three things
...in order of my awareness and completely unrelated... or mostly unrelated... i think.
1. dr. nikki giovanni reading kicked ass today. to be honest, my faith in big-name writers has been restored. she was human and personable, had a powerful message, and was so dynamic that i had to work to hear all the nuances. and she was nice. the only other really big name dude i met was an ass in every way imaginable, so i'm glad to finally have gotten a balance for that.
2. (this one is more introspection than anything else, and may tend toward the "brutally honest about self" category) i am apparantly quite a bit worse than i thought when it comes to relationships. mini breakthrough of the evening: when things "click" off and i lose all interest in anything physical or even just emotionally intimate, there's actually a trend. there's a point where this happens. it's the same every single time and i hadn't noticed. (of course i must note here that there isn't such an "on/off" feature for purely platonic friendships... just physical, dating-style relationships)
i'm like one of those guys women are afraid of! once i see the vulnerability of true intimacy, i check out. i cannot handle the trust these people place in me, and i cannot bear the idea that i could be expected to be as trusting, open, and vulnerable in turn. it's a good thing i have no interest in relationships at the moment, because i'm apparently not the sort of person i could inflict on others with a clean conscience.
it's amazing what a steak dinner at a nice restaurant with a friend can do to enlighten you. and why we talked about relationship issues? who knows. but at least i've gotten another clue as to why this previously inexplicable off switch thing happens. not that i've got it nailed down or anything. but that is an interesting shared feature.
3. on a completely different note... every time i read about school shootings, i start to envision the layout of my current classroom. i try to figure out what the danger areas would be vs the somewhat defensible ones. sometimes i come to the conclusion that the third or fourth floor windows wouldn't be as dangerous as the walls, because student killers these days have some powerful firearms that could probably blast through a wall. i think about how to arrange the table so that the maximum number of students could have the maximum amount of safety from their rabid peer(s). i plan out how many desks i could cram against the door, and what position they would need to be in to most effectively slow/stop bullets.
and then i start to think about how useless these things would be if one of my own students was the shooter. i think about how useless it would be to even bother sending my students running down the hallways, because hallways are straight. a jump from the third or fourth floor would be better than a bullet... maybe. i don't know. there would be only one real option to protect my students if one of their immediate peers launches such an attack. i'd like to think i could fling myself in the way to somehow stall the inevitable, but the reality is that i'd freeze. i'm just sure of it. i'll be worthless as a protector of these kids.
and last of all i start to think about what kind of sick world we live in where i even have these thoughts. were these shootings just hushed up a lot eariler or have there been a lot more of them in recent years? what kind of sick society can't protect its individuals to the extent where there are students capable of these actions?
in case people were wondering, this is why i don't own a television.
love, love and peace.
1. dr. nikki giovanni reading kicked ass today. to be honest, my faith in big-name writers has been restored. she was human and personable, had a powerful message, and was so dynamic that i had to work to hear all the nuances. and she was nice. the only other really big name dude i met was an ass in every way imaginable, so i'm glad to finally have gotten a balance for that.
2. (this one is more introspection than anything else, and may tend toward the "brutally honest about self" category) i am apparantly quite a bit worse than i thought when it comes to relationships. mini breakthrough of the evening: when things "click" off and i lose all interest in anything physical or even just emotionally intimate, there's actually a trend. there's a point where this happens. it's the same every single time and i hadn't noticed. (of course i must note here that there isn't such an "on/off" feature for purely platonic friendships... just physical, dating-style relationships)
i'm like one of those guys women are afraid of! once i see the vulnerability of true intimacy, i check out. i cannot handle the trust these people place in me, and i cannot bear the idea that i could be expected to be as trusting, open, and vulnerable in turn. it's a good thing i have no interest in relationships at the moment, because i'm apparently not the sort of person i could inflict on others with a clean conscience.
it's amazing what a steak dinner at a nice restaurant with a friend can do to enlighten you. and why we talked about relationship issues? who knows. but at least i've gotten another clue as to why this previously inexplicable off switch thing happens. not that i've got it nailed down or anything. but that is an interesting shared feature.
3. on a completely different note... every time i read about school shootings, i start to envision the layout of my current classroom. i try to figure out what the danger areas would be vs the somewhat defensible ones. sometimes i come to the conclusion that the third or fourth floor windows wouldn't be as dangerous as the walls, because student killers these days have some powerful firearms that could probably blast through a wall. i think about how to arrange the table so that the maximum number of students could have the maximum amount of safety from their rabid peer(s). i plan out how many desks i could cram against the door, and what position they would need to be in to most effectively slow/stop bullets.
and then i start to think about how useless these things would be if one of my own students was the shooter. i think about how useless it would be to even bother sending my students running down the hallways, because hallways are straight. a jump from the third or fourth floor would be better than a bullet... maybe. i don't know. there would be only one real option to protect my students if one of their immediate peers launches such an attack. i'd like to think i could fling myself in the way to somehow stall the inevitable, but the reality is that i'd freeze. i'm just sure of it. i'll be worthless as a protector of these kids.
and last of all i start to think about what kind of sick world we live in where i even have these thoughts. were these shootings just hushed up a lot eariler or have there been a lot more of them in recent years? what kind of sick society can't protect its individuals to the extent where there are students capable of these actions?
in case people were wondering, this is why i don't own a television.
love, love and peace.
posted by Rehkmira @ 22:05
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