The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: linnea on September 09, 2007, 06:59:29 am
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Ugh. So not only do I get to bitch like Pat about my terrible rate plan, but Cingular/ATT recycled my phone number and gave me some bitch named Nicole's old phone number. I keep getting irritating calls from her friends who then disbelieve me when I say that this is no longer her cellphone number. I just finished a long text message exchange with some douche named Ryan. What the hell is a girl to do? All my friends have this number, and it's on all the damn resumes I've been papering my fair city with, so I can't just call the stupid cell company and demand a new number. Sigh.
**text exchange 15 minutes ago with some douche**
douche: hey how are you (12:47AM on a Saturday night, maybe he was trying for a booty call)
me: Who is this?
douche: Ryan
me: This is not Nicole's number anymore. I have no idea who she is. Sorry.
douche: How did you know I was texting nicole then
me: Because I get dozens of messages for her and I don't know anyone called Ryan. Occam's razor. (I wanted to add, "Google it, bitch!" but decided to keep it civil)
douche: who is this
me: You have the wrong number, sorry.
douche: Ok just saying hi but ok
me: (slams phone shut, puts it on silent)
**end of text convo**
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Oh man! You could totally have some fun with that. "oh my god ryan i want your babies SO HARD" or some such. You got a splendid opportunity to be a prick to a total stranger! Make the most of it! But then, they know your phone number, so it might not end that well.
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It would probably increase the chances of Nicole getting the word out that she doesn't have that number, though. I say go for it.
I'm going through the same thing. The wife and I switched our cell phones to our new area code a few weeks ago, and I'm getting calls for the person who had it before. Sadly, this person doesn't seem to have so much of a social life, as he/she did financial problems - the calls I get are mainly from collection agencies.
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Oh man... linnea, I love you, but I fuckin' hate cellphones.
Don't have a cellphone. That is the best solution to removing unwanted annoyance from your life. Seriously. Be it random people calling/texting you thinking you're someone else, forgetting to turn it off and then pissing everyone else off or getting woken up, to just being interrupted. They're such an intrusion. I'm very Pat-like on this one. Who calls anyone anymore anyway? I mean, I hardly even answer my phone at all anymore.
Don't use cellphones people, you really don't need them. You think you do, but seriously you don't. Don't invite that shit into your life. Don't choose to give people 24 hour access to you wherever you are. No one can provide me with a logic I find reasonable as to why they need one. It can not be done. In my books you're only important enough to need to be able to be reached at all times if you're running a country. That is about the only reason. So if you're a president or prime minister... maybe. But really, I still see no reason - life shouldn't be so urgent or so talky.
I don't care what your job is, you should only be doing it when you are at your job, and if your job is mobile or related to addressing emergencies you should have a radio, walkie talkie, or maybe, maybe a cell phone for work only. Only! Boo to cellphones. Boo.
I know I am unreasonable about this, but really, if people were more protective of their solitude, I believe the world would be a much better place.
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My SO can't figure out why I turn my phone off when I'm at home. Because the best cell phone sounds like crap compared to at $5 real phone, and since I have a landline people are going to use it. And if you call my cell phone while I'm at work it had better damned sure be an emergency.
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I still get calls for Jeremy on my cell number, and I've had it for four years or so. And I think usually they are people wanting him to settle up old debts. "Sorry, collections agency - Jermey fucked you hard."
Also - I think I discussed it here - I once got a 220 page cell phone bill when I had my identity stolen. That was a good time.
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Don't use cellphones people, you really don't need them. You think you do, but seriously you don't. Don't invite that shit into your life. Don't choose to give people 24 hour access to you wherever you are. No one can provide me with a logic I find reasonable as to why they need one. It can not be done. In my books you're only important enough to need to be able to be reached at all times if you're running a country. That is about the only reason. So if you're a president or prime minister... maybe. But really, I still see no reason - life shouldn't be so urgent or so talky.
