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Hm. Thinking of changing my English curriculum for next year. Throw out Taming of the Shrew for something more in line with the US History tie-ins I do with everything else. Be nice to find something contemporary for a look at more modern, less covered history.prohibition era stuff maybe?
We already read Gatsby, so that's covered. I actually got it solved faster than expected. Senior teacher isn't using Fallen Angels, so that's Vietnam. Yoink.
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Well, Gatsby's parties were pretty wild...
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So, that gets me Civil War/Reconstruction (Huckleberry Finn), Cold War/Red Scare (The Crucible), Civil Rights movement (A Raisin in the Sun), Roaring 20s/Prohibition (The Great Gatsby), and Vietnam War (Fallen Angels). Pretty good spread with a lot of research/writing opportunity.
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Benefits me because it lets me go all history nerd on my lit classes. Benefits them because it gives them some extra history background. Win-win.
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They now have Pinky And The Brain, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, and Pinky And The Brain And Elmyra on Hulu!!
Today, I take over THE WORLD!!!
There's going to be a new series of Animaniacs, apparently.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's going to be a new series of Animaniacs, apparently.They now have Pinky And The Brain, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, and Pinky And The Brain And Elmyra on Hulu!!
Today, I take over THE WORLD!!!
I'm torn between nostalgic delight and terror that they're going to ruin it.
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So, that gets me Civil War/Reconstruction (Huckleberry Finn), Cold War/Red Scare (The Crucible), Civil Rights movement (A Raisin in the Sun), Roaring 20s/Prohibition (The Great Gatsby), and Vietnam War (Fallen Angels). Pretty good spread with a lot of research/writing opportunity.
As an adult I appreciate teachers doing your best to produce two-for-one lessons. But as a kid who ravenously gobbled down fantasy and sci-fi novels, I was bored with the standard fair taught in my lit classes.
I'm sorry to say that by the end of tGG, all I could think was Thank god, he's finally dead! And I was deeply, DEEPLY dissapointed when I realized that The Witch of Blackbird Pond involved no actual witches or magic. (Don't think that one is as common as more classic novels, it may have been my teacher's pet book.)
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I am an adult who gobbles down fantasy and sci-fi novels and will happily discuss them with kids. We use Accelerated Reader to encourage/require kids to do outside reading with books of their choosing, and I have a love-hate relationship with it. Le sigh.
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Also, I was very disappointed in the fact that any of the characters in Gatsby survived, but I contented myself with the fact that the novel was set four years before the Depression, so they probably all went destitute.
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I swear, everyone in that novel is a waste of space. Tempted to have an in-class discussion on the Baskin Robbins variety of malignant uselessness of the characters.
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Wasn't Leonardo DiCaprio in that one.
Yep! If you want to diea fun drinking game, take a shot every time he says "Old Sport."
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Aaaaand the prom sponsor has given me the stinkeye for a helpful decor suggestion for prom.
One of the suggested themes, as always, is Gatsby.
Yep! If you wantto diea fun drinking game, take a shot every time he says "Old Sport."
Or watch an episode of American Horror Story and take a drink every time someone gets stabbed.
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"Guys, guys, vote for memes for prom theme!"
"Do you want to get violently murdered by your date? Because that's how you get violently murdered by your date."
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...my ranger's player has gotten very attached to one particular theme and is plotting a campaign to get people to pick it. Given their tenacious grasp on the "we can fix Korvosa through cleansing fire" plan, I'm worried.
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*An embarrassingly horrible theme tune plays*
Its time for Kjeldorn's philosophical musings...
So, sitting down for a cup of coffee, a friend of mine and me get into debating the finer points of Utilitarianism...
It comes around to the usual "..the greatest happiness of the greatest number.." yada yada bla bla.
It turns out that my friend is a proponent of Utilitarianism both as a fundation for the good running of a society and as a personal philosophy...
Now, me on the other hand, while agree that its a somewhat decent way to run a society, swear it off as a personal philosophy.
A bit more of back and forth, then ends again with him swearing by the before said "saying".
Me, the eternal contrarian, scoff at this and shake my head. So, him being a bit of a smart-ass ask me if I couldn't come up with personal philosophy condensed into a single sentence, preferably very quotable.
