IT IS A NICE DAY HERE ON THE FIFTH OF JULY IN DOWN TOWN MCMURDO STATION ANTARCTICA A BOMIE +10 pretty warm even for the middle of winter last week it was -35f windchill -65 we have some wind of corse we are a sea port station the south pole is miles to our south and is the coldest place on earth . record -130f they are not shairing our warm weather . wanta talk weather talk ANTARCTICA .

OH YEA WE ARE A DAY AHEAD OF ALL YOU UP THERE. BUT OUR MOON IS UPSIDE DOWN . THE PLACE HAS IT'S FAULTS . ONE DRAWBACK IS THE DARKNESS ALL WINTER NO SUN FOR 4 M0. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT TOMMOROW IS GOING TO BE LIKE JUST ASK SOMEONE WHO IS ALLREDY THERE IN THE WEST ACROSS THE DATE LINE .FRED,

Fred - It is urgent that you email me. markus_aurelius@hotmail.com

oct.4 and i had to bring the brass monkeys inside for the winter. it's -10 already. oh canaduh. let the hibernation begin.

After four days of short and t-shirt weather we are back to rain. *sigh* spring is trying to spring.

Spring? SPRING?? Excuse me while I grumble.

It,s still fucking hot out here 99 degrees of unrelentless sun,that party that the company my s/o works for they had last Sun.,I was fucking hot,thats why I stayed in the nice air-conditioned bar and drank those "special"fruit smoothies,I,m down for the long haul,I don,t "do" sun.

Well it snowed here yesterday, it didn't stay or anything but it still SNOWED. Damn. Have I ever told you I love Canada!

IT'S FUCKING COLD HERE GODDAMMIT. GOTTA MOVE, I HATE COLD!

Where are you, Kevin? Someone told me it snowed somewhere nearby, but I can't remember where.

tonight I noticed lots of outdoor tables at restaurants were empty. in fact, they were all empty. tonight I went to trivia night at a tavern. not just because I am a geek but because my friend g. is a geek too. it was his idea. they asked about what prometheus did, the names of the three musketeers, the new portland trailblazers, the longest bridge, the biggest nuclear-power plants, the author of jaws, etc. we missed an astrology gimme, but me and my friend tied for second. and the other second-place team and the winning team had six players each, so I felt especially trivial. we got pez, john wayne videos, hot wheels, stickers and glow-in-the-dark "insects" (but also arthropods, reptiles, mollusks and arachnids). a hot night in portland.

A little bit north of Toronto, Leslie and hwy #7

last night in the trivia game I guessed that rush was from toronto, but apparently all we had to know was that they were from canada.

Would that trivia, by any chance, be NTN?

oh, is that the televised one they have in lots of bars? I've played that with my brother in the smokiest honky-tonk dive that a less-than-20-year-old suburb has ever seen. the one where the clues are puns and the more time you take, the fewer points you get?

but, no, this was a homemade thing.

I love to play that at bars,but I thought NTL,but I,m usually drunk,so I could be wrong,it,s too slow.

Dos NTN have a website by chance? Also, they have trivia on AOL. I would like to know if they ask the same questions at the same time as they ask them in the bar.

http://www.ntn.com/ I think they do.

my team came in second again at trivia night this week. I brought on a new player, whom i didn't think would be much help, but she knew where the caesar salad was "invented." (tijuana.) it's in the mid-70s in portland, oregon, today. it's so smoggy and so beautiful.

can I please, please, please correct myself? it was a very short post. WHO, not WHOM. thank you!

in my women studies class they said that women are more likely to fuck up grammar such as the usage of who or whom, or I or me. Suzy Fauludi says "It's because dem bitches whom be dumb."

men are more likely to fail it all together

what's fuckin' ya up is that yer thinkin' yer the subject of the sentence - i didn't think she would be much help. here's the strategy i use: put mental commas into the sentence so it reads "who, i didn't think, would be much help." it ain't 'cause bitches is dumb, it's 'cause they got somethin' ta say dammit!

Grammar mistakes by gender would seem to be an area of study for cognitive psychologists rather than gender theorists, because it seems that you'd need to run systematic experiments to gather that kind of data rather than rely on intuition or something. Unless the gender theorists got their info. from the cognitive psychologists. That would be an acceptable explanation. This may seem nit-picky but it's not. You have no idea how many mistaken "facts" are made and profligated by people who think they know a little about psychology, sociology, etc. Too much is based on anecdotes and personal observations, and not enough on empirical studies. (One of my professors has "the plural of anecdote is not evidence" on his office wall.) Experiments whose results have been consistently replicated are really the most reliable sources of trustworthy data. Not that you care or anything. I just thought you needed to know.

