The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains High School Literature

Madame Bovary

So I come back to school this fall and I look at my schedule and there's this "Advanced Novel" course or something and I'm like all "What happened to Mechanics III?" and the counselor's all "You have to repeat Math since you flunked it last year and so your schedule didn't work" and I'm all "But this is like some AP course" and he's all "If you limited your weed to weekends you could probably do it" and I'm all "Whattya mean, I don't smoke any..." and he's all "Do I look like I was born yesterday" and I figure that's a good time to shut up and then he says apparently from some sort of IQ test I took back before the recreational smoking got outta hand I scored "Well into the slightly above average test range".

So here I am. And it's full of hella smart kids and the first thing they make us read is Madame Bovary. And I'm like all "Woo-hoo--it's short". That's the only good thing to say about it.

In this course we have to look for all this symbolicisms and stuff. So I figure the title's a symbol cause it sounds like 'bovine' and 'ovary' and it made me think of what my mom says when I go in and outta the house when I'm working on my car--did I ever tell you I bought a 69 Plymouth Duster this summer? It's bitchin' and I'm gonna put a shift kit in it but I'm gettin' kinda pissed at some of my so-called friends who sneak into the driveway at night and pull all the spark plug cables off the distributor cap--Do you know anybody who's got their firing order memorized to put those things back? Oh wait--

Yeah, so when I keep goin' in and out of the house my old lady's all "Close the door--were you born in a barn?" So I say something about the whole "Bovary is bovine ovary" and the smart AP French girls start arguing and one calls me an idiot and then the other says something about this guy named "Tuvache" and then the first one yells at her in French and one of them says "No, you're a cow".

Anyway, this Emma chick is all "I want a life like the romance novels" and then she marries this doctor but he's crappy so soon she's all "Life sucks" and then she's a whore. Well, and she has a kid and then the kids says "Mommy pay attention to me" and she's all "No, I'm busy being a whore."

And then she gets sick but really just her boyfriend ditched her (well and maybe she had the hep) and her husband is all "poor baby" but she's just skanky but he's too stupid to know. (Kinda like if Homer Simpson was a doctor and married Vegas Mom only instead of Marge.)

But then she gets better cause she has other guys and he's all still "I'm stupid and a crappy doctor" and she's all "I have to shop and buy more stuff" and he's all "okay dear" and she's all "I have to go to another town for music lessons but really I'm having an affair there" and he's all "Okay but I met your music teacher and she didn't know you" and she's all "Shut up stupid it's someone with the same name" and he's all "d'oh".

And then I think she dies. But not of bovarian... Ouch. Somebody just smacked me in the head with their book. I hate this class.

Nanowrimo

It's very close to that time again folks--National Novel Writing Month.

Just as I have Amelia to thank (or blame) for getting me started on blogging a few years ago, I can thank Camila for introducing me to this event, which I rather foolishly attempted in 2005. (I was trying to complete a masters and working full time and... well, it was silly of me.)

I think maybe I got about 1/4 through and crashed.

Back then I, as many others do, created an online location where my novel was posted as it was being created. I shared it only with others doing the same thing, and maybe one or two privileged souls. I remember reading the one that Camila had written the year before (what was she, maybe 11?) and thinking it very good.

This time I'm ready. At least I like to think so. It's a marathon of words and I feel like I have a little better idea of how to start this grind. Plus--no masters.

I invite you to consider joining me in this adventure. The website, if you want to sign up is nanowrimo.org.

I don't know who of my nano "buddies" will be doing it again this year; I know Camila has said she's on board, and I suspect that Katie H. will be finding art school too crazy busy to allow the time. As for Bayley, well, I have sent her a message but I don't know.

But there are others among you. If she were not leaving for India during the month, this would be a great thing for Milly to try during her year off school. I think, from what I've read, that 'neuroticmom' could do a biting satire behind the scenes of a legal office, and I think 'Jourdan' is also someone whose skills would be up to the challenge.

I don't know if Jenny P. could turn road rage into a full length book :P
or if Berkeley G's dysfunctional roommate anectdotes would provide enough fodder for this sort of project.

If Ella still visits, I think her work stories alone would fill a book, and her adolescence yet another.

Dustin, based on your improv, I think you might be able to pull it off (and maybe turn it into English credit to make up for unavoidable class absences).

If I haven't mentioned you, that doesn't mean I don't extend the invitation.

Think about it.

I'm not sure how free I'll be with the address of wherever I end up posting my novel attempt. I will, of course, give it to anyone else attempting their own, and hope that they reciprocate.

I could just create a new blog with this i.d., then all you'd have to do is check my profile and there it would be. Alternately, I could use the profile of another, less public writing place, but then anyone who finds the novel gets that. Hmm.

Likely I'll make it available to anyone who visits here.

The gauntlet is down.

Yeah we are

And if the weather stays the way it's been this week, this has to be true.

Y'all come visit sometime.

(and oops--I posted this in the wrong place first)

day after summer

I know it's been three CCC posts in a row. I'm also not feeling those posts as much--I want to write them, but then they feel too long and all the same to me. I think I'm actually in the right mindframe for Nanowrimo to start in a little over a week.

