Just got stung by a

Just got stung by a bee. Will destroy next one I see. La la teedly hee.

Last chance saloon

We interrupt this regularly scheduled bulletin about Star Trek to bring you the following news...

1) Went and looked at the place Mikey found via his friend. It is -- and I'm not exaggerating -- hella tight. Normally, I don't use the adjective hella. But this place warrants it. It's, like, a house. A frickin' huge house at that. A super sweet living room, a ginormous kitchen (with a dishwasher), big-ass bedrooms, free (i.e., no coin-op) laundry in the basement, carpeting ... what more could a guy ask for? This place is so fucking awesome, it's hella awesome. And at $400/month (if we can get some guy named Tom to come in with us), it's hella hella awesome.

2) Went in for an interview at the good ol' Providence school district. Whilst waiting for my interview, some schmo came in and gathered all the English teachers together. He told us that there were two possiiblities for us -- two full-time positions at Central or Nathaniel Greene, or long-term subbing. Returning to the aforementioned worst-school-ever-conceived-by-man as a full-time teacher doesn't exactly appeal to me. Nor does being a long-term sub. Then I realized that Providence in general doesn't appeal to me. So I left without waiting around to interview.

Now, here comes the "last chance saloon" part. When I got back, I went to the Sci-Li (where I am now) and checked my email. At this point, I'd pretty much resigned myself to getting a job as ... well, anything. Then I saw this email from the secretary in the Education department entitled, "high school English teacher". Hmm. Turns out there's an opening at this groovy Essential school called Blackstone Academy. I called. I have an interview tomorrow morning. This, ladies and gents, is my last chance at teaching for the upcoming year. That's all I'm gonna say about it, because I don't want to jinx it.

I've been thinking a lot about not teaching. Specifically, about not teaching in the traditional sense. I just can't see myself standing in front of a room full of 25-30 kids for 50 minutes at a time. I rationalize this feeling by saying that eucation doesn't work that way. The sooner people in this country realize that, the better. While that's true, really it just doesn't feel like me. When I envision myself teaching like that, it's not me I see up there. It's some person wearing a David suit doing and saying things that I don't want to do or say. So if this thing at Blackstone doesn't pan out, I'm finding another field to work in for the time being. I say that with some trepidation because there are two people whose opinion means a lot to me. One is my mother, and I already talked to her about this. I should've realized she'd be ok, since the Jewish mother's motto is "whatever makes you happy". The other one is Katie. Her I'm a little more worried about. I worry she'll think I'm quitting or giving up because of my experience at Central. I won't deny that Central certainly had a negative effect on how I view teaching -- specifically, me teaching. But even if Central was the best-run traditional school in the country, it would still be some guy in a David suit at the front of the class. That's not who I am nor is it who I want to be. I see myself five years from now at that kind of work doing better, yes, more used to the routines, but hating it and myself. Dreading waking up in the morning. Driving slower on the way to the school so I can postpone the inevitable for a little while longer. I can't do that.

So, Katie, I hope you understand. Your support means a lot to me.

More thoughts on the Enterprise...

One of the big questions that I've been asking myself is, "How could they possibly handle teaching all those different races at once?" I mean, we can barely handle having Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites in the same classroom -- how would we deal with Terrans, Klingons, Vulcans, Binars, and every other race in the Federation? Then I realized that the Star Trek universe isn't really set up to deal with the question of diversity. I mean, is there any planet other than Earth with more than one race of people? Qo'Nos is full of Klingons and noone else, Vulcan has Vulcans, Romulus has Romulans ... there are no hyphenates on any of those planets (i.e., no "Hispanic-Vulcans"). Plus, everybody on those planets seems to believe in the same set of values, have the same culture, follow the same religion (with a few upstarts now and again, but they're the exceptions to the rule) -- every other planet in the Star Trek galaxy is home to a monolithic culture. In fact, even Earth in 24th century seems to have become somewhat singular in its culture. The notion of individual countries no longer exist, there are no states, no nations. There's one elected official who's in charge of Earth. The only evidence that there was ever a culture apart from that of "Terran" is in people's last names (i.e., Picard and Torres) and skin color, and everyone seems to ignore those details for the most part.