Did I just write that? GOD, i need a vacation. It's kind of cold here. About time, too. Since when did summer last until the first week of October? And begin in April? All I'm saying is we'd better get another week-long big-ass blizzard this year or I'm moving to Finland.

honey it's 90+ degrees, summer is in full effect out here tell me about the leaves turning, tell me about the rustle of trees, tell about the breeze in fall, tell me what i miss

thanks, grammar fuck. I realized my error as soon as I posted it. it's ok to misuse "who" but not "whom."

This morning at sunrise it was about 40 degrees out. There was frost on the grass, mostly in the depressions made by footprints the night before, and I could see my breath as I walked across campus. The air had that enticing damp leaf smell. No one's made any bonfires around here that I can tell, which is unfortunate, because nothing smells so good on a cold fall morning than the smell of burning leaves. The tree right outside my window is a large maple whose leaves are so orange to say it looks like it's on fire isn't doing it justice. Right now I'm listening to people kick through its fallen leaves as they walk on the sidewalk. I leave my window open at night so that in the morning the room is freezing but under the covers it's nice and warm. It got up to around 60 today. I'm waiting for it to become jacket weather. Yesterday, though, it rained, and it was quite cold, with a wind strong enough to strain your hold on your umbrella. The rain turned all the tree trunks black, so the leaves looked even more vibrant. In other words, it was an absolutely perfect day. Waffles, if you give me a mailing address, I can send you some leaves to bring back your memories.

i love it why psycheads talk as if psychology is a science. yeah, it is arrived at through the study of data. you don't need to be a snake oil saleswoman to figure out how often women misuse whom or get "I" and "Me" wrong.

I'm so uptight. I just got a get-stoned-and-fuck offer from an old friend in seattle and I think I'm not going to consider it just because the guy can't spell. him: "how the hell are you. BTW, you looked quite yummy in yer self portraits... keep up the good work. maybey we'll fuck one day" me: "I'm going to be in seattle halloween weekend. do you know of any good parties? I like to fuck." him: "'Free Seattle Radio, a micro pirate radio gig i am a part of, will be broadcasting from the wheelhouse of the KALAKALA (a modernist 1934 ferry boat). It will be a costume ball with live music, DJs, ballroom dancing and graphic projection by HPX.' Wanna come? gotta place to stay here in town?" the last line almost makes up for the ridiculous spelling error. so subtle.

"i love it why psycheads talk as if psychology is a science." that "is" should be "were." don't you know when to use the subjunctive mood, girlfriend?

who gives a rats ass, we understand you regardless ohhhhh Rhi, that email awakens me.....i remember it so well, that smell, it's like sound travels easier through cold air, it seems you can hear trains more in the cold, i remember walking out at night, you can hear the low grrrrrrrrrrrrr far off in the distance.....the shuffle of leaves under your feet, the smell, YES i know the smell ....to me it came from my parent's wood burning stove.......the twighlight, the breeze rustling the leaves above, a cigarette tastes much better when its cold, it's warm, you can see your breath, the chill, the comfort and ease of light jacket weather, it's a thin enough jacket not to be bulky yet I have extra pockets....mine is called a mr. two-ply...the two front breasts pockets are actualy double lined pockets to make 4 poeckets total, hence the "two-ply"...it's like a grease monkey jacket, with a pen holder...........the pockets are the best........california does cool off nicely in the evenings though, it's in the 60s when you wake up, i hate that naked dash from the bed to the shower, thank god the wifey gets up first and has it running when it's my turn..............the sound of the furnace on those colder nights, the soothing sound, it's relaxing, when you hear it come on, you grin, you know it's gonna get even more and more warm......i am lucky, i have another body to warm up too..........i have to say....i truly would be lost if i didn't have the other warm naked body to wrap around..........it's bonus folks that should never be taken for granted,....

i am not sure why i said email...i was thinking of the email with my address that I am going to send you I suppose

"i love it why psycheads talk as if psychology is a science." the why should be when. drogas muy mal.

I'm a psychhead?! Better than psycho, I guess, though that's also true. Waffles: How could I forget about the trains? The station is about 2 blocks from here. The last 3 years I had rooms on the other side of the building, facing the train station, and I could hear the whistles late into the night. That's one of the saddest sounds you'll ever hear. I don't hear them that often this year, which also makes me sad. Walking at night, too. The stars seem brighter when it's cold. Sometimes in the winter I go walking without my coat at night just to be cold and feel my bones hurt. Once, when I was walking at night, I thought "windows like candy eyes"...i thought that was a neat phrase, but it doesn't really make sense, so i never used it anywhere. but it's true, they are like yellow eyes. I also liked looking through the windows to see how other people had decorated their rooms. Lots of people have good taste around these parts. You know what else this time of year reminds me of? Two years ago, I took a class in Roman culture, which I loved. I also kind of had a little crush on my professor, who was young and so refined. And good-looking. And married. Anyway, we had to turn in papers every week, and I couldn't stand to give them to him in person, so I would write them late on Wednesday nights and then run across campus to slip them under his office door before the building closed at midnight. It was always so cold out when I did this. And I always felt like a thief sneaking into the empty office building. So between the cold and the fear of getting caught and the fact that it was *his* office building (sad, I know. I apologize) it was a pretty thrilling experience all around.

it should in fact be: i love it why psycheads talk like psychology was a science or somethin'. i mean, shit...ya know? amo drogas. son muy buenos.