Weird news from the mainland last week. Drug shooting leaves six dead in an apartment building, but two were innocent bystanders--one of whom was just a gas repair guy there to fix a fireplace. No signs that they've got any good leads on the killers, just that it's gang related.

Also, a small plane crashes into a 15 story condo building. Turns out the pilot, who was flying by himself, was 82 years old. I don't even think most amateur pilots of any age are wise to fly alone, and I wouldn't trust my father or my father in law--both 82--to drive a car in rush hour, never mind fly around one of the busiest airports in the country.

I guess people who didn't think to buy insurance weren't counting on this.

Yesterday set a temperature record for that date in October. It was around 20 degrees--or close to 70. No wind, beautiful day--I even went for a run.

I hesitate to write much these days here 'cause I've got local readers who I don't know--so maybe I'll put more on my other writing place; if you are from elsewhere and want the link, let me know. Suffice to say I feel like venting about the show a bit, plus I'm kind of down about having to say some goodbyes very shortly.

I need to sort out about 10 major things very soon. Should go start, I guess.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Productivity Consultant

Hi there--right on time, come on in. I see you've already dropped off a resumé and a synopsis of what you want to discuss today. Do you even really need to hear anything I have to say? Data collection? I guess you could call it that. My car? Yeah, I know it's probably not the best on gas mileage, and it does seem to end up in the repair shop a lot but... Hey--this is about your future, not me, right?

"Productivity consultant"? Hmm--that sounds to me like what we used to call "efficiency experts". You're talking about one those people who businesses hire to show them how to improve the profit margin, right? Well, it's not a quick path to popularity, but I suspect that won't matter much to you if you're really into this.

You'll go to some college where you probably have family and can live cheap in their basement while you get your degree in economics or business. You'll take electives studying the works of Ayn Rand while your main courses teach you all about Keynes and Locke and all that philosophy of economics and stuff. You'll do your required work experience in the college credit counseling office, where you'll quickly become convinced that most of your peers are morons--or are you there already?

After you graduate you'll sniff around a few consulting firms, but nobody's interested in some kid just out of college, and you find yourself unimpressed by the fancy lobbies and high-end water coolers that some of these companies have sitting out for the public. It's simply not cost-effective, as far as you're concerned.

You finally decide to set up your own firm. You realize you won't find clients rushing to your crappy storefront location in the bad part of town--all you can afford--but you begin surreptitiously visiting your target businesses and jotting down a dozen ways each can shave costs, then mailing your thoughts to their owners and managers, along with your business card and an offer for a complementary consultation.

A few bite, and one meeting with you convinces them you're wise beyond your years. Soon you're dropping off 200-page reports with detailed cost-benefit analyses, but you are disappointed to discover that no more than a third of your suggestions are ever implemented. When you question the clients, they explain that some of your cuts seem simply too cruel--laying off the loyal 20-year secretary to replace her with a call center based in India, or slashing the employee health-benefits package by choosing a cheaper but disreputable HMO for medical services.

You begin writing letters and editorials for the most fiscally conservative of the financial publications, and after two years you collect your essays and letters into a book: "The Courage to Compete".

You also find your notariety isn't always positive in nature. Unions and anti-poverty groups begin quoting you--out of context, as far as you're concerned--as evidence of the soul-less nature of big business. Employers keep secret the fact that they've attended your 'slash and burn' business seminars.

You still keep consulting--it's your bread and butter--but you notice an annoying trend. Whenever word gets out that your company is doing an efficiency audit, or your vehicles show up at corporate offices, suddenly all the employees are on their best behavior. Video games vanish from break rooms, and lunches are suddenly 29 minutes, rather than 50. You find that most of the data your compile is tainted by this false work ethic that hampers your ability to ferret out the shirkers and the deadwood.

You hit upon a brilliant solution: You'll go undercover. You take a new approach; when you get a new client you send members of your team most comforable with that particular industry or business to work as new employees, who in truth are reporting daily back to you. Usually two weeks of research is all that's needed; employee theft, truancy and incompetence are all dealt with mercilessly.

You even enjoy the occasional foray into an undercover job yourself. You're still relatively young, and you delight in the pompous pronouncements of jaded, lazy corporate slugs who take you under their wing in hopes of keeping you unproductive and non-threatening. You even secretly tape some of their juicier cynical observations.

Just out of curiosity--you're not taping this interview, are you? Good.

Your ego will be your downfall. You'll make a lot of enemies along the way, but you drive a nondescript vehicle, live in a high-security residential complex, and have no kids to be targeted. In fact, you have relatively little social life because you find it a waste of valuable working hours.

You will, though, have employees who become friends of a sort. You'll come to rely on two of them--a guy you got to know in college and hired in the early days, and a ruthless girl you dated for a while and although that didn't work out, you respected her cutthroat approach to business.

Late in the fiscal year, as businesses realize there are some heads to roll when the financial report cards are shared with stockholders, is always your busiest time. This one particular time you're supervising the audit of a transcontinental trucking company, your male partner is overseeing a hospital analysis, while your female partner is running point on a major grocery chain's examination. You're up late working on your findings when your male partner gives you a call.

