Apathy Jack writes:

Finally, the ridiculously talented Fern Petrie has had her web presence launched.

Go here and bask in the art, you unworthy heathen bastards.


(I've been swearing more lately. I'm sure that's a sign of something. Probably you all being bastards or something...)

That Morthos Stare writes:

Apathy Jack writes:

You know it's not going to end well when a student starts the conversation with: "Now, promise you won't give me a twenty-minute lecture, but..."


So I signed out one of my little goths today. Another Lost One. I know all of the tricks to get them to stay: Be it bribery, threats, or just plain asking them to stick around for a while longer, I know all the right words.

I also know when it's not going to work, no matter how hard I try.

I made her promise to give back the books, CDs and DVDs she's borrowed from me, and I returned those I'd borrowed off her. I didn't sign her leaving form until she had given me her and her mother's cellphone numbers, so I can check up in a couple of months, to make sure she's not sitting around watching tv all day.

I really thought we could save this one, overcome her hatred of school and turn it into a stabilising influence in the middle of her somewhat tumultuous life, instead of being just another cause of hardship.

Apparently not.

...

Walking the field at lunchtime to clear my head after the bad news. It's easier to process things surrounded by the noise and chaos - things just make more sense out there. I see one of mine who I haven't caught up with in a few days, and remind her of certain deals made to procure work from her.

"You said you'd have it to me a while back," I tell her. "I'm beginning to lose faith."
"I'm beginning to lose faith too," she says quietly.
"Look, I don't want you losing faith in yourself. But it's important that I don't either, because right now faith is all that's stopping me from killing you."
"She'll have it to you in a few days," pipes up one of her friends.
"Do you know which work we're talking about?" I ask.
"Yeah," and she names it accurately. "She calls me and tells me about it."
"Yeah," says another friend. "She called me at three in the morning last weekend to tell me 'I'm stressing about the work I promised Mister'."


My faith is coming back slowly...

I Speak Corruption

Apathy Jack writes:

You all need to go here, to where Radia have set up a myspace page. Yes yes, myspace sucks, we already know, but at this juncture, it's the only place to hear the amazing "I Speak Corruption".

Go, listen, then email Kat and Ross and demand that they stop procrastinating (newborn shmewborn) and record an album.

Ruining Jack's Day

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

If you are in Edinburgh, why not check out...Bouncy Castle Hamlet

The rest of the post goes here

Broken Planet News

Apathy Jack writes:

Meaning to get back to doing this. Busy, then uninspired for a while, but then I realised that you all need to have some accurate news. God knows you can't trust anyone but me to tell you the truth...


Cancer cured by the Devil.


Senator calls man a monkey - not in the good way, apparently.


Man dies opening grenade with sledgehammer - no, seriously, that's even the headline...


A third of graduates are not using their degrees. I feel almost bad for classifying this as 'news', given that I think we already know this...


And something else I already knew: TV Is Healer.

Are you listening, friends?

Apathy Jack writes:

Me "Where is my cellphone?"
Student "Listen to you. If you from a year ago could hear yourself, you'd be disgusted with you."
"No, but... I ... You're probably right."
"Do more of your students text you on that thing than your friends?"
"Yes. But I don't give my number to my friends."
"Why not?"
"Because when they ask for my number, I tell them that if I wanted then calling me, I would have gotten a cellphone years ago."
"Are your friends like you?"
"Yes."
"Oh, so they're a bit...?"
"A bit what?"
"You know."
"No I don't know. I'm a pillar of normalcy and the yardstick by which 'average' should be measured."
"Riiight. But if your friends are weird like you, they'd understand the cellphone thing, I mean."
"Yes."
"Right."
"Still not weird."
"Right."

Apathy Jack writes:

Another reason I like my job...

Sitting in my classroom this morning, reading a story written by one of my little Year 10s. It's the best piece of writing I've come across this year.

No, not simply the best rubbishy teenaged outpouring to cross my desk in my capacity as a teacher at a school with shockingly low literacy rates, but actually the best piece of writing overall. And I've read something like twenty books this year.

And that's awesome.

Emo hate is good, clean fun

That Morthos Stare writes:

For those of us who feel that Hope is Emo is too close to the truth to be funny I present, for your pleasure and satisfaction, Mr. Malki's Wondermark on the same subject.

Apathy Jack writes:

I just got an email from a student - she's sent me an official letter of complaint written to the Principal about one of my fellow English teachers. She doesn't have a printer, so wants me to print it out for her. She also thanks me for giving her the money to buy an emergency contraceptive pill yesterday.

This is followed up by a text from a student asking who Ganymede is. I tell him, and ask if he's studying the bit of the Classical Studies course relevent to the Greek gods.

No, he replies, he's at a pub quiz, but he'll probably study tomorrow.



Seriously, did I sleep through this lecture in teacher's college or something, because I'm pretty sure they should have told me about some of this stuff...