everybody hates the curse...

before i start, i just wanna let everyone know that i still have a couple blawgs or so left that pertain to NYSP, so stick around for those.  the school year is rapidly approaching, and i may even become inspired to chronicle that part of my life...as i always say i will do but always fall off...but for now, recent events...

so, my allen league volleyball team played for the championship a couple days ago.  this is a very significant event in the life of my volleyball family because...well...remind me to blawg one day about "the great cuss fest of 2009."  long story short: we lost the allen league playoffs to a team to which we should not have lost, all behind some foolishness.  yeah, i think that's a pretty good way to sum it up.  the details, though, are wonderful.  it's one of those times that you have to look back on and laugh about, but at the time it's the furthest thing from funny.  that was the event in volleyball history that cursed us, and since then we had never again played volleyball in allen until now.

well anyway, heading up the original team is the captain, who we'll call "he-man" for obvious reasons.  there's also x, my bestest volleyball friend/event coordinator, another recent friend we'll call "barbie" (again, for obvious reasons...it's no coincidence that she's married to a guy we'll call "ken"...they're both life sized), of course there's myself, and the last two are going to be called "monica" and "chandler."  more on chandler to come.  well, he-man sustained a huge injury a few weeks ago, forcing him to sit out the rest of the season.  taking his place was "marco," who's pretty good at volleyball.  i was gone for three games, and monica and chandler were out for a week or so due to our various adventures (or misadventures in my case...see any blawg relating to NYSP).  we had to have subs, but they're irrelevant to anything right now so i'll mention them no longer.

it was a pretty important game, so i (against my better judgment) decided to invite trip and luby, my siblings, for our big nite.  barbie's husband ken was also in attendance, as was he-man and his wife, "she-ra."  so we had us a good cheering crowd.

now, if i haven't already mentioned it, trip, being the arrogant son of a b*tch that he loves to be, thinks that he's god's gift to anything athletic.  every time i mention that i've played in a game, he always says that we could have done better if he were on the team.  god forbid i tell him that we lost a game.  it doesn't always happen, but hey...every now and then sh*t happens.  that's when he really goes off and says that i'm an idiot because i didn't call him to play.  well on the nite of our championship, i gave him the chance that he so sorely had been wanting all this time.  i kept giving him a volleyball and telling him to jump on and play.

me: here's a ball.  let's see what you got.
trip: nah, i got the wrong shoes on.
luby: those shoes look great.
me: huh?
luby: oh, i'm on the phone.
trip: these clothes aren't good to play in.
luby: i need to buy my boys some new clothes for school.
me: well, don't wait until my berfday to do it.
luby: oh, i'm on the phone.
me: c'mon, brother, this is your big chance to show us all your incredible talent.
luby: yeah, this is your time to shine.
me: don't pay any attention to her; she's on the phone.
luby: no, i'm not.  i'm talkin' to trip.
me: good god, i'm in the twilight zone.

so trip declined every invitation to play...as i thought he would.  keep that in mind for what's to come.  so our team played this team of jackarses that had been so rude in every past game that karma hit them hard.  they only had five players on the court, which put them at a disadvantage.  and with them being the team of rude people that they were, we took full advantage of their disadvantage.  the game went something like this:

i mean...damn.  they couldn't stop us.  any why would they have been able to anyway?  i had been watching the men's and women's volleyball matches in the olympics, and i don't usually tell anyone this, but i have this weird power to pick up skills just by watching them.  it's like a strange ability osmosis thing.  at any rate, because of all the games i had been watching, i ended up having quite a good game.  i was as good as chandler or better, because when it comes to volleyball, he's simply the best there is...except for that nite.  that nite, volleyball was spelled w-e-s-l-e-y.  it was a good game.

i must also mention our referee, who had gone for years without a name.  we finally, more like inadvertently, found out her name.  i'll leave it out here, but it actually turned out to be a good thing.  we had known her from years ago when we played in allen, but she had always been known as the chain-smoking b*tch who didn't know what the hell she was doing.  she has this really raspy voice and says things such as:

• "in there..." when the volleyball is in bounds
• "out there..." when the volleyball is out of bounds
• "this way..." when one team gets the point
• "that way..." when the other team gets the point

years ago, we were in the middle of a rather long rally, when the whistle suddenly blew.  we all looked at each other, and then to the other team, who looked back at us.  nobody had done anything wrong, and we all looked to the ref.  her response..."sorry, i took a breath."  she took a breath.  by the way, this is what she looks like:

she doesn't even drive; she just floats around on a nicotine-high cloud of ecstasy.  oh well, right?  whatever floats her boat...and doesn't rock mine...  barbie apparently has this connection where she can get cookies for free.  it's some random thing with her grandmother...

and it's a damn good thing, too, because this got the referee on our side.  most people couldn't really tell by just looking at her, but this lady is a b*tch on the volleyball sideline.  that referee whistle gave her too much power that went to her head...straight past the nicotine and to her head.  or maybe the whistle had nicotine in it; that would explain why it never left her mouth.

