Tomorrow

On December 3, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

I get to spend my entire day tomorrow giving my students standardized tests, and I mean that literally– every single one of my classes, all day, except for my 30-minute lunch, which is going to be delayed a bit from its usual time because of Reasons. I will have to read several pages of instructions six times and ask over a hundred and thirty students “Do you have a cell phone?” and hope none of them are lying to me, because I get to catch all the bullshit from everybody if we have to invalidate a test.

You’ve all heard the rants before; I’m tired and I don’t wanna. I’m going to predict my sixth-hour kids have the worst test scores I’ve ever seen, though, because giving a standardized test at the end of the day is fucking professional malpractice.

And then Thursday the process will repeat, with the ELA teachers giving their half of the test, and I’ll be in my classroom instead, trying to figure out how to keep the bastards busy and quiet for class periods that are ten or so minutes longer than usual. I’m thinking color by numbers. I’m already pre-annoyed by Thursday behavior issues that haven’t even happened yet– that ten minutes don’t sound like much but they’re going to be. My current ability to tolerate bullshit, as well as the ability of the other adults in the building, is calibrated for 53-minute blocks. There will be a lot of damn referrals during the last ten minutes of class over the next couple of days.

Also, I just ate about two thousand calories of deep dish pizza, and it was a bad idea.

The end.

In which I am unbelievably petty (WARNING: Superman opinions)

On June 26, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, idiocy, movies6 Comments

Let me begin with some Statements which are Generally Known to be True:

That I am insanely, irrationally protective of Superman, and do not believe the character has been done right in live action since the Reeve era, with the possible exception of Tyler Hoechlin in Superman & Lois, which I really enjoyed for about five episodes and then mysteriously stopped watching;
That I am fully aware that a set picture is not the best way to evaluate a superhero costume;
That I have been loud and wrong about iconic superhero costumes before;
That I absolutely hate it when nerds do exactly what I am about to do, although I will attempt to mix in some positives;
That I am probably not going to see this movie, not because I am boycotting it but because I don’t see movies any longer, and I feel like maybe that’s could give me an out about having an opinion, an out that I am currently not taking; and
That David Corenswet’s performance is going to be infinitely more important than his costume, as will other minor details like the fucking script, and I know literally nothing about how he’s going to move and act as the character. I do know I’m not terribly interested in Ultraman or Mr. Terrific, one of whom was also in the leaks but one of whom is still technically a rumor.

That said!

Wait. No. Let’s do this first:

Two things are Correct about this costume.

The colors, for the first time in years, are correct, and this says good things about the direction the film is going to take;
Putting the S-shield on the back of the cape in yellow is also Correct.

I hate every single other fucking thing about the fucking costume.

The collar. They’ve clearly drawn inspiration from the New 52 costume, which I hated, and part of the reason I hated it was the fucking collar. Every other and I mean every other live action iteration of Superman’s suit has done the cape/shoulders/neck area better, including Tyler Hoechlin’s, which dropped the cape into prominent gold grommets and still looked better. I hate the collared look. It is, in fact, the thing about the costume that I hate the most.
The S-Shield. This is a version of the Kingdom Come shield, which was fine in Kingdom Come, which was set in the future and involved a Superman who had gone through intense personal loss, and is not fine here. Just use the fucking regular S-shield, Goddammit. This is not a place where we fucking need to innovate. Also it could stand to be a little bigger– if it was right, at least– but that’s not that big of a deal.
The texture. This may not survive the transition into the actual film, but I hate all the little lines and shapes everywhere. The cape looks like it’s made from microfiber, which also sucks.
The belt. Yes, the costume needs the belt, and I’m happy it has a belt, but that belt looks like Batman’s belt. It looks chunky and rubbery for no clear reason.
It’s fucking baggy. Superman wears his costume under his clothes and it needs to be tighter. This also may not survive the transition onto the actual silver screen. In fact, I really doubt it’ll be noticeable on the screen. I hate it anyway.
The wrists. Also borrowing from New 52, and perhaps more obvious in other pictures than in these, they’re pointy, and they look fucking stupid. You also can’t conceal pointy wrist cuffs under a dress shirt.
The briefs. Shut up, Goddammit, the word “petty” is right in the title. Yes, I’m happy they’re there, and I’d rather have them than not have them, but those are fucking boyshorts, not Superman briefs. It’s wrong and it’s wrong for no reason.
The boots. Actually, the boots are fine. I have no beef with the boots.

Do not get me started on Clark’s hair:

(Actually, the hair is whatever; I think Clark would have a more conservative haircut than that ramen-looking GenZ mop bullshit but it definitely makes him look less like Superman, so I’ll deal.)