Eh... I have created a lifestyle for myself that doesn't allow me that option. I don't need a cellphone in the sense that I will die or lose my job without it, but I need it. I need it to call my wife to tell her my plane has landed and I'll be home in 40. I need it so that when my friends fly in, they can call me and see where I am so we know where to meet. If I had to choose between dropping my cell phone or dropping my landline, there would be no debate - the landline would get snuffed out.
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Eh... I have created a lifestyle for myself that doesn't allow me that option. I don't need a cellphone in the sense that I will die or lose my job without it, but I need it. I need it to call my wife to tell her my plane has landed and I'll be home in 40. I need it so that when my friends fly in, they can call me and see where I am so we know where to meet. If I had to choose between dropping my cell phone or dropping my landline, there would be no debate - the landline would get snuffed out.
I am in the same boat. The amount I travel, I'd have to be on pay phones in airports all the time, and most of the time I am running through the airport with just enough time to make my next plane. It would be a pain to have to find a pay phone to update my wife on when I am coming home and shit.
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I don't think I could dump my cell phone totally either. It makes life too convenient when trying to pick somebody up at the airport or waiting at the mall. But I then I also have a $10/year plan from T-Mobile.
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Don't invite that shit into your life. Don't choose to give people 24 hour access to you wherever you are.
Actually, I dropped my land line for this reason. The beauty of a cell phone is twofold: 1) it's unlisted and (in the US) illegal to call a mobile number for marketing purposes, and 2) cell phones can be turned off. I got tired of having to answer the damn phone six times a day so that I could listen to a recording tell me about an important program for senior citizens. And yes, I *was* on the Do Not Call registry.
After I'd had my cell for about 2 years, I started getting calls for Mr. Howard regarding his delinquent account with a BMW dealership, among other creditors. I think he was intentionally giving out a false number, which just happened to be mine.
I hope they eventually found the bastard. The calls stopped, so presumably they either got his real number or ate the costs.
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Actually, I dropped my land line for this reason. The beauty of a cell phone is twofold: 1) it's unlisted and (in the US) illegal to call a mobile number for marketing purposes, and 2) cell phones can be turned off. I got tired of having to answer the damn phone six times a day so that I could listen to a recording tell me about an important program for senior citizens. And yes, I *was* on the Do Not Call registry.
After I'd had my cell for about 2 years, I started getting calls for Mr. Howard regarding his delinquent account with a BMW dealership, among other creditors. I think he was intentionally giving out a false number, which just happened to be mine.
I hope they eventually found the bastard. The calls stopped, so presumably they either got his real number or ate the costs.
I am renting a house with friends, and I occasionally use our landline, but in my entire adult life I have never had a landline of my own. I have always just had a cellphone.
1. JL's compelling argument about the privacy. Cellphones have more privacy than a landline, although there are still issues. I don't like having my number listed, having a cellphone ensures that the only people who have the number are people I gave it to (and unfortunately in my case, everyone that Nicole gave her number to). Similar story: when my dad returned from Vietnam in 1970 he got a new landline, and the former owner of the number had been a drug dealer, so he got calls for drugs at all hours. He finally got the number switched.
2. Free long distance. This is seriously awesome.
3. Texting. When you don't want to talk to someone but still want to communicate, you have a mini TTY and you get to send a mini fuck*ng telegram! How awesome is that? You can even send out a mini bulletin to several friends at once, like I did after my recent job interview to let everyone know that it had gone well.
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My house phone is where the fast internet comes from. I don't ever bother answering it, as anyone who knows me and wants to talk to me knows my cellphone.
My career affords me a different take though. I've carried one without cost for the past 7 years. My son is now 11. Half of me believes that 11 is far too young to have a phone. The other half of me feels that with my job, this is a resource like water. I built and run the network. Why the hell don't each of my cats have a cellphone?
