State turned me down (March 1, 1997).
But GaSou had (and has) a rolling admission policy, and they were downright eager to take my money. So I spent 1997-1998 there, doing my coursework for an M.A. in English. It was actually a very good graduate education, all my joking to the contrary.
Of course, I didn't finish my thesis. A million times you've heard this, right? Breeze through the coursework, don't finish the thesis. I began a perfectly serviceable thesis on the humanist framework found in the later novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; my advisor hated it. So, I started another on a different aspect of his work; never did finish it.
End of grad school. Kaput, right?
Well, no. I never finished my academic thesis, no, but I did channel my inner writer enough to finish a creative thesis in poetry (enjoyed that much more than the non-creative one) and [INSERT DRUMROLL HERE] I discovered that under the conversion to the semester system from the quarter system I needed six more hours of coursework to finish the degree. So I signed up for the course, and here I am . . . with one six hour seminar between me without the M.A. and me with academic bliss.
Here's where the fun begins: I did not know that I lacked coursework until March of this year (March to March, eh -- a fearful symmetry there; Blake would be proud!) and as I am up against the seven year rule, I must finish before August. So I need six hours worth of credit this summer from Georgia Southern. Easy, huh?
I didn't know until yesterday that GaSou had changed its academic semesters in the summer so that the first course started in May . . . May 11 to be precise. So that's why I found myself hightailing it to Statesboro, GA, a three-and-a-half hour trek from my current Atlanta home, in order to make it to my graduate class at 6:30. Oh, yes, I drove back last night, too, when the class ended. At 10:30. So I got home around 1:45 AM or so, just in time to collapse and awaken at 6:15 in order to teach my eighth graders. Yep. I've gotta do this twice a week until the end of school.
However, I'm excited by the prospect of the high adventure that goes along with finishing this seven-year-long chapter in my life; I need epic drama and torment in order to give meaning to those things that would otherwise be devoid of significance.
I need sound and fury. For me they signify . . . everything.
How did I choose GaSou, you ask? Hearken back with me to the dog days of Spring 1997: how well did you know your future then? I was getting married in June 1998 -- that much about my future I knew in 1997 -- and I had no earthly idea what I was going to do with my life. I had recently graduated from David Lipscomb University (the home of the finest English Department in an American-Restoration-Movement-derived college or university located within the city limits of Metropolitan Nashville/Davidson County) and the employment field confided to me by my college-entrance-mandated career survey (package deal with the Myers-Briggs; "Psychologist/Counselor" and ENFP on the same day, can you believe all the self-awareness I gained that day?) didn't really appeal to me. So: I had won medals at graduation (for something?) from the English Deparment; I was an English major; I was president of Sigma Tau Delta (STD!!!!!!!!) the English honorary society; my advisor and confidante was an English professor. Strangely, I somehow felt that graduate school in English was in my future.
But where to go? Somewhere close to Jami (who would be in Florida student teaching in the second semester of 97-98; also, the June wedding would be there. . .) Plus, somewhere cheap (Public!) and somewhere I could still be admitted, despite the fact it was late March of 1997. Florida State and the University of Florida? All materials due December 15, 1996, thank you very much. University of Central Florida, South Florida, North Florida? No admission after February 1, 1997; no exceptions. Even Valdosta State turned me down (March 1, 1997).
But GaSou had (and has) a rolling admission policy, and they were downright eager to take my money. So I spent 1997-1998 there, doing my coursework for an M.A. in English. It was actually a very good graduate education, all my joking to the contrary.
Of course, I didn't finish my thesis. A million times you've heard this, right? Breeze through the coursework, don't finish the thesis. I began a perfectly serviceable thesis on the humanist framework found in the later novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; my advisor hated it. So, I started another on a different aspect of his work; never did finish it.
End of grad school. Kaput, right?
Well, no. I never finished my academic thesis, no, but I did channel my inner writer enough to finish a creative thesis in poetry (enjoyed that much more than the non-creative one) and [INSERT DRUMROLL HERE] I discovered that under the conversion to the semester system from the quarter system I needed six more hours of coursework to finish the degree. So I signed up for the course, and here I am . . . with one six hour seminar between me without the M.A. and me with academic bliss.
Here's where the fun begins: I did not know that I lacked coursework until March of this year (March to March, eh -- a fearful symmetry there; Blake would be proud!) and as I am up against the seven year rule, I must finish before August. So I need six hours worth of credit this summer from Georgia Southern. Easy, huh?
I didn't know until yesterday that GaSou had changed its academic semesters in the summer so that the first course started in May . . . May 11 to be precise. So that's why I found myself hightailing it to Statesboro, GA, a three-and-a-half hour trek from my current Atlanta home, in order to make it to my graduate class at 6:30. Oh, yes, I drove back last night, too, when the class ended. At 10:30. So I got home around 1:45 AM or so, just in time to collapse and awaken at 6:15 in order to teach my eighth graders. Yep. I've gotta do this twice a week until the end of school.
However, I'm excited by the prospect of the high adventure that goes along with finishing this seven-year-long chapter in my life; I need epic drama and torment in order to give meaning to those things that would otherwise be devoid of significance.
I need sound and fury. For me they signify . . . everything.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)