It’s okay when I do it

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, ReadingLeave a comment

I’ve been reading a lot of Sarah J. Maas lately– ACOTAR 6 comes out in a few days, and in the last month or so I’ve reread the first four books; I’ll finish A Court of Silver Flames next week sometime, then go into the new book, then in between ACOTAR 6 and 7 I’ll reread the Crescent City books. The Throne of Glass series is actually my favorite of her work, but it’s not as tied into the rest of them, so rereading that will have to wait until next year.

I don’t argue with people about books very often– it just doesn’t come up, to be honest– but I especially don’t argue with people about SJM. She has a couple of little quirks about her writing that drive some people up a wall, and while I don’t share them, I get it, more or less. The biggest one is her insistence on using “male” and “female” to refer to her fae and angelic characters and never, ever “man” or “woman.” Men and women are human. It’s a hard line. I noticed a moment in ACOWAF a couple of days ago where a character actually uses the wrong word, and she immediately corrects herself.

The other one is her use of “mate.” The mating bond in ACOTAR isn’t entirely voluntary and tends to make its own decisions, for lack of a better word– simply making eye contact with the person who is supposed to be your mate can trigger it, and once it snaps into place, it can be ignored, at some cost, but it can’t be reversed. The fun bit, also explored in ACOWAF, is that sometimes the mating bond makes shitty decisions? The main male (sigh) character’s parents were mated and weren’t good for each other at all.

You’re gonna see the word “mate” a lot in ACOTAR. A lot a lot. And if it gets on your nerves, you’re not gonna have a good time with the series.

Anyway, I read ACOWAF and ACOFAS back to back, and I picked up another book off my Unread Shelf as a sort of palate cleanser before going into the next book. This book has lizard people in it. Lizard people are nearly deaf and psychic, so they communicate via telepathy. Only the book never uses the word “telepathy.” The word the author has chosen– or, at least, the translator, as the book was originally written in Korean and it’s not entirely clear how one translates neologisms from one language to another– is nearm. Nearm is both a verb and a noun; one nearms a nearm. I’m not sure how to pronounce it, as I’m reading the book and not listening to it; the one TikTok video I found discussing the book pronounced it “neerm,” and I can’t shake “knee-arm” out of my head even though “neerm” is probably closer.

Nearm is a dumb word. It might sound less dumb in Korean, maybe; I don’t know a damn thing about Korean. It sounds really dumb in American English. I’m pretty sure it sounds equally dumb in all the other Englishes as well. And any time one of the lizard-people shows up on the page you’re gonna see the word as many times as you might see “said” for any other character. God help you if there are more than one of them and they’re talking– sorry, nearming— at each other.

It’s got me ready to put the book down, and I was really looking forward to this book, and damn, Maas-haters, if I didn’t get it before, I get it now.

WHERE is my STICKER

On By Luther M. SilerIn PoliticsLeave a comment

I can’t post a picture of the sticker I didn’t get, so have a picture of a co-worker’s car and feel free to come up with an explanation. I have none, and I don’t know whose car it is, so I can’t ask.

I voted today, in case that wasn’t already clear, and judging from the size of the crowd at just past noon on a random Thursday a couple of weeks before the election, I feel like turnout even in Indiana is going to be decent. We are having a singularly boring election this year; the most high-profile race is for the Secretary of State, for God’s sake, where polling indicates that Democrat Beau Bayh may actually have a chance– the current Republican SoS pissed off his entire party something fierce in a manner I’m not clear on, and came in third in the primary, with less than ten percent of the vote. The election I’m most concerned about is for my State House representative; I know the guy I voted for, and his opponent is an odious piece of bigoted garbage who sponsored a bunch of anti-trans bills. I’d hit him with my car if I had a chance. Fuck that guy.

There were two proposed Constitutional amendments: Should We Be Able To Lock People Up Without Bail Whenever We Want (no) and Should We Be Able to Use Rural Judges in Cities with Democratic Mayors (also no). My School Board member is up for re-election; he is one of the two current Board members whose picture can be found in dictionaries next to “local crank”; sadly, he is running unopposed. I’d run against him myself were it not for the small detail that I absolutely do not want to be on the School Board. I have been to School Board meetings, and if my life in any way involved having to attend them and having to pay attention and having to be there the entire time, suicide would swiftly follow. I simply cannot.