i digress.  the point was that we won.  during the game, every time i would look to trip and luby, luby would applaud/cheer/encourage and trip would say "you suck."  i can accept that, and my heart is still open.  besides, i wouldn't really expect anything less from him and his ignorant arse.  when the game was over, though, something peculiar happened.

we went to celebrate at a place called pluckers, where i decided to take a macaroni and cheese tray.  it was random, and don't really know why i did it, but i did it.  does that make me a criminal?  maybe just a miscreant.  it's not like i haven't been called worse.  by the by...what constitutes a "date"?  trip, luby, monica, chandler, x, and i had a conversation about what makes a date.  they were criticizing me because what i called a date wasn't really a date by their standards.  i will always think that i'm right, unless i'm wrong.  and i may be wrong, but i doubt it.

back to the peculiarity.  after we were done at the pluckers, everyone was about to go their separate ways, myself included.  trip and luby were at a standstill.  something was happening along the lines of luby deceived trip into driving her car all the way out to allen under the premise that she was going to drive back.  well, when we were done at the pluckers she said, "you know i'm not driving."  it somehow got under trip's arrogant skin and they had a long standoff where neither of them got in the driver's seat.  at any point i could have just gotten in my own car and driven home, but as the oldest and wisest of the three, i decided to stick around and try and work things out.  but...BUT...that's when i found out something quite disgusting (that's not really the right word...more like unappealing) about trip.

me: thanx for coming out to watch, you guys.  i appreciate it.  i hope y'all had fun.

luby: we did, and you were really good tonite.

trip: it was fun.  you...sucked.  when are you gonna come to my next game?

me: seriously, what did you think?

trip: you played w...you sucked.  when are you gonna come to my next game?

me: you're not gonna admit that i actually know how to play volleyball?

trip: you just said it.

me: but what do you think?

trip: i can't tell you that you're...that thing that you just said.

me: good at volleyball?

trip: yeah, that thing.

me: are you joking?

trip: no.  so about my next game...

luby: hello?  hey girl...

i found out that through an extension of his arrogance, trip is completely unable to give someone a compliment when said compliment comes with the reality that someone exists who is better than him at something.  it was totally unbelievable.  are you f*cking kidding me?  i was so upset that he couldn't give me a small compliment about something that's very important to me because he is that stuck up.  he claimed that this is something that's been a part of him for a long time, but who the hell cares about the back story?  not i, said the main character.  he plays baseball and softball, and since we've known each other, we've never been to each other's games.  we made a deal that if he came to mine, i'd go to his.  but to put that in front of a simple "you played well."  i would have even been fine with "you're not too bad."  the fact that he was unable to say anything other than "you suck" almost made me pull out move #72, which would've definitely made sure luby was going to drive.

so after some insistent prodding, he finally had enough time to come up with the excuse that he was going to compliment me in a "blog" that was planned as a surprise, and that i had just ruined it.

excuse me?

i haven't heard such sh*t come out of anybody's mouth since president clinton said that he did not have sexual relations with that woman.  so apparently, his mind can't function in such a way that he is able to compliment someone orally, so he has to go sit somewhere and plan out his words carefully like he's shakespeare or t. s. eliot.  how much planning and thinking and organizing and drafting and revising and editing and publishing does it take to say..."you played well."?  i guess for him it takes a hell of a lot of it, because unless he's about to extol my virtues in an epic about how well i can play volleyball, he's going to pretty boldly miss the mark.  the funny thing is...i'm not even fishing for huge compliments.  it's just common courtesy.  when i go to his game (because i am obligated to go per our deal), if he plays well i'll tell him.  of course there will be the "you suck" and the "i could've done better than that" and the mandatory "too bad i'm not on your team..." but at the end of the damn day, if the n*gga plays well, i'll let him know.  i'm not so proud that i can't tell someone that they are good at something.

i've blawged about how awful i am at basketball.  people who know me know damn well that i can't pass, dribble, shoot, play offense, play defense...i can't even warm the bench right.  therefore, i don't fool with basketball.  when it comes to it, i'd tell someone they're good at basketball...NOT because he's better than me (even though it's assumed), but because (and this might come as a shock) he's good at basketball.

so trip...you don't need to fake a "blog" about how good you think you want me to think you think.  for the third time in my thirty-four years of life, the few feelings i keep hidden have been hurt.  so congratulations, brother, you did well.

meanwhile, what a happy day...today i move out of the halfway house.  i should explain.  remember how i wrote in a blawg a long while ago that i go through roommates like toilet paper?  if not, then go back and take a stroll with me down memory lane...

what a great stroll, right?

so through an intricate series of unfortunate events and oddly-timed coincidences, i ended up moving out of my lavish townhome apartment with "kramer," a fellow teacher, and into another apartment with chandler.  i guess it would effectively make me "joey," but i'm wesley.  how you doin'...?

the apartment, though, is finally ready to move into, but for a month i've had to stay in chandler's old apartment, which i called the halfway house.  so that's what the halfway house is.  now i can live again.  oh happy day.

