Yesterday I got my portfolio back for my Writing class and had a conference about my portfolio grade. First off, I had a 4.0 (A) in that class and worked very hard. I was the only student that turned everything in. I had the highest grade in the class.

She gave me a 39/60 on my portfolio (which is a very low 2.0 or a D). This means that, since the portfolio is 60% of my grade, I will obviously not get a 4.0 or even a 3.5 in the class--all because of her stupidity, not mine.

Why was this? Because she didn't like the fact that I did not revise my work much (because I had revised it 3 times already in the class and portfolio is a time for a final polishing of the work), and because I did not revise what SHE wanted me to revise. I did not change my papers based on what she wanted. Sure, i did change some things becasue of the suggestions she made, but I was not going to change my papers totally because of the fact the she, and only she, did not understand it.

My classmates, friends, and family (both writers and not) all looked and my pieces and understood and liked them. They could not understand why my teacher did what she did.

During my conference with the writing teacher, she said this to me "You will never get these published, and no one will read them. They are raw, unfinished work. You leave too many questions at the end."

It was a personal experience piece, you idiot! A complete background story was not needed to allow the reader to understand and enjoy the piece! I have seen scads of work simaler to mine in magazines and online. (I told her this and she was skeptical)

A creative writing class portfolio should be graded more on structure and mechanics than on a writer's personal style and content!

Conclusion: Generally, writing instructors are asshats. This is exactly the reason why I'm becoming a writing teacher--so students can see that at least some writing teachers can be fair and understanding, and that they can make writing class both an enjoyable and memorable experience.

Tags: blood, college, death, grades, portfolio, school, suck, teacher, writing
Current Location: school
Current Mood: I wanna bite someone

Anyways, now that I have that school related rant off my chest...

Yesterday I finally was able to get out and take some more pictures outside. I put the ones I liked up on DeviantArt.

And I'm graduating in 11 days (May 11th). Yay! Finally I can get away from this dump of a community college! I will be graduating with an Associate in Arts for Secondary Education and majoring in Writing. I'm not a full teacher yet, but I'm close! I have to get a job and save up to finish up and get my Bachelors and get Certified as a teacher. I'd like to teach Writing and English courses to High School atudents.

This summer Nathan and I are thinking about going up north to Charlevoix, Michigan again to my grandparent's place up there (which they are trying to sell and is going for over $1.6 million!. We're going to try to go up there for a week in late June or early July, and will travel a bit to Petoskey, Mackinac City, Mackinac Island, and maybe even Traverse City if we have the time and money.

As school ends, I have been increasingly busy. Last week I had to turn in my portfolio for my Education Practicum class, this week I have a portfolio to turn in for writing class and a group skit to do for German class, then next week I have a German final exam on Monday and a Technology in Education presantation to give. *faint* Ugh I just want it all to be over.

Tags: college, degree, graduate, school, summer
Current Location: school computer lab
Current Mood: Burried under school stuff
Current Music: FFVII AC: One Winged Angel

Todays rant will be about idiotic, stuck up, know-it-all teachers. It will focus on my college writing teacher.

Our class decided to make a book of our work, and someone said that they would try and work on a cover. Since the kid rarely showed up to class, I decided that it would be a good opportunity for me to make a backup plan and use my fiance's skills as a budding Graphic Designer. So since no one gave any specifications for the cover except that they wanted a collage effect, I asked my fiance to do it.

He finished it and it looked really well done. It was well balanced, and not cluttered at all. I took it into class and showed the teacher. The other student had shown up without doing the cover, although he said he was "working on it". The teacher said that she wanted a bazillion changes made to the cover my fiance' did, but that it looked good and she would like to have it be either the inside or outside cover, but the other student's work would come first (even though my cover was finished).

I told my fiance' and he made all the changes she asked for, while still making it look good. The teacher emailed me after I gave it to her and said this: "it communicates, but the bottom is very crowded and the bus is lost. What can he do to clean up the look of it. Maybe move the words to the top of the page? What kind of aesthetic is he working with?" She wanted it changed again, even though it was exactly how she wanted it.

Then she emailed me today saying "It looks like **** has it covered. Thanks to you and your fiance for stepping up and taking the initiative. I am willing however to offer feedback on the next version, if you want."

WHAT THE FUCK?!! We did what you asked, and promised something, and then you just wave it away on a whim? Hours of work by my fiance'--who is very busy with school because projects are due soon and exams are coming up--WASTED!!

And she acts like that all the time. She acts like she knows everything, and when she critiques my work she only points out bad things, and things that are more her opinion than things that would help the paper. She is the worst writing teacher I've ever had. If people ask me, I will tell them not to take her course, which makes a mockery of what a real writing course should be.