The question, I guess, is: what happened to race? How did everything get homogenized? I think the answer lies in Wesley Crusher's last episode. Remember the planet of Native Americans? I wonder if any other cultural group on Earth decided that they'd rather start a colony out in space before surrendering their culture to the Terran ideal. I bet they did. I bet somewhere there's a planet of Africans, a planet of Mexicans, hell, a planet of fucking French people (Picard would consider himself Terran, but have certain leanings towards his ancestral culture -- as long as he lived on Earth, he'd be expected to be part of the Terran cultural group rather than French).

So what does this have to do with education on the Enterprise? Well, it means that school on the Enterprise wouldn't have to worry about teaching multiculturally. In fact, the concept of multicultural education would be a non-sequitur. They would teach Terran-style. And if parents wanted their children to be taught differently, they would send them to the appropriate planet or colony world.

"Education on the Enterprise", then, is actually an outline of the Terran education philosophy rather than some galactic standard. Vulcans would certainly do things differently, as would Klingons (Worf once threatened to send Alexander to a Klingon school), and so on for every other cultural group.

Star Trek: The Next Inspiration

So I was watching a little ST:TNG last night, and I saw that episode where Worf's son, Alexander, comes on board the Enterprise to live with his daddy. Part of the episode dealt with how Alexander was (mis)behaving in school. While watching those scenes, I started thinking: What would "school" on the U.S.S. Enterprise be like? In this particular episode, they made it seem like it was basically the same as the way it works in America -- one teacher, a class full of 20-some-odd kids, field trips, etc. But as I thought about it some more, I realized that the Enterprise would probably have a much different form of education. Come to think of it, Earth in general would do things a lot differently 500 years in the future, given that it's a utopia and all and our current educational system -- for lack of a better phrase -- sucks donkey balls.

So I got inspired to write a story. I'm calling it "Education on the Enterprise". It's taking the form of a kind of brochure that all the parents of school-age children on the Enterprise would receive describing how "school" worked. I'm still in the "idea" phase, but here's what I've thought of so far...

First of all, there wouldn't be the traditional "class" as we know it. I think that by the time five centuries had passed, people on Earth would finally realize that having one person be in charge of the education of 120 kids is a bad idea. Indeed, there aren't really "teachers" the way we think of them. That is, a Teacher with a capital T, someone whose sole job it is to ... well, teach. There would be several "Advisors" or "Mentors", people who would, among other things, meet one-on-one or in small groups (of, say, about 10-15 kids per Mentor)every once in a while (perhaps two-three times a week) to check up on their charges and to see if they needed any help with specific fundamentals, such as reading or writing.

Now here's where I start running into some problems with my idea. Given that there is no one particular job or profession that Enterprise's educational system is preparing it's students for, and given that there are a multitude of worlds available for the students to live on with a vast variety of cultures, what is the overall purpose of Enterprise's educational system? How long does it last? It seems that people tend to enter Starfleet Academy roughly around the same time that young adults enter college (around 18-19), and students who'd want to pursue a career in Starfleet would most likely require additional training and education specifically suited to that choice, but what if you didn't want to enter Starfleet? So I'm thinking that at some point, say around age 16-17, students would be required to set some sort of goal for themselves for "post-graduate" work. Now, this does not necessarily have to be the career that the students end up choosing, but it will be what they end up studying for the next year or two. So the question then is, how will students be able to make this choice? Well, somehow, Enterprise's educational system has prepared them to make it. How? That's not what I'm sure of yet.

As I said, it's still in the idea phase. But I do know one thing -- from age 5-17, these kids are not sitting in a room reading out of dusty textbooks. Look at Wesley Crusher, for chrissake. Annoying though he was, he exemplified the kind of education that the kids aboard the Enterprise would be having. He was interning! He was learning-by-doing! Actually, it went a bit beyond that -- the kid was a fucking Acting Ensign. He piloted the damn ship! Don't tell me that Wesley-the-obnoxious-one was the only one to whom such opportunities were available.

So there it is. More on this as it develops.

Wannabe hacker

Ok, I'm back. And while I still don't have a job, I feel slightly better having done a brief search and discovered that I could indeed find a nice place to live (for myself, at least) at a very reasonable price if I had to.