So I think about it for about 5 minutes and I come up with this:
"...alright, lets say that happiness is the goal of every person - doubtful, but lets say it is. So my highest goal is my happiness, but how do I get it? Well for me being happy is the fulfillment of my wants and needs. So as a quotable sentence that would be...
err...
Something like...Getting what I want, while causing the least amount of suffering to the fewest number of other people."
My friend gives me sarcastic look and all but does a slow clap.
But my brow quickly furrows, as I suddenly get the feeling that my lazy wit isn't really of my own...
After a quick back and forth with my friend, we both conclude that something like this actually has been formulated, but neither of us remember exactly by whom or how...
So I pull out my phone, does a bit of poking around on wiki...and yes. I managed to take Negative utilitarianism and Prioritarianism, and spice it with a dash of egocentrism.
The conclusion: There no such thing as an original thought.
*An embarrassingly horrible outro tune plays*
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Utilitarianism: The philosophy that actually says it's a good idea to kill one person to take his organs for three others. Sponsored by and supporting every sort of state overreach since its moment of conception.
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Apparently modern DJing just means playing songs from the top 40 billboard while wearing expensive headphones, staring determinedly at a laptop, and randomly turing wheels on a USB turntable that doesn't appear to actually do anything.
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We already read Gatsby, so that's covered. I actually got it solved faster than expected. Senior teacher isn't using Fallen Angels, so that's Vietnam. Yoink.Hm. Thinking of changing my English curriculum for next year. Throw out Taming of the Shrew for something more in line with the US History tie-ins I do with everything else. Be nice to find something contemporary for a look at more modern, less covered history.prohibition era stuff maybe?
thank you, scint, for reminding me about Fallen Angels(the comic).
Thank you so much.
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I'm torn between nostalgic delight and terror that they're going to ruin it.There's going to be a new series of Animaniacs, apparently.They now have Pinky And The Brain, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, and Pinky And The Brain And Elmyra on Hulu!!
Today, I take over THE WORLD!!!
nothing is going to happen to your original dvds.
Worry not.New people would like a chance to work with classic material.
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I am an adult who gobbles down fantasy and sci-fi novels and will happily discuss them with kids. We use Accelerated Reader to encourage/require kids to do outside reading with books of their choosing, and I have a love-hate relationship with it. Le sigh.
have I encouraged you to read The Girl Who Owned A City?
If not, please accept this post as me doing so.
Please only read the original unedited version if you can find it.
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"Guys, guys, vote for memes for prom theme!"
"Do you want to get violently murdered by your date? Because that's how you get violently murdered by your date."
I misread this as porn theme.
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...my ranger's player has gotten very attached to one particular theme and is plotting a campaign to get people to pick it. Given their tenacious grasp on the "we can fix Korvosa through cleansing fire" plan, I'm worried.
when someone starts talking about the cleaning properties of fire, I get worried.
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Utilitarianism: The philosophy that actually says it's a good idea to kill one person to take his organs for three others. Sponsored by and supporting every sort of state overreach since its moment of conception.
Do you really need TWO kidneys? Come on!
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Apparently modern DJing just means playing songs from the top 40 billboard while wearing expensive headphones, staring determinedly at a laptop, and randomly turing wheels on a USB turntable that doesn't appear to actually do anything.
from what little i understand, most djs nowadays dont cast their private mixes at public clubs.
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#$%^ gender roles.
I'm a stay-at-home dad, so.
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I am an adult who gobbles down fantasy and sci-fi novels and will happily discuss them with kids. We use Accelerated Reader to encourage/require kids to do outside reading with books of their choosing, and I have a love-hate relationship with it. Le sigh.
Why the love-hate? (I know nothing about Accelerated Reader.)
Also, I was very disappointed in the fact that any of the characters in Gatsby survived, but I contented myself with the fact that the novel was set four years before the Depression, so they probably all went destitute.
Lmao.
I vaguely remember part of the book's theme being the decadent garish uselessness which Gatsby surrounded himself with, all in pursuit of whats-her-name. Can't for the life of me remember what all that uselessness has to do with the book's larger message though.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Apparently modern DJing just means playing songs from the top 40 billboard while wearing expensive headphones, staring determinedly at a laptop, and randomly turing wheels on a USB turntable that doesn't appear to actually do anything.
Philistines!