damn the italian men's volleyball team,

-w

everybody hates laundry... (part ii)

sorry about that, folks.  i had to wait a good long while before i had enough time to myself to continue blawging.  to be honest, i really haven't had the passion for blawging like i used to, which i guess could be attributed to pure laziness, or perhaps a complete sense of apathy on my part.  i've recently come to the conclusion that i just don't wanna do this anymore.  it's really quite sad.

anyway, back to the great laundry caper of 2012.  the last time we left the scene jerome and i were on our way to the bank and he was getting an innumerable amount of texts about a laundry card.  well...and this is just ridiculous...jerome was supposed to have been using the card that wanda bought because he gave her two dollars to put on it.  wanda had received the money from him, but never put it on the card, which could put her in the position of a thief in certain cases...this being one of them.  however, let's not forget that wanda had thrown extra money on the card just in case someone else needed to do laundry.

i think i should try and mention all of the people who had some sort of stock in this damn card...

1. wanda
2. jerome
3. tootie
4. jeanette
5. kwame
6. "patty" (another newbie who has throat problems)
7. "blossom" (yet another newbie)
8. twilight
9. katy

those are all the ones of which i can think right now.  i can't really count all the people who have a claim to use the card because there are so many that i can't count them all.  i only know of a few.  in fact, i think that wanda and i are the only ones who have laundry cards at all.  i know i used mine, and the rest of the staff here uses hers.  that could be a large part of the mystery.

so...as jerome and i are driving, the texts that he's getting are saying something along the lines of, "the card's here when you're ready to use it; you just need to put money on it."  the next text is reading, "so-and-so is using the card right now."  it was pretty much a tennis match of texts that went back and forth.  he was asking why, and the replies were not giving the answers he needed.

meanwhile (and this happened before jerome and i left for the bank...i'm skipping around as i remember things like a terrible quentin tarantino movie), kwame (who's also my roommate) wanted to do laundry.  although he claims to have had stock in wanda's card, i have reason to believe that he really just had his word to go off of instead of any actual money, because wanda had not received any money from him.  i had two dollars on my card, and told him that if he wanted to use it, it was fine.  he said okay, and i gave him the card.  before i left with jerome, i gave kwame two extra dollars and asked him to put it on the card when he went, because i could foresee myself needing to do laundry later down the line.  he took the money and i left with jerome to go to the bank.

so the story starts to come together.  the back story is filled in a little bit more.  jerome and i are en route to the bank, and he's getting random texts that go one way, then twist and go a completely different way.  i'm starting to wonder why he even involved himself in that pyramid scheme anyway.  so here's where the story gets a little more complicated.  i told jerome that he could use my card, to which he replied:

jerome: yeah, i think i'm gon' do that because this craziness right here don't make no sense...

we got back from the bank and went into the lobby of the dorm, where a few people were, including kenan, who is coincidentally as ignorant as the day is long.  that's right...he's twenty-four hours' worth of ignorant.  i don't wanna digress too much, though.  jerome is looking for wanda to make sure that he still has money on his card.  he didn't wanna use my card just yet because he still had (to the best of his knowledge) two dollars on the "community card."  if you want my opinion, that thing was more of a "chance" card from monopoly because you never knew who the hell had money on the card.

after at least twenty minutes of searching, he finally found out that wanda did not even have the card.  it had been passed to jeanette, who had already used it to do laundry for her, katy, and twilight.  patty and blossom had also already used the card.  the only person who had not used it (to my knowledge) was kwame.  well, apparently, kwame was running some laundry card game.  he had gotten a hold of wanda's card, you know, because he claimed to have put money on there.  remember, though, he had my card as well.  so kwame is sitting pretty with two cards, both of which had money on them.

jerome: where's your card?

me: kwame has it.

jerome: kwame?  why does he have it?

me: i gave it to him because he needed to do laundry.

jerome: but he had wanda's card.

me: he did?

jerome: yeah, so you're saying he has two cards?  what the hell he gon' do with two cards?

me: do twice as much laundry?

jerome: man...

it finally came to the surface that kwame did indeed have two laundry cards.  jerome had finally given up on getting wanda's card, and started looking for mine.  meanwhile, he was also looking for his two dollars back because, well, he was entitled to it.  we finally found kwame, because jerome was determined to get to the bottom of the situation.  he was in the lobby.

jerome: say, who card you got? (jerome, unfortunately, had a slight stroke which destroyed the part of his brain that controls grammatical correctness)

kwame: wanda's.  why?

jerome: you don't got wesley's card?

kwame: no, i don't have it.

me: i'm gonna have to call BS on that.  i gave you the card before we left to go to the bank.

kwame: oh yeah, i didn't use it.

jerome: well who card you use?

me: yeah, whose card did you use?

kwame: i used wanda's because i had money on it.

me: where's mine, then?

kwame: i don't have it.

me: but i gave it to you.  i don't have it, which must mean that you still do.

kwame: oh yeah, it's in the room where you left it.

