I Wanna Be Sedated

And you would too, my pretties, if you spent your days in my head! Warning: More foul language ahead. See, I'm 41 years old and I only swear in my car, with my friend Cheri and on my blog. Ok, sometimes in the house too. So I feel like hey, it's MY BLOG, I can say what I want to...nah nah nah!

Ok, so some more random stuff, and a report from The Future of America. Ole!

1) Who the F-U-C-K DOES KANYE WEST THINK HE IS? And if you've ever seen his blog (I don't read it but do go on sites where they cut and paste it) he has a PROBLEM with TURNING OFF HIS CAPS KEY. The seriously egotistical mofo cannot type in lower case. I really despise him. Every other second he is talking about how GREATTTTTTTTT he is! He thinks he is some kind of GOD!!!!!!!! Plus, did you see his freaking hair at the Inauguration? Dude is sporting a MULLET! A black mullet, but a mullet. He is DELUSIONAL. I mean, really, SEEK PSYCHIATRIC HELP IMMEDIATELY. It's nothing to be ashamed of, asshole. I only WISH I had 1/10th of that idiot's ego! He is greater than the Beatles AND Jesus AND Buddha AND Mohammad. I want to break into his house, find his computer and steal the CAPS LOCK key. He will FREAK the HELL OUT and NO ONE will have to read his INSANE ramblings anymore.

2) YOU MUST WATCH THIS VIDEO! There's a video on the web of Anderson Cooper (my gay boyfriend) doing his news show the day after the Inauguration. I love Anderson profoundly - so part of me is MORTIFIED for him. And yet part of me laughs my ass off watching it. He is either SO HUNG OVER or still SO WASTED from all the partying he cannot form one coherent sentence. Actually I think he is just tired as hell. He's been doing Regis and Kelly, filling in for Regis, so I imagine he's getting up at 4am and has to do his evening broadcast. Anywho...this is by far the worst broadcast I have ever seen from a journalist. It's humiliating to watch - yet like the proverbial car accident, you cannot take your eyes and ears away. And yet, and yet....he fucks up almost every single word so badly you just want to poke your own eyes out with white-hot pokers and pour acid in your ears. And then listen to it again and again in utter awe - because it's ANDERSON COOPER! It's Mr. Katrina - Mr. War Zone, Mr. Serious and he has taken the Hangover Train to work when he shoulda stayed home in bed with the hair o' the dog and his boyfriend giving him some hangover TLC...



3) It rained pretty much all day here. This would've been something I could have enjoyed, had it not been for the fact that the dildos at the middle school I went to today split my job - I taught 6th grade English until period 4 on one side of the campus, then was sent to a 7th grade math class on the opposite side of the campus with a map designed by Helen Keller. So I am walking around with my heavy purse, bag, map, sub folder and umbrella, feet soaking wet...asking every single human being I see "Do you know where room B-2 is?" Finally a teacher tells me it's behind the M building. Well of course, I should've known that. It makes perfect sense. I mean, the A building is there, and the C building, and silly me, I thought the B building would be close by, but they tucked it into a vacant spot 62 miles away from the main campus. Probably so no one can ever hear the screams of substitute teachers.

4) I'm sure all of these students think the alphabet goes like this "A, M, C, B..."

5) As I was leaving today (trying so desperately NOT to run out of the office screaming "NEVER AGAIN! AS GOD IS MY WITNESS NEVER AGAIN!") I actually heard a TEACHER say this. I swear on the lives of my beautiful pussy cats, he actually said this sentence:

"I heard there aren't going to be no layoffs." Just let the words sink in for a moment. Say the sentence over in your mind a few times.

A little background. First L.A. was going to lay off 2500 probationary teachers. Now they've changed their minds. Because every LAUSD teacher is SO valuable, so bright, intelligent, articulate, inspiring and necessary, that even if this state does go bankrupt, we CANNOT LET ONE PRECIOUS TEACHER GO. Especially ones as articulate and linguistically mannered as this gentleman. I know I'm a grammar freak - but really, where do we draw the line? This man is employed as an educator and he speaks like this? I felt like screaming "MOTHER OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS! Do you always use double negatives and talk like you've just left the hood? Is this how you speak to your students?" HE HAS A JOB and I DON'T?????? He's Hispanic. That's how the kids in my English class were speaking. Double negatives were flying all over the place. I tried to correct them but it's like a wall is up; they don't care. What does it matter? It's how all their homies fly, dude.