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My house phone is where the fast internet comes from. I don't ever bother answering it, as anyone who knows me and wants to talk to me knows my cellphone.
My career affords me a different take though. I've carried one without cost for the past 7 years. My son is now 11. Half of me believes that 11 is far too young to have a phone. The other half of me feels that with my job, this is a resource like water. I built and run the network. Why the hell don't each of my cats have a cellphone?
No shit. I needed to get in touch with your cats the other day and I was fucked. What am I supposed to use? Smoke signals?
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I love my cellphone. I mean, actually, I love the concept of my cell phone. Except that we have horrible service here, and my phone is really quiet no matter how high I put the volume.
one time I got a threatening answering machine message in a thick southern accent to the effect of "tammy! pick up the phone! I know you're there!"
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My cell hasn't been working for about 2 months and I have no landline so, well, it has sucked. I just so up places and usually I am right.
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I love my cellphone. I mean, actually, I love the concept of my cell phone. Except that we have horrible service here, and my phone is really quiet no matter how high I put the volume.
one time I got a threatening answering machine message in a thick southern accent to the effect of "tammy! pick up the phone! I know you're there!"
So, did you know the guy?
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yeah, that was the awkward part. He thought he had called his girlfriend? apparently they do a really weird thing where they roleplay some really nasty non-consensual shit.
but no, I didn't know the guy.
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Whoa...hot. Tell us mooooore.
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oh, no, I was kidding. I have no idea who it was or what was going on.
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For Goodness sake, make some more up then!
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but no, I didn't know the guy.
Ha ha. Right.
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Boo to cellphones. Boo.
Full disclosure: I draw bi-weekly paychecks from one of the big cell-phone companies. That said, I got my first cell phone in 2000 and kept the same phone until just this spring, when I upgraded to a Treo. Besides the fact that having a cell phone pretty much eliminates my need for a land line, Google Maps on the Treo is pretty much my favorite thing ever. I can't imagine traveling without it now.
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Yeah, I've never had a "smartphone" before and am loving the iPhone - looking up where an address is in a neighbourhood to which I've never been before is amazing. I'd have to call someone or have contact with other humans otherwise.
Basically the iPhone is like a sexy mistress that you can bonk when you want and not have to listen to her problems. It's all the good and none of the bad, is all I'm saying.
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Quote from: theinevitable on Today at 07:53:24 PM
but no, I didn't know the guy.
Ha ha. Right.
yesterday I saw a guy from my highschool who I hadn't seen in a few years. Apparently he was visiting a friend at WashU.
also, A-CAP is going to try to meet my friend when he visits his girlfriend who goes to the same college. She will be creeped out by him, I'm sure.
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also, A-CAP is going to try to meet my friend when he visits his girlfriend who goes to the same college. She will be creeped out by him, I'm sure.
Ill try my best. Maybe an easter basket filled with live crawgiraffe and condom wrappers?
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My son is now 11. Half of me believes that 11 is far too young to have a phone. The other half of me feels that with my job, this is a resource like water. I built and run the network. Why the hell don't each of my cats have a cellphone?
Have you thought about a Firefly or whatever the hell it's called? One of those phones where the kid can only call one of four preprogrammed numbers plus 911?
I love this idea and fully intend to get one for Little P when he's old enough not to lose the hell out of it.
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Yea, I like the concept, those are GSM only though (T-Mobile, and Cingular) I'd need a CDMA handset (Sprint/Verizon/US Cellular/Alltel/Cricket).
What I might do, is on a lot of phones you can restrict them to 911, and what's in the phone book, on both incoming and outgoing calls. So I might grab one of the couple hundred floating around my office, and "fix" it.
The cats are going to want something top of the line. They're going to want iPhones, or the new Motorola Q. Really though, all these PDAs, what do they have to keep track of? 11:00am - Nap. 11:15am - Run to the Other side of the House, and so on.