In other news, I'm currently connected to the internet via a library at Brown. While this is not unusual in and of itself, what makes it slightly interesting is that I'm connected using a wire. Y'see, in one of the computer clusters here, a computer had been removed (for maintenance, I guess) from one of the little computer cubbies. Of course, this left behind the ethernet cable which was still connected into the wall socket. So I says to myself, "Hmmm, what would happen if I connected that shit to my computer?" Turns out it connects me to the Brown LAN. Furthermore, it requires nothing in the way of a password or username -- I could be any random schmuck off the street with a laptop, and I could connect my shit to the Internet. What makes this preferable as opposed to Brown's new Wireless system is that it allows unlimited access to the Internet, whereas the wireless kind isn't yet ready to handle things like sending email or Instant Messenger. Why, you may ask? I dunno. All I know is, I got free access to the Internet. Thanks, Brown!

Hmmm...maybe I should keep this quiet...

Blowing off steam

I found out yesterday that Rhode Island is the only state in the country to officially celebrate V-J Day. How do they celebrate, you might ask? With parades aplenty and open places of business anone. Every goddam thing in this town was closed.

Other fun news: Been having trouble sleeping recently. And by "trouble", I mean I go to sleep at about 5:30 in the A.M. and wake up at 9:00. What could've brought on such a strange occurrence, I ask myself. Then I realize what it is. It's the fact that it's August 12th and I have no job. It's the fact that, even if I got the job that I wanted, I'm afraid I wouldn't want it. It's the fact that I got a call today from Warwick's school dept. asking me if I wanted to be a sub, and I was relieved. I worry that I won't be able to handle doing the teaching thing full-time. I have serious doubts. The thought of subbing and doing some other shitty part-time job seems attractive compared to the thought of feeling overwhelmingly stressed, angry, dirty, exhausted, humiliated, etc. for the next nine months. Of course, I realize that this is based on my one teaching experience so far at the worst goddam school ever conceived by man. But still ... Oh, and I have no place to live because my would-be roommate doesn't know if he'll be here next year or in California.

Well, I guess that about sums it up. I guess it's about time to call back Wawick lady and find out what she has to offer.

...And I'm back

Lots to talk about...

Got back from Owego a couple of days ago. Had a marvy time up in "the country". We stayed in a Bed & Breakfast called the Pumpelly House. Pumpelly was some dude who was important for some reason or another. Anyway, he lived a long time ago and now he's dead. A few notes on Owego: it's a very small town where everything closes at 6:00 except on Thursdays when things stay open later for some reason. When I asked Katie's pop why this was, he explained -- in a very Dad-from-Calvin-and-Hobbes kind of way -- that the original settlers of Owego arrived on a Thursday and partied all night long. So it's a local tradition. However, I did manage to get a book called Love That Dog, which restored my faith in humanity.

Then it was off to the country part of the country. Otherwise known as "Lightning Bug Acres". It's a little patch of land out in the woody part of Owego with a cabin (built by Grandpa Carl, I believe), and a man-made pond. We walked about, we swatted gnats, we chased and caught little froggies, we swam, we ate s'mores over an open fire -- it was more than this asthmatic Jew from suburban St. Louis ever expected to do in the out-of-doors, let alone enjoy.

Oh, and here's something else that I (and probably my mother) never expected I'd do: I fired a gun. And I'm not talking about no cap gun neither. I'm talking about a 9mm Smith & Wesson semi-automatic hand cannon. In the process of going through some 3-odd clips (I would've been fine with one, but daddy kept egging me on), I discovered a few things: 1) The gun was surprisingly easy to aim -- I managed to kill two 12-oz soda cans from about 15 feet away, not to mention an aluminum pan, and 2) I really hate guns. Man that shit was scary. NRA, no thanks. On the bright side, I now have something new to talk to Bill about.

And now I'm back in Providence. A little bit older, a little bit wiser, the feel of gunpowder still on my hands and mosquito bites on my legs. Thanks for the memories, Owego (and Katie and her family). If I'm ever in upstate New York again, I'll be sure to drop by. As long as it's before 6:00.

Heading up to Owego with

Heading up to Owego with the girlfriend and her fam. Thats in new york, in case you didn't know. The upstate part of it.