Tags: ass, bitch, book, college, cover, fiancee, rant, school, teacher, writing
Current Location: School computer lab
Current Mood: Hating stupid teachers
Current Music: FFVII AC: One Winged Angel

Dear high school of my brother,

Because of your stupidity, my brother, a Junior with a 3.9 GPA, missed the bus this morning and his first 2 classes. Wait, I know what you're thinking. "Was he running late? Was he at the bus stop 5 minutes early, as suggested by the school?" Why yes, indeed he was. The bus is scheduled to pick him up at 7am, but for the school year thus far he has been picked up at 6:56am. This was fine, as he adjusted his schedule and made sure he was at the bus stop 5 minutes early--at 6:51am.

But when he went to the door to tie his shoes and leave with his 60 pound backpack--yes it IS 60 pounds, we weighed it; My mother had to make him a custom canvas bag to hold it all--the bus flew by the bus stop. It was only 6:50am. This was a little irritating, but my mother decided that the best course of action was to call the bus garage. However, when my mother went to get the number of the bus garage from the fridge, she couldn't find it.

Why was this? Because you, the school, in your infinite wisdom, have not sent out ANY information bulletins all year. You even changed to a new website online, which is harder to navigate than the Amazon River in monsoon season. The school website isn't even finished, and gives parents and students no important information on how to call the school for attendance and questions, or how to call the bus garage.

So at 7am I was awakened by my mother, who had a real dilemma on her hands. She just had a root canal the previous day and was on medication for the pain. She could not drive or operate a car. She also did not get to sleep until 5am because of pain and insomnia. My brother has a license, but he does not have a $75 parking permit to park in the parking lot of your public school--a parking lot which was already paid for with taxpayer's money. Can we say 'double taxation'?

My father could not just come home from work to drive my brother in to school, because he works over an hour away--in Flatrock, for Mazda--to pay the bills. My fiance' saved the day for my brother, who could not miss Chemistry class because of a test. My fiance' could not get to our house until about 9am, and drove my brother to school. He arrived at the end of his second class.

Thank you for your wonderful consideration, time and planning. I hope to hear from you soon.


Sincerely,

a concerned sister, one month away from college graduation

Tags: bus, dumb, highschool, money, parking permit, principal, public, school, stupid, taxpayer, teachers
Current Location: school computer lab
Current Mood: hating my cold

I have a cold. My muscles ache, my skin hurts when it's touched, my nose is runny, and I just want to sleep, even though I can't sleep due to the cold. :| At least I found some medicine that seems to work pretty well. My nose isn't running like niagara falls anymore at least.

Anyways...Baby. Is. Insane. Today I was looking for some shaving cream so I could shave while I was in the shower. We didn't have any big bottles left so I took out a little bottle (about the size of a fat highlighter) from a hotel when my Dad had stayed in Japan.

Baby wanted to play with it and roll it around, which I thought was fine. He usually doesn't bite big, hard plastic things unless he knows they are his toys. I played with him for a while, because he was full of energy and I wanted to wear him out a little before I took a shower (so he wouldn't decide to try to play with me when I was in the shower. We went into my brother's room to play, because he was at school and the dogs usually don't bother us when we play in there.

When we were playing, I held it and got ready to roll it on the carpet again for him. He decided that it would be a great ides to put the thing in his mouth and bite it--really hard. BOOM! Shaving cream exploded into his mouth, onto the floor, underneath my brother's bed and onto all the boxes under there, onto my brother's bed, in the hall...

As soon as it started to explode (just the shaving cream came out of the puncture hole, no metal or anything) I threw it away from Baby, chased after him and picked him up (he was scared as hell and his mouth and face was full of shaving cream), and ran into the kitchen. I put him into the sink and washed his mouth out and washed his face with a damp kitchen rag. He looked like a "big black twinkie" (my mother's words).

Baby sat still--surprisingly--while I cleaned him up, and calmed down. He didn't like the taste of all that shaving cream. He followed me down the hall as I went to clean it up and tried to help by licking some more of it off the floor. I had to shoo him away while he stuck out his tongue and made funny faces. My Mom said that Baby is worse than a 3 year old. Who needs kids when I have this little terrorist?

I still love the little kitty though. ^^

Tags: baby, black, cat, cold, crappy, cute, ill, insane, kitty, runny nose, ugh
Current Location: school computer lab
Current Mood: can't breathe

Yeah, I know I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy...with...things...okay not really, I've been more lazy and on DeviantArt. I've also had some time to spend with Nathan. For Easter, I got $20 and a chocolate bunny. I'll probably end up using the $20 on food or something. -.-;

Me and someone else kind of started a new avatar trend on DeviantArt, with a 'flower' theme. I hate putting a flower into my avatar, but for the sake of 'community' I'll do it. It's interesting that I feel more comfortable and accepted when I'm on DA than I do in real life, besides when I'm with Nathan. It's kind of sad that I can only make friends online. :\

I've been so tired lately, even when I do get sleep. I think something;s wrong with me, but there's no way I can get to a doctor and fix it before my insurance runs out. Well, hopefully it won't get much worse. I have very dry skin on my scalp, but there's nothing to be done about that either. No money. I guess I should be thankful that I'm alive and have food, water, shelter, and Nathan, but I'm still depressed. Stupid, worthless body. :| And of course it's 'that time of the month', so I'm even more tired and irritated than usual. Yay. Great joy.