"I've found something pretty big," he whispers. I think I want you to come here and help me sneak some files out. At least bring the microcamera and we can get some proof before someone figures out they should've shredded all this.

You jump in your car and head to the hospital. It's almost midnight, and you part next to your partners car and flash your headlights. He opens a side door and lets you in. When you get up to the room the filing cabinets are empty. You look around, but nothing. You ask your partner what's up, but he smiles.

Seems your enemies have taken a page out of your book--work from within. Turns out he'd been working for the hospital union after they got wind of his audit and arranged a compromising blackmail situation. He soon saw their side of the argument, and he's being well paid to help arrange your tragic fall down an out of service elevator shaft.

Your funeral will be poorly attended, but it will be short, and very efficient.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Microbiologist

Hello, have a seat. Oh, yeah, I didn't see that on the chair, let me... Oh, you brought your own sterile wipes? I guess maybe I should keep a case of them around this office.

So, what career strikes your fancy? Microbiologist? Interesting--I have some definite ideas about how this might go:

You'll need to have really good science marks here in high school--you do? Well, that's just a start. Then you'll have to go to university, and not just for four years. If you want to get into real microbiology and not just be some public health inspector, you'll need at least a masters degree and probably a doctorate.

You'll get some on the job experience during lab placements while you're doing your many years of study. Money will be tight, and you'll be tempted to walk on the dark side a few times--shady characters offering you money to help them infect a rival at work during competition for a promotion, or shadowy agents of oppressive regimes looking for biological weapons to poison their own populace, and willing to pay handsomely.

You'll be strong, though, since you have your eye on the prize. When you finish, your work ethic and your intelligence get you a placement in a laboratory studying some of the more difficult 'superbugs' which are spreading due to the rampant inappropriate use of antiobiotics--yeah, I'm talking about your handiwipes, there.

It's lucrative, and you're paid well not only for your regular work, but also for the many hours of overtime you spend in the lab, working late all alone when it's just you and the custodial staff. You get to know a few of them fairly well, so it pains you when you notice they aren't quite keeping certain areas of the lab as clean as they should, and you have to report them. Seems fastidiousness wins over friendship with you. They hold grudges, though, and that will come back to haunt you later.

It's not long before your hard work and long hours begin to pay off and you're being published in prestigious journals. This helps motivate you to work even longer hours, and you have even less of a social life than you had in college. You have another reason, though, for staying so late--you notice little signs that your work is being tampered with. There's not enough to make any definite accusations, but you're sure the custodial staff is exacting their retribution for your earlier ratting them out, and hitting you where it hurts the most--your work.

You mention your suspicions to your supervisor, and all it gets you is a visit with the employee 'wellness' coordinator, who suggests you might want to use some of the 12 weeks of vacation time you've built by not taking a day off in over four years. You explain that work relaxes you, but you also realize that you can't confide in anyone in the lab--they see your accusations against the janitors as the paranoia of a workaholic nearing a breakdown.

You throw yourself back into the research with more vigor, and the grant money and accolades you bring your employers silences any suggestions that you are working too hard. Then one day it happens--the event that changes your life.

There's a technician visiting the lab--apparently a genius who designs electronic scanning and montoring devices that assist in the early detection and identification off a wide variety of diseases and conditions. He's working with some incredibly delicate sensor equipment; your employers have purchased a unit he designed and he's there to set it up for them.

You come back from your lunch break and he calls you over and asks if there is a foreign radio station nearby. He's got some headphones in his hands and asks you to listen. Very faintly you hear the sounds of voices, speaking in some sort of language you don't recognize. There are, however, a few words you can pick out, and for some reason one strikes you as familiar. You tell the tech expert you can't help him, then ask him pointedly to remove his equipment from your table. He's not even supposed to be in this part of the lab, and he'd put his sensor pickup very close to your sample of c difficile baccillus which had just came in from Syria--a troubling and potentially deadly new strain that your were being asked to examine.

You put on your biohazard gear and take the sample into the appropriate area of the lab, and while you are reading the background on it, you recognize one of the words you just heard. It's Aramaic. The sample's abstract description includes some of the names for the condition it creates, and the word you heard means "danger".

You immediately go back to the technician, but he's leaving--says the sensor pickup is probably defective and he'll bring you a new one. You convince him to leave the problem sensor behind, and take it back to the sample and try to hear more. Sure enough, there are other words you notice, and you begin transcribing what you hear on the headphones that become your constant companion.

The next few months are tricky. You know that most of your colleagues feel you are mentally fragile, and without proof you dare not share your discovery--you'd be made a laughingstock. You build your vocabulary of Aramaic, and even take a university extension course on the language. You try to communicate with them, and eventually you are able to notice unusual patterns and even slight pigment shifts in your petri dish--signs, you are sure, of their attempts to respond to you. You even convince yourself that they are particularly fond of Mozart, and you play it in the lab nonstop.

Then disaster strikes. Another lab working on the same strain of bacillus from Syria has a hazmat breach, and two researchers die within 48 hours. Your lab receives instructions from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta that you are to destroy all samples of this dangerous material. You are horrified. Your little community is destined for the incinerator.

You offer to transport the samples to Atlanta yourself, but you are ordered to surrender your petri dishes for destruction.

