abortion, bitches! or, parenting license

Last week a kindergarten student wet her pants. since it was the end of the day, mom came to pick her up and that was that.

the next day, the student's teacher sent her up to the nurse's office. the child was wearing the same clothes in which she had been sent home and smelled like urine. the nurse and another teacher, with a generous helping of baby wipes from another teacher, helped the little girl to clean up, and found her a clean pair of underwear, pants and a shirt.

they said it appeared that the girl had been wearing the same pair of underwear for a week.

the nurse also commented on the little girl's recently-braided hair. "it must've taken at least six hours to braid her hair. she said her mamma did it last night. it's like professional! i would send my girls to her to get their hair done, if that woman didn't let her little girl walk around all nasty!"

the sad part is the little girl didn't even realize she was dirty. and i couldn't believe the mom would spend so much time on the child's hair and neglect to bathe her (or not even realize how she smelled!!!)

which leads me to a point on abortion. true, had the mother had an abortion this little girl would not have come about. but that's not the point i'm trying to make.

what i'd like to say is that to me it appears the problem with adamant pro-lifers is that they don't seem to consider people who might not be in an economic condition that would be good for children. consider the above child, or any other child born into poverty. a lot of these kids come from single-parent homes, which leads one to assume they weren't products of planned pregnancies. these mothers have to work for a living, or are on welfare, and probably aren't insured, so it costs everyone to take care of these unplanned pregnancies, in terms of tax dollars. would it not make sense to have abortion be an option? (that is something i need to find out though, the attitudes of this group of people towards abortion. is it even an option for them? why do they have babies if they can't afford to support them?)

of course we could take care of this problem quite easily: take away everyone's capability of making babies temporarily. then, everyone who wants to have babies will need to apply for a license; upon granting of said license, reproductive rights will be restored. easy!

other arses

as i noted yesterday, the new principal has finally been introduced to the staff.

today, among those who work in the vicinity of the front office, there was much speculation as to the new boss' sexuality (though how it matters to running a school miss e has yet to uncover).

one staff member was talking about "i don't like to talk about it because i don't unda-STAND it. he's a FAYag."

thinking they were privy to information i was not, i asked, "so has my gaydar served me well this time?"

i didn't get into much discussion with this particular staff member because of the topic's obvious inappropriateness.

the new principal, in order to get to know the staff on their own terms, had put up a schedule with dates and times for staff to meet with him.

towards the end of the day, one of the teachers approached me and asked in a soft voice with a worried face, "do we have someone on staff here who is named 'xavier flamer'?"

i walked over to the door and saw the suspicious name. then, i checked the binder with all the staff information in it. there was no xavier anywhere to be found on staff.

there were a few other teachers (fuck i just remembered i forgot to lock the office doors. nobody's picking up the phone. damn.) and an increasing buzz about thinking "this was of a derogatory nature."

I took the sheets down from the door and decided to type them up, under the excuse that we had to correct the dates and clean it up (someone had whited out a line, and some of the dates were wrong).

there being no administrator (and my sensing WHO might have been responsible for the offending name, and he being the only other person in the office) i printed it out, along with the original, and put it on the assistant principal's seat with a note, how does this look? also, please ask me about another issue.

hopefully this issue will overshadow the fact that i forgot to lock the doors.

side note: after determining that we had no staff card for a 'xavier flamer' and coming to the conclusion that the name was put on there with malicious intent, one of the buzzing teachers called up a few minutes later to say that the person named is actually a retired principal who worked in The School District. but he would have had no way of knowing about the sign up sheet, unless they're friends, but then he would not have signed up for an appointment. neither had i seen anyone principal-like or old unfamiliar to me come up through the office.

vamos a la playa!

yesterday, after deciding i was tired of all the cds i have in my car, i made a cd with a bunch of random (spanish-language) songs.

well, my selection of songs is not random; they're songs that remind me of some place/time (as i've said before).