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Careful, Smick. That might be what you think now. Get them cell phones and the next thing you know they'll be running an Amway distributorship when you're not home and bitching about their lazy downlines.
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Yea, I like the concept, those are GSM only though (T-Mobile, and Cingular) I'd need a CDMA handset (Sprint/Verizon/US Cellular/Alltel/Cricket).
Verizon has the LG Migo (http://estore.vzwshop.com/search/devices/lg_migo.html).
I couldn't remember what it was called before, but I played with it in the store when I did my New Every Two and it seemed pretty neat. You can restrict incoming calls on those, as well.
If you restrict a regular phone to 911 + phonebook calls, wouldn't your kid just add people to his phonebook like crazy? I mean, I assume the idea is that you wouldn't want him calling buddies and running up a bill, or using the cell to circumvent telephone curfews. Which is exactly what I would have done as an older kid/young teen. But then, he's a boy, and I get the idea they aren't as crazy about being on the phone all the time as girls. (Pedro was but he is the exception to many rules.)
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Well, yea, but when you lock the phone, it all restricts the ability to enter more numbers into the phone book. Per minute charges aren't too much of a worry for me. The account wouldn't be metered, except for LD, which is a "bucket" of minutes.
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Careful, Smick. That might be what you think now. Get them cell phones and the next thing you know they'll be running an Amway distributorship when you're not home and bitching about their lazy downlines.
For some reason I used to confuse Amway and United Way. WTF? I just read Amway's wiki entry and damn do they sound like a crazy-ass cult.
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For some reason I used to confuse Amway and United Way. WTF? I just read Amway's wiki entry and damn do they sound like a crazy-ass cult.
Yep, that's the short version of it...
Old girlfriend got into it. Pretty much their technique is "your friends make the best customers!", then they want to suck you into their crap pushing. If you're not interested, you must not be a very good friend...
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Damn, that amway sounds a lot like scientology to me. A fair bit less retarded though.. paying to become stinking rich seems a much better incentive paying to get the evil alien spirits out of your brain.
This thread has inspired me to actually try using the internet on my phone. Man is it cool! I just checked my gmails wirelessly. I bought a fancy new (relatively speaking) nokia n70 a few months ago, and all I've done with it is send texts. Didn't think of trying to go online with it. This is great news! I can go online in the 2 hours a day I am not sitting in front of my laptop or sleeping. Hurrah!
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This thread has inspired me to actually try using the internet on my phone. Man is it cool! I just checked my gmails wirelessly. I bought a fancy new (relatively speaking) nokia n70 a few months ago, and all I've done with it is send texts. Didn't think of trying to go online with it. This is great news! I can go online in the 2 hours a day I am not sitting in front of my laptop or sleeping. Hurrah!
Muahahaha... My plan to infiltrate this message board and increase data ARPU for my employer finally comes to fruition.
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Woah! TOUAMB Mobile (http://www.touamb.com/index.php?wap2)!
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Muahahaha... My plan to infiltrate this message board and increase data ARPU for my employer finally comes to fruition.
I'll stick with my $10 per year rate plan, thanks.
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Muahahaha... My plan to infiltrate this message board and increase data ARPU for my employer finally comes to fruition.
Don't forget the CCU and OIBITDA for the added data plans! Which carrier do you work for? I'm at one of the smaller regionals.
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Damn, that amway sounds a lot like scientology to me. A fair bit less retarded though.. paying to become stinking rich seems a much better incentive paying to get the evil alien spirits out of your brain.
I got in a big argument with my friend where she said that Scientology is just as bogus as every other religion. I could not come up with a good argument other than "but... it's dumb! it's so dumb!"
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I have a hard time with that. Religious bigotry sucks, and who am I to say that Scientologists have any less claim on higher truth. They have a rep for doing some scary stuff. So do most of the big religions.
I guess, people are pretty much horrible as a giant chunk. Religion is supposed to fix that on an individual level, but sometimes, as a giant chunk, religious people can sometime still be pretty much horrible.