But yeah. No Senate, no Governor, it’s the midtermiest of midterm races. I suppose the latest Democratic sacrificial victim for IN-02 doesn’t seem entirely incompetent, and if there’s a sufficient nationwide Blue wave she might be swept into office, as my current rep is a replacement-level MAGA NPC who has not distinguished himself in any way while in office, but I’m not holding my breath.

Survived

On By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Six whole parent conferences today, and in only one did the parent threaten to put her child in foster care.

I shall now melt into a puddle.

Go ahead, ask her

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching2 Comments

I returned to work today, although I was unable to tough it out and go to conferences. It became clear after a couple of class periods that all I was going to be capable of doing was preventing any of them from killing themselves or each other, and a twelve-hour day simply wasn’t happening today. It’s 8:30 PM as I’m writing this, and I feel more fully human than I have in a week, although I still haven’t managed to eat a real meal. Lunch was half a package of saltines, a banana, and a couple of cups of applesauce. Dinner was some mashed potatoes and a couple of pretzel sticks.

I am hoping to eat a salad for lunch tomorrow without paying for it. We shall see.

I had one of the more bizarre conversations/arguments with a student today that I’ve had in a while; I don’t remember exactly what got us on the topic, but two of my fifth hour girls had come back to my desk and the topic of my son came up. One of them appeared completely bewildered by the topic, and even more bewildered by the notion that I might be 50 and have a fifteen-year-old.

“He’s adopted, though, right?”

Uh … no. He’s mine.

“But was he … born?“

I swear that’s what she asked, and that got her a weird look from both of us.

Yes? My son was born. I was there. Watched it happen, at least sort of. They put you behind the curtain when there’s a c-section, but there wasn’t a baby one minute and then there was a huge hole in my wife and a baby, so I kinda made some assumptions? Plus the whole pregnancy thing that ended right away.

“But … you’re gay.”

It is worth making clear here that this child had not one trace of doubt in that statement. None. It was apparently more logical to her that I had somehow conjured my own son than that I was a heterosexual married to a woman.

“I promise you I’m not. Married to a woman and everything.”

“You told us you were gay!”

At this point her friend literally shakes her head as if she can’t quite believe what she’s looking at and is trying to clear the cobwebs. It was kind of hilarious.

“He never said that.”
“I never said that.”

“Yes you did! You’re gay!”

“He has a wife,” the other one hisses at her, clearly mortified.

At this point I produced my phone (did I mention I decided not to order the Duo? I didn’t order a Duo.) and showed her a family picture. I swear she was no more than a moment or two from telling me my son’s graduation picture was AI.

Now, here’s the thing: I am certain a nontrivial portion of my students assume I’m gay. The room isn’t exactly full of pride flags, nothing like it was at my previous school, but they’re there, and they all know I run the school’s LGBTQ club, and I come down hard on homophobia in my room. And, and this is my fault, and I should probably fix it, there aren’t any family photos prominently displayed anywhere, so a casual observer of my room couldn’t be faulted for jumping to a conclusion. I make it real clear to the Gem Club kids that I’m cishet because I don’t want them feeling like I’ve misrepresented myself, but I genuinely don’t care what the rest of them think– and I think the fact that I don’t make a big deal out of it when kids do ask if I’m gay doesn’t help. I’ve never had a kid ask with any sort of hateful or disgusted feelings attached to the question, and a lot of the time they’ll apologize beforehand. I always tell them the same thing, more or less– yes, I’m straight, but I’m not bothered by the idea that they thought otherwise at first. I will be okay. So will they.

This is, however, the first time that someone has argued with me about it.

Still too early for this

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reading1 Comment

Health update: I did not go to work or to PTCs tonight, and I have lost eight and a half pounds since the last time I weighed myself a week ago. A slight positive from this is that I am currently the lightest I have been in the better part of a decade. I really really really need to go to work tomorrow and I’m just not convinced it’s a good idea.

Anyway, you might remember this post from about a month ago, where I’m looking at books or series I’ve abandoned in the past that I feel like deserve a second shot next year. Let’s add three more!

