"Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill"-- Buddha

If Buddha is correct, then I am doing my part to destroy the future minds of America.

Some of the funniest incidents come from misuse of words, and if you teach English to teenagers, you will find yourself giggling (or screaming) a lot.

Or, if I am your English teacher, you'll find yourself giggling (or screaming) on the way to your therapist.

Available from Cafe Press

On the second day of the new school year, I used to teach students about the difference between Standard American English, slang, and dialects to help them understand why certain situations call for certain ways of speaking: you wouldn't use Standard American English when socializing with friends just as you wouldn't use slang with a teacher, employer, or anyone else not from your generation.

One year as I was transitioning from slang to dialects, I announced quite loudly: "Okay, now we are moving on to dicks." Immediately after I heard my diction faux pas, I threw my arms in the air like a referee signalling a touchdown and shouted, "Day two everybody!"

Forty pairs of wide eyes stared back at me.  That their teacher even knew what a dick was seemed to have stunned them.

Last year, while reading from "Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson"--a horrific account of her imprisonment to the Native Americans in 1675--I managed to turn a scene of violence into a snuff narrative. After reading about "bowels being split open" and a nursing mother and her child being shot through, I concluded by saying, "the Indians getting up upon the roof of the barn, had advantage to shoot down upon [the pilgrims] over their fornication."

I stopped. The last word was supposed to be "fortification." I pictured a bunch of pilgrims doing it doggy style while shooting up at the Indians on the roof.  I couldn't help sputtering a few Beavis and Butthead chuckles.

I know. There's something wrong with me.

Of course, I was the only one who laughed because the students had no idea what "fornication" meant, even though they probably engaged in it more than I did. So, instead of seeing this humor in my mispronunciation, they watched me giggle at the idea of innocent men, women, and children being slaughtered.

Then there was the time I told my students to "put away their notebooks because I was passing the testies out." I was trying to play off a persona that is so not me: cutesie and playfully condescending (I'm naturally sarcastically condescending).

And I often say fuck-tion instead of "function."

I could be on Law and Order Special Victims Unit. As myself.

I really threw out a good one the other night during the Advanced Composition class that I teach at the junior college during the summer. This class was dedicated to diction: denotation, connotation, phonetics and such.  I end the class with a lecture on the phonetics and purpose of profanity. Clearly, I cuss a lot during this lecture.

I had decided to give the students a break beforehand. As they were getting up to leave the room for a break, I overheard a student utter to another student a phrase that included the word "fuck" as a noun, adjective, and adverb. I smirked at the versatility of the word, which alerted the student that I could actually hear him. Embarrassed, he apologized for his language. To put him at ease I was going to say, "Don't worry about it, I'm going to say 'fuck' a lot after the break."

But, that's not what I said.

I forgot a word.

(drum roll while readers try to figure out what I did say)

Wait for it . . .

Wait for it . . .

Instead, I said, "Don't worry about it because I'm gonna fuck a lot after the break."

Let's just say no one was late coming back from the break.

And my second period seniors will not forget to turn in their composition notebooks on Wednesday. Why? Because when I reminding them, I said, "On Wednesday, I am going to start collecting your condoms."

From the silence, once small voice utters, "Well, we know Ms. Vance had a good weekend."

OMG.

Qurious Quirks

Good thing I'm pretty, because I'm not too bright.

Almost jacked-up the blogfest. 

But, I've regrouped and am ready to OWN IT!

I wrote my first novel when I was 16, while grounded for a very long time (I fucked up big, yo).  It started as a Stephen King It rip-off and has been through several revisions since. The exploding YA market combined with the fact that I was a YA when I wrote it makes it the logical next project. 


It is horror, of course, called The Gifted, the Cursed, and the Wicked.


It has eight main characters. Eight. And about 5 supporting characters.  As much as it hurts--deleting a character feels a lot like murder--I need to scale down.


Luckily, I stumbled onto this great blogfest:

Hosted by Paper Mountain

I am going to use it as an opportunity to a) fine-tune characters developed by my 16-year-old brain and b) figure out which ones can go. *tear* I am to develop five questions that will bring out a "quirk" in one of my characters. Those participating will answer my questions in the comments and I will do the same on theirs!


Those of you not participating, answer the questions for yourself! Or answer them from the perspective of your favorite fictional character! Or, or answer them from the perspective of someone you would find intriguing.


I'm going to develop my questions around Kristina Knight.  She was supposed to be me, or what I wanted to be, and now I feel she needs to be her own person and not my ego, so I think she's a good candidate.