me: (sigh)

i pick on kwame a lot.  i mean, why not?  he's like a little brother.  it's his first time here, and my third.  i feel like it's my job to guide him along and help him out, kind of like how james did with me two years ago.  by the by, i'm going to see james at the end of the week.  i'm so excited i'm going to use an exclamation mark!

so anyway, jerome and i went back to my room and finally found the laundry card.  i gave it to jerome, and he did his laundry.  kwame did his laundry.  my laundry was already done.  every other person who laid stake in wanda's card got their laundry done.  and the caper was solved...kwame tried to steal and extort laundry cards.

sidebar...i had to almost use the same move i used on kel a year ago to get my two dollars back from kwame.  i believe it was move #33, but i could be wrong.  i've learned so many more moves since then that it's hard to keep up.

kwame's having a medical situation,

-w

everybody hates laundry... (part i)

good grief.  the worst thing to happen here at NYSP has finally happened.  the great laundry caper of 2012 put a great many staff members here in a state of complete and utter disarray.  well...i think before i get into the details of the caper, i have to introduce more of these zany characters with whom i work.

the characters involved in this silliness include:

• jerome - who played the part of the detective
• "kwame" - a newbie who's from ghana/new jersey who also happens to be my roommate here (as if i wasn't old enough for that kind of sh*t)
• "wanda" - another newbie who kind of sits in the middle of this whole caper
• tootie - a supporting character
• jeanette - another supporting character

well...as i understand it, things have been going wrong ever since we stepped foot on this godforsaken campus of unc-chapel hill.  i mean, damn, these belligerent, pretentious, uppity students and staff at this school have done everything in their power to ensure that the experience that we have here is as unpleasant as possible.  their latest scheme has to do with their laundry machines.  apparently, they have laundry machines here that don't take money...at all.  i mean no dollars, no change, no credit cards, none of that.  instead, you have to get a guest card (a one card) that you must then put money on in order to use the washing machines and dryers.  the caveat is that the store is not only the size of the distance between kenan's ears, and as wide as jakob, but it is open between the hours of ten in the morning and ten thirty in the morning.  finding this place is like finding the proverbial needle in a field of haystacks.  tootie and i were lucky enough to find this place the other day, and i purchased one of those one cards.

so this thing started when we all arrived to the unc campus.  i, of course, was completely unaware that we were gonna be here.  the last two years that i've done this in north carolina, we've been at wake forest university, which had problems of its own, but being here makes wake forest seem damn near like utopia.  remember the whole wingate thing?  we had to hike to the street, catch two cabs, a bus, and a train, then rent bikes to get to wingate from our rooms.  that distance is a hop and a skip compared to what we have to do here.  even adding the "jump" makes the distance from our room to wingate much longer than it actually is when compared to what we do here.

anyway, in wanting to do laundry, wanda went out and bought a one card.  she seems to be a pretty nice lady, so she bought the card with the intention of passing it around for others to use, so she put more money on the card than what she needed.  others who wanted to use the card just gave her money and she would go to the one card store (since it is impossible to find if you haven't already done so) and take care of it.  well...everything was going well and fine for a while, until that inevitable time came when multiple people decided that they wanted to do laundry at the same time.  in a perfect world...hell, in any normal world, this wouldn't really be much of a problem.  the obvious choice would be for all those involved with laundry to just go in, slish the card for each machine, and have them do their laundry.

this is happening in my world, though, and as we all know, nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to in my world.  what had happened was something along the lines of this...

(insert law and order dramatic jingle)

saturday

10.31a - wanda uses the card to start laundry

10.33a - i wake up

10.36a - kwame snores himself awake...announces to the world he wants to do laundry...i ignore him

10.49a - i take jerome to the bank to cash a check that i should already have gotten myself, but that's another story...

10.55a - as we are driving, jerome is getting texts back and forth about wanda's laundry card that he's supposed to be using that day

so, this officially marks the beginning of the great laundry caper.  of course, at this point it's not much of a caper, because it's not that big of a deal to anyone yet.  but as time progresses, we find out that the caper begins to unfold more and more...

more later, this girl "tomika" won't get away from me and it's blocking my inspiration to blawg.

stone her, stone her,

-w

everybody hates stick bitches...

got damn right.  i'm gonna have to go a little out of order for this one.  i just got wind of this just a while ago, and thought it very pertinent that i should interject this into the blawg.

apparently i've been called something along the lines of "intimidating" by one of the students...to the point where this particular student feels uncomfortable being in my group.  one of my bosses, called "connie," came and spoke to me about it.  she was talkin' 'bout this girl (who will be called "jackie") who honestly doesn't do anything i ask her to do...unless i repeat it at least fifty times.  and hell, even then it's a coin toss with a fixed coin to see if she's actually going to do it.  don't get me wrong; she's a smart girl.  but damn, what the hell is going on with the quality of this program?  i started doing this program three years ago and the kids at that time were great.  they were kids who were nominated to be here by respected members of their communities (teachers and what not).  they were excited to be here, and it showed in their enthusiasm and willingness to work, as well as their unnecessary need to follow every single direction given to them.

