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birthday rambles.,
2004-08-19 02:01:16
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meeee
Happy Birrrthday to Meeee.
Went to an expensive resturaunt on my B day, and as per my own tradition picked up the tab. (180.00 for three people) I started doing this some time ago when i realized that others get all funky about paying for expensive stuff. This way I get what I want and I never have to listen to anyone quibble over whether or not to get appetizers.
Another year gone by. Survived more than anything else.
The summer was pretty much a washout at work. I normally get all pissed off when people don't want to learn and yet come to the school anyway only to bitch about having to go to class, and do <whiny voice> woooork. Deal with it punks. You should have paid attention to class during the regular school year.
This summer, I've decided that if someone wants to learn, I'll teach. Otherwise, you'll find me playing Doom3, or editing one of my videos.
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=46381
in case you were curious.
I've got another project I'm working on. I've all but scrapped the Inuyasha video that I had all planned out and started. Too goddam much CG for an AMV. I wonder what the cutoff is for using non anime footage in a con anyway? Plus, Poser sucks ass at doing michael jackson moves, or to put it differently, I can make it do the moves but if I want cloth simulation I'll be rendering to next year.
This project was on a 'dare' by Bakadeshi, he suggested that I do a serious video. So I'm working on a drama that pulls the song independence day from Martina McBride and had characters from Kenshin and Love Hina. It;s about domestic abuse. Not a very fun concept at all. I've seen enough of it in my lifetime, and as a teacher to never want to hear about it happening again. It's one of the few things that will consistently raise my blood pressure (thinking about rape is worse) and make me want to throttle someone. The song deals with the sensitive subject, but manages to present a way out that breaks the cycle. Good song. It's about strength and courage.
<excerpt>
Let freedom ring, Let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It's Independence Day
When I was growing up I used to get picked on a lot. I was bigger than other people around me, and I guess I always used to worry about hurting them by accident (I've been able to arm curl 120lbs since I was 14). I also grew up reading all the time. I was a total bookworm, and used to use it as an escape into worlds beyond the petty people around me. To me, there is nothing wrong with opening car doors for a lady, or holding out her chair at the dinner table, so when I see people abuse others because they can I want to do something about it. I have stories about some of the times that I tried.
Thus ends some birthday thoughts for another year.
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ranty rant
2004-07-13 01:28:20
[rant]
I'm goddam sick and tired of people getting all pissy about 'children need to be protected', and crap like that. That's why all the stuff at the park sucks for kids now. Remember when there used to be a merry go round? Or a slide that was more then 5 feet high? Hell, I remember a park that had telephone poles stuck straight up out of the ground that you could walk up to about 12 feeet. You won't see any of that in todays pussy parks. How about television? Remember when that soldier got dragged behind the car in Somalia? There were actual pictures of it on TV, and newspapers. People got outraged, not at the pictures but at the people that commited the deed. Today, we are apparently so sensitized that we can't even see a flag draped coffin without getting all mentall traumatized. As a nation we are turning into a bunch of crying kitties. People need to see that reality is dirty, and messy, kids need to explore and get hurt. Kids need to scrape their elbows, and knees. Parents shoudn't get all pansy about it and demand new laws. How about not raising clumsy ass kids? Teach them to be strong and self reliant. Teach kids that hurting people has a price. Strength should be used not abused. Bah, maybe it's because I'm a school teacher. I get parents that want me to teach their kids morals, and educate them, and make them successfull. Fuck that. What happened to the idea that the parent should take a part in their kids life? If I wanted to raise 30 kids I'd open an orphanage. [/rant] -
Defining success.
2004-06-12 16:48:30
The end of the year is fast approaching.
The school year that is.
One thing that people don't realize is that as a teacher, you can't teach every one. There are always going to be some students that fail regardless of how hard they try. Effort is not something definable and gradable. So for a teacher there will always be students that you want to succeed who will fail, and assholes that don't deserve the time of day who will pass easily. Sometimes life is not fair that way.
For me, people are always asking why I teach in a school full of assholes, getting paid less than most of the other teachers at the school, while at the same time being overqualified at what I do. To them I say, that teaching is not about getting a student to learn something. It's about helping them figure out HOW to learn. As a teacher, I change people for the rest of their lives. The things I show and help them with can make all the difference in the world. They learn to question what they see, they learn to challenge what they know. In this way I help them grow. Just as you can give a plant too much water and kill it, so to can you give a student too much information and make them phobic. The proper balance is different for each and every person.