On a subtler level, I have problems with the cash changing hands, and the methodology. I ran into of a group called Landmark a couple years ago. Google 'em up. They have similar practices to Scientology, but without the Thetans. Here's how I ended up in their midst. Some friends of mine invited my wife and I to an informational night. We sat in on an uplifting group where people talked about how they were taking charge of their life. Then my wife and I went off into a side room with the local muckymuck, and two other people. There were 5 seats in the room. Three tall stools, and two normal chairs. The stools were in a triangle around the smaller chairs, two Landmark people sitting behind us, and 1 landmark guy right in front of us so we had to crane our necks up at them. Then started an hour and a half of hard selling.
By the end, my wife and I had handed over $1400 for the Landmark forum, and some other Landmark courses. I went home, and sat at my computer, and slowly went "HOLY CRAP!" They'd gotten me. I called them and said that I wasn't interested in Landmark, and that I wanted my check back. They said they couldn't give my check back, and that would have to go through the NW Regional coordinator who was in Seattle. A little research showed that they didn't have an office, but a rented cubicle. I called, left a message, and then put a stop on the check through my bank.
They turned around and had the friends that invited me to the informational meeting call me, and shake me down as to why I didn't have the integrity to go to the Landmark forum, and to follow through on my word. Nice... nice.
Fair or not, from what I've read, Scientology operates a lot like Landmark/Est, which is alone enough to make me REALLY wary of them, especially with the added religious component.
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yeah, see, Yes. To me, the difference is that it is unapologetic bullshit. It was started by a guy who wanted to make money.
I don't know. It's just... Fuck. I want to stop these people.
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Ive done a pile of research on scientology and all i can say is that it is obviously a pyramid scam. The head of the pyramid is/was a mentally disturbed science fiction writer who was quoted many times saying that the best way to make money was to create a religion. He protested anti-psychotics his entire life but spent the last years of it on anti-schizophrenic drugs. The many many many lawsuits against the church of Scientology reveal the truth. The truth that they offer lessons in how to advance to the next truth of purification from ancient past life spiritual *****s if only you pay them a couple thousand dollars and sign a contract on your life for the next couple million years. I dont know of any Christian sect that demands you pay them thousands of dollars to advance one level of 30 in order to receive the real truth. The real truth being that millions of years ago your souls were all implanted with some evil spirits and you must pay the church all of your money and all of your future souls in order for them to help you relieve you of your spirits. These cleansing activities include telling your deepest darkest secrets to head church members and healing other new members....
Scientology is whacked. Just search google video for scientology
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All them guys are the same. Scientology, Amway, vacation properties, Avon, Melaluca, Jonestown, all of it.
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There are undoubtedly tons of greedy Christian sects or preachers motivated by nothing more than the bottom line. However, there are far more Christian communities that you can fully participate in if you are flat broke -- free, gratis and for nothing.
As skeptical as I am of organized religion in general, I think it's pretty naive to equate Scientology with Christianity because both have examples of financial exploitation. Scientology appears to be set up solely to empty members pockets. A vast portion of Christianity does not engage in such venality.
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I said that, and she said I was being Naive.
To be clear, she is also considerably more observant of her faith than I am. So... I don't know what that means.
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As skeptical as I am of organized religion in general, I think it's pretty naive to equate Scientology with Christianity because both have examples of financial exploitation.
I only equate them in the same bucket to illustrate that I am not the decider, all goin' around pointing out which religions are awesome, and which are frauds, and that there are dirtbags, pukes, and ghouls in any group of people larger than 5. (I'll caveat, that here on TOUAMB they at least announce their intentions.)
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Don't forget the CCU and OIBITDA for the added data plans! Which carrier do you work for? I'm at one of the smaller regionals.
I'm with #3, the one with the pretty LED animation TV commercials.
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I'm with the possible #6, depending on our merger talks. You may have seen our green K's around your area.