1. Which bad habit of your character drives other the characters crazy?

Kris will open up a can of Diet Coke, drink part of it, and then forget about it and go open another one. She'll have six cans scattered through her apartment by the end of the weekend.

2. How would your character communicate "I need help" with just body language?

She crawls into her boyfriend's lap and contracts into a fetal position.

3. If your character had only one night in Las Vegas, what would he/she do?

Kris would hit the night clubs and dance all night long.

4.  How does your character regard his/her cell phone?

An onerous necessity. She keeps it on her so that her friends don't bitch at her for not responding to their messages right away. But it's not a smart phone; it's not decorated. She does not cross off the days of her calendar anticipating when the first day of her early-upgrade window. 

5.  What habit will your character never be able to break without some kind of intervention?

Chewing on her cuticles while watching television.

To Quote My Grandmother: "Why are teenager's so stupid?"

As my recent post indicated, I teach seniors in high school. It is 8 days until graduation. I no longer stand in front of a room extemporizing on the beauty and relevance of literature and rhetoric while 40 pairs of wide, shining eyes gaze up at me, eagerly hanging on my every word. No more hands shoot into the air as students cry, "Pick me, Ms. Vance. Pick me!" No more do I hear the phrases, "That poem was awesome!", "This novel changed my life," or "I am learning so much in here."

Because you know that shit happens every day in my classes.

Regardless, right now, I am just trying to stay alive. My most conscientious seniors won't do anything--except ask me 1000 questions about graduation procedures even though I have ZERO to do with coordinating the ceremony. But, I am bombarded with calls from counselors and parents concerning failing seniors, wanting final grades even though finals weeks isn't even here yet; juniors who just now decided to ask me about making up that test from February; papers that I've procrastinated grading; one principal telling me to teach until the bitter end while another one tells me to turn in my textbooks, NOW!

To quote a colleague: "My brain is hammered right now."

Still, I am trying to maintain some fraction of decorum. I still enforce showing up on time, I refuse to take any late work, I've assigned each class a "project" to keep them busy (which we all know I probably won't grade) and I have not shown a single movie!

NOT ONE.

But I am losing my grip, finger by finger.

Thank God teenagers can be so stupid--it is keeping me entertained.

One of my senior classes took a final today on the novel Frankenstein. Multiple choice. Fifty questions.
After writing question #49, my brain just died. Fizzled out. Shut down.

Shouldn't have done all those drugs in high school.

So, I tacked on this question to the end of the test:

50. Ms. Vance is all EXCEPT:

            A. Brilliant

            B. Beautiful

            C. A man

            D. Funny

            E. The ruler of classroom R102

Out of 38 students 35 answered C, 2 answered B, and 1 answered A.

Two students think I am an ugly man; one student thinks I am a stupid man.

Awesome. 

I pondered not changing their answers on the scantron and making them take the one-point hit on their grade. Yes, I found the error (or prank) hilarious, but what I found even more funny was the fact that they forgot to take into consideration the fact that I HAVE TO MAKE AN ANSWER KEY.  Instead, I changed their answers and then sent an email to the entire staff at my school about the incident (leaving the students' names out, of course), but the aid that is in my room during that class called me immediately to asked which students, so I told her and let the power of rumor do its work.

I don't just open a can of worms; I open a vat of worms. My inbox blew up with not only sarcastic retorts, but also affirmations that I was pretty and that I was smart and that people liked me dammit! I oscillated between laughing and saying "ahhhhh" for the rest of the day. I think my favorite was the phone call from one of my colleagues, who has also been a good friend for the fourteen years I've taught, asking, "Is the stupid, ugly man who rules R102 available?"

I should have said, "No, because he's with your wife," but I was too busy laughing.

By the following day, rumor had done its work. The three confused students (or pranksters) rolled into class wailing with excuses and apologies for their error while I feigned offense for all about 5 minutes. They claimed that they though they were marking what I was, not what I wasn't.

I love adolescent back-peddling.

But, when the Assistant Principal popped into my class to discuss the importance of graduation and how it represents all that they've accomplished, he jerked a thumb at me and added, "I mean, you've had to put up with this ugly, stupid guy all year."

The class exploded in laughter.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

To quote my grandmother: "Why are teenagers so stupid?"

When I started blogging, I promised myself that I would not allow it to turn into a mock-my-students blog, and believe me, I've got enough material to take the blog down that road.

This blog is supposed to be about writing--my writing specifically. And it's been relatively easy to keep it all about me.

But today, I can't resist.

Inspired by Lana Banana's post, I must share the greatest student quote EVER.

At the high school where I teach, we are in the final stages of the senior project. It's a district requirement for graduation; an assessment of the cumulative skills of seniors. Every senior must complete it--no exceptions.