I think I have read Quicksilver and maybe half of the second book, but it was forever ago. Honestly other than these being legendary for being complicated, I don’t remember a damn thing about this book, so it will feel like a first read.

Read the first book! Loved it! It’s phenomenal! Then Ken Liu did not translate the second book, and I think I got maybe a hundred pages into it before setting it down in disgust. But Ken Liu did translate the third book, so it’s probably time to force myself through Book Two so that I can finish the series.

(Fun fact: I asked Ken once why he didn’t translate the second book. His response was a politer version of “How much of my own career do you think I should set aside to translate books other people wrote?” which makes complete and perfect sense.)

I’ve tried to read this fucking thing twice. I think I made it a third of the way through on my second attempt. This will be the last one. If it doesn’t click this time, I give up forever.

Still dying, sorry

On By Luther M. SilerIn life1 Comment

Had easily the worst intestinal distress of my entire life this afternoon, to the point where I was close to summoning an ambulance, something I never thought I’d do for diarrhea. I have been in bed ever since. Parent/Teacher conferences are tomorrow so it would be a really bad day to miss work, but it may have to happen. Sigh. October has been kind of shit so far, no pun intended.

I’ve been napping all day

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

Did I miss anything? I’m going to assume not.

Let’s see if you can make me II

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment

We have, like a lot of districts, an e-learning day scheduled for November 3rd, which is Election Day. Schools still get used as polling places frequently and a lot of districts have decided it’s safer and easier on everyone if they just get the kids out of the building for the day. We found out yesterday that we were going to be expected to be in PD all day. I’ve gone back and forth on whether I should post this flyer or not, and landed on “fuck it”:

You’re already starting off in a deep, deep hole if you want me to take you seriously and the first thing I encounter about you is a fucking AI flyer. I’m stunned that it’s not in that AI font that is absolutely fucking everywhere all the sudden over the last couple of months.

I had a few minutes this afternoon and, knowing full well I was about to piss myself off, I looked into the company behind this, again, six hour training. A six hour training at which they have already told us they will be taking attendance twice. We have been instructed to bring “a writing utensil and a hard surface to write on,” because we’ll be stuck in fucking auditorium chairs all Goddamned day. What this means is that we’re going to spend at least a third of the six hours “reflecting” and “sharing” with an “elbow partner.”

So you can imagine just how excited I was about this even before finding out that the person behind the company has all of four and a half fucking years of classroom experience, and all of that was at a high-ranked district in Georgia, and all of that was as a special ed teacher, meaning that she’s very likely never been in charge of a full classroom, and all of that was before Covid and before 1:1 tech instruction, where we handed all these demonic little fuckers perpetual distraction devices.(*)

Their website also offers a free brochure (“free” meaning “give us your email address”, here you go) with five “tips to give teachers what they need to thrive in the classroom.” There are more typos in the brochure than there are useful tips. The first page calls it an “ebook.” It is nine pages long, counting the cover.

No.

This person has nothing to say to me that I need or want to hear. The last time they pulled this shit on us it was a three-hour presentation where the guy began by promising to “respect our time” (not once in the history of humanity has anyone said those three words and meant them) and whose most insightful contribution to behavior management through his three hours was assigned seats, which he presented as if he’d invented the idea himself. This time it is six hours, followed by a “mandatory” presentation by the superintendent that falls entirely outside of our contract hours and which I have already bitched to the union about.

And again: they’re telling us they’re taking attendance twice, so they know good and fucking well that they’ve spent a lot of money to bring this asshole here to waste our time.

I’m not doing it. I’m calling in sick that day, and if for some reason I’m prevented from calling in sick I’m going to show up with a bag full of rotten fruit and I’m going to heckle until I get fired. Just because you can con bureaucrats into shoveling money into your gaping maw does not mean that you have anything relevant to say to me, and we’ll see how your little behavior management techniques work on a grown-ass man who is pre-tired of your bullshit.

(*) I’ve found her LinkedIn, too. She has four and a half years of teaching experience, four years in three different behavior analyst jobs, and then founded her consulting company. She is a fetus, and she knows nothing.