Sunday, July 10, 2011

How My Friend Is Ruining My Music

And I am not going to change this friend's name; I am throwing her right under the bus.

My two BFFs -- Lisa and Cher--and I decided on a last-minute trip to Solvang, CA for some quaint culture, boutique shopping, and WINE. I have known both of these amazing women for 30 years. As teens, we had similar music tastes; as adults, we have definitely struck out on our own: I love hard rock; Cher, country; Lisa, Indie Music spiced up with some Top 40.  It was my turn to drive, but feeling unusually accommodating, I decided to create a playlist that all three of us could enjoy (I almost made Cher psychotic after forcing her to listen to my music during the four-hour drive to Las Vegas).

So, I created a pretty cool playlist featuring the favorites we all shared from our youth -- Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Beastie Boys, Depeche Mode-- with a few of Cher and Lisa's current favorites thrown in.

Well, Cher must have not approved, because during our drive home, she managed to ruin a few of my favorites.

During the Bee Gees hit, "You Should Be Dancing," when they hit the first chorus, Cher said about the line, "What are you doing in the back, ahhh?" she said:

"Don't you guys think he's saying: 'Do you do it in your butt?' It sounds like he certainly does."

The next time the chorus rolls around, Lisa and I focus and burst out laughing: "He totally does!"

Every time they sang the chorus, all I could do was guffaw like a 16-year-old stoner.

When TLC's song, "Silly Ho" filled the car, after the line, "I'm not a chick you can hit," she asked, "Did she just say 'I am not a chicken head'?"

Yes, Cher. R&B artists often use farm animals as metaphors.

That is how she sang that line for the rest of the song.

The final shot? As she climbed out of my car, the song "She's Crafty" by Beastie Boys was thumpin' and she drops, "And with this one, it sounds like he saying, 'She's crapping'."

I will never be able to listen to those songs again in the same way. Next time I'm loading up Disturbed, Avenge Sevenfold, Seether, and Breaking Benjamin.  I can totally handle psychotic better than the visual of the members of the Bee Gees in sliver, skin-tight body suits) having anal sex while singing.  A disco balling spinning above their heads.

I guess I could do the same to her the next time she drives and I must endure her music. But, she listens to country and there's not much more damage I can do to their lyrics.

Friday, July 8, 2011

A Teacher's Purgatory: Summer School

No high school teacher wants to teach summer school: not even the teacher who loves his/her craft, who loves kids, who would still teach even if he/she won the lottery.

Yes, even that teacher doesn't want to teach summer school.

Any teacher who teaches summer school does so because he/she has to for financial reasons. And I mean I-won't-be-able-to-eat reasons. These teachers aren't good savers--or have financial goals beyond a normal teacher's salary and might want to consider administration. Those fools have to work in the summer as part of their contract, but they make A LOT more money.

I'm a little of both: I don't save well and I live like I am already a published and a successful author. So, my punishment is summer school.

And since I am angry and have a flair for drama, summer school for me is HELL. Total hell-- flames, pitchforks, and demons to rule over. So, I guess that makes me Satan. You'd think that prospect would make it more attractive, but . . .

It's HELL I tell you.

Homelessness, starvation, the pole are looking better and better every day.

I have 48 students (no, that's not a typo) ranging from ages 14-17 who have all failed English. 38 of them are boys.

I'm in HELL.

Picture dealing with 48 of your worst customers, clients, or employees for 2 1/2 hours a day for 24 days. The most immature, the most idiotic, the least motivated--the ones with the most attitude. All at once.

I just finished day 12 and I might not make it without committing a felony.

I take pride in my work. Yes, I entered teaching to pay the bills until I get published, but much to my chagrin, I find that I do love it--during the months of September- June.  But, faced with having to teach this summer, I decided that all I wanted to do was get through it.

That takes a lot of patience and very few standards.

This is where I might get myself in trouble because I know one of my current bosses and one of my former bosses (you know who you are, mister) will probably read this, but shit, I have tenure.

I am not showing movies. I teach vocabulary and grammar every day. The students have a test every week. I make them read. I make them write.

But, I try to make it interesting: right now, we are reading literature related to insanity. We've read excerpts from Fight Club and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest; we've analyzed "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" as a poem. Read some Edgar Alan Poe. Currently, I do have them working on a synthesis essay, but I am offering so much guidance a monkey on acid could follow me.

You wanna listen to your iPod (my school has a strict no-iPods-ever rule) while working? Okay. Keep that phone out and update your Facebook periodically--as long as you are fairly focused. While I am distributing handouts, go ahead and play Angry Birds.

You hear this phrase a lot in my room: "Okay everyone, unplug and look up here because I've got something to tell [teach] you."

During the normal school year, I send one or two students to the dean.  One or two a year. Last year, I didn't write a single referral. I have excellent classroom control. In fact, when I do send students to the dean, they send SWAT up to my room because they assume something HUGE is going down.

My reputation among the students is that I'm a "hard-ass" who makes my students work, but that I'm cool. I have a strict "no bullshit" policy, but enforcing it is a bitch with summer school kids because they assume I am as clueless as they are.

On the first day, I had a student taken out of the room by security for defiance.

I had a student claim that the giant bong he drew on his paper right in front of me was a cup with a straw. When I rolled my eyes and informed him that a) I'm not a moron and b) I have a legal obligation to report suspicion of drug use, he accused me of being judgmental.

Right kid, people who don't smoke weed draw bongs all day long.

I threw his ass out.

Yesterday, this a student said to me with much indignation: "I'm not stoned, Ms. Vance, I am hungover -- okay?"

My response: "Well, since you are in summer school, how do you think that drinkin' thing is working out for you?"

On that note, another student who has attended 5 out of 12 days so far told his classmate that he hasn't been coming because he's been smoking too much weed--I heard him loud and clear even though students believe that teachers become deaf and blind the moment they sit at their desks. And then he strolled over and asked me for make-up work.

I have perfected my fuck-off expression.

A student threw papers at me.

That one almost required SWAT. Let's just say he's not in summer school anymore.

I've put students in corners. Straight-up desk in the corner, student staring at the wall.

I've lost count of how many I've had to send outside for a little chat.

One particular day, after sending two students to the office, I said: "Okay everyone, all iPods and phones need to disappear. I see a wire or an earbud, hear a bleep or a buzz, I am taking you phone, iPod, hand-held center of your world, and running it over with my car."

"I'm done with you," I continued. "I am trying to make this as painless as possible by reading stuff that is edgy and interesting. But, I have no problem handing out worksheets for 2 1/2 hours and if you even fart without asking permission, I'm throwing you out."

"No more Fight Club. No more Metallica. No more Angry Birds. Nothing but Puritan Literature, Charles Dickens, and T.S. Eliot poetry."

Well, that is if I can figure out what the heck Eliot is writing about. That dude is complicated.

"Test prep until your eyes fall out."

Tomorrow? "A thirty-minute lecture on the dash vs. the hyphen." And I'm not nearly as entertaining as Missed Periods.

Forty-eight pairs of wide eyes staring at me in fear.

I finish with, "You want the bitch? Here she is!"

From somewhere in the room, I hear whispered, "You mean she gets worse?"

Saturday, June 25, 2011

"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.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

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.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

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.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

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.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

"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.