these damn kids now...i think we've run out of those kinds of kids.  really.  we've run out.  we're fresh out.  the kinds of kids we get now are smart...book smart, that is.  they don't really have a lick of common sense.  they are just regular kids, not the exceptionally bright and ambitious kids who used to frequent this program. somehow, this has turned into the internationally diverse version of a minstrel show.  we, the "teachers," have our hands full with trying to deal with these sh*ts.  they constantly do things that regular kids who would never get a recommendation to come here do.  again, we've run out of good kids.

so then, what brings me to this soap box rant that has superseded a blawg post that i had planned?  this jerk "jackie" has told my boss some things about me that have been taken out of context (of course, because telling the actual events would have been too much like right) and i've come out once again looking like the bad guy.  don't get me wrong; i love to play that part when it comes to children.  i think i've mentioned it before in a previous blawg, but i think now's a good time to re-emphasize it.  it is not in my nature to cater to the whims of children.  last time i checked...i was the adult and adults tell children what to do.  i don't think that i will ever tell a child to do something that will intentionally put him/her in danger (unless i feel the need to).  i think i'm digressing...it's getting late and i'm getting tired.

i haven't been getting the sleep that i've been getting.  i had worked myself in the past to a point where i could get everything prepped and ready and be in bed in time to get me a good eight to ten hours of sleep.  i had everything down to a science, a science.  remember, when you're really wanting to emphasize a point you have to repeat it.  you just have to repeat it.  now i'm finding myself in a position where i feel like it's my very first time doing the program.  i think it's because not only did i not want to come this year, but i'm doing a subject that i have never done before.  i've become an NYSP virgin, lol.  so i'm constantly walking around this inanely huge campus setting up stuff that i don't really know about, and trying to understand what the hell i'm trying to do.

i digress.  because speaking of trying to do things, this girl jackie has been trying to get on my nerves.  in addition to her not doing what she's been asked to do, she has some weird obsession with sticks.  i mean sticks like from outside.  every time we go outside she finds a large stick, picks it up, swings it around, and investigates it like a bird.  everyday this week so far, she has taken sticks and followed those procedures.  yesterday she had a branch.  i know it was a branch because it had twigs and each twig was full of leaves.  i simply had to stare at her.  i didn't say a word; i just stared.  finally, after a few minutes she asked why i was staring.

me: baby, if i'm looking at you crazy, it's probably because i've asked you to leave the sticks alone and you keep not leaving them alone.

so anyway, connie tells me that jackie has been telling her mom these things that make me sound much worse than i really am, and that bothers me.  it's a pet peeve of mine when people come to me charged up and i have no clue why, especially considering that things have been said about me that are either untrue or taken completely out of context.  damn i'm tired; i can't hardly think straight, lol.  so connie told me that jackie might be moving to tootie's classroom, to which i calmly (yet excitingly) replied, "move her."  i ain't got no time (sic) for anymore buffoonery than what i'm already dealing with this week.  it's already a sh*tty week here in general anyway, so what good is it to add a silly ho into the mix?  move her arse, dammit, move her arse.

i told connie that my feelings were not gonna be hurt if she moved because, honestly, i have better things to do than waste my time on ignorant b*tches whose sole purposes in life are to be trippin'.  connie said that she wants to ask jackie one more time if she's sure that she wants to move.  i don't have time for that...again. if she wants to move, if she even has an inkling that she may possibly be thinking about trying to want to move, move her arse.  tear her arse.  kick her arse.  but don't keep her in my room if she's going to be "uncomfortable."  it wouldn't be right.  and besides, we might actually get work done.

this blawg makes no sense.  maybe next time i'll be in a better state of mind.

sierra mist is really good when it's been doctored up,

-w

everybody hates being dragged back...

damn, it's been a long time, hasn't it?  so much has happened that i was practically cajoled into blawging.  the funny thing, though, is a whole bunch of ish has been going on at the school, and i swear to all that is holy that i will try and get that blawged, including the student who stole money from me.  yes, the students who stole money from me...twice.  it was hilariously awful, and i couldn't really do much besides laugh about it.  once you get the whole story, you'll laugh too.  that i promise you.

anyway, here i am, back doing this summer program that i had resolved not to do this year.  i'll give you a minute to go back to the blawgs written about this same time last year to re-familiarize yourself with the ridiculous cast of characters that you were subjected to...which could be thought of as unfortunate.  so go ahead; i'll wait.

waiting...




still waiting...




don't worry; i'm still here...




you shouldn't be much longer now...




and...done.




so now that you've relived the glory days of this particular summer camp as i have, let me give you a low down of who returned, as well as some new characters.  first of all, i must STRESS the fact that i did not plan on doing this road trip/work job.  no, i did not.  my original summer plan for the 2012 year was to do p90x and get myself in better shape.  oh yes, i need to...badly.  my resolve was to make a successful transition from XL shirts to L shirts.  i was well on my way when tamera (of tia and tamera, the doublemint twins) called me out of the gray (because it was raining hard that day) to get me to drive to north carolina for the camp.