*Makes a mocking gesture, while pouring a bottle of bordeaux into his toilet*
Tell me at least they feature music from the sublime French electronic scene (Birdy nam nam, Justice, Kavinsky and the like)?
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Utilitarianism: The philosophy that actually says it's a good idea to kill one person to take his organs for three others. Sponsored by and supporting every sort of state overreach since its moment of conception.
Eh, every philosophy ends in some sort of insanity if taken to extremes. If you have to resort to killing [hypothetical] innocent people in order to turn a philosophy insane, I call it solid.
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ah, hentai foundry. Been a long time...Who would have thought that we (not really me, but you get the idea) would be working with a petabyte of storage? Damn.that is EXACTLY what i would use it for....
*Does his best Bane impression*
"Oh, you think porn is your ally, you merely adopted the smut. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see decency until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but blinding!..."
*Swirls his brandy, sipping from glass with a haughty mien, while browsing hentai-foundry*
Wait, that's a real thing? I was just laughing at the idea of a foundry for hentai...
"What... exactly... do you need a metal casing... of tentacles... for...?"
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I am an adult who gobbles down fantasy and sci-fi novels and will happily discuss them with kids. We use Accelerated Reader to encourage/require kids to do outside reading with books of their choosing, and I have a love-hate relationship with it. Le sigh.Why the love-hate? (I know nothing about Accelerated Reader.)
Accelerated Reader is a site that has a lot of reading quizzes with preset point values, and at the start of the year, the kids take a placement test to get their quarterly point goals. We are required to enter this as a grade in English as to whether they read enough to earn these points. It's intended to give higher points to more difficult texts, but it goes by word count, so plays get shafted (Taming of the Shrew, for example, is worth 4 points to Gatsby's 8).
I love that it encourages them to seek outside reading and find books they'll like. I hate that it puts yet another initiative onto the shoulders of just the English department when every department wants the kids to read more. I also worry that assigning a grade to it actually discourages them from liking reading. Seriously. Teach them all these grammar rules, how to write coherently, analyze an argument, read enough texts to teach analysis, and on top of all of this stuff the standards require, make them find time to read a bunch of other stuff. They wonder why the kids burn out.
Plus, the site's quizzes are really strange. Some of the comprehension questions do not focus on what I would consider important from the books, so I consider them poor indicators of proof of reading.
That said, I don't really have a better solution in mind, so I generally don't air these complaints with colleagues.
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Accelerated Reader is also a way for me to prove to the kids that I'm a freak of nature by their standards because I not only love to read, I read very quickly.
Their maximum goal for a quarter is 25 points. Over the summer, I apparently read about 230 points worth of books. Granted, part of that I believe was rereading The Way of Kings, which is worth about 50 on its own.
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ah, hentai foundry. Been a long time...Who would have thought that we (not really me, but you get the idea) would be working with a petabyte of storage? Damn.that is EXACTLY what i would use it for....
*Does his best Bane impression*
"Oh, you think porn is your ally, you merely adopted the smut. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see decency until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but blinding!..."
*Swirls his brandy, sipping from glass with a haughty mien, while browsing hentai-foundry*
Wait, that's a real thing? I was just laughing at the idea of a foundry for hentai...
"What... exactly... do you need a metal casing... of tentacles... for...?"
... reasons. Tentacle porn based reasons.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
ah, hentai foundry. Been a long time...Who would have thought that we (not really me, but you get the idea) would be working with a petabyte of storage? Damn.that is EXACTLY what i would use it for....
*Does his best Bane impression*
"Oh, you think porn is your ally, you merely adopted the smut. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see decency until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but blinding!..."
*Swirls his brandy, sipping from glass with a haughty mien, while browsing hentai-foundry*
Wait, that's a real thing? I was just laughing at the idea of a foundry for hentai...
"What... exactly... do you need a metal casing... of tentacles... for...?"
Simple.
ROBOT KRAKEN.
No more questions?
Good.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Also, I was very disappointed in the fact that any of the characters in Gatsby survived, but I contented myself with the fact that the novel was set four years before the Depression, so they probably all went destitute.Lmao.
I vaguely remember part of the book's theme being the decadent garish uselessness which Gatsby surrounded himself with, all in pursuit of whats-her-name. Can't for the life of me remember what all that uselessness has to do with the book's larger message though.