You then break the rules for the first time in your life. Convinced you are the only hope for a world in miniature, you sneak your microscopic friends away and make a run for it. You are caught within two days, and the media paints you as some sort of double agent who was about to poison the water supply of a major city at the behest of some unspecified foreign regime.

When you are awaiting trial in a federal lockup, you are allowed few visitors, though the psych team from military intelligence meets with you every afternoon. Then, surprisingly, three of the custodians from the lab are allowed to see you. They bring a fourth man with them, and introduce him as Dagon. He's been working downstairs, as a custodian, a recent arrival from the middle east. You hadn't realized it, though, because his English was so good when you first met him as a "technician". He smiles, pulls a little lapel microphone out of his pocket, and tells you "good luck" in his native Aramaic. Then they all laugh and leave.

Your best bet is an insanity plea--you might get work in a sketchy animal testing lab after you serve five years in the pen. I see a painful death from an untreatable strain of rabies in your future.

What's that? No, I don't think you're an elephant--though you could probably lose a couple pounds... No, come back, I didn't mean...

Damn. He'll probably never forget that.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Sanitation Engineer

Hi there--hey, aren't those coveralls supposed to stay in the auto shop? Oh, well yeah, I guess I can give you a career overview quickly enough to get you back by when that oil's finished draining. So, what'll it be--a mechanic?

Really? Garbage man? Right, a sanitation worker. Doesn't make any difference to the flies. I think I can figure this one out:

You'll need to get hired on by the city first. If you don't have a connection, now's a good time to get one. Find out who the local foreman is for the garbage pickup in your area, and maybe drop by to do a 'school project' about careers--make it clear you respect and value the contribution his crew makes, maybe even paint yourself as an environmentalist who sees them as heroes of the 21st century. Throw in some comments about the plague and stuff so he'll know you aren't just blowing smoke up his... well, you get the idea.

After you do the project, he'll likely suggest a 'ride along'--or if he doesn't, you come up with the idea. Take a video camera, and treat them like celebrities--use their nicknames, and if they don't have them, come up with some cool ones of your own, like "Ace" or "Lefty". Buy coffee at the break for all of them, and ask them to tell stories about the craziest things people have thrown out, or the worst weather they've worked in. Hang on their every word.

They'll remember you, and you'll stop by their depot every couple of months to say hi and maybe drop off some muffins. Once you're done high school, let them know you'd love a chance to even get on as a relief garbage ma..., er, sanitation worker. By this time you'll be a shoe-in.

Unfortunately, while they can help you get hired, it's the city who decides where you work. They won't put you in the nice residential area; as new guy you're stuck in the crappy neighborhoods where your main task is avoiding needle pricks and recognizing bags with body parts in them. The nice thing about working those mean streets is that at least people won't look down their nose at you--you've got steady employment with benefits; that will probably get you dates in that part of town.

After a few years you get a call--one of the guys you sucked up to back in your old neighborhood remembers your great attitude and he recommends you for a driving job. You'd already gone out and got your air brakes ticket just in case, and you are happy to sit in the warm cab while two underlings pitch trash in the back of your truck. You also get a nice pay hike in the new position.

Still, like all city employees, you have to deal with a labor dispute every five years or so, and sometime around your seventh year in your career there will be a nasty strike. You'll be there with your comrades, chanting slogans for the t.v. cameras and playing poker, sitting on lawn chairs, when nobody important is watching. Unlike the previous couple of strikes, this one gets ugly, and neither side seems close to backing down.

Meanwhile, the garbage begins piling up. A few private contractors cash in on the desperation of homeowners in the rich part of town, but for the most part, people try to look after their trash themselves--dropping it off at overpriced disposal centers, or simply tossing it onto the lawn at city hall late at night.

The taxpayers get angrier, and with their eyes on next year's municipal elections, the politicians decide to hire replacement workers--"scabs" to you and your friends.

This escalates the hostilities, and soon you and your union brothers and sisters are linking arms in front of the depot gates, while the city lawyers file for one injunction after another to move you aside.

Then it happens--your 15 minutes of fame.

In a particularly bitter confrontation early one Thursday morning, a frightened replacement driver accidentally hits the gas pedal instead of the brake, and you are struck by the very truck you'd been driving before the work stoppage. You're rushed to hospital, but the leg is crushed so badly they have to amputate it.

This tragedy helps win the public relations war for the striking workers, and soon the dispute is settled. You, for your 'heroism' receive the accolades and sympathy of your colleagues, and a sizable payout from the city.

You try to go back to your job; they even specially outfit a truck with a hand brake, but it's just not very comfortable for you, so they give you a desk job.

You fit in well with the guys in the coveralls; you're not so comfortable with the more refined member of the city's clerical staff. At age 33 you make your first suicide attempt, but fail.

The city realizes the potential scandal if the worker injured in the bitter strike two years earlier should subsequently off himself, so they send you and your girlfriend on a tropical vacation--everything first class. When you return, your girlfriend has had enough of your bitterness and dumps you. This leads to your second attempt.

The city sends you to a crack team of doctors and therapists, and after some counseling everyone decides you're not cut out for the office scene. Instead, they buy out the longtime dispatcher and give you his job in the depot. Soon your voice fills the airwaves--well, at least in the cabs of all the city maintenance vehicles.