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My shorthand is that any faith that suggests that you need a living human intermediary between yourself and the divine is a scam.
A priest, an imam, a pastor, a rabbi, a whatever the hell Scientologists call the dudes that run those little fake lie detectors over your hands... once there's someone else who's just a people standing between you and whatever you call the transcendent...
That middle man suddenly has the power to demand money or sex or service from you in the name of the cosmic umbrella, things that the cosmic umbrella could never possibly need because it's the fuck*ng cosmic umbrella and it could make whatever the hell it actually needed.
Even if there are the occasional priests or shamans who maybe don't ask anything of you, most of them have, most of them do and even for the well-intentioned the potential is always there... and you'd better believe that their successor is gonna give into that temptation if they don't.
Every sentience is equal in the face of the unknowable, equally tiny, equally sacred.
Anybody saying otherwise is just trying to get your money, get you to kill for them or get you to let them rock your can.
This is just my personal opinion but it has served me pretty well.
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Hm.
I guess, of those catergories, I'm closest to "ghoul"?
I suppose I have a ghoulish sense of humour, if I've spent much of my life trying to figure out what the most disturbing idea in the world could possibly be.
I have two, one more offensive, one more disgusting and... I'll tell you... The Aristrocrats ain't got nothing on me. I suppose that's a little ghouly.
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A priest, an imam, a pastor, a rabbi, a whatever the hell Scientologists call the dudes that run those little fake lie detectors over your hands...
They call him an Auditor. I suppose since they serve the same function as an IRS agent (removing cash from your pocket) this makes sense.
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I feel like there is a big difference between religious guys who direct you in your own "personal relationship" and understanding with the diety/Jesus/etc and the ones who are basically there to tell you that you are going to hell, and then take your money.
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Inev, I need to sit by the fire, I've got such as rheumatism, and your momma gonna burn if we don't agree on stuff.
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I was sleeping so well, and then one of her damn friends called and woke me up. I didn't recognize the number so I didn't pick up. Naturally they did not leave a voicemail. Fuck you guys, seriously. Stop calling me. Now I can't go back to sleep. Also the computer I just bought died spectacularly. WTF.
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Ugh... I still can't sleep. I thought I might still be awake because I was hell of hungry. I just had 2 taquitos, we'll see if that helps. I wish I had gone to my damn storage unit earlier today and gotten my kettle and tea out...some chamomile tea might do the trick.
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Diphenhydramine, over-the-counter generic sleepaid. The stuff they put in Tylenol PM except without the acetometaphine.
Only the, uh, PM.
Whatever the maximum safe listed dose is. Probably 100 mg of the active ingredient. Should be very effective.
I'm fading from it, myself, right now. Find myself writing in the pattern Rorsharch thinks in "Watchmen".
Pretty high on it now, really. Difficult typing ahead.
Knowing things, even knowing everything knowable, not necessarily useful.
All facts have a contradictory counter-fact that is at least as argueable. Mental gridlock. Cosmic gridlock. No i-Ching to cast.
Everything all at once cancelling itself out in its totality.
Reality as a dildo so big God Herself cannot fuck it. She strains and aches and is rendered motionless by Her greediness and Her endless ability to build the better penistrap. All is masturbatory. Fleetingly pleasant but ultimately lonely and too goddamned messy.
Knowing that which amoungst the things you know is useful in this situation, in that situation, is real wisdom.
Knowing without knowing which of these things are worth knowing, this is futility defined.
Wasted time and terrible gibberish.
Night, kids.
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Can somebody near LFM kidnap him, give him more drugs, and chain him to a typewriter?
I'm anxious for the Great American Novel, you see.
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I dunno. Stephen King seems okay now, and he doesn't even remember writing Kujo.
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I dunno. Stephen King seems okay now, and he doesn't even remember writing Kujo.
In 9th grade I finished that book during Trig. I cried. In math class, for no outwardly perceptible reason.