Everyone needs to define what their own level of success is. For me, it is knowing that I have a student that learned that no matter what the challenge is, they, personally will be able to overcome it. When my student opens a magazine and sees a photoshop spread, they should be able to say "I can do that".. when they see a commercial on TV, or music video, they should be able to say " I can do that".
Was this year a success for me? I think so. I know that not all of my students who are graduating will go on to be successful. I also know that the ones who learned the most from me will realize that success is knowing that what matters most is that they CAN succeed. None of my students are rich, nobody is going to have daddy hand them a golden internship with a fast track to riches. I don't care. They have their dreams, they have their chances, and most of all; they have what it takes to realize the hopes and dreams that they carry.
Thus another year of the joys and sadness of being a teacher come to a close. -
computers, gang members, and pissed off-edness
2004-05-06 01:16:52
You know what I hate: when computers get wierd.
I have a video editing machine at work, it's nice, 320gigs of storage medium, a DVD burner, an additional CD burner, a pinnacle capture card if I should need to grab something from tape. Pretty much any software that I want, so long as I can substantiate that I can teach it to others.
So I'm ripping a pile, of like... 15 dvd's for the students to work with: stuff like RahXephon (the whole series), Lodoss Wars, Animatrix, trigun, bebop and whatnot.
Given the disparity of the student computers, the .avs method is totally not an option, so I convert everything to picvideo at quality setting 19. I purchased a bunch of licenses for all the computers, so we're cool with not having watermarks or anything like that.
Here's where it gets pissy: my video codecs took a dump on me. Why the hell would this happen? one day everything works fine, the next day I install a hard drive and fukin movies wont play. I spent three goddam days recoding a video for someone, because everytime I did, and the file size looked good there was no picture when I played it. The whole time, it was my ffdshow not working. Finally, I played it from another computer on a whim, and what do you know... it works.
You know what else I hate? Fucking gang members, they piss me the hell off. Goddam schoolyard bullies. Everytime I see one of them strutting around acting all hot shit, I want to break their legs. I get a couple that come into my room a lot, just because they know it pisses me off to see their face. I'm tired of telling high school students to fuck off. Seriously, if someone isn't going to attend class, and wander all goddam day while they are in school, why even bother to show up? One of our students got shot last year and died, everybody wanted to say like prayers and shit for him, but at the meeting, I stood up and announced that I thought that we as a school were better off without him. I also said that his death meant nothing to me. Fuckin asshole used to brag about forcing women to have sex with him. You know, in my eyes that's not the kind of person that I'm saddened when he gets shot down in some fucking drug deal.
Damm, now I'm all pissed off, I need to go watch some calming AMV's and chill.
B -
Outakes, mising in action, and monkeys. Goddam monkeys.
2004-05-03 02:00:51
Well, finally finished another video.
http://animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=513505#513505
if you're interested
It's a play on the old, movie outtakes reel that you might find at the end of a jackie chan movie. I really wanted to run with this one, since it's never been done before as far as I know as an AMV concept. Unfortunately, I have the crashingest computer on the planet now. Grr. Every minute or two, usually less time than more, my computer would crash. Since this seems like a popular video, I think that I'll probably make another of the same genre at some point.
I still have about 12 minutes worth of sound clips from other tv shows that I can use somewhere. Plus, on top of that I have SOO many bad movies, at least then I'll be able to justtify them to my wife. "see, I really DID need this dolph lundgren movie, it's for a video project."
Back to work on monday. Lately it's been hellish for me. Lots of staff out, so I have to cover for someone almost every single day. On top of that, the latest fad in the school is for students to make monkey noises in the hallway. What the fuck, happened to teenagers that makes them do this? Goddam screeching monkeys all day long. Do you know how distracting it is to be on the phone with a parent when someone right outside your is making monkey noises? "hooooeeeaaww awwww awwww, woooooot wooooot wooooot! ah! ah! ah! ah!" all fukin day long.
If anyone, anyone at all can tell me why, please PM me.
JOURNAL: madbunny
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