At least you didn't misspell "grammar." You're not hopeless yet.

My Grammar is in the kitchen baking me cookies.

"i love it why psycheads talk as if psychology is a science." Nate, go fuck the French. Then fuck yourself. Have a nice day, everybody! :-)

Good heavens, Miss Yakimoto, you're beautiful!

i gave up on the humanities my first years as a sociology major........

wow, another psycheeheehead? i can scientifically prove that psychology is not a science. that goes for sociology, too.

precisely why I gave up on it, just a collection interesting ideas, very little that is actually concrete

the whole thing about the pseudologies is that they're fundementally flawed and based on generalities. you can spin statistics in any direction you care to, and the pseudologies are based on spun statistics.

their are too many unpredictable factors involved.....working class A in country X will not react to social stimuli in the same manner that working class B in country Y.............too many variables. However i do find alot of the theories interesting,

THERE

Of course *ologies are flawed 64% of all people know that

Screw the psyche shit. Waffles-- When I walked to work last night, the whole walk was amazing. I walked out my door expecting a very cold breeze since the winds were whipping around. Yet, I was dumbfounded by the warm wind that was blowing with a fever pitch. This is a prelude to Halloween? It was confusing as well desireable. For almost all the trees are bare and all the signs of a late fall surround me. Warm wind...late fall...what gives? I have never experienced anything like it. Maybe it was a freak of nature to remind me that there is no constant. I heard the Northern lights were spectacular Thursday night. I have yet to see them, that happens when one goes to work at dusk.

Well Pink is still here,whee does Pink live to see the lights?

Dammit! I can never see the lights. Like I said, going to work at dusk or later( since winter is coming upon us ) I have yet to see the lights. To me, they must be a miraculous sight. I have seen 20+ shooting stars in an hour while driving, no Northern lights. Only in Wisconsin. I hate this fucking territory. Out west, J, out west. Someday.

Waffles, your little gift is in the mail. Northern lights: I have watched meteor showers in the desert. Truly a mind-boggling, soul-shaking experience. I imagine the Northern Lights to be all that and more. Don't you need to be up in Alaska / northern Canada to see them?

Not necessarily....on ocasion we get to see them in southern Ontario. When it happens you call all of your friends so they can see them as well. Best viewing is from a field out in the middle of nowhere so the lights from the town/city don't interfere The Northern Lights are spellbinding!!!!

your the best Rhi

YOU'RE

;)

I just figured out how to pronounce "Antigone". I knew it was a girl's name, but I never knew it sounded so girly.

Girly and proud of it, babe. And how do you know I'm a psycho, Nate? I might just think you should fuck yourself. You're right, though. I've got a BA in psych. (It was the degree that was easiest to get after taking one of every kind of class for two years.) What I liked about it best was that it admitted being a probabalistic science, down to it's very core. The results of every study was (and is...) described in terms of the probability that they're chance. So I chuckle when people like yourself try to tear it down by saying that it's not "hard science." The proper psychologist's response should be, "Duh!" I still think you should fuck yourself, though. And save some jizz for the French.

Antigone, you sweet man, don't let the bastards grind you down. You're in Texas, right? What's the weather like down there?

Great! It's perfect motorcycle weather. You're in Phily, right? I'll be there in thanksgiving, you know. Also, listen to your local public radio station, WHYY. On occaion you'll hear my sister doing news reports...

Damn, I'll be in NY for Thanksgiving...so close! I listen to WHYY sometimes and my mom does all the time (that's NPR, right?). Who's your sister?

I'll let you guess...

whyy in philadelphia. yeah, that's a public radio station. I think that's where they record that npr show, "the world."

antigone's sister is ismene.

i'll be in new york for christmas. what a rush. seems that the majority of spelling and grammatical errors in this particular place, if we use sorabji.com as our test group,come from the men. unless they are all really women, which is feasible. i suppose now is the time for some smartass to comment on my failure to capitalize anything.

Antigone: I listened to WHYY this morning...Nina Totenberg (sp?)?

Pink - no Northern Lights here? Fuck that noise. We got some pretty specatcular ones last year up in Da UP. I remeber one that was Purple, red, blue and green, Huge crisp sheets of shimmering light. We were at a bonfire on the Lake Superior shoreline smoking fat blunts and drinking jagermeisster, which enhanced the effect. Like strong acid, it was. i miss that. I also miss the maples, It's all oak down here, whcih just turns brown.