actually, let me go a little further back.  i started getting random texts and facebook messages from jeanette (remember her?  she has an unhealthy obsession with beef hearts) quite a while ago saying that i needed to come to north carolina.  it was a multiple time thing.  this girl kept reminding me that i was absolutely needed at north carolina, like i'm some kind of savior.  now don't get me wrong...i'm a pretty big deal almost everywhere i go, but it was a little bit much.  then jerome, of all people, started texting me.  it went a little something like this:

jerome: man, i don't know why they think i'm like the trump card that can persuade you to work this year.
me: lol.
jerome: i know man.
me: lol.
jerome: so are you coming?
me: lol.

when it comes to jerome, he's got some swagger with me, so i started considering it.  let me introduce the fact that i had a lot going on this summer.  i had my plans for the summer set, but this whole NYSP thing got me all out of sorts.  can we add something else on top of that?  i moved...or rather, i'm in the process of moving.  my volleyball buddy, matt, had a kind of a situation with his roommate.  i was having a situation with my roommate, it's a long story.  long story short...i ended up moving out of my comfy townhome apartment into what i can only call the halfway house.  i only call it that because the actual apartment we're moving into isn't ready yet, so we've gotta stay in matt's old apartment until it's ready.

needless to say, i had to drop out of p90x after a month...again...

so anyway...the current roster of buffoons here is quite different from what it has been in the past.  some of the returning characters include jerome, who is probably the main reason i came (which could possibly end up ultimately being his fault...i'll explain later).  let's see, jeanette is here.  jakob is here, but only when he's not turned sideways from you.  then he disappears.  yes, folks, he's that thin.  tootie is here as well.  unfortunately, she has not grown.  she's a very straight up 4'9"...from the rooter to the tooter.  kenan, of course, is here.  kel, on the other hand, is not in attendance this time round.  well a good blawger knows how to work his sources...  apparently (and imagine that i'm saying this in an honestly sincere voice) he is moved to california doing modeling/acting work.  i wish him the best.  it just won't be the same without him.  it's like mario without bowser.  it's like austin powers without dr. evil.  batman without the joker.  professor x without magneto.  you get the picture.  shirley is here as well, although laverne is missing in action.  also missing are stallone and shania.  everybody remembers those two cute mary-kate and ashley olsen-ish girls who everyone stared at, as well as stared at.  it's funny because they've been replaced by two look-alikes, who i guess i'll call "twilight" and "katy."  more on that later.  let's see...who else is here?  "mia" is here as well.  i don't think i ever mentioned her last year.  she usually flies under the radar, which is why i guess she never made it on here...but dammit she's earned a place on here this go round.  why?  oh...more to come.  well, i'm being harassed by jeanette to publish this thing so i'm gonna end this for now.

damn i'm tired,

-w

everybody hates peace signs...

well, this blawg is happening live and on location, from my classroom.  that's right; i am blawging any- and everywhere.  as it turns out, we had a field trip today for the fourth graders.  out of a possible eighty-seven students, sixty-seven went.  one might ask why.  one would be asking a great question.  field trips are extracurricular activities, and as such are not required.  basically, these damn kids don't have to go on a field trip because it's not a mandatory thing.

well, a certain student, who will be given the extraordinary name "anpanman" (to be explained in a bit), was one of the students who was not allowed to go.  and why not?  let's make a list, and check it twice:

• he does not follow the rules
• he does not pay attention in class
• he does not pay attention in the hall
• he does not listen to instructions
• he does not do his homework
• he does not do his schoolwork
• he does not participate in class
• he does not tell the truth
• he does not follow directions
• he does not get along with other students
• he does not get along with other teachers
• he does not ever smile
• he does not sit in his seat correctly
• he does not know how to be quiet
• he does not keep his hands, feet, or objects to himself
• he does not know how to mind grown folks
• he does not know how to answer questions (which is a major pet peeve of mine)
• he does not show respect to anyone in the school
• he does not complete any assignments he is given

the damn list just goes on and on.  notice, though, that in every instance there were the words "he does not."  that's probably the theme song of his life..."he does not."  this lazy n*gga just does not do anything.  the reason, meanwhile, i gave him the name "anpanman" is because he bears a striking resemblance to a certain japanese anime character, named anpanman...

minus the smile, of course, because the student just does not smile...

harvey, a fellow colleague and teammate of mine, once asked him why he never smiles, to which he replied: "this just how i look."  apparently, cece and trip, the reading and writing teachers (respectively) aren't doing their grammatical jobs.  harvey and i have to do everything around here.

so, anyway, it is decided that he will not go.  the main villain in this blawg is surprisingly not anpanman, but his raggedy, nasty, ignorant, trifling, shiftless, self-indulgent, instigating, hypocritical, two-faced, bald-headed, stoopid, stereotypical, no sense having, inexcusable, sadistic, bullying, sardonically challenged, hellish, evil, foolish, buffoonish, inconceivable, unyielding, yet churchgoing mother.