Now you're back with your blue collar compadres, you begin to enjoy life a little more. They make sure you never have to buy a drink at the bar after work, and they introduce you to new employees the way new recruits might be introduced to a legendary military hero.

After a few years, though, the shine wears off. Your friends tire of buying your drinks, and your daytime consumption means you tend to ramble on the radio to the point where you become an embarassment. The city once again intervenes, but you refuse alcohol treatment, so they buy you out and give you a pension at the ripe old age of 41. You're lonely--after a series of unsatisfying relationships you seem destined to die single and alone--and your friends all seem busy when you call them or drop by the depot for a visit.

Finally, you begin gambling to relieve the boredom. The casino at first, then high stakes private poker games you hear about from an old work acquaintance. Unlike the other players, though, you don't stay sober enough to win much, and soon you owe more money than your pension pays out in three years. You go into hiding to avoid the mob types who come collect your gambling debts, and you move into a downtown street mission where you manage to get a minimum wage job in the kitchen, though spending all day on your artificial leg is agony.

There is one bright spot at the end, though--the down and outer who spots you and rats you out to the mob ends up using his reward money to start a hot dog stand that evolves into a chain of 30 in 8 cities and makes him a sought after member of the motivational speaking circuit. You, on the other hand, will likely be found by your old work mates as they empty the dumpsters in the sketchy part of town.

There, that was quick, wasn't it. Make sure you recycle that oil now.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Cryptographer

Hi there--I saw your picture in the paper for winning that math contest last week. So, you want to be an engineer? Quantum physicist? What's that? Cryptographer? Hmm. You sure you don't want to turn that brain into something more... traditional? Okay, if that's what you want.

Yeah, of course I know the difference between codes and ciphers. Ciphers are how my ex-wife used to communicate with her therapist behind my back when they went off for their 'extra sessions' so he could violate his code of ethics. Sorry, I'm not a bitter man, usually, but sometimes... Anyway, I know that codes are word replacements and such while ciphers are about replacing individual letters or something like that.

You've got the sort of mathematical intelligence that will make you the most popular partner in the college recruiting dance. Still, the people you want to talk to won't come to your typical high school career fair. I mean sure, the military will be there, but that's not who you want to talk to. Army intelligence might work, but you're better off sending your SAT scores and a little resumé info to the CIA, since if you're as good as I suspect you'll be, they're going to come looking for you.

They'll do a full check of your background, from your internet surfing history to the papers you wrote in 10th grade. You'll be deemed safe, and taken for a series of psychological and intellectual assessments that indicate you are too valuable to ignore, but not as mentally strong as the Agency would like.

You're sent to a small college which has unusually prestigious mathematics and languages faculties, which you learn is solely because they are funded by various intelligence agencies to provide discrete high-level training for their recruits.

There you prove both your math skills and your aptitude for picking up new languages quickly. After your first year you find yourself in some deliberately misnamed statistics courses which really focus on honing your ability to decipher and decode all manner of cleverly-disguised communication. You are not surprised to find you have a knack for this sort of thing, and soon you've zipped through four years of college in less than three and you're off to start your secret work protecting freedom.

You are sworn to uphold the secrecy of what you learn, and since you're more about the puzzles than the rationale, you don't care much if you're discovering Al Queda strategy or stealing technology from "allies"--you just enjoy the challenge of testing your mind.

The problem is, you become so immersed in looking for hidden meanings, you can't shut it off. You meet a girl who works in the Agency's document classification office, and the two of you fall in love and marry after a brief courtship. At first things are fine; you both have sufficient security clearance to allow you to have real conversations at the dinner table, but soon everything she says seems to convey hidden subtext as your paranoia grows.

She leaves you, and you have to give up the condo near Langley the two of you shared. You need a change so you request a transfer to New York, where you'll analyze all sorts of communications between various U.S. diplomats. You decide to take a cheap apartment in a not so great part of Brooklyn, and your daily commute exposes you to a plethora of tag graffiti that immediately appeals to your cryptographic instincts.

Soon you're noticing all sorts of subtle characteristics of the public face of gang communications. You develop the ability to quickly 'read' the tags, and you notice that one particular latino gang is boasting of some of their more dramatic crimes before they are actually committed. The agency warns you not to get involved in such local crime enforcement, but you can't help yourself. You also discover the tattoo parlor down the street, and begin hanging out at the coffee shop next door so you can spy on the various tattoos to determine who's associated with what gang, who's been in prison, and who has actually committed murder.

Eventually some local gang members figure out you've been reporting their graffiti messages--let's face it, you aren't going to be taught much spycraft as the CIA wants you for office work--and you only escape death when a patrol car pulls up as you are being beaten by six men.

You recuperate and the agency decides to send you overseas to work in the London office. They make sure you're not in a neighborhood where you'll be distracted by gang tags, but you develop a new obssession--the conspiracy theorist's eclectic appreciation of all things 'templar'. Soon you're hanging out near the old Knights Templar compound and taking weekend trips to scout out old libraries for glimpses into the secrets of everyone from the Jesuits to the "Illuminati". You don't care much for the religious aspect of the conspiracy theories, but you develop a conviction that there is some sort of secret organization manipulating world events for their shadowy purposes.

