Shhhh…
Isn’t it funny how it’s always the fucker shh’ing people that turns the ever so quiet testing environment into a mass of shifting, sighing people? Maybe it’s just me.
Yes, I disappeared for a tenday or so (I’ve always wanted an excuse to use that word). Last week was Spring Break and I went into a book- and music-lover’s hole. In other words, I had not a single interesting thought that would fit in here. I didn’t even leave my house until Wednesday afternoon, and that was just a “short” trip (if any trip is actually short in Charlotte’s traffic) to pick up some books.
If you are even remotely interested in music (of the popular sort, with words and stuff) and haven’t listened to Kweli‘s “Get By”, I might suggest you rectify that situation immediately. But it’s understandable to have not heard it; I personally rarely listen to the radio, and less-so to the two shitty rap stations here in Charlotte (hold your peace if you disagree). When I’m going to be bombarded with more commercials than music, in addition to the fact that there are about… 10 songs on their playlist, not counting the occasional “oldies” (like Tupac, Biggie, and other songs a couple of years old), I’m going to avoid those stations. It doesn’t help that we actually get new music slower than it arrives on stations in L.A., sometimes by weeks. But that Kweli song is good. No misogyny, no violence, good beats, nice flow. And I’d never heard of him at all until about 3 days ago. I’m so damn slow, I know.
I fell out of the blogging world as well, and found myself with several days’ worth of posts to catch up on. Interesting ones to read: George on ads (although I still don’t see the problem with that cute guy bouncing in the boxer-briefs… Yum. Ahem. Sorry.), The HSW on the VH1 50 Greatest Hip Hop Artists (I’m hardly an authority on rap music, but I agreed with many of these complaints, as well as some others mentioned on a rap station here), Jason’s visit to a strip joint, and subsequent comments (I must admit that I always thought strip clubs would be kinda like what he described–just rather depressing), J.’s crush develops (this is one of those situations that makes me go “awww”. Yeah, I’m a dork, sue me).
Yearbook signing has begun at our school, and everyone had better get the shit signed before May 2, because many of us are testing straight through the third week of May, often two 3-4 hour tests a day. But yearbook signing has always been interesting to me. I’ll get ahold of Dulin’s yearbook, and can’t think of shit to write that doesn’t mimic that coolness he wrote in mine. But if the Little Shit gave me his, I could probably come up with a decent half page of stuff to spout. More on the Little Shit later. I’ve bought yearbooks every year of high school, and had all of my friends, whether they were returning the next year or not, sign it. It makes for a great timeline to mark the progression of friendship, not because of the actual writing, but due to the memories evoked just reading the entries. In my mind I have to link Dulin’s entry this year to our plans to partially skip the prom bruhaha this weekend (we are going to see a movie, then go to an after-prom party thrown by TGM that I invited us to), this war and our debates on its causes and effects, and, of course, the fact that he always backs down when the conversation could take an explosive or violent turn (read: when I get that look in my eye that I would just love for him to try to make a case for the effectiveness of forcing a democratic government on a people. That’s not one he wants to start, trust me). The same goes for Jenny, Michael, YYF (who just had her name officially changed to Mia and would kill me if I wrote out her old name here, but was still cool enough to satisfy my love of written languages by writing her pretty former name and a sentence in Chinese in my book), Ross, and others.
On a tangent: the Little Shit. The LS is one of those kids that you either were in school, or that you wanted to beat the shit out of. He’s the pudgy little brainiac that simply must point out his smarts by asking questions that indicate he knows exactly what the teacher is going to be talking about in 10 minutes or next class and is already quite informed on that topic, thankyouverymuch. For about a month, the LS sat in Comp Sci and asked, “Oh, you’re talking about hash tables, aren’t you?” “This is all leading to hash tables, isn’t it?” “Are we getting to hash tables soon, Ms. G-B?” “Duh, you guys, she’s obviously talking about hash tables.” This is, of course, while he’s looking (or pointedly not looking) down the aisle at me and TGM, trying to see if the point is getting across that he does indeed know what hash tables are, that he doubts we know what they are (which, in all honesty, we didn’t), and that, no matter how late the date in the school year, the pecking order in Comp Sci will change, ignoring the fact that I’ve been in programming classes with this very teacher for four years and that there is no pecking order in our class. Little shit. I so use to be like that. That’s why I want to squash him. I had the luxury of running into Hannah in 10th or 11th grade year, which shut me the fuck up, and I would simply like to do a similar favor for the Little Shit. It’s not malice. Really.
I took a test called The Essential Difference test, courtesy of Elf. My Empathy Quotient is 28; that’s apparently not much higher than someone with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism. I’m tempted to call it a lemming myself, but I am a social throwback to earlier eras of humanity, so… I scored a 45 on the Systemizing Quotient, which involves analyzing and exploring systems. This is above average for chickas, and in the range of folks with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism. The tests are, all in all, interesting but not particularly enlightening (except for learning what Asperger Syndrome is). But you must love the color scheme and design of the Flash version of the test. Beautiful in its apparent simplicity (not that I have the skill or the desire to create even a single button in Flash, but hey, that’s me).