oh yes, the mama.  meeting her was probably the biggest mistake i've made this year to date.  she's just awful.  i don't think that there are enough words in the english language to describe her.  the ones i used really don't do her justice the way she needs.  i'll call her..."etta."  etta has been the root of all the evil drama that has gone down at this damn school since before i started working here.  she is the kind of person who likes to always have her way, and then go over your head and run downtown to the administration building when things don't end up the way she thinks they should.  when i first met her i was like that commercial...this bitch is actually an alive entity.

so this heifer comes up to my door in her usual bullying fashion and asks why her son cannot attend the field trip.  i told her that his behavior was not, and has not been good, he doesn't do his work, he doesn't pay attention...i basically ran down the list with her.  i concluded by telling her that we, the THE fourth grade team, did not think that all of that deserved to be rewarded with a field trip.  she replied with a simple "okay" and took off towards the office, where the principal was.  that's how this jackarse is.  she likes to go over your head until she gets her way.  that makes her a bully...but i thought we were all grownups...

our principal called the four of us teachers into his office and told us that she explicitly told him (and this is verbatim): "he's going on that field trip."

you have got to be f*cking kidding me.  we ran down a whole list of problems that this squishy faced n*gga has in school, but he's going on the field trip?  i was supposed to be going, but i decided that very moment that i would not.  cece had to go in my place today because had i seen either of them i would have lost my damn job...or what's left of it.

so we did a conference call...to the dad, who seemed generally disinterested in anything we had to say.  he said that he hadn't heard anything from his wife.  we were like, "n*gga, that's a communication issue between you and that bitch of yours; that has nothing to do with us."  we finally got hold of this stoopid ho', and she said that she had problems with us...ALL of us teachers, because nobody ever tells her when her son is doing anything wrong.  she said that she brings him to school every day, and gives us multiple opportunities to speak with her, yet we never do.  so we went around the speakerphone and took turns trying to talk to her.

trip went first...and should never have gone.  i usually keep it together, but i really wanted to hang the phone up...

trip: well, what i have to say is...

etta: that don't make no sense to me.

trip: i'm trying to say...

etta: you need to tell me something else.

trip: well, your son doesn't...

etta: you don't make no sense.

trip: can i speak my piece now?

etta: no, we ain't talkin' 'bout no peace sign.  we're talkin' 'bout my child.

trip: well i keep trying to speak, but you keep interrupting me.

etta: we ain't gon' get nowhere with you being sarcastic.

and so went the conversation.  she sounded like she was going to break into a verse of "dem ol' cotton fields back yonder" and move back to "gone with the wind."  i mean this monkey was out of control.  we all told her (with the exception of harvey, who i think would really have jumped through the phone and choked the sh*t out of her) more or less the same things about her child, and she was in denial the entire time.  and although she was in denial, she insisted that her child is not a bad child, but she acknowledges that he can do things every now and then.  THEN (and this is the part that took me out of the game), she said that if he's acting up then she can understand that, and she's not going to reward any bad behavior of his, but he's going to be absent from school because he's going on the field trip.

take a minute to process that particular group of words strung together in that particular order...

whatever this queen of the damned is on, put me some in a doggy bag and leave me to the wolves.  she wants to be communicated with?  i will never speak with her again, unless she really wants me to speak my mind, which i will.  i will only communicate with her in writing.  she doesn't deserve my voice time.  i've got better things to do, like learning to write larger, because the beauty pageant reject scrutinized my handwriting, saying that she needed a magnifying glass to read it.  next time i will write even smaller, microscopic even.

congratulations, etta, you have earned a spot on my sh*t list.

(time lapse)

PS: but wait...there's more.  i just came from lurnch with the rest of my THE fourth grade team and cece was telling me that she called this idiot last night to discuss some of the things that she said.  i hda to hurry off so i couldn't fit everything in that blawg, and i probably won't be able to get it all in now either.

cece was about to tell her something, but she prefaced it with "and i think i speak for the whole fourth grade team."  etta thought she was referring to something else, which was of course, wrong.  so she blurted out with a triumphant and somewhat maniacal "NO...NO MA'AM...UH UH...NO."  cece said she had to call her last night to tell her that that bothered her...only to find out that my name came up.

among the issues that this trifling bitch has with me, here are the top three:

1. i cursed anpanman out.
2. i made him stand up without a chair for three days straight.
3. i cannot look her in the face when she speaks to me.

i've got about seven minutes to issue my statements before my break is over...

