back at the bird

Well, I'm officially back at The Bird now and tonight (Wednesday) was my first shift. I was the Mad Mixologist (bartender) and it went pretty smooth. Other than a table of four men who drank up a bill of $164 and left me a $10 tip, nothing really angered me. I even helped the kitchen guys close because they were mad short on staff, so I left at 2 instead of 12. Meh, I need the hours anyways. I'm working the MWF (Mothers Who Fornicate), so come visit me. It's time for me to say hello to money, and say goodbye to leisure time.

JoJo

I had a weird dream last night. The setting is mainly in SUB and in the quad at the U of A, but we were also at some ski resort. The characters: me, Nigel (one of my old Red Robin managers and golfing phenom), and JoJo. Yes, JoJo, the 14 year old singer that thinks that she is black. I think the dream starts on a mountain and I was doing some snowboarding. I don't remember who I was with, but when we went back to the hotel and I was walking down a hall I saw JoJo walking the other way and we passed. I didn't think much of it. Then I was packed up the next day and was waiting in some kind of lobby with a huge circular, glass skylight and I saw her again. She seemed kinda lost or something and we started talking. I don't remember what it was about, but she went back to the U of A with me. We were hanging out at SUB and it was weird because people kept coming up to me just because I knew JoJo. It was like I was instantly crazy popular. Then we were going to walk to CAB and in the double doors I saw Nigel. He had a pizza box or something and asked if we could talk. He asked about JoJo or something and gave me a few pieces of pizza. Then JoJo had to leave or something, so she was gone. I went back into SUB and shared my pizza with some random. I know what you're thinking, but I wasn't all over her or trying to seduce her or shit. I was more like her friend in the city. Hey, it was weird, but who says dreams make sense? I've had some crazy Spider-Man dreams in the past, but I can't remember them right now. Man, remembering dreams is fun!

you sad, soap-dispensing, human

After going out last night, I feel compelled to write. Now I have a small bladder to begin with, and when I start drinking, I pee more than I drink. When I go into the bathroom, there's always a guy in there with his colognes spread all over the counter. Also, right in the middle of the counter is a little tip dish. Am I wrong to think that people can soap their own hands? Am I wrong to feel that paying everytime I go to the washroom is a bad use of resources? I go in and out as fast as I f-ing can. Tipping at a restaurant to your server is different than tipping some guy to squeeze soap on your hand. No matter how drunk I am, I'm pretty sure I can squirt some soap. Damn you MF, let me squirt my soap!

glasses

glasses
Originally uploaded by specialEd.

I've been wanting glasses lately. I noticed that my left eye can get fuzzy when I'm looking at far stuff, but my vision is actually very good. I just thought some glasses would be a cool accessory. This is what I would look like with glasses. (Note: this picture is from eyeglasses.com, it's not actually me, dumb beeyotch)

against school

Being a pre-profession teacher, I read articles on teaching. One (and the only one) to catch my attention was an article called "Against School" by John Taylor Gatto. Here's a link to the article here. It basically points out how the hidden curriculum of how schooling (not education) cultures people to conform and creates a large labour pool for corporations.

There are three goals that schooling strives to:

1. To make good people.
2. To make good citizens.
3. To make each person his or her personal best.

Now these are all fine and dandy, but let's look at some points made by Alexander Inglis in his book "Principles of Secondary Education," where he states the actual purpose of modern schooling:

1. The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2. The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3. The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4. The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5. The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6. The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

You might be asking why I am going to be a teacher now? To further those 6 purposes? No. As Gatto says in his article, now that we know the "traps" of modern schooling, it is much easier to avoid them. My job will be to create imaginative thinkers, creative thinkers, or basically somebody who thinks for themselves. Make it your job to do the same to your children (or when you have them). Now I'm not saying fight the system and homeschool your kids, but what I'm trying to do is increase awareness.

holly

Now I am done my exams!, but let me elaborate on a moment I had while studying. I was studying my chemisty, and in a moment of reflection I thought: "wow, I had a good lab partner this year." Her name was Holly. For one thing, Holly was a girl, for which I am grateful for. Secondly, she was funny and more importantly, responded to my humour. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not obsessing over her, just pointing out that she was great. Maybe I was hoping for a Ryan and Lindsay, O.C. style to happen, but whatever. Real life travels slower than O.C. speed. I was listening to the blink-182 cd while I was studying as well, and the song "Easy Target" basically says the name Holly a million times. I was kind of freaked out! Enough about my crushes, your turn.

ellen

Now I don't watch too much daytime TV because I'm at school, but during this exam period I've been watching some Ellen. My sister took a week off of work, so she's at home all the time now. She likes to watch TV. Since I can see the TV from the computer, I watch what she watches. I don't wake up and turn on the TV to watch Ellen, but when my sister watches it I can't help but turn my head to watch some too. I don't know if you watch the show, but Ellen likes to do a little dance at the beginning of every show. When she dances, it makes me happy. It's funny, but I don't laugh. It is definitely an unconventional emotion! I'm not afraid to admit that I think the show is enjoyable. Ellen's a funny woman, no doubt about it. Today she uncovered who "big gin," the gingerbread man, was. Guess who it was. None other than JT himself, Justin Timberlake. After they took his gingerbread head off, they played some MC Hammer and he started dancing. I haven't laughed that hard since when he was on SNL. Ahhhh, good stuff. Now back to studying.

wedgie

I just got a new wedge today from Golf Town. A nice Cleveland 900 Form Forged Raw Tour Grind 54° (strong sand wedge). Just waiting for my 60° lob wedge now! I was chipping my Pro V1x (the number one ball in golf) around in my living room, man was it fun! It feels great so far, can't wait to use it on the course. Don't come crying to me if you break your TV though.