Here's what the babies are required to do within a semester: write a 6-page research paper on a topic of their choosing, take the content of that paper and put it into practice for 15-30 hours of fieldwork under the guidance of a mentor, and then present their experience to a panel of judges from the community. This project is designed to push students out of their comfort zone, make them responsible for their learning, and help them explore career paths--a cutting of the umbilical cord, if you will.

And it's an excellent torture device for us teachers; only the most sadistic (and masochistic) of us get to teach it.

I've been teaching it for 14 years.

As my colleagues who are also mothers have said, "The senior project is like childbirth: unbelievable pain that results in the greatest of rewards."

Right now, I and my fellow SP teachers are in hard labor.  The final presentations are Thursday and Friday of this week.  Tensions are high because teenagers are freakin' out, and teachers have had it. Because the senior project is so individualized, teachers are scrambling to solve a variety of "hitches" spiced up with an abundant amount of teenage drama and a barrage of parent phone calls wondering why we can't dedicate hours of our time to their lovely child who up until now hasn't done DICK.

So let me be a little more specific: senior project teachers are currently akin to schizophrenics in hard labor. Without our medication. And the anesthesiologist is nowhere to be found.

I know that on Thursday and Friday, it will be rapturous as I watch my students march off to their presentations and return glowing and elated. There will be laughter, hugs, and camaraderie. It's the type of day that reminds me why I stay in teaching (I went into it to pay bills until I got published--ha, ha).

But right now . . . the pole as a source of income is looking better and better.

Right now . . . I want to change "what I'm looking for" criteria on my online dating profiles to "an elderly, rich man with a delicate ticker."

Students are currently practicing their presentations, which covers everything they have learned and highlights the specific skills they have acquired.

One of my students did his project on rap music and poetry.  In his research paper, he justified rap as a legitimate form of poetry that adheres to the traits of great poetry as outlined by the masters. For his fieldwork, he took an online poetry class, wrote his own song, and recorded it. Overall, I thought this project to be pretty good.

But, this is how he started his presentation (and here is the greatest student quote EVER): "Poetry has been around before literacy. Ya know, back when everything was oral? Ya know, before Christ."

He finished his presentation by plugging his iPod into my portable speakers and rapping for five minutes. No mention of his paper; no mention of the skills he learned during his fieldwork. Even if I had had an Urban Dictionary on hand and several gang members to act as consultants, I still wouldn't have had any idea what he was talking--excuse me--rapping about.

At this point, I just want the doctor to come in and say, "Fuck it. We're doing a Cesarean."

So, in honor of the end of the school year, when teachers are exhausted, crawling toward the finish line, piles of students on their backs, I invite my community of educators to share those moments that justify the title of this blog series. I need the laugh.

Shit, we all do.

"Give me your words, your view, Your huddled masses of dirty thoughts and nasty rhetoric"

To all the men out there: I need your minds.

Yes, gentlemen, your minds (I'll be asking for your bodies in the next post).

To be more specific, I need your dirty minds. Your filthy minds.

No, this isn't a dream.  There are no hidden cameras. I have not been hired by any of your wives or girlfriends to entrap you.

But I need to get inside your head. Way up in there. So far up I have a hard time finding my way out.

Guide me. Teach me. Corrupt me.

I need to know how the most childish, perverted side of you would describe a woman's body --any woman's body-- to another man. How does a conceited, smooth, unscrupulous womanizer see a woman? How would he describe having sex with a woman for whom he feels nothing but contempt?

I want the words, the slang. Unleash the inner asshole. Turn him loose . . . turn him loose on me. I want crude, rude, and raw. Offensive.

No, this is not for my sexual gratification (well . . . maybe a little).

This is for a piece I have written called "The Basement" (see review from Garrett Calcaterra at the right). It is one of the very few pieces where I take on a male persona and I want to get it right before I submit. I think I am close, but I think the voice is off a bit. So, some gentlemen feedback, pretty please.

Below is an excerpt. You can comment by suggesting substitutions for my current rhetoric, or if you could just leave me some key phrases or diction that's be great too.  I need man language.

Disclaimer: I do not think this is how all men are. I am trying to write the voice of a total dick.

The Basement

She was on him like a cat the moment he walked through the front door: jumping onto his back and clawing at his face. Cursing, Justin reached back, trying to grab her by the hair and yank her forward over his shoulders.  He was going to throw the bitch across the room, find the money, and leave. And if she tried to stop him, he would not hesitate to punch her straight in the face.

