Back in My Day....

Back in my day... we had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow! (just kidding!)

Though what with all the press coverage about abuse in schools and other attacks on children it seems that many things that I took for granted as a child or were completely innocent childhood things are no longer possible. I used to walk the three blocks to school all by myself without any thoughts of creepy people kidnapping me. I rode my bike for miles and came home in time for dinner.

In junior high we had a pool party every year to kick off the start of another orchestra rehearsal season, and us kids tried our hardest every time to drag our furious teacher into the pool. Our little revenge for hours of grueling extra rehearsals was simply not possible without physically touching the teacher. Today this kind of contact would either result in suspension of the teacher for inappropriate contact with a student, or suspension of the students for "assaulting" a teacher. I am all for punishing the evil, sick people in this world, but wish that school officials could differentiate between something dangerous and something done by rambunctious kids. As another example, a high school teacher was amazed that I was able to wear a dress on such a cold day. "Oh, it's some kind of synthetic wonder fabric," I told her, and held out my wrist for her to feel the fabric. "Well, are you sure it's OK, I mean the administration said we're not supposed to touch the students at all," she replied. But back in elementary school, it was normal for the teachers to give hugs.

That being said, perhaps punishments back in the day were not harsh enough, and maybe it is better to be overzealous than to not have sufficient consequences for truly vile actions. A boy in kindergarten tried to look up the girl's skirts at nap time. On multiple occasions. I am still majorly peeved that he was not suspended. 3aib!

Self-Indulgent Pettiness

I enjoy writing. I apparently also enjoy writing about myself, given the nature of many posts in this blog. So why is it so #$^&%$^* hard to write a 600-word essay about myself so I can get in to graduate school?

Ode to Sputnik (with apologies to the Moody Blues)

Tiny sphere in orbital flight
Higher than the highest kite
Signaling the scientific might
Of nations on the earth below.
Oh how little did they know
That those electronic sounds
Emitted as it made its rounds
Would be immortalized in song,
Famous as the first of a long
Line of revolutionary machines
Created by humans unafraid to dream.
Traveling at the speed of thought
What wondrous marvels they have wrought
Both for mankind's glorious advancement
And, ominously, its military enhancement.
What salvation lies among the stars?
Will we evolve beyond all wars?
Only revolving Sputnik knows,
The answer encoded in the ghost of its echoes.

US Five Dollar Bill

Q: Why does the new US five dollar bill look so pink and have a ginormous purple five on the back?

A: So it can pretend to be a euro. Then maybe people will want it more.