My irons have left Winnipeg, shouldn't be too long before they get to my door!

Ed, out.

my dream

While I was taking a shower, I came up with a dream life. It involves, first, winning the lottery. Not just some $2 million lottery, but at least a $10 million win. Then I would go get a membership at Red Tail Landing or some other super nice course and golf everyday. After entering small golf tournaments in the city and finding success, I would try to enter one of the smaller tours like the Canadian Tour or the Asian Tour. That would be so fun being a professional golfer. Even though the prize money isn't huge on these tours, it's the experience. After caddying the Telus Open, I could tell that the guys were having fun, even though some were living off credit. If I ever get good enough, I'll even try for the Nationwide Tour, then the PGA Tour! You say it's impossible? Nothing is impossible, especially if you have the money. That's why I have to win the lottery. If I could be a professional athlete in any sport, right now I'd have to choose golf. You see Jay Haas out there, who is over 50, play with the best of them. I want to be a professional golfer.

user stats

How in the world do I get the user stats on my profile!? This is driving me insane (in the brain). If anyone knows, please just leave a comment to tell me how. Arigato.

EDIT: Straight from the horse's mouth.

"Hi there,We have had to temporarily disable stats collection, which means that poststats and links will not be updating correctly on your dashboard orprofile. We plan to restore this functionality in the short term but haveneeded to stop collecting the information for now in order to stabilizethe database servers. We apologize for any inconvenience this problem hascaused.Sincerely,Blogger Support"

the flood

I found this thing and did it. Some of these (see most) questions totally have no answer that works for me, but I tried. Check it:

Which Halo character are you? The flood You are like a sheep in a herd, you follow everyone else and rarely think for yourself.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Ryan will probably do this one until he finds out what combination makes Master Chief, haha.

lavalife

You know when you log out of hotmail, and there are those online dating ads. Lavalife is the big one, but I've seen LemonTonic and date.ca as well. I naturally got curious and clicked the Lavalife slideshow thing. Now some of these women are in their 40s, some are "full figured," and some are generally not attactive. Getting past these not PC thoughts in my head, there are actually some very nice looking people on here. You see the picture and click the link to see a little description. Wow, these girls sound perfect. Hmmm, but if they are so nice looking and nice sounding, why do they have to advertise themselves to millions of people on the internet? Maybe I'm thinking of this the wrong way by thinking personals is a dumb idea, but I guess nothing is working for me since I'm a career singler (see "a person who is single"). Maybe online dating is the new "I go to the bar to pick up chicks/dudes." But who really goes to bars to meet a potential girlfriend? Then again, maybe it's just me again. I go to bars to drink, dance, and socialize (with friends I already have). That might be the problem, I don't like talking to drunk strangers (probably more of the I'm too scared to talk to the hot girls). Why do I have to initiate the conversation though? It's because I'm not decked out in my J. Lindeberg clothes, wearing my Von Dutch mesh trucker, or smoking my Virginia Slims (that one is for Ryan). Wait a second, let's go back to online dating. So being the singler that I am, and seeing these sites, I should give this a try! I mean, why not, it's better than nothing right? An inventory of wonderful choices, for me to choose to talk with or not. But how wonderful can these choices be. Why don't these people already have boyfriends? Easy, the internet requires no social skills. You can say you are the world's greatest, but until you get up to that girl/boy and start talking, all that means shit. It's like having a good resume, if you can't communicate in person, you aren't getting the job. So, being in line with my theory of a blogman blog, I'm not going to sacrifice another one of my forms of human interaction to the internet. There is apparently some money in those online personals though. No, I'm not talking about the ads that they probably generate, but the demand for "professional" picutres taken for the daters to use on their profile. Now, time for me to get my home studio going! Enough on this subject. Until next time...

burberry

Burberry golf wear is sweet. Burberry cars are sweeter.





Hmmm, this ride has been pimped.

flickr

flickr is sweet. Check out my pics here.

the hot red head

Just watched The OC tonight.

*Breaking news, on CSI, Grissom was taking pictures of a car with a digital camera (looked like this, but black) and there was a shutter sound and a flash (which he didn't have).*

Back to The OC, it all ended happily, very predictable though!! Come on now. Too easy! Anyways, the red head, Lindsay (Cohen) is beautiful! Another reason to watch the show for, excellent.

Just got my flash in today too. Yesssssss, now all my eBay winnings have landed. Tripod and flash, now I just need some subjects to shoot. Now accepting model applications! I think I'm going to go to The Gateway photo meeting tomorrow now that all my shit is together. I might find some movie I want to watch again and ditch though.

I don't know though. After the volleyball banquet, I felt my photography drive again! A combination of seeing the Lifetouch photographer along with his assitant and people looking at my pictures made me want to take some pictures. This might sound weird, but I felt like I somehow related to the pro photographer. I, in no way, consider myself a pro, but maybe a younger version of the pro. I thought: "what do I do to be like this guy?" Not that I look up to a Lifetouch, school photographer, but it was a step up. Maybe that's how I think of it, what steps do I have to take to get to the top?