Fuck you quadratics. Fuck you.
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I used to cry in math class all the time.
But that was because I am really bad at math.
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Oh man, crying in math class and trying hard to not cry in math class... those are seminal parts of the highschool experience for me. Remember that Seinfeld where George and Jerry flash back to their horrible Coach who called George "Can't-stand'ya?" That was basically my math teacher. Behavior wise, that was Mr. Lindal. He liked to mock people when they didn't know something or had a question, and he called everyone a loser. What an asshole.
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math, for me, was basically a thing where...
I sucked at it horribly until 7th grade, at which point we had to decide whether to go to the Harder or Easier math class.
the next year, I realized that I was basically awesome at Math suddenly, and started getting almost all As without trying. I have never understood how this happened so suddenly.
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I hated timed tests. This is a terrible way to teach math.
In sixth and seventh grade I took the regular-kids math but the smart-kids science. (I was the only one to have one but not the other both years.) In eighth grade, the teacher said you had to take smart-kids math to be able to take smart-kids science, so my parents signed me up for the smart-kids science. Which was Algebra I.
Everyone else had taken pre-Algebra the year before.
I cried every day. Especially when my older brother, who was a recent college grad with a degree in math and had been tutoring me, ended up getting a job as an extended sub in my math class when my teacher had carpal-tunnel surgery. Then he couldn't tutor me any more.
It pretty much blew.
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I was in the weird position in high school of... always getting the highest grades in English and Social Studies and all the related electives but... basically being just above-average and totally completely disinterested in math and science and foreign languages and stuff like that.
So I was the class nerd/know-it-all/A++ kid in three of the classes a day and the class clown/goof-off/just-coasting-through-to-a-B in two classes a day.
But since it was a small high school, it was basically with all the same kids and yet my role and persona changed with the subject.
The hand-raiser volunteerer grade-curve wrecker in English and Government and Journalism and History and so on and so forth and... the dude in the very back of the room, drawing and passing notes and making jokes just small enough than to not get detention in, like, Chemistry and Normal-People-Math and French Class and so on.
It did contribute, though, to being sort of a wild card who no one really ever got a handle on, which was nice.
I just wanted to go home and listen to Smashing Pumpkins records and watch documentaries and burn incense and write horrible horrible HORRIBLE plays about the girls in the classes ahead of me who were perfect and genius and pure and how I could never have them because I wasn't worth their attention.
Yeeeeeeah.
I was basically Robert Crumb without the mysogyny or the fucked-up homelife.
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This is pretty much the best thread ever. I want to have it bronzed, and put on a shelf in my den.
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dude, i think that is more common than you seem to think.
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The hand-raiser volunteerer grade-curve wrecker in English and Government and Journalism and History and so on and so forth and... the dude in the very back of the room, drawing and passing notes and making jokes just small enough than to not get detention in, like, Chemistry and Normal-People-Math and French Class and so on.
Me, too...except for a brief period (okay, all of Freshman year) in my particularly ill-spent youth during which I wasn't cutting up in class because I was smoking behind the gym during geometry...and phys ed...and pretty much any class that wasn't English or History of some sort.
Then I met Pedro and we had Chemistry together, so I attended that class and we made googly eyes at each other the whole time. And I wrote lots and lots of love notes when I was supposed to be paying attention in math. You could fill a dumpster with all the notes I wrote, all folded in the clever origami shape where all you do is pull a tab and the whole thing unfolds, and I would decorate the tab with hearts. In fact, if you had all the notes together in one place, and a dumpster handy, that is probably what you should do with them. And then douse it with gasoline, toss on a lit match, and run.
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My experiences with math and science are somewhere between the_inev's and jl's. I think I was bad at math because I really didn't care about it one way or another. I saw what the teacher was getting at, then didn't bother to practice it enough to make the leap from "getting it" to "being able to do it with any level of skill". Science, on the other hand, was totally, deeply fascinating to me, and I was always getting in over my head because I'd take science classes that required more math proficiency than I actually had.