I think, given the timing of the book's publication, it's meant to be a statement on consumerism and the American Dream, but it's very open to interpretation as to what exactly Fitzgerald is saying about said dream.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
ah, hentai foundry. Been a long time...Who would have thought that we (not really me, but you get the idea) would be working with a petabyte of storage? Damn.that is EXACTLY what i would use it for....
*Does his best Bane impression*
"Oh, you think porn is your ally, you merely adopted the smut. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see decency until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but blinding!..."
*Swirls his brandy, sipping from glass with a haughty mien, while browsing hentai-foundry*
Wait, that's a real thing? I was just laughing at the idea of a foundry for hentai...
"What... exactly... do you need a metal casing... of tentacles... for...?"
Simple.
ROBOT KRAKEN.
No more questions?
Good.
RECALIBRATE THE KRAKEN.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, that gets me Civil War/Reconstruction (Huckleberry Finn), Cold War/Red Scare (The Crucible), Civil Rights movement (A Raisin in the Sun), Roaring 20s/Prohibition (The Great Gatsby), and Vietnam War (Fallen Angels). Pretty good spread with a lot of research/writing opportunity.As an adult I appreciate teachers doing your best to produce two-for-one lessons. But as a kid who ravenously gobbled down fantasy and sci-fi novels, I was bored with the standard fair taught in my lit classes.
I'm sorry to say that by the end of tGG, all I could think was Thank god, he's finally dead! And I was deeply, DEEPLY dissapointed when I realized that The Witch of Blackbird Pond involved no actual witches or magic. (Don't think that one is as common as more classic novels, it may have been my teacher's pet book.)
Man, all Shakespear's tragedies took too daggum long.
I was so relieved when MacBeth and Hamlet were dead. I mean, angry, too. "you mean we read alongside just so you could die?! Ugh." But relieved. "Well now we don't have to watch you awkwardly talk to yourself out loud about stupid things in a closet. Again. Or murder the wrong guys. Again." Romeo and Juliet were just really dumb teens who made exceptionally poor life decisions. Andsonehks made that boring, too. I wasn't relieved when they died, exactly, just... bored.
I prefer literally anything else Shakey ever wrote to his tragedies. Even the poems. I don't even really like poetry! I have no idea how they got so popular. Blugh.
(I think he's a bit overrated, despite his talent. To be clear, the man was really, really good. But not THAT good. I mean, after reading his collected works, then going for Tolkien, it was clear who wrote better, even if Spear-guy was more versatile.)
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It depends on the tragedy. I loathe Romeo and Juliet. I love Othello.
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(I think he's a bit overrated, despite his talent. To be clear, the man was really, really good. But not THAT good. I mean, after reading his collected works, then going for Tolkien, it was clear who wrote better, even if Spear-guy was more versatile.)
I think a part of the reason Shakespeare has the reputation he does is that of all of his contemporaries, his works are the best and most completely preserved. Yes, he's a skilled writer and worth reading, but a lot of his influence on literature could be due to the fact that he was some of the limited text available for writers to draw on, so students continue to study him to understand many of the writers who came later.
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It depends on the tragedy. I loathe Romeo and Juliet. I love Othello.
LOOOOOOOOOVE Macbeth myself.
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It depends on the tragedy. I loathe Romeo and Juliet. I love Othello.LOOOOOOOOOVE Macbeth myself.
My personal favorite tragedy was MacGyver.
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It's currently 7 degrees outside, which makes us 241 degrees warmer than Jupiter.
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My personal favorite tragedy was MacGyver.It depends on the tragedy. I loathe Romeo and Juliet. I love Othello.LOOOOOOOOOVE Macbeth myself.
Didn't he make it into a helicopter using four paperclips, a soggy Dorito and half a disgruntled otter?
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Didn't he make it into a helicopter using four paperclips, a soggy Dorito and half a disgruntled otter?My personal favorite tragedy was MacGyver.It depends on the tragedy. I loathe Romeo and Juliet. I love Othello.LOOOOOOOOOVE Macbeth myself.
Indeed, every week in fact.
So tragic!