Oh no, not Nina! My sister is a local reporter and has the same last name I do. (Is that too much of a hint?)

Well, seeing as I don't know your last name, it isn't a hint at all! Is she usually on during a particular time slot? (I really don't listen to any radio very often -- though I might start now that my mom just told me Paul Auster's going to be giving talks on NPR regularly -- so it would help if I knew when to turn it on.) This is becoming a research project!

Actually, you do know my last name. And my first name. It's all posted on these boards... And I don't know what times she's on. I assume she's played whenever the local news is played. She did have a spot on Marketplace last Thursday, though. It was the one about Russian rock music.

I was going to say "marketplace" instead of "the world" as the one that's done at whyy, but I though "marketplace" was produced at some economics school at a university in the southwest. I couldn't have just thought that up.

Sem-- I can understand chomping on a fatty, but gaggermeister? Sorry to hear you're surrounded by oaks. Nasty variety of tree. My parents have all oaks on their property, well a birch and 2 pines also make up the fauna. Yet, they have oak every god damn 10 feet in Stoughton. These trees should be cut down on the spot! Worthless( during the fall ). I forget how often they drop acorns...every 2 years? I don't know but they are a messy species. Dad, who certainly enjoys blowing the leaves with a vengeance, STILL bitches every year about the small twigs that fall to the lawn. Now that's all I hear during fall since the Alzheimer's has predestined him to be the "yard man" and there's always an explanation for what he's doing now, reasons why. I hear the same yard stories each time I go down. It doesn't bother me anymore. That man has his lawn looking spotless each time I go to see them. Mom shakes her head when it comes to anal lawn practices with him. But that's what makes him happy, that's what keeps him busy. Geezuz, he's doing the neighbor's property also( she moved out ). All that I have to say is never fuck with someone who keeps the lawn looking spectacular, free of debris. If you do irritate 'em, you'll have a leaf blower conjoined with your ass.

agatha, you mentioned something very interesting...the mispelling/gender statement......why is that? I would agree with yiu but i think therea re some grounded reasons for that, and I refer back to Nate's ideas about reverse sexism in the class room..........ya think?

furthermore.....how many guys here took a typing class in highschool? women here? I was in a typing class for one day, looked at the agenda, looked at the keyboard, looked at the teacher and asked ,myself why is this important? I opted for the sculpture class instead that semester....

I am willing to bet that all the spelling mistakes you see in these posts and elsewhere on the web don't show up in the same folks handwriting. (ie, they're typing mistakes)

if you think my spelling here is bad, you should see my penmenship......i was in a special penmenship class all through elementary school, they confirmed my brain moves faster than my hand can keep up with , often leaving out words all together........

everyone's brains move faster than their hands

true but perhaps I am too impatient to wait for it.... I AM impatient

I took typing. I still type pretty slowly, but I don't have to look at my hands to do it. My favorite word to type is "power" because of where the letters are. power. And our typing manual was kind of neat because in the lists of nonsense words they gave us, there would be neat phrases that would pop up. One I remember was something like "burn it to name it"....on my practice pages I would type "burn it to name it. kill it to call it your own." I was always so melodramatic.

I would be willing to bet, girls were more encouraged to take these classes then their male counterparts, therefore sharpening their spelling and typing. Where as boys were more encouraged to take wood shop and classes of the sort......

old habits die very hard

no way no typing

I can generally tell the difference between typos and spelling errors. every sunday I make a whole lot of some tomato-based stew with lots of zucchini, peppers and broccoli. last week it was marinara sauce, no pasta. the week before it was chili. this week I'm having shrimp creole, minus the roux. next week I think I'll have to go back to chili and start the cycle over.

i see someone was paying attention during home eco

In my middle school, both girls and boys took industrial arts (wood shop, metal shop, and industrial design) and home ec (cooking and sewing). I made a nice lamp in metal shop that I still have in my room at home. I also made a footstool, a shelf, and a napkin holder with an embossed design. In industrial design we learned to silk-screen and to make linoleum stamps. Our metal shop teacher was named Charles Munson, so you know what we called him. He was a giant of a man, probably around 7 feet tall. He was also very nice and funny. In home ec, I made an apron (which I also still have), two stuffed animals (which I don't have), and lots of food. My quiche Lorraine was particularly good, if I remember right. I also remember getting harrassed worse by the boys in home ec than in industrial arts, probably because Mr. Munson didn't tolerate any of that shite, while Mrs. Clark never seemed to notice. And my table was RIGHT next to hers. And they were saying VERY graphic things...no deciphering needed. And my discomfort was quite visible, so it wasn't like you could think I was enjoying what was going on, as if anyone would think that to begin with. Mrs. Clark, you let me down.