Tags: avatar, depression, deviantart, easter, flower, health, updates
Current Location: school computer
Current Mood: tired of life

So we had another snow storm yesterday. We got over 7 inches and snowdrifts of up to a foot or so. All the schools in the area are closed except for my stupid college. They have only closed once in the past 10 years. They must be trying to kill us all, especially people like me, who drive an hour to get to school.

That brings me to another thing that disturbs me about my college. In one of the buildings yesterday, the 3rd floor smelled like a little girl's room. Seriously, it did! It smelled like a blend of cheap dress-up make lipstick and nailpolish, plastic dolls and little horse figures, and sugar cookies make with an Easy Bake Oven. It was very disturbing, especially since it was on the SCIENCE floor. Are they doing experiments on little girls or something? Watch, one day I will get off the 3rd floor elevator and get mugged by some half-cyborg little girl!

Aaaanyways...Monday was really interesting this week. I was doing more classroom observation and such, and the teacher decided to let me make up a vocab and spelling test for her students. I did that, and then she let me check over the test with her kids a little bit (I got to Teach!) until the bell rang. Then I checked the rest of the tests, made copies of other things, counted packets for her sci fi class, and learned how to use an interesting paper cutting (it can make hearts and stuff) machine.

The funny part about Monday is that there was an arson at the school. That's right, a real fire and not a drill. But then, that happens at that school district all the time (I should know, I there were over 10 fires and 7 bomb threats when I used to go to school there). We all had to go to the Field House and stay there a bit. It turned out to be a garbage basket fire in the boys bathroom, and the cameras caught exactly who did it, so we went back to classes after about an hour or so.

Well, I guess that's it for today. I have a test in my German class today. I hope I do well on it. I want more hot cocoa tonight, too.

Tags: 3rd floor, arson, funny, howell, monday, smell, snow
Current Location: School Computer Lab
Current Mood: Snowed in

Seriously, I live about 20 minutes from Hell. Well, Hell, Michigan anyway. It's freakin' cold here! Maybe I was transported to the North pole overnight?

It was 15 degrees BELOW zero when I got up this morning!! The wind chill was 25 below zero!

And most lower Michigan schools are closed because of the dangerous cold, but as usual my school isn't closed. :| Stupid Lansing Community College! How can I pay you more money for classes and shit if I'm frozen solid? Answer me that one!!


At least I had some hot cocoa this morning. But I'm out now. :crying:

Tags: below zero, cold, freeze, frozen over, hell, winter
Current Location: Igloo school
Current Mood: Block of Ice

I started my 90 hours of classroom observation for my Teaching Practicum class on Monday. I had to get up at 5am so Dad could drop me off at school at around 6 on his way to work. School started at 7:40 and ended at 2:20, so I got about 7 hours so far. I didn't get picked up until 4pm by Nathan and we went up to school. We didn't leave school until 8pm... The next day I go in, on Friday, there's a pep assembly, which I'll hate. :| But I'll just have to deal with that.

Now here's my rant on Verizon cell phone service: They suck! They call themselves "the network" but they lie! There's no cell phone tower within 15-20 miles of where I live, so 90% of the time there's no signal. The other 10% of the time there's a weak signal, but the call drops almost every time. Hell, even when we go into town where we have a VERY strong signal, the call freakin drops! What the hell Verizon? YOU ARE LAZY ASS LIARS!!! I would reccomend to everyone that comes out by me and has Verizon--don't get into an accident or have an emergency. Help will never come, as you won't be able to contact anyone. :|

Tags: cell phone, cellphone, college, practicum, school, teaching, verizon
Current Location: school
Current Mood: runnin' low on sleep

How the hell could I possibly get indegestion from eating oatmeal and milk this morning?! There's no acid or spices or anything. Oatmeal is something fed to invalids!! Why do I feel like there's a clown in my stomach selling balloons to someone in there?! And what's worse it that I'm stuck at the school until at least 5pm, so that means no Malox or other antacids to help my stomach! Damnit!

Well I have some chips and other things with me so maybe that will help calm down my stomach. Those damn clowns had better take a break from selling their stupid balloons soon!

Tags: crappy, indegestion, sick, ugh, upset stomach
Current Location: school
Current Mood: Hating my stomach