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Man, all Shakespear's tragedies took too daggum long.I was so relieved when MacBeth and Hamlet were dead. I mean, angry, too. "you mean we read alongside just so you could die?! Ugh." But relieved. "Well now we don't have to watch you awkwardly talk to yourself out loud about stupid things in a closet. Again. Or murder the wrong guys. Again." Romeo and Juliet were just really dumb teens who made exceptionally poor life decisions. Andsonehks made that boring, too. I wasn't relieved when they died, exactly, just... bored.
I prefer literally anything else Shakey ever wrote to his tragedies. Even the poems. I don't even really like poetry! I have no idea how they got so popular. Blugh.
(I think he's a bit overrated, despite his talent. To be clear, the man was really, really good. But not THAT good. I mean, after reading his collected works, then going for Tolkien, it was clear who wrote better, even if Spear-guy was more versatile.)
Don't like Shakespeare huh...
I might have just the thing for you!*Hand Tl a copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky*
Its a bit long, but I think its just up your alley...especially the chapter "The Grand Inquisitor"
*Smiles wickedly, while slipping away into the shadows, in a weird bounding gait*
Wait, that's a real thing? I was just laughing at the idea of a foundry for hentai...
"What... exactly... do you need a metal casing... of tentacles... for...?"
Yes, Yes it is!
And squid/octopus knights is the obvious answer. However I guess al sorts of interesting tentacular attachments is a possibility, like a corkscrew, a hammer, a hook or something that's ribbed, bumped or otherwise shaped for his/her pleasure.
*Smiles warmly*
Though you do bring up a point...
Why aren't there that many squids/octopodes/any-the-two-like-creatures doing having more complex societies in media? (Well I can come up with octo-morphs or octo-uplifts in Eclipse Phase, but that's about it...oh and the octopus empire in Numenera)
Seriously right now I stuck on the idea of a "awakened" octopus blacksmith/adventurer...
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I think, given the timing of the book's publication, it's meant to be a statement on consumerism and the American Dream, but it's very open to interpretation as to what exactly Fitzgerald is saying about said dream.Also, I was very disappointed in the fact that any of the characters in Gatsby survived, but I contented myself with the fact that the novel was set four years before the Depression, so they probably all went destitute.Lmao.
I vaguely remember part of the book's theme being the decadent garish uselessness which Gatsby surrounded himself with, all in pursuit of whats-her-name. Can't for the life of me remember what all that uselessness has to do with the book's larger message though.
Ugh, Fitzgerald. >.<
He was my mom's favorite author (her second favorite was Tolstoy, so....yeah....) so she kept trying to get me to read all of his stuff. In all fairness, I tried. But it was all just page after page of pointless drivel.Which did lead to an interesting discussion of how we read. The thing she liked about Fitzgerald was how pretty the language was. But that's not how I read things. I read meaning. That's how I can read so fast in spite of being dyslexic. Heck, I read fast for someone who isn't dyslexic. Because I don't read words. I read meaning. Makes me really good at languages because it's just about accessing the right list of what collection of letters/sounds goes with what meaning. And I have a very good memory for that sort of thing. It also means I can read things that are mirror imaged and/or jumbled and/or upside down and not notice that there's anything wrong. It actually takes effort to find what's wrong if someone tells me that it's not the way it's supposed to be. It always looks like that. But major misspelling will mess me up fast because now it's not the right group. And it also makes it very hard to enjoy language for being 'pretty', so trying to slog my way through Fitzgerald is less interesting than reading the dictionary. :P
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Today is a weird day. I feel like I haven't got anything done, but I've just been doing lots of small tasks so there isn't any grand feeling of accomplishment.
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And it would be nice if a task wouldn't require ordering something from Amazon.
Tried to fix my fountain pen. Ink reservoir broke into three pieces when I tried to put ink in it....which meant I had to fish those pieces out of the ink. And order a new ink reservoir.
Cleaned up the kidlet's school supply bin. He's almost out of pens. Had to order some more.
Cleaned my soda stream bottles. Can't get the smell of mold out of them. Had to order replacements.
Moved my cookbooks to a shelf in the kitchen. Had to order bookends to keep them from falling off said shelf.
I'd feel bad about so many orders in a day, but I know that when I have multiple orders come in on the same day they usually group them into one box. Or they would have sent them in four separate boxes filled with lots of air anyways no matter what I did. There is no understanding the ways of Amazon Prime. ;)