Cerebellumed!

It's official, I am once again suckered into loving children that aren't mine, and are actually kind of annoying... What is it about kindergarteners who don't know how to be quiet, haven't figured out how a lunch line works, or can't even remember their full names that just gets me in my emotions heart? This year we have 28 kids, one of which is probably special ed and still wears a diaper, and after spending 4 hours with them instead of being brought almost to insanity (which any sane person would be so maybe it's already happened) I'm actually elated. My guess is that either I've found my calling in life or I've gotten to the point where my body is trained not to feel exhaustion. Suffice it to say, I love kindergarten, although I'm not in an ESL class anymore and I kinda miss the diversity. Still, life is good when I get to hang out with crazy kids all morning!

You know, I never really understood the poster that said, "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten" until I started this job. Being at school for the first time really sets you up for life. You have to be trained on so many things, like how to stand in line, how to treat other people in large settings, respect, and a myriad of other social cues that I could probably name for days. The amount of societal structure learned in the first few months of kindergarten is pretty insane. I just got a little nervous...

If you send your kid to my classroom and they come back thinking singing out loud is just what you do when there's nothing else going on I'm probably going to deny I had any involvement, but feel free to blame me anyway (I really can't help it).

Taste of Tucson

Don't worry, I'm not gunna feed you dirt or beans. This is more of a mental taste of the fun times I've had this summer:

Zac: "Wait, what? the No-tell Motel? That's where you go for speed humps?"

Brandon: "I'm always down for being in the bathroom naked, but never with my pants on. Someone else's pants: occasionally."

JK: "I'm okay with most things but sucking on my plate is not one of them."

Alex: "I don't make it hot, I make it cozy."

Caden: "Make sure you wash that slut off."

Jarom: "Porn shops go where they need to go to get business."

Jenny: "I think it's the smut couch over there."

Luca: "Please tell Brandon I don't do guys."

Sasha: "Riding a horse? I don't get it, then you'd just get there faster."

Jon: "I win, I stayed on the chair all night."

The Bat Cave: "One and done."

Zac: "Thanks for letting me lick your finger."

Tow Truck Driver Charlie: "I've seen all these people spraying down the dirt in their yards, they must just be trying to clean the dirt."

Oh Tucson, I think I love you even more now!

Indie Rage

I don't know what musical orientation everyone out there is so if you're not of the indie (aka white-bred-ultimately-failed-with-regular-rock-and-now-trying-a-new-way-to-stick-it-to-the-man-neosis) rock persuasion then I don't know how well you'll be able to relate to the rest of this post. But I think there's a little bit of Indie Rage in all of us so you should be fine.

What I have named Indie Rage is the feeling you get after you've discovered a gem of a band that no one knows about, shared it with all of your friends, and now they know the words as well as you do so you're obviously not the trend setter (or cool) anymore. The Rage feels not just angry, but also like someone has invaded your personal area and tried to take over. It can be frustrating and agitating. I mean, you're always trying so hard to be ahead of the pack and now you've been shoved back in it.

This rage doesn't necessarily have to do with music either. It can be anything that no one knows about until you demonstrate it for them and then they are in a loop that you wanted to be sole ruler of. And in that statement is a paradox which I don't know how to get out of. I'll start to explain this with a question: what makes life meaningful?

Life is meaningful when you share it with other people. I firmly believe that without a close circle of friends, people would disintegrate (not physically (although that would be cool) but rather emotionally and spiritually). Consequently, when you find something awesome what would it be worth if you couldn't share it with your friends? I know from experience that it definitely does not mean as much until I've shown it to other people. But then when those other people have learned the lyrics that I memorized first, the Rage comes in and I am left feeling like I was stripped of something special. Of course there are people who feel the Rage so strongly that they take it too far and never share anything with anybody. I think these people either a. take themselves too seriously, or b. are a bit socially inept and therefore don't have anyone to share it with anyway.

So, how do I make something meaningful and also special? Is believing these words to be opposite a fallacy? Does the fault lie with my personal beliefs, or with what society has engendered in me? Maybe people are not meant to live in large quantities. I think we all want to be unique but when we're surrounded by droves we see all the pieces of ourselves and conclude that there isn't a way to actually be anomalous.

I'm not saying that I think everyone should live in a small town. And I'm definitely not suggesting that there isn't a way to be singular, or that we should stop trying to achieve that. What I am suggesting is that by trying to standout with choices, like music, that are inherently meant to be shared, we'll never produce something original. We need to let go of the Indie Rage causing parts of our personalities and just accept the conglomeration of ourselves which genuinely makes us special. Or, in other words, recognize that our whole is greater than the sum of our parts.

The Best of the Internet

So, for the past few days I have been sucked in to looking at picture lists on the internet of all sorts of things. Funny things, perceptive things, even artsy things. Well, I've downloaded a few of them and now I want to share them with you:

Break Dance Crime Scene

Do You Ever Have a Hard Time Cutting Through Pennies?

Right now I'm a knife sales woman. Cutco knives, only the best. In a normal demonstration we go through each knife in a particular set and tell the names and uses of each. But I wanted to put my own little spin on it so I gave each a nickname (Sasha helped out too).

You have your:

"Dice it up nice" parring knife,

"Never squish another tomato" trimmer,

"No brownie left behind" spatula spreader,

"My jack-o-lantern is the best" petite carver,

"Can cook my bacon and eat it too" turning fork,

"Didn't need time to defrost" butcher knife,

"Fresh from the oven with butter" slicer,

"No plug-in required to cut through this bird" carving knife and fork,

"Look I'm pro already" chef knife,

"Bad boy" hardy slicer,

"Saves you time to work on that sudoku" santoku knife,

"I actually cut the cheese" cheese knife,

"Even if my meat is tough no one will notice 'til they chew" table knife,

and,

"Really does lift and separate" cleaver.

Now if those nicknames don't make you want to buy a set of knives from me then I don't know what will...

A Laughing Matter

First question: why wasn't I a part of this?

Second question: how can I set something like this up?

Third question: is it prideful of me to set up a competition where I know I would win?

My James Bond Moment

As most of you know I used to work for a Chinese restaurant (The Mandarin Grill) where I started as a delivery driver. But what you don't know is that I have secret ninja skills (hence the Chinese restaurant). One night, when I was a fairly new driver, I had gotten an order and went out to my car to start my journey to light someone's life up. After I started my car I thought, "I don't know where I'm going". So I decided to quickly run back inside and look at the map. I got out of my car and as I'm about to walk inside a miracle happened: I remembered where the address was. It wasn't a miracle that I remembered, mind you, but rather the fact that I didn't actually go inside to figure it out. This was because when I turned around to go back to my car I saw it rolling away from me, right into the street. On pure instinct (or maybe I've been training for years?) I ran after my car, got the keys out of my pocket, pushed unlock on the remote, opened up the door and dove in just in time to hit the brakes before that car would've left my life forever. It was pretty epic, and I felt like an action hero.

But the best part was that my boss, Winni, had seen it all happen on the camera. She told me that she was yelling inside the restaurant and even scared some customers. Of course, all of that happened without my knowledge and so after I hit the brakes I shut the door, turned the car back on, and headed out to deliver the food. But before I could turn onto the main street, Bee, a cashier, ran out to ask me if I was okay since I had disappeared from camera before I actually stopped the car. It all ended with a "yeah I'm fine" and I went on with my night.

For a moment I was awesome. For a moment I actually felt athletic. For a moment I was Bond, James Bond.