            But then her fingers hooked into his mouth. A chalky, bitterness bounced back into this throat.

“What the fuck!” he barked, shrugging her off of him, he staggered forward. He hunched over, contracting his throat in an effort to cough up whatever she gave him. But it was too late, his coated tongue smacked against the roof of his mouth. Straightening, he turned to bolt, but only managed a few steps before blackness overtook him. As the room jumped and he plummeted, he saw her out of the corner of his eye, her arms crossed over her chest and those painted red lips smiling.

                        *                                                           *                                                           *

            Justin snapped his fingers in Stan’s face, “What the fuck dude?”  He was right in the middle of telling them about how he dissed this chick who was in his Poly Sci 101 class when Stan suddenly straightened up like someone had jammed a stick up his ass and looked passed Justin toward Legends’ entrance.

Twisting at the waist, Justin looked scanned the busy scene. It didn’t take long for him to find the interruption: short, black hair; white skin; black eyeliner an inch thick around her blue eyes, extending out from the corners like she thought she was Cleopatra. Lip piercing in the corner of lower lip, sporting a black hoop. Nose piercing; eyebrow piercing.

            Bright red lip-stick.
            Fishnet stockings, a short checkered skirt, and a black T-Shirt with the Goth version of that white cat—Hello Kitty?—printed on the front. Great legs: thin and long. Perky tits accentuated by the tight shirt. Justin snickered. Ms. Emo had a chill.

          Justin leaned over to Kyle and said, “She must be lost. Should we tell her that the cutting party is probably downtown?” Sunday football at Legends sports bar didn’t exactly attract her kind.

Plan B for My Writing: Bumper Stickers

As I mentioned in an earlier post--see "What We Writers Do for Our Readers"-- I am one-third of a wonderful writer's group.

And, as I also mentioned before, we are all very different women. This comes out not only in our writing, but also in the way we take notes for revisions.

Jenny, aka Missed Periods, doesn't take notes at all. As Mindi and I make suggestions, she maintains eye contact, asks pertinent questions, and when she feels that something does need to be written down, she asks us to note it on our copies of her work. I find this method of "note-taking" bewildering because I'd forget my name if I didn't have to write down on a daily basis.

To maintain balance, Mindi takes copious notes. As Jenny and I dialogue about her submission, she is feverishly writing on her copy of the draft. Or, if we are working at her place, she will bust our her Mac and feverishly type.  It's almost as if she's doing the revisions as we are suggesting them.

I am a little in-between: I have a journal of fragmented instructions for overall revisions. For line edits, Mindi and JennyB are great about making those marks on their copies, so when I revise, I need both marked-up copies and my journal. 

As I was leafing through my notes that probably span at least a year back, I realized that if anyone read my journal, not knowing the nature of its contents, he or she would think I was a homicidal maniac. The female American Psycho.

But then, it hit me. These notes were going to make me rich!  I could market them as bumper stickers!

I know that there are a lot of great bumper stickers already, but I have a niche (or two)

Bumper stickers with relationship advice:

   

Stickers for those women who don't want their Match.com date to follow them home or for those women who want their Craig's-list-booty call only to fuck them.

                                  

So, what do you think? Maybe, instead of finding my name on the spine of a book, you'll see it . . .

Here.

Final Destination VI

I am not a fan of reality television. I want my entertainment to take me out of reality not put me back in it, especially if what the networks are touting as "reality" is in any way authentic.

 Desperate Housewives paved the way for The Real Housewives of *insert city of choice*. Honestly, I don't want to be a real housewife in any city, and I certainly don't want to be a desperate one, so I bypassed this phenomena.

The OC forced Orange County residents to create Laguna Beach: the Real OC in order to clear up any false representation. And thank God, because an accurate depiction of privileged teenagers in Southern California is a huge part of the American identity.

Big Love drove viewers to The Real Big Love (men wondering if they can actually get away with having multiple wives; women wondering if there are actually women crazy enough to be one of multiple wives). I'm waiting for the series where a woman has multiple husbands. And birth control.

But, as karma always finds a way to kick me in the ass, it seems that I am adding to the trend of reality shows based on successful television series (or the fictional series was originally based on what later became a reality show--it's probably a does-art-imitate-life-or-does-life-imitate-art conundrum).

The series that my life mimics? The Final Destination movie series.  I think I'll call it Holly Almost Died--Three times.

Promotional Poster

I considered making this a part of the "A Little Fact; a Little Fiction" series (I actually almost died 2 1/2 times and was going to exaggerate one of them and see if anyone could distinguish the fact from fiction) but I think show-casing my skills in horror and crime would better utilize my writing talent (and maybe draw attention away from my lack of coordination, because that's just not sexy).