I used to get harassed pretty heavily by the football team. I complained, but the school never took notice (I was a scholarship kid at a private school) Four years later, they developed a sexual harassment policy. I guess someone made an off-color remark to a rich girl or something.

thats usually the case Lucy, the seperation seemed more prevalent in high school. towards teh end of the year, some of the special classes like woodshop, drafting, typing, business etc etc came around and gave us little speeches on why we should humor them and their classes,

today I tried to eat a halloween-size rice krispie treat at work, but I couldn't. "this is BAD precedent," I thought after the first wonderful bite. so I threw the rest away. there's always free reese's pieces, hershey's bars, m-n-m's, three musketeers bars, rice krispie treats, and usually cinnamon rolls, maple bars, bagels with salmon cream-cheese spread, etc., as well. so I just can't start.

tried? what it didn't fit?

english class. end of fall semester. senior year of high school. some cretin who sat at my desk during another period wrote and drew all sorts of graphic misogynistic graffiti there. I was an uppity and naive feminist, and I started writing back to him about how he would never go to college and wasn't it too bad he was such a fucking retard and would be a failure his whole life. so. one day I get this note from the administration saying that I was supposed to meet my english teacher in her office after school. I didn't think much of it -- I thought maybe she was going to ask if she could read an essay of mine aloud in class again or something. but when I got there, she wasn't there, but my sophomore-year english teacher was. the one who told me she liked to consider herself my mentor. except today she wasn't interested in talking to me. she seemed mad. so then my english teacher showed up and told me she wanted me to clean every single desk in the classroom until all the ink was gone from every one. ok. fair enough. except where was everyone else, the other people who had contributed to other graffiti on the desk? what about all the other kids and all the "metallica"s on their desks? she told me that I knew better than to pick on people who weren't as bright as I was. that I had been cruel. I couldn't fucking believe it. this moron had started it, writing all this mean, disgusting stuff about women. and she felt sorry for him?!? if only I knew then what I know now. I never would have cleaned the desks. but then I did what I was told. when I got home I wrote her an 8-page-long letter about what a hypocrite she was. there was a student in our class who probably shouldn't have been placed with the honors kids, but she did try hard. she asked a lot of questions, and this idiot teacher, with her "hang in there" kitten posters on the wall, always sighed or rolled her eyes when this girl had something to say. I arranged to get transferred out of her class and put the letter in her box before she did the grades for the semester. it was a dare. if she didn't give me the a I had earned, I was going to take my complaint to the principal. but she did so I never got my showdown.

I could probably fit a whole rice krispie treat in my mouth at once. I can eat a foot-long subway sandwich in less than three minutes.

thats....uhmmmmm....REALLY amazing and furthermore lends it self to another whole line of question of which I will refrain from.....

i never took typing. i'm not sure why the grammar and spelling mistakes seem more male oriented. it doesn't make any sense to me. it's just something i noticed.

Mr. Barton: my quest for your sister's name has so far turned up naught. I heard the news twice today, both times with a national newscaster (Martin Somebody?). But my efforts were not entirely fruitless...I learned that Paul Auster, one of my favorite authors, is holding a short story contest...and I already have a short story on hand that I'm *cough* rather fond of....I just need to work up the nerve to send it in. What's your middle name? It's not Edward, is it?

If I told you that you'd be able to stalk me. Besides, this way I could still be the first U.S. gold medal winner in kayaking, and I'd like to preserve that small bit of potential notoriety.

I met a US gold medal winner in kayaking once. He was cool. As for grammar errors, women do tend to do better in language skills than men do. Oh, and, as for the sexual harassment, here's my story <selfindulgentwhinemode> (upon rereading, it's kind of upsetting... thought I should say something). The behavior that was tolerated at my high school was blatantly threatening, and specifically aimed at me (I had the geeky damnfem'nist ice maiden rep in high school and they were pretty vicious) One of the guys hit me during at least one episode. They would walk by and one of them would grab my ass. Whenever I tried to use the weightroom, they would gather around me and make blatantly obscene comments. Their favorite trick was to hold something (a freeweight or a screwdriver, or something) at crotch level and stroke it as if masturbating. The administration looked the other way, occasionally delivering a slap on the wrist. Btw: we didn't have home ec or shop, b/c they upheld traditional gender roles (but they didn't have a sexual harassment policy either) I suppose they preferred to divide along class lines. I was getting hassled for saying that I could damnwell join the football team if I wanted to (I didn't b/c it conflicted with cross country, which was my sport of choice, I ran with the boys' team and did pretty well b/c women are better at distance running than men) And for not being a useless, fashionable airhead. And for being awkward, and not giving a shit that I was awkward. The administration also looked the other way when I got death threats, in eighth grade, and they knew which richbrat did it... My parents involved the police b/c the administration wouldn't. The spoiled little parasite in question was never even mentioned. They also looked the other way when the girls would beat me up in the locker room (a couple times... the snooty little brats used to amuse themselves by throwing shoes at me... I am not making this shit up) They said "We can't do anything because there was no administrator present." Now, how many fights take place in front of an administrator? </selfindulgentwhinemode> My experience in high school probably did a good deal towards making me as left-wing as I am... I certainly saw a lot of examples of complete wastes of skin who got the full ride, everything they wanted, from cradle to grave, because they had a rich daddy.