so, for nostalgia's sake, i have a song on the new cd that starts with the same line i have chosen for the title of this post (ya'll know what song i'm talking about, and if you don't, you've never gone on a thanksgiving-night denny's hot chocolate run with me).

now the place this makes me think of has absolutely nothing to do with the song. i had heard this song long before i had ever heard of places like miramar and pinamar.

one thing i regret not doing during my time in the south is not renting an apartment for fifteen days to go party on one of the beaches everyone goes to in january. i did go to pinamar, but way too early so there was nobody there except for a few boogie-boarders wearing full wet suits, and a bunch of grey-breasted parakeets (remember my bird, charlie, who my mom gave to the tobacco store guy? thousands of charlies flying around and making noise, noise, noise.)

as i was driving back from my massage i was considering this. i wondered, is it too late for ME to ir a la playa, a mi me gusta bailar...

hell no!

hm last year when i was there... i didn't go to any clubs (ok, i went to one, but we ran into polistas that la francesa knew so we hung out with them at asia de cuba).

in other words, reassurance to self: you're not too old!

it's just that i feel like partying after escaping from the black hole of time that was the GRE. (i did quite well on verbal - 770 - but embarrassingly (for someone who studied physics) poorly - 560 - on quantitative. i blame that on not being mathematically active for quite some time. who knows how the written part went.)



mar del PLATA! HA! i couldn't remember the name till now - but i'm a snob, i wouldn't go there anyway.

GRE issue essay practice

Some may argue that a country’s obsession with celebrity increases as citizens find themselves more in need of distraction from war and economic strife. Unfortunately, such generalization does not work in all circumstances. Countries face different degrees of economic strife and involvement in wars, and therefore have differing needs for “distraction.” Also, different countries have different values, and therefore may not give celebrity as much distinction as another country would.

Before a country can begin to obsess over celebrity, its citizens must first be able to afford to distract themselves, which depends on the degree to which a country faces economic strife and war. In some countries, war and economic strife are part of every day life, but not so severe that its citizens are faced with it directly. This happens in the United States, which is notorious for its obsession with celebrity. Though some citizens face war in a very direct way (with loved ones serving in the armed forces), the general public can afford to distract themselves because the war is not being fought on their soil; they can go buy groceries without rationally fearing being killed by snipers. However, there are some countries that are so torn apart by war and economic strife (such as Sudan) that citizens of those countries must first ensure their own survival. They must constantly consider the source of their next meal and must ensure they are not killed by a landmine, for example, and any distraction could be fatal. Not every country is able to obsess over celebrity to distract itself from war and economic hardship, because some face those realities more directly than others.

Even if citizens of a certain country are able to distract themselves from the harsh realities of their world, they may not necessarily choose obsession with celebrity as a way to distract themselves because of cultural differences. A country can choose to obsess over celebrity only if it has media outlets available; citizens will have access to more and more information and can choose what they will obsess over. However, not all countries have the same freedom to gather and disseminate information as they choose (such as China, where citizens are restricted in the content they can access via internet); citizens may be more isolated to the rest of the world so obsession with celebrity may not even be able to take hold. Furthermore, citizens of a certain country may not even be interested in accessing information about celebrities because celebrity is not given the same value in every culture as it is in the United States.

Facing war and economic strife may not necessarily cause the augmentation of a country’s obsession with celebrity. Citizens first must be able to distract themselves from problems within their country, as some face war and economic strife more directly than others. Then, citizens must have access to more and more information, so obsession with celebrity can be fed a constant stream of information. Finally, obsession with celebrity can only occur when citizens place a high value in celebrity and therefore choose to obsess over it as a means of escape. If these three conditions are not met, it is unlikely that obsession with celebrity will increase.


the proceeding preceding (ok time to study vocab) was my response to an issue essay prompt. i took way too long on it. my brain seems like it is very slow today. maybe i need more rest.