Before I get into how I almost died three times on Tuesday, March 29, I must refer back to the blog post from February 22, "To Quote My Grandmother: 'Why Are Teenagers So Stupid?'" and the case of the missing doorstop, bungee cord, and salad bowl. (If you haven't read it, stop now, read the post, and then come back).

I figured the cause of the theft of the seemingly random items was the result of a teenage prank, but now I realize it was an act of heroism. Some altruistic student must have had a premonition of my death, which I have deduced has something to do with me falling off the ramp right outside my classroom door, and so took the means of easy egress from R102 in order to save my life. That extra few minutes it took me to look for the missing doorstops and then throw a fit once I realized them gone held me back from death's fateful grip.

And just recently, the theft of another bungee cord only confirms my belief.

And the salad bowl? I was probably destined to die at lunch time. The taking of it was meant to be a clue: lunchtime is a precarious time for me.

But, Death has found me.     

The first time was on that nefarious Tuesday morning. After informing my student teacher that I would be heading down the hill to do some xeroxing, I sailed out the door (held open by the aforementioned, recently-stolen bungee cord) made a sharp right turn, caught my shoe between two sheets of aluminum that form the ramp, and launched forward, arms outstretched like Superman in flight.

I screamed. The two students heading toward my room screamed as well.

The corner of the railing that bordered the neighboring classroom's ramp lie directly in my path. I glanced down, saw the ramp passing away under me, wondering why gravity hasn't played her role. Why was I still seemingly in flight?

Cocking my head to the left, I pulled my hands back to shield my face from whatever it was destined to hit: the pavement or railing.

Crunch. Motion to stillness. Heat saturated the right side of my face, but there was no pain. In fact, I seemed to be standing. Not really standing, but upright, the tops of my feet resting on the pavement. I dragged my feet forward and planted them firmly on the ground. I was slightly bent forward at the waist, shoulders sagging.

Students were shouting: "Oh my God, Ms. Vance!"

Head still cocked to the left, I had a full view of the basketball courts that lined the row of portable classrooms. I tried to turn my head but couldn't; I tried to take a step backward but couldn't. Reaching a hand up, I felt the cold metal of the ramp's railing and my fingers followed it until ended at my forehead.

In my forehead.

Suddenly, I was face-down on the blacktop, staring at crumpled up Cheetos bags and empty Gatorade bottles littering the ground beneath my neighbor's ramp.

Jumping to my feet, I brushed the gravel and dirt off of my pants.  A couple of students clamoured around me, asking it I was okay.

I glanced at the corner of the rail that for a horrifying moment I believed had pierced my skull. Laughing, I waved off my inability to answer on embarrassment and continued on my way.

But Death had not been satisfied.

Later that day, I was leafing through all of my curriculum files, searching for supplemental materials for my student teacher.  The top two drawers, packed so tightly that I couldn't avoid slicing a cuticle or two as I squeezed my fingers between the manila folders, weighed more than the bottom two, which held my only purse and some portfolios of students' work. I opened the top drawer, couldn't find what I wanted; I opened the second drawer . . .

The entire file cabinet tilted forward. My student teacher leaped up, her palms slapping against its side in an attempt to rock it back, but it slipped from her hold.  I squatted in order to catch the file cabinet against my shoulder and then use my legs to push it back up, but instead a crack signaled a breaking bone and my shoulder dropped abnormally low. Pain streaked up my neck; the corresponding arm hanging limp.  My feet slipped out from under me and as I struck the cold floor, the file cabinet pinned me down. 

I lay there, attuned to the sparks of pain and throbs of panic. I heard my student saying, "Hold on, Holly." She managed to get a hold of it lift it up slightly so that I could worm out from beneath, but then I heard a sharp cry pop from her mouth and the file cabinet settled down on me again, this time more heavily. It was as if someone had climbed on top of it.

Its weight pressed down on my bones until a chorus of cracks and splinters of pain precluded the shattering of bone. My body seemed to deflate; my bones seemed to gather into a prickly mass beneath the tent of my skin.

I was standing again, my feet firmly planted on the ground, my hands braced against the file cabinet as I rocked it back into place.  My student teacher was laughing, saying, "Whoa, you almost pulled that thing down on you."

Blinking, I wobbled over to my desk chair and sat down. What is going on?

Swiveling my chair around to face my computer, I scooted forward, but only managed to move my butt forward, leaving the chair behind.  As I dropped off the edge of the chair, I saw the keyboard of my computer rushing toward my face . . .

And it wasn't even lunchtime yet.