Thats just awful Lucy,you should have got a lawyer and sued their miserable asses.If you remember any of their names,maybe it,s not to late to fuck with them.

i was gonna say the same thing.....give us names, we will do some research and launch "Operation High School Reunion".......just a name.....and perhaps a city, we will look them up and proceed to make their life hell.....

Man, fuck them... all they did was prove to me that the rich are a waste of skin, and I knew that. The thing that bugs me is that the administration condoned the behavior of these sick little yuppie larvae.

uh ok....sorry, we were just trying to offer some restitution..........geeeeeeze

Lucy, did you go to high school in Maryland? If so, where? Because, like, I went to a private school in Maryland (not one of the super chichi ones, of course). Until about 11th grade I had trouble (though nothing as wretched as you describe) because of my relatively disadvantaged socio-economic status. But in my school it actually got cool to be smart and poor in 11th grade and so me and Jill Zachary were IN (well, she was already in because she was really awesome and really...attractive...but not in that private school girl way...nevermind).

Firstly, Patrick, let me rephrase my earlier post. What I was trying to say was: Thank you for the sentiment and the offers of help, but the problem is systemic. Secondly, Margaret, I went to Friends. Great academics, but most of my classmates were hideous little parasites-in-training.

Firstly, Patrick, let me rephrase my earlier post. What I was trying to say was: "Thank you for the sentiment and the offers of help, but the problem is systemic." I apologize for any unintended offense. Secondly, Margaret, I went to Friends. Great academics, but most of my classmates were hideous little parasites-in-training.

oops. not a smooth editing process there. Sorry about that. And the damnedmachine ate my first two attempts.

Odd how high school social hierarchies work. In my high school (which was all girls, and STILL we were not free from harassment...from 2 of the male teachers, one of whom was asked to leave after I graduated because he was bringing in centerfolds and asking the girls [in the guise of sociological research] what they thought of the women's figures....when I had him for sociology, he made a point of asking each one of us if we had ever had sex with our fathers, to illustrate the incest taboo, of course) ...anyway, in my high school, you were cool if you were poor (both financially and academically). It was like a competition to see whose parents had to have the most jobs in order to make enough to enroll their kids in school. When we switched uniforms in 10th grade, all the cool kids still kept their old ugly brown ones and they would act snooty about it..."WE can't afford the new ones *sniff*." When I was in 11th grade, I turned down the chance to be in 12th grade English because I was already in AP chemistry and physics and 12th grade pre-cal, and I didn't want to have to deal with MORE comments. I didn't miss out on much...12th grade English was taught by a miserable old nun who gave me (when I finally had her in actual 12th grade) an 87% on my Edna St. Vincent Millay term paper because my margins were not exactly an inch (and there were pencil marks on the paper to show she had measured them with a ruler!). About my actual content she wrote: "good content." And the demoness who sat next to me got a 94%, even though she plagiarized her paper, because her margins were perfect but her page numbers were not exactly 1/2 inch from the top. I swear to God I'm not making this up. When we read "Pride and Prejudice" and "Jane Eyre" our tests were fill-in-the-blank. "Mr. Darcy's sister is named ___________." This was AP English! It was hell on earth. At lunch we were not allowed to walk near the cafeteria doors, as though they were fearing a prison break. We would get detentions for not having our shirts tucked in ("failure to promote a business-like atmosphere") and yet every year, the freshmen were forced to dress up like babies for a week as part of their initiation, and there were stuffed animals and kitten posters everywhere, and we were all forced to take child development and go on retreats that operated under the guise of religion but were all about friendship and girly SHIT. I wasn't allowed to do my History Day project on the Vietnam War because "it was too violent" and had to do it on the wretched QUAKERS instead. My class was PUNISHED by having to clean up all the garbage after the pep rally in my junior year when it was determined that we didn't have enough school spirit. Oh, the humanity! The only good thing was my women's studies class I took senior year. I and my best friend Lorraine were the only seniors in there....everyone else was fucking stupid...we were the only ones who knew what the word "terrorism" meant, for Christ's sake! But the cool part was when we got to write letters to our principal, pretending to be Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley critiquing our school, and MAN ALIVE did we go off!! Not unlike the way I did just now.