Okay. I’ve got that out of my system now, I hope. I have seen a couple of images today that I can’t find now where someone took the Corenswet suit and basically Photoshopped in the edits that I suggested above, and it looks perfect, and I’ll update if I find one again. And I will get over it, especially now that I’ve written this. It’s not the most important thing about the fucking movie. All the same: blech.

God, ETS, eat a dick

On June 6, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

ETS, the company behind these fucking Praxis tests, is one of the worst organizations in the history of the entire fucking planet, and by “organizations” I’m including the Nazis, the KKK, the Republicans, and whatever flavor of Communism might be most on your nerves at the moment. I hate these people to a degree I’m not entirely able to explain, at least not without the FBI taking a closer look at me.

I passed another practice test today, by a larger margin than the first one, and decided, fuck it, I’m going to go ahead and schedule this thing. The last time I looked I was able to schedule an exam the next day, so you can imagine my surprise when I logged in and discovered that I can’t get in before July 1 any longer. Which … fuck. This blog is already turning into the All Math Test All The Time website, and now I have to wait three more weeks? I’m ready now, motherfuckers. Let’s do this.

And then I went through their list of “requirements,” and …

… look, God damn it, I need these fucking testing companies to understand that their shit is not that fucking important. The fucking NSA doesn’t protect their shit as carefully as standardized testing companies do. They won’t let me have scratch paper for a fucking math test. I have to use a fucking whiteboard, which can be “erased in front of the proctor,” because … what? I might share questions with somebody? So the fucking hell what? Every test is fucking different, and you sell practice tests, you stupid dicks. Which is the actual reason, by the way, because extorting $120 out of me for the fucking test isn’t enough; they need more money from anyone who wants to study for these fucking things, like the blood-sucking rent-seeking fucking parasite scumbag shitstained vermin they are.

Make sure any other devices in my home that use the internet aren’t running?

Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not even going to try to do this. Avoid wearing jewelry? Fucking why? And what’s “dressed appropriately” mean? Are people seeking teaching licenses likely to have their dicks or tits out while testing, so likely that they need a rule about it?

Elsewhere, I am told that I am expected to be able to show the proctor “all four walls” in the room I am in, presumably because any wall they can’t see is obviously covered with posters explaining how to do the questions on the test. My webcam is part of the fucking computer, though, and I’m not sure how the fuck they expect me to point the Goddamn monitor at the wall behind it.

(Also, remember: approximately zero percent of teaching involves blind recall of facts in the complete absence of resource materials. If I forget anything I’m supposed to be teaching, I can literally look it up right in front of the fucking kids if I want to. These things should be entirely open notes; what I have memorized is completely irrelevant.)

God, I hate this fucking company.

Okay that’s enough

On May 8, 2024May 8, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

Today was awful; I had to put a kid out in five of my six classes, which is fucking ridiculous, and I got asked if I qualified for a fucking senior citizen’s discount while attempting to buy a whole rotisserie chicken and two boxes of cookies at the grocery.

No I do not shut the fuck up.

So yeah. Gonna go crumble to dust in my bed now.

On last year and next year

On January 2, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn life3 Comments

I went back and looked at the post I wrote at the end of 2022, and while I was willing to admit that 2022 had been a good year, I was clearly feeling pretty gun-shy about the idea. The notion that after the utter carnage that 2016 through 2021 had been, an actual good year had finally happened really seemed to beggar belief. I can’t justify any such hesitation about 2023; last year was a good year by nearly all personal metrics other than my own health, and even that wasn’t all that bad. In a lot of ways, I really don’t have anything to complain about, and I’m tantalizingly close to a major, major milestone in my life, one that ten years ago I didn’t think was ever going to happen: assuming no disasters occur (hah!), I am on track to be completely debt-free other than my house by the end of this school year. That’s entirely due to trends that started in 2022 and accelerated in 2023.

(I just took a few minutes to look, and I was officially diagnosed with sleep apnea in November of 2022, so that’s not 2023’s fault. I can’t even get mad at 2023 about that.)

Here’s the thing, though: 2024 fucking terrifies me. Like, bone-deep. Like, I don’t know how you diagnose someone with anxiety when the world is actually like this terrified. Why? Notice how I said “personal metric” up there? By that I mean, like, my life, my health, my family, my job, my finances. That sort of stuff. That’s all good right now, although I know how fast shit can change. Anything other than that? Fucked. Fucked. This was the hottest year in the history of humanity and nothing’s going to change. I have brought a child into this bullshit and he has to somehow survive for several decades after I’m gone while the world is busy being on fire. Israel is committing genocide in plain fucking sight of the entire world and no one is doing anything about it and there is literally nothing I can do to change anything about it. There’s a fucking presidential election this year. The state legislature is about to go back into session and who the fuck only knows what sort of bullshit they’re going to put on us this year.