I stood there just looking at him, in utter horror. Now here's where some of you might get offended, and I am sorry, but this is what I have experienced both living and working in L.A. I have always tried my best to be fair to the Mexicans, legal or not, but if you want to see the future of this country, come to L.A. and you will cry tears of hot, bitter tecate sauce. Every single school I go to - I might as well be in Mexico. All the teachers and administrators are Latino/Latina. I feel like the Evil White Woman. The kids come from a culture where education is by and large not valued. They are pregnant at 15, in gangs, on drugs, having sex, in foster care and those that are good, smart kids are present, but they are far and few between. My students today had to write one paragraph on their favourite pie - and I've seen better spelling from first graders. I could barely read the 'essays.' The lack of motivation is palpable. One foul-mouthed trouble maker in a math class say "I've got to get edumacated." The foul, filthy language was just par for the course, no pun intended. They threaten each other, talk about being glad some guy was murdered and just make up answers on their math worksheets. Bits of conversation I overheard today:

"Fuck you faggot."
"Come over here you stupid motherfucker and I'll kick your ass."
"Fucking mother fucking bitch."
"Shut up you bitch!"

What the fuck do these kids think is going to happen to them when - no, IF - they even graduate from high school? There aren't even enough McDonald's to employ them. This is the future of this city. California has seen MAJOR white flight and really, people even dare to ask WHY? This state is BANKRUPT. I don't care if L.A. was made up of Bolivians - a city cannot handle this many people in the system - people who take far more than they give back. Yes, we need our gardeners and maids and cooks and hotel cleaning ladies...but there are ONLY SO MANY OF THOSE JOBS TO GO AROUND. We are going to have a culture of fucking IDIOTS - and there's not gonna be enough welfare to keep these people fed. An entire city cannot be low-wage service employees. It won't work.

My heart breaks when I see families that just want a BETTER LIFE. But they don't learn English, they don't participate in their kids' schooling, they don't even NEED to learn English. I was in a part of L.A. today where every single sign was in Spanish. There's no incentive to learn English. They never needed to adapt to America; America is changing for THEM.

Here was the BEST - I mean the absolute fucking BEST part of my day. After the students in the math classes finished their worksheets, the teacher told me to show them a video. I don't know what I thought the video was - something moderately educational perhaps? No. You want to know what he shows his classes? A show from Tru TV called "Most Shocking: Wild Animal Encounters." We saw: a pit bull literally chew off the hand of an animal control officer. A man in Spain get trampled and thrown around like a rag doll by a bull. A LITTLE GIRL locked in a cage with a crazed monkey that chewed her left leg to pieces. She screamed and screamed and screamed, running around trying to get out. The kids thought this was hysterical. We saw a stallion go wild, a man try to rope it, and get kicked in the head by the horse. Repeatedly. There was so much more. The first time I played it, I literally stood there in utter shock. Am I still that naive? I guess so. THIS IS APPROPRIATE MATERIAL FOR THESE KIDS? This is how this teacher feels instructional time is best spent? And I'm sure this fuck has tenure, and Jimmy Fuckin' Hoffa himself would come back from the grave to defend this teacher's "union rights."

Violence against animals and people. What did this have to do with math? I am so, so, so, so, so tempted to write the new Superintendent, the L.A. Times, my local radio show (the DJ's despise LAUSD and the union) and tell them THIS IS WHERE OUR TAXES ARE GOING. Our tax money is going to pay teachers like this to show these kinds of videos to his students. Of course I'd have to be so stinking anonymous about it or I'll never get a teaching job ANYWHERE for being a rat and anti-union. Not that I would even consider working at a hellhole like the place I was at today. Both teachers I subbed for - also Hispanic. I don't think they even care if you speak Spanish anymore - I really think to get a job you have to be a certain, um, race.

I am, utterly and completely defeated. I am there right now for the money. That is all. I do not believe I can make a difference, I do not want to make a difference. I want out, out, out. The last three years have been a long, sad road for me. And I still don't know where I'm going to end up.

I've depressed myself so much I'm going to bed. Oh, one more thing..

6) I saw the head shrinker last night. After a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong discussion, he's given me a fairly new drug to try. I don't want to get into it here; it freaks me out though because some of the side effects are really scary. It's times like these I hate my own brain and just want it to get back on track so I won't have to fill it and my body with these g-damn chemicals. Why can I be normal?

Ha.