Also, the_inev's experience might have had to do with some sort of brain development that finally got to where it needs to be. Young adolescents really aren't playing with an adult deck in terms of cognitive ability. This is a reason why one-size-fits-all curricula fail for a chunk of the population (and why you can be good at one class and suck at another - over and above interest and effort).
My dichotomy came to a head in college, where I ran into walls in chemistry and physics because I'd blown off trig in high school (I hated proofs). Faced with the prospect of failing in classes I really wanted to learn, I suddenly became Math Nerd and took 3 semesters of calculus. This was ultimately a bad idea as well, as biologists have little call for much beyond simple integrals and derivatives, while statistics are very, very, very useful. I learn stats in my spare time now.
**adjusts invisible horn-rims**
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When I first moved to the school division I eventually graduated high school in, I was a timid 7th grader who moved away from the only friends he'd ever known into a series of classes that included math. The math teacher in this class graded on a curve. She also announced after each quiz who was the "curve stopper," the one with the highest grade who stopped the rest of the class from getting a higher curve, or God help you, the "curve buster," who got a hundred the hard way and kept everyone from getting any bonus points. I almost immediately became the leader of the class in curve stopping and curve busting. This got me messed with mercilessly with the other boys in the class. The teacher in question thought the best way to deal with this would be to change the seating assignments so that I sat RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THEM - the idea being that they would get to know me and leave me alone.
Yeah, that worked.
Shortly thereafter, English and History became my favorite subjects.
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5th and 6th grades: remedial math.
7th grade: honors.
8th-12th: One year ahead of my class.
College: Uh, no math. ever. again.
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yeah, at this point I might take the Psych Statistics or Normal Statistics class, but, that is about it.
Which is kind of too bad. I miss Math, and Science. But they're all hell of intense here. All the low-level science classes I'd be interested in taking are the classes they use to "weed out" pre-meds, and more importantly, BME people (biomedical engineering, apparently the hot new Smarty##### major that everyone ends up dropping out of.)
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I really liked Intro to Zoology--especially genetics and evolution-- but the chemistry part was horrible and IDK, just not something that is that important to me. I don't care why we are here but why we do the things we do.
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it occurs to me that Human Evolution is a science class, just not a math-y one. That class is sooooo awesome.
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I'm kind of kicking myself now for not taking any Stats in college. We had some basic remedial stats in several biology classes, but it would have been nice to know a little bit more about chi-squares, you know?
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Oh, man, a good half of my college coursework was just insane puff classery.
Writing for Advertising, Physics for Jocks and Film Majors, Neurobiology for Jocks and Film Majors, 20th Century Literature, History of the Erie Canal, Religion and Film, Religion as Storytelling, Radio Industry... oh man. If there was a cake course in TV/Film or Religion, I took it and if there was a cake course in English that you could take without being an English major, I took it.
Oh man. I should'a just been one of those weird people who stays in the college town and sells poorly photocopied guides to the cake classes for a living.
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I'm kicking myself for taking some highly politicized classes when I was in college. I have had to send my official transcripts to multiple companies over the years. I always wonder if the fact that I took Intro to Queer Theory (fortunately it only shows up as "LGBT Studies" on my transcript) has caused me to be penalized and knocked out of the running by some bigoted HR rep or supervisor.
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... I took Intro to Queer Theory (fortunately it only shows up as "LGBT Studies" on my transcript) has caused me to be penalized and knocked out of the running by some bigoted HR rep or supervisor.
Irony: closeted class name on transcript.
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I always wonder if the fact that I took Intro to Queer Theory (fortunately it only shows up as "LGBT Studies" on my transcript) has caused me to be penalized and knocked out of the running by some bigoted HR rep or supervisor.
If that did happen, imagine how miserable you would have been working for that employer.