Friday, March 04, 2005
I don't wanna work!!
I just wanna bang on my drum all day!
Where the hell did that song come from, anyway?? All I know is that it's a damn satisfying way to express my discontent with all things scholastic at the moment.
I got back this fucking idiotic 'viewing journal' assignment that I had to do for my film class. The TA gave me a B+ (which is the worst mark I've ever gotten in university), because, among other things, I used the word 'voyeuristic' and did not provide a definition. Does anyone who reads this blog NOT know (without the aid of dictionary.com!) what 'voyeuristic' means?
Her other reasons for giving me such a shit mark included 'run-on' sentences (read any Jane Austen lately???), and the fact that I didn't thoroughly exhaust every single fucking obvious point I made due to the fact that there was a maximum of three pages per entry.
I also got an A- (which would be okay if it weren't with a prof I know really well who's given me 90% and better in the past) on an in-class essay which I actually worked really hard on for Children's Lit.
I'm actually really mad about this. I am so fucking sick of school I could become one of those people who goes to Malaysia for three weeks in the middle of the term rather than going to class. I swear my marks might even improve. Grrr.
But since I don't even have any plans for after I graduate, I suppose I had better suck it up and finish my degree.
I heard about a job at a summer camp in Alaska today, that I thought looked kind of cool. I swore I would never work at a kids' camp again after my horrific experiences the last time, but this one is in ALASKA!! They're only going to pay me about $2000 US plus room and board, so I'm not totally sure about it. It's a lot of work for $3200 Canadian or whatever the hell the exchange rate converts it to now.
The last time I worked at summer camp I ran into trouble because my former counsellor and very good friend decided to get involved with the husband of the camp director, before he was actually divorced (AND he was exactly 40 years her senior), and I refused to stop being friends with her because of her personal life. I considered it more or less none of my business, but the camp director had this huge problem with me going to see her, and leaving her reference on my resume (admittedly not something I did on purpose). The camp director made my life a living hell, refused to pay me and other counsellors for a week we worked despite having told us in writing that she would do so, and made the implicit suggestion that I ought to choose between the camp and my friend. I chose my friend, went to her wedding, corresponded with her from Switzerland, and never spoke to the camp director again. I know that if my friend had been in the director's position, she would have put her personal feelings aside and treated me the same as everyone else in the workplace, which was why I decided she was a more valuable individual for me to have in my life. Will the director give me a good reference? Who the hell knows. But that was why I vowed never to work at a camp again.
There's also the possibility of a job at a kids' bookstore in town. I like kids most days, and I have liked books just about every single day of my whole life, so that might be a decent gig.
I have also considered tree-planting, picking weeds at my uncle's nursery, phone sex, and bartending. The last two are jobs I'm highly unlikely to obtain, one because of a tight job market, and the other because I can only fake it for so long. I'll allow you to decide which is which.
For the absolute hell of it, a list of words and expressions I cannot stand:
-'put a little elbow grease into it' -- the appropriate response to this is always: "fuck off and die."
-'show some hustle' -- especially in the context of children's sports. How appropriate can it possibly be to tell little boys to act like pimps?
-'get the creative juices flowing' -- ugh. I don't even think I need to explain why this one gives me the willies (pun intended)
-'beat it' -- in the 'get lost' sense. Children don't understand the connotations, and it sounds terrible coming out of their mouths.
-'absitevely posiloutely' -- didn't anyone learn anything from Ned Flanders?
-'bitch' -- wouldn't even want to use it in reference to an actual female dog.
-'if ya know what I mean...' -- if we don't know, we'll tell you. Or just bloody well spell it out, you ludicrous twit.
-'penny for your thoughts' -- worst pickup line EVER! Don't EVER think that it works. Even if I like you I will reject you on the basis of this inane phrase.
-'smoke a doobie' -- can we please just say 'joint' and refrain from sounding like children making up words for their genitals?
-'macking on' -- it's like fifteen-year-old white boys trying to sound black.
-'get with' -- can we please just say sex?
-'pardon my French' -- who decided that the French speak in a neverending stream of expletives?
-'spirituality' -- delightfully useless buzz word meaning anything from 'I'm into New Age,' to 'I meditate,' to 'I don't go to church anymore, but I still believe,' to 'I've found Jesus, he was behind the couch the whole time!'
-'scripture' -- we know you're talking about the Bible, it's not necessary to pretend they're the only religious writings in existence.
-'let freedom ring' -- means a whole lot of nothing.
-'preserving family values' -- sounds real nice, actually means chaining women to the home, hating homosexuals, marginalizing single mothers, making women have babies they cannot look after, criminalizing abortion, censoring books, banning sex education, restricting access to birth control, and merging religion with the state. OOOH, great idea!
Words I like for no reason at all:
-bungalow -- say it with me!
-jungle
-shmetterling (phonetic spelling) -- German word for butterfly.
-stentorian! -- must be said in the loudest voice you can muster.
-the Polish word for 'yes' -- my tongue cannot reproduce it.
-'Ni Hao Ma' --' hello, how are you' in Mandarin.
-'cul' -- the French word for ass. Especially when Kev says it like a little boy learning a new swear word.
-'jouir' -- the French verb for 'orgasm.'
-'the clean' -- a cheerleading move performed for the sole purpose of fixing the girls' skirts.
-'spanky pants' -- slang term for the little shorts worn under such skirts.
-'jail bait' -- I keep imagining a girly little worm on a hook.
More to follow should I feel like it.
I love doing what I feel -- it's so self-indulgent. Makes me feel as though I really was alive in the free-love period.
Gotta go watch Pulp Fiction with my mom. It's family entertainment!
-N