You begin working overtime and take a second job at a university on weekends--saving all the money you can. Then, when you think you've got enough to survive on for a year or two, you get the Agency shrink to sign you a 'stress leave' note and you vanish.

You get some of the sketchy underworld types you've been learning about to provide you with some different i.d., and you travel as your paranoia leads you, first to Area 51, then to the Vatican, and later to Jerusalem. You visit every crop circle farm and check out ancient mountain art in Peru--the big pictures that can only be properly seen from the air. Your paranoia manufactures a new theory--it's not something from this world that you need to discover, but rather an intergalactic conspiracy whose communication you must find and decode to save the world from some unknown fate.

You read everything you can on Atlantis, then head to radiotelescope installations so you can listen to and record the crackles, pops and hisses that come from space.

You are completely frustrated--always feeling that the answer is so close, yet just beyond your reach. You check yourself into a psych ward for a rest, and when their people discover your real name and enter it in their computer files, it triggers a visit from your employers who have begun to wonder if you are too much of a liability in your mentally fragile state to allow you to keep your freedom.

They leave you there for a few more weeks, trying to figure out what to do, while making sure your 'keepers' know that you are not to be released under any circumstances. It's during that time that you finally make your great breakthrough.

The method by which the global controllers are communicating is through an incredibly subtle and sophisticated code hidden in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. It's a combination of letter placement, shapes of the black squares, and words in the clues that all come together almost accidentally in your subconscious, as you complete the puzzle one Sunday, as has been your custom for years.

You realize there is a prediction of an explosion at an refinery that will suddenly drive up the price of oil. This will lead to speculation in the gold market, and the message is for all of the members of the global conspiracy to sell both their investments in oil and gold and wait for further instructions.

Sure enough, three days later the explosion transpires as predicted. You are suddenly very afraid, but decide to feign a return to 'sanity' for your employers, who cautiously take you back and send you to work in their offices in Switzerland. This is an ideal place for you to be, since as a center of world banking, Switzerland is awash in constant financial and economic news. You continue to follow the instructions encoded in the Sunday crossword, and cross-reference it with those individuals who seem to always 'luckily' sell or buy the affected commodities just in time. This gives you a list of the global conspirators, but you have no idea what to do with it.

You turn to the only person in the Agency you ever trusted--your ex-wife. By this time she has remarried, but she agrees to meet you, and you sneak away from work and fly to Philadelphia where she is running the small international consulting firm she started when she left the Agency a few years earlier.

You explain your discovery to her, trying to sound as rational as possible. You can't tell if she believes you or not, but when you try to explain the nuances of the crossword code, she excuses herself and promises to call you within the week.

You are disappointed and a little angry when she doesn't live up to her word, and you send her a scathing email. That is your fatal mistake. Her email is being closely watched. She had been discretely trying to verify your suspicions on her own, but she wasn't discrete enough, and the day before she was to contact you, she died in an accident that you recognize as typical of the Agency's tradecraft.

You 'go to ground' just before a hit team arrives--taking off in the middle of the night and heading to Italy, where you hope to throw yourself on the mercy of the Jesuits, the one group that your favorite conspiracy novelists characterize as aware of yet unsullied by the global conspiracy.

Unfortunately, your novelists were wrong. Actually, they are part of the conspiracy, and maintain the Jesuit fiction to drive desperate men like yourself into the heart of an organization which they have fully infiltrated. You will die from a tragic fall while touring an historic Byzantine bell tower.

When they bury you back in your home town, they'll hide a dirty joke in code in the epitaph they order for your gravestone. It will become a favorite screensaver for global conspirators for years to come.

correction

Just went to the movie store on goldstream and noticed the brand new starbucks has just opened--that makes 24. They're poppin' up everywhere.

real demographics

Now the new Tuscan Village starbucks is open, we were wondering how many there are in town. A quick count in the phone book reveals that the latest is #23 in town.

I wonder if Seattle has the most per capita of anywhere?

Their next nearest competitor around here, I think is Serious--there are 11 of them, though there may be new ones that didn't make the book 'cause they seem to be springing up all over. At least they're "local" in that they started on the island.

For me the difference is simple. It's not about overroasted beans, price or employee benefits;, no it's much simpler than that: free internet. Serious has it, while starbucks wants 8 or 9 bucks for an hour online.

Decided to check a few other franchises as well. Subway is even more ubiquitous than Starbucks; there are 25 of them. We have 18 Mcdonalds, 14 Tim Hortons, 8 Seven Elevens and 7 Dairy Queens. I can't be bothered to look up KFC and the rest.

Nearly all of those franchises are having trouble finding enough employees. It's not a bad time to be a high schooler looking for mindless employment; if you don't like one job, there are plenty of others to go to.

A note to those who are on my facebook--they've finally fixed the little hole in the network that let me access it at work (thanks, Alix) so if you need to get a response from me quickly, an email is probably going to be read earlier in the day.

Have a good weekend.

Poetry by Dythandra

She found me on her hallway safari
Not hard--my plumage isn't subtle
More caution than camouflage.