(The pronoun bill? Sorta fizzled. Everybody just sort of mutually decided that we weren’t going to pay any attention to it, and nothing happened. I violate the pronoun law a hundred times a day and nothing is going to happen to me.).

I genuinely don’t know how I’m going to survive ten fucking months until the election. And the level of panic that sets in any time I try to seriously contemplate what I should do if things don’t go our way is indescribable.

So. Yeah. Last year was the last good year. Even if we win 400 electoral votes this fall I still have to make it to November before that happens. I just don’t see anything coming this year that I can look forward to, other than that whole “no debt” thing, which isn’t going to work out for me all that well when I have to sell everything and move to Canada on no notice. Or, y’know, not, since the fascists taking over could pretty much result in anything. Who the fuck knows.

Also, so far it’s been 2024 for two days, and I was woozy and sickish all day yesterday– I have never been hung over even once in my entire life, but based on how people have described it to me, I may as well have been– and last night I managed to throw out my back in my sleep because I’m 47 and that shit can happen now. So, yeah, fuck this year.

Anybody have the number for a good therapist? Maybe that’s where all my money can go.

In which fairness is stupid

On December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Politics2 Comments

I am tired, and crabby, and in no fucking mood for anyone’s nonsense, and the particular type of smug ignorance embedded in this TikTok is precisely the sort of thing that gets right on my nerves when I’m in this type of mood. Sure, okay, Congress gets lots of vacation time away from DC. Sure, Steve Scalise is a fucking asshole. Sure, the four-day work week would be just dandy.

But do you think the person who put this TikTok on the internet realizes that Congresspeople, like, actually have shit to do other than make laws in DC? Which is not, for the most part, where they live, and is absolutely not where their constituents live? I don’t know about you, but I would kind of like for my Congresscritters to be accessible to me once in a while, or at least be somewhere in my state, and I don’t have the time or money to fuck off to Washington DC every time I want to fucking yell at someone.

Yes, it is true, Congress takes lots of time away from lawmaking, and if you want to make the argument that they take too much, go ahead and make that argument. But let’s not pretend that it isn’t a good thing that these assholes have to come home every once in a while, and I don’t even think that the person who created this even realizes that’s what is going on.

ETA: So long as I’m bitching about people bitching about Congress not working hard enough, let me point out that it is not at all abnormal to hear about bills getting debated until late at night, and that while I hardly have a cushy job, at least I can pretty well guarantee that I’m gonna be in bed by nine every night if that’s what I want.(*) I don’t know how the fuck these sixty- and seventy-year-old lawmakers are even remotely conscious at midnight much less still being awake and giving speeches no fucker is listening to.

(*) It is very much what I want and it almost never happens. I can’t guarantee a Goddamn thing. Ten if I’m lucky.

OK. We can do this. Or not! Fuck it.

On October 15, 2023October 15, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

I spent a good part of the day today— five hours, maybe– getting prepared for next week and the two-eleven-hour-days-plus-an-elearning-day stint following, and while I’ve been mostly immune to Sundaying since starting this new job I have been a mess all day today. There’s just too goddamned much going on over the next couple of weeks, most of it related to not math, and I want to do Math, and not Not Math. But I’ve got twelve thousand other things to worry about this week, and I care about exactly zero of them– I don’t give a shit if the kids have a little Slides presentation to show their parents at parent/teacher conferences, because the only kids who will actually do those are the ones whose parents I don’t need to see, and I don’t give a shit about the door decorating contest that they gave us a week to do and then promptly filled every advisory period in between the day they told us about the contest and the day they were judging it, and I don’t give a shit about the schedule for Advisory they dropped on us today(*), and I don’t give a shit about the fucking lesson that I’m supposed to teach, which was clearly written by a non-educator(**), so that the kids are “prepared” for the field trip they’re taking on Tuesday that I also don’t care about.

Christ and fuck.

I need to clear this mood before first contact with the kids tomorrow or it’s going to be a rougher seven days than I already think it’s going to be. I don’t need any of this shit. Just get the fuck out of my way and let me fucking teach.

(*) “But Luther, isn’t it Sunday?” you ask. Yes. They dropped a new Advisory schedule on us on a Sunday that is supposed to be implemented Monday, and to hell with the seventeen other things we are supposed to do this week, all of which are supposed to be done in Advisory. Fuck Advisory. Fuck the entire concept. Get rid of it and give me more class time. I hate it.

(**) How do I know, you may ask? It’s a lesson plan for eighth graders that changes tasks seven times over the course of the lesson, with each section ranging from three to eight minutes in length.(***) Fuck you. You teach it.

(***) A sample task: “Put the students in pairs and have them write the letters A-Z on a piece of paper. Have them read whateverthefuck and list things by their first letter that are manufactured in this county.” Total time for this activity: five to eight minutes, which is insufficient time just to get them in groups and have them all write out the list of letters. Suck a cock.