And the WORST part is, my mom teaches there...and the crap the teachers are put through by the administration is even worse than the crap they put the students through. Just last week she was called into the office and reprimanded for not eating with the rest of her colleagues...they said she doesn't "connect" enough. Well, why not? Sure, the bastards spend thousands every fall on crayons and stuffed animals and stupid shit for the TEACHERS, BUT when my mom asked for money to buy new TEXTBOOKS...nothing! She got in TROUBLE for wanting to raise the grade cut-off for 3rd and 4th year foreign languages...they said she was being ELITIST! Because she wants her students to do well! I've got to stop before I work myself up any more. Sorry about this, y'all.

Lucy, I know from Friends, if you mean the one on Long Island. My friend Jaques teaches there now, and for four years, I worked as staff for a four day wilderness/adventure retreat that the ninth graders went on in Connecticut. Most of the kids were pretty spoiled, but there were a few who were tolerable.

Lucy: Baltimore Friends, Sandy Spring Friends? I know a couple of people who went to Baltimore Friends...well, I knew 2 people and one of them died. So I just know one person now. I went to the Key School. Graduated in 1985. At least neither of us went to McDonough.

Baltimore Friends. Don't get me wrong, we had some great teachers (and a couple of lousy ones), but the administration was a disgrace, and the students were vile, spoiled, stupid, inbred aristocrats.

The two people I know/knew are: Remy Johnston (deceased) John Berndt (alive) I believe both are from wealthy families. John Berndt, though, does not fit the profile of your torturer...I think.

jesus Rhi, you catholics are wacky. Being so enlightend yourself I just don't understand how you align yourself with that..... My high school was racially and economically charged. We had black students bussed in from the southside of Raleigh, we were the richest high school in the district...WTF? I guess they figured we had the most resources to share, but these bussed in kids seemed miserable. They spent more time harassing the weaker whiteys, the ones who kept to themselves than doing anything else productive, or so it seemed. I had about 3 close friends. We took as many art classes as possible and spent as much time smoking as we could. We were disgusted by the majority. In the age of Pearl jam and Nirvana and "alternative culture" there were so many who sought to align themeselves with people like myself and my friends because we had been "freaks" since middle school....they wanted to identify, but they never seemsed to understand our humor, or sarcasm or why we felt the pep rallys fascist. They didn't understand the humor we found in taking grandpas codeine in French class and vomitting all over himself....(not me but my buddy)...they didn't see the humor in taking acid, and walking the halls with "spot vision".....or taking a German verbal test that same day (of which I passed with flying colors (literally) thank you very much)....they didn't get it.....they didn't get anything...they just got the new cabriolette, the cheerleading squad etc etc ...... Eventually some assholes started to harass and intimidate, the picked fights. they would block us from leaving the parking lot, one time my close friend was fed up and pulled a razor blade on the douchebag that was sticking his hands in the car trying to take a swing....as we were pulling away. After a hearing, my friend was allowed to stay in school after numerous people including several teachers vouched for him and insisted that he was one of the brightest student in theschool and he was being ousted because of a failing system. I even wrote a 3 page letter to the superintenedent to make sure he finsihed school. He did...he is one of the smartest people i know......we were escapists, isolationists. We were completely content in smoking as much pot as we could and playing extremely loud and distorted music in my friends basement after school, either that or we would have serious rounds of Uno or Street Fighter....riding motorcycles extremely fast on country roads.......we were perfectly content reading Vonnegut or Sartre or whatever during lunch or in math class......so many wanted to reach out, we were a mystey, i was more outspoken than the 3 or 4 of my friends, i was more friendly, but once i was crossed i never went back, and I was crossed by people i trusted initially...my respect comes easy, but once I am disrespected i never go back...........I was fortunate to have decent teachers, especially my AP US History teacher who was ironically a coach as well, but he was really great in the classroom. My art teachers were lax with me about being late or whatever,and also gave me a lot of encouragement. The recognized our minds and they understood that we didn't see the importance of report cards, punctiality or detention....i loved art detention, we got to work on our assignments......I had a psychology teacher that busted our balls, in a scared straight kinda way, he shed the puritanical nature most teachers had, he didn't take "shit" "fuck" "damn" "hell" from anyone, either angry parents or teachers because he used these words.......he shook us up and brought us back down, he played with our reality,he encouraged us to be individuals and fight the socialization of high school, he demonstrated that beast.."high school" he used concrete examples to show us how not to be caught, swept and fooled by that enitity...to fall the pressures of peers.....ahh hell i could ramble, i will spare you..... Lucy , you had it rough, and I appreciate it and I understand why at times you can be alittle combative, I can say I would be the same way....

either of you girls know a Jennifer McCullough? just checking

patrick you are so cool

your aggression towards me is undaunting and unfounded....don't be an ass or at least be interesting and amusing with it

...ahh hell i could ramble, i will spare you..... amusing... let's see... plot for a made for tv movie? i don't care if i'm not daunting i guess i'm just tired of exhaltation of the obvious the truth- on one hand i'm playing a 'i'm cooler than you' role by stating that exclaiming that your story would be the "known" to all of us who have been in any somewhat similar position- so yes, that's lame of me on the other hand- anyone who would have an issue with what you said wouldn't say anything because of having to go through all this- i don't even know what got into me just now for starting this and fuck you, i don't have to explain myself tell me what you're doing now. say something provocative

He,s too busy being provocative right now.