Hi... her voice trails off.
I see the camera round her neck
The rest not hard to guess.

I was wondering, uhm, if you've ever modeled?
I let the question hang an awkward moment.
Depends what you call modeling
Then I turn and walk away.
She doesn't follow.

I think little of it, until later
A note folded, dropped inside my locker
A web address scrawled on a scrap of paper
and underneath, "A sample of my work".

My curiosity wins out;
I visit the library computers,
But such sites are deemed beyond the pale
By our educational censorati.

Once home I see her "work"
Something called "model mayhem"
--a trifle tame for my taste,
which runs more to tattoed, pierced and pale.

Her page is like the rest,
A couple dozen pics of classmates, friends
All mimicking the poses
Taped in the lockers of adolescent boys.

She spots me in a corner two days later,
Barricaded behind my sketchbook
Where she is an unwitting model

So... did you like my pics?
I shrug and keep on drawing
I, uhm, I'd really love to shoot you
I direct a withering glance her way
The feeling is quite mutual

After a few moments I realize she hasn't left
So against my better judgement, I ask:
Why would you want me to model for you?

She looks uncomfortable--do I detect a blush?
You're kind of... exotic.
I contemplate violence for a moment,
Then slowly shake my head and mutter
I don't do freak show, thanks.

No, I mean you're, uh, interesting
And Gerry said I needed to push the envelope...

In spite of myself, I find I want to know
Who's Gerry?

Just a photographer, she explains.
A real one.

I laugh out loud. I'd seen his 'profile'
Just like the rest of them.
Creepy 28 year old guys,
Living in their mother's basements
Playing on the dreams
of misguided children.

Have you met 'Gerry'? I ask her.
She admits she hasn't--no surprise.
Seems Gerry has suggested
They might work together sometime,
When she brings him a suitable muse.

He can't troll the playgrounds for prey,
But she can bait and lure them to his den.

I suggest I'd love to play the game,
And allow one test shot--my instructions then are clear
I tell her go ahead--arrange the shoot.

As expected, Gerry's more than willing
To do the shoot--for free!
His largesse knows no bounds.

It's not surprising when he then insists
We skip a day of school to visit him
No doubt his mother works a daytime job

I'd looked at more than just her photo site--
I found her Deviantart, and read her blog
Its seems my newfound friend has daddy issues,
An angry, large controlling kind of man.

I craft the letter on a school computer,
Filled with some innuendo, then sign the name
Of the one who plans to make us prey.

I hide across the street--make sure she's gone,
Then tape the note where daddy's sure to see
When coming home from work down at the precinct.

She didn't come to school again--too bad
I had some drawings I had thought to share,
But apparently her education's relocated,
To St. Teresa's Boarding School for Girls.

I checked out Gerry's web site the next week,
It now points to his latest Craiglist ad,
I see he wants to buy a blender cheap,
Seems he won't need solid food for quite some time.

A Call for Submissions

Yeah, that title's going to get a bunch of academic types wandering by.

I need help, folks, and here's your chance to impact young lives for years to come. At my school, like so many others, we use computer coded report card comments. You assign each student a letter grade, an effort mark, and then have the option of giving one or two coded comments. Examples of short comments include:
"NO SKETCHBOOK" (Did I mention they're all in capital letters? We like to yell our thoughts.)
"INCOMPLETE JOURNAL"
and, my personal favorite:
"TOP NOTCH MANAGER"

Examples of long ones include:
"SATISF. WORK-MUST CONTINUE TO WORK HARD" (yes, the abbreviation is on the report card)
"NEEDS TO DEVELOP A MORE SERIOUS ATTITUDE"
and
"PLAYS WITH INTENSITY AND EXPRESSION"

We're having a department meeting on Thursday, and each department has been asked to review their area's particular comments. For me, that means I need to look at the lame drama ones I inherited that were created probably 20 years ago and that I rarely use. Some examples of these are:
"IMPROVEMENT NOTED"
"DIFFICULTY WORKING IN GROUPS"
and
"CONTRIBUTES WELL TO GROUP IMPROVISATION"

What I need from you are suggestions--they can be drama-specific, or more general and applicable to a wide range of subjects. I welcome both serious suggestions and those which are a little more tongue in cheek. (and if the words "tongue" and "cheek" appear in your comment you get bonus points)

Fire away.

From peso to par

When I was a kid, the Canadian dollar was worth 1.03 U.S. We knew that because I grew up a few hundred yards from a marina where rich Americans often moored their yachts in the summer, and the stores nearby always posted the rate.

By the time I finished high school, ours dollar was worth less than the American one, and it got worse by the late 1990s. In 2002, our dollar hit an alltime low of around 62 cents. Fox media types snickered at the "Canadian peso" suggesting that our social programs and medicare system were bankrupting the country.

There were more factors involved. For a while it seemed like every time a politician in Quebec sneezed, the dollar dropped.

Not everyone was unhappy. The town where I grew up has come to rely on a lower Canadian dollar to help make its exported paper products more attractive to foreign buyers. Tourism, which is huge in this province, also benefits from an exchange rate that helps attract foreign visitors.