1. i used the word "damn."  this i will admit.  i will also say that the word was not directed toward any child.  i used it in the situation that they all failed a test i gave.  i asked them if they thought i was disappointed.  they said yes, i said "damn right."  etta is under her ignorant son's spell.  she told me that day that he told her i said words such as "bullsh*t," "motherf*cker," and the like.  those are strong words for me.  i only save those for dire emergencies.  he lied on me, that moon faced chump.
2. again, false.  i went through a "push in your chair when you get up" phase and told them that if they didn't, they would lose their chair for a little while, that little while being between five and ten minutes.  it kept happening, so i said they would lose it for a little while for a week, meaning five to ten minutes a day for a week.  he lied on me, that dumb arse chump.
3. the word "cannot" is inaccurate.  the best word to use in this situation is "won't"...maybe "don't."  i do not make a habit out of showing respect to those who cannot even throw some of it back.  i told my teammates: "the ancient greeks did not look medusa straight in the eyes, either.  those who did...still statues to this very day."  that's the only way i'll say it...for now.

so there is my side.  keep in mind that these things happened months ago, so she is steadily holding fast to the past, which is preventing her from moving towards the future.  strangely enough, the one for whom i really pity is anpanman himself, not only because he has to be raised by this wolf, but because he is getting caught in the middle of this buffoonery.  yes, he is the source and the catalyst of most of it, but at the end of the day, this is a ten year old child.  what the hell does he know?

i'm gonna get that sucka, dirty mutha --- don't you say that...

-w

everybody hates kandi (part i)...

this won't be too long because i am more than ready to lay it down for the night.  i promised, though, that i would dedicate a blawg just for this girl/woman/bitch/lady because she's pretty much ride or die when it comes to being a dedicated reader of my work.  it's great to know someone who's as sarcastic, yet sophisticated, as i am.  that person, of course, is none other than...

are you ready?

wait for it...

drumroll...

pause for dramatic effect...play this video as you read the blawg.  for some reason this just popped up in my head as i was thinking about what to write.

so, if you don't know, kandi is a former coworker of mine from the old school.  we met...not during my first year at the old school, but my third year.  i had known of her from the beginning, but it wasn't really until we starting teaching on the same team that i got to actually know her...and that was the start of something special...

as it turned out, we both started working at the old school the same year.  she had been a middle school teacher (and why the hell would anybody ever want to do that...voluntarily?) before, and decided that she wanted a change of pace.  apparently, and this is how it was told to me, she was good friends with our principal at the time, and that's how she got a position at the old school.  at first, i chalked it up to some sort of greek nepotism or something, because i had always assumed that they were in the same n*gga sorority.  it was later consolation to find out that they were not.

whenever i think about black fraternities and sororities, this is the first clip that comes to my mind.  back in the day i wanted to join one of those things.  i think some days i still do, and the day may come when i actually work up enough courage (and money...these sh*ts cost a lot of money) to go and do it.  it's on my bucket list, but only until i turn forty-two or so, then it'll just look quite sad.  there are a lot of reasons i wanted to join one.  if you're not familiar with the african-american culture (i'm not really caught up on it myself, but i do the best i can), when one joins a fraternity or sorority it's pretty much for life.  white ones only keep you through the time you walk across that stage.  black ones keep you even after you've passed on to the next life.  from what i heard, depending on which one you join, you're reborn as something different...oh well, that's for another time.

meanwhile, so i think that kandi got ushered into the old school.  she was doing forth grade reading at the time (which isn't ironic at all, especially when i try to add the fact that i teach forth grade now) and was as pregnant as an elephant.  her husband really gave it to her good.  yadda yadda yadda...we ended up on the second grade team.

she texted me the other night and said that the best time she had at the old school was when the second grade team consisted of her, jab, big mama, and me.  we didn't get much teaching done, but it was always a good laugh.  jab was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the hall, and big mama had the largest room a school has ever had.  it was approximately the size of one third of a football field...regulation of course.  kandi and i shared these little twin rooms that were just around the corner from big mama.  if big mama's room was the size of a hummer, ours were the size of the little cap that you have to unscrew to put air in the hummer.  i'm not joking; they were that small.

the fondest memory i have of kandi (as if she's passed on to a better life) is this: every day at around two thirty or so, we would start getting the students ready to go.  that time, by the way, got earlier and earlier as the year went on...  because our rooms were right next to each other, i could always hear her yelling.  a typical rant in her class might be something like this:

kandi: Y'ALL ARE SEVEN AND EIGHT...NOT TWO...
(flash)
kandi: I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONE IN CHARGE...
(flash)
kandi: THAT'S A BOLD FACED, NAPPY HEADED, RAGGEDY, UGLY LIE...
(flash)

but the funniest thing was that in getting them ready to go, her kids would literally go crazy.  honestly, they would stop being semi-smart children and let go of all the idiocy that they had been holding back for the past seven hours...

kandi: alright, y'all, it's time to begin starting to prepare to get ready to go.  make sure you have your...

students:

oh it was awful, yet entertaining at the same time.  oh kandi...why did you have to get pregnant again, forcing me to go it alone for so many months without your hilarious yelling.  when jennifer joined our team, she yelled, but it wasn't the same...it just wasn't the same...

i gotta go to bed now because i can't think clearly, but stay tuned for a part two to this...all this reminiscing got me reliving these days again.  i really don't have to tell you, but that's pretty much what reminiscing is anyway.  if anyone has any hilarious kandi stories, let me know so i can include them in the next kandi blawg...

wasn't the theme song great?

-w