Hey, maybe she genuinely liked what you said about yourself! You've said before that you thought you and I had similar high school experiences...it does sound like that. I had an AP History teacher that I loved, too. He was an ex-Army man...didn't take any garbage from anybody, gave the best lectures, was really fair in grading, gave us neat projects to do. He was a great teacher. When we were seniors and in that women's studies class, Lorraine and I would bring our Virginia Woolf and John Stuart Mill and Betty Friedan to the lunch table and force everyone around us into join in our conversations. That was interesting. Invariably this one girl would always ruin it....she always had this tone in her voice...like she was so impressed with herself for carrying on a philosophical conversation or something. She once said she hoped to be written up in the newspaper one day, just because she wanted to see her name in print. I told her I could have that arranged. She thought I was serious...I was thinking more along the lines of an obituary. Ah, nostalgia.

Oh, whoops. That little optimism at the beginning....heh. See what happens when I take too long to post?

i think heather just has a crush on patrick.

probably anxiety about my review next week (my crush is on rhiannon)

heather why are you being such an ass, it's really mucking up the boards with your pessimistic bullshit.......

Oh, you rascal. I'm blushing. There's been too much positivity coming my way lately. What do I have to do to get insulted around these parts?

Damn it again! I've got to practice my speed typing.

(Need I say I'm kidding about the insults? My skin's too thin to catch some mud you people sling around here.)

rhiannon, it was positivity toward you patrick is spiraling out of control or taking me too seriously

probably the latter.....and I am not out of control, it's a neat little airal trick i like to do, it is usually a real crowd pleaser but at times, folks are unsure if I am really going down

yes. finally.

Heather: Aw. Don't make me come over there! (BTW, thanks for the compliment.) Patrick: You know how hard it is for *me* to tell when you're being straight and when you're being sarcastic... When all we're given is words -- no facial expressions or tones of voice -- it's easy to misunderstand what you (and others) say, so that's just a risk you have to take when you whip out the old sarcasm, ya know?

Something I just noticed, way back in one of Cyst's early posts: Rush is from Canada? I thought they were British.

reading Lucy's story reminded me of the DK tune "Jock-O-Rama". I think that schools are set up to reinforce the social herarchy, of course. I also think that the ones that aren't destroyed by the smelting fires of peer disapproval and mentor indifference come out the other end as burnished steel. rock on, lucy and those who got sexually harassed in school (myself included).

Spoken like a true Rollins fan. But you can't leave us like that...what's your harassment story?

rhiannon - rush is definitely from canada. we got that question right. last night at trivia night we sucked. we tied with a bunch of people for third so they randomly chose a team to give the third-place prize to, but it wasn't us. however, the team to whom I gave a box of cake mix last week (it was one of our prizes), they made it and brought it to the bar last night. it was pretty good. lemon.

if it is so hot there, how about some hot pussy, I love to eat and lick pussy, any nice looking girls want to cum im my mouth? let me know. I will also let you suck on my long dick and I will cum in your mouth too. No charge. I love sex!

That just makes me so hot,call me at 314-629-2941 ask for Dani and say the secret code"slob on my nob" so I know it's you. I'll be wetting for your call.

How comes all your messages are well out of date

aaah! the matrix!!!!

What happened to all the posts between Gerry and wisper?

I don't know... But it claims I've posted here, and I know I haven't... Someone call Sorabji, one of us broke the forums.

Augh!!!!!!

holy crap, i couldn't see anything on this thread after "Gerry on Tuesday, August 5, 2003 - 07:11 pm" and the 24 hour search said there were many posts after that, and now that i posted i can only see Gerry, then me, then you guys. If i clicked on anyone after Gerry (but before i posted) it would take me to BigKev's post at the begining. this thread is haunted!!

trippy... one of my VERY early posts... man was i a kid then. reading that totally took me back..

Rhiannon aka Spider sending me that leaf was very sweet.

Wehn I first met you didn't realize I can't forget you for your surprise You introduced me to my mind And left me wanting you and your kind i love you, oh you know it.

alright now

god what the hell was up with me?

the "patrick moment" strikes once more!

i really wish old threads had a self-destruct date implanted in their code. you know. say.....6 months after the last post. 'poof'

Kazoo would have a serious disagreement with that.

So you turn GAY after 6 months?...WOW!

poof?

Now was that a cool comment or what?