Still, it wasn't fun when you had to go out of the country, and it was easy to grow tired of buying things like paperback books with price labels that would say 7.95 U.S., 11.95 in Canada.

When we went to Disneyland in the summer of 2004, our dollar was worth about 75 cents U.S., when I took kids to New York in December of 2005, it was up to around 86 cents.

Today I called Houston to book tickets for a touring production of Spamalot in Seattle in a few weeks. It was a good day to be buying something from south of the border; our dollar closed the day at par with the U.S. buck--well, within one tenth of a cent, anyway.

Had a good chat with the guy booking the tickets--we took 32 seats--after he asked me why the change in rates. I figure it's a combination of the mortgage default crisis in the U.S., the cost of the war in Iraq, the price of oil and other resource commodities, which we have a lot of, and the recent federal byelections in Quebec showing folks there aren't all that keen on leaving the country anytime soon.

Or maybe it's just all the cash from those same sex couples coming here to get married...

And file under annoying... my battery was toast when I tried to start my car to go home today. Fortunately after a jump start I was off to my brother in laws shop and one of his mechanics stuck around after quitting time to help me out.

Oops

Try the link to the Cynical Career Counselor now and then try loading the actual entries--the index should work. I had made a mistake in the coding of the menu.

Thanks Rach for pointing it out.

All 86 of them are there now

I've put all 86 of the Cynical Career Counselor posts on that site--four pages. Go here to see it.

It still needs a bit of tweaking--I want to probably get away from the 'centred' headers in the index, for instance--but I can do that over the next little while.

What a lot of my time I've spent writing all those. Now I realize why the masters took so long...

As always, if you want to request another career, let me know and I may give it a shot.

quick update

Life is "normal" busy now.

Went to the kids' "meet the teacher" thing last night--had to wait for my son's music lesson to end first. I listened to the son's grade 9 teachers while my wife checked out grade 7 daughter's classes. I'm impressed with what I saw, which is nice.

The lack of posting here is because I'm working tirelessly on the CCC page--but I have to put in each paragraph break, etc. when I paste them into the html documents since the formatting doesn't copy. I hope to have it up with all the entries by the end of the week.

Feel like I've kind of lost touch with a few of you, so if you feel so inclined drop me an email or a comment to let me know how you are doing.

Questions nobody asked

Why do we have one week of spring break while the two neighboring districts have two?

It's all about substitute teachers. They run the union, sometimes, when the rest of us are too busy to go to after school meetings across town 'cause we're directing shows or coaching teams or dealing with report card deadlines. They have always had a disproportional political clout in our district, and have managed to use it to make sure they get the best shake for themselves, sometimes at the expense of others. Thus, adding three days off after the easter weekend to give us a two-week break is seen as costing subs three potential days work, so the students and other staff all have to go in while neighboring districts don't.

Why the calamine lotion this week?

Three days of hives. Don't know what I reacted to, but we think we've narrowed it down to some no-name cranberry juice. Not fun.

What's keeping you from blogging?

I know I promised more once the degree was finished, but a staff meeting 'til six on Tuesday, running my folks back and forth from doctor's appointments, and a "meet the teacher" evening on Thursday have made a liar out of me.

What/who is on your mind?

A friend I had a short visit with yesterday who is dealing with something difficult and I wish I could just wave a magic wand and help it not to hurt so much.

What is disturbing you right now?

I've been looking forward to hockey season in a couple weeks--I can actually watch some games on t.v. this year--but after seeing Bay's facebook, I think she may have soiled my team...

Anything good happening?

Lots. Last night a nice dinner out with my wife--we're in a rut, maybe, going to the same few restaurants, but why change when you always have a great time somewhere?

What else are you doing?

Besides catching up on yard work, etc--I guess I'm working a lot on fixing up the Cynical Career Counselor page. I'm going to put every single entry back on that site.

Back to work...

grr

Another day supposed to go up to around 26 or 27--about 80--and I'm lucky enough to be finished teaching bit before 2:00...

But wait. Staff Meeting @ 3:30.

Anyone want to call my cell with an "emergency"?

I hate staff meetings. Truly.

phase next

I guess the novelty of being finished will wear off soon, but it's just nice to be able to focus on some of the things I've been neglecting. I'm already working on the video of our last musical, I've been fixing up the neglected school web page, and I've just had more time for family stuff.

Of course the musical stuff this week, along with the New York trip issues, and of course 'meet the creature' on thursday night will all keep me busy.

Still, I'm looking forward to more times out with family and friends, more being able to watch mind-numbing t.v. at the end of a busy day, and of course, hockey season. (watching, not playing).

More writing: Dythandra, CCC, and Nanowrimo.

The weather this weekend has been perfect. Still, I drained the pool since while it's been getting warm enough during the day (it hit 26/79 today), the evenings are cool and the pool doesn't warm up quite enough.

We did enjoy our Sunday afternoon in the park and then out for ice cream. Here are a few pics:








There was a concert in the park...mostly fiddles.





A sundial is kind of cool--and it was exactly right, as long as you corrected for daylight savings.











Almost more like spring than about 10 days from fall.








Yes, those are palm trees.

Fin

I am no longer a university student. Handed in the Masters project and it's done.