Jackie: A Tale of Perversity and Woe

I'm sitting here wallowing in self-pity at the moment, and thinking about how even though I think the whole "GUYS HAVE TO MAKE THE FIRST MOVE NOT GIRLS OMG GIRLS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE CHASED NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND OMMGGGG SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING" mentality is complete and total bullshit, and yet I am secretly relieved that girls are not the ones expected to hit on guys because that means I never have to actually ask a guy out or tell him I like him. Instead I can just sit and wait for... well, nothing, because there is something about me guys don't like, but still. Yeah.

Also, in other news, my foot feels a little better, but that might be because I haven't really walked on it all day. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

I really shouldn't be up right now, considering I've been having problems getting to sleep lately, but I was reading my old short story notebook, and I read this one story I'd sort of forgotten about, called "Henry Rue", about this girl who works at a bakery and her boss is insane. And I remember I stopped writing it, for the usual reasons -- I suck, this story is going nowhere, I can't write to save my life, etc etc etc -- but, years later, I actually really like it and I wish I had continued it. I might do something with it. I'm not sure what yet. My instinct is to write a screenplay for it, but just the thought of writing a script makes me want to procrastinate. I hate writing scripts. I feel so uninvolved with my characters when I write scripts. But I also don't want to re-write the whole story from the beginning in prose format, so I dunno. We'll see how I feel about it in the morning -- if I even still want to do it!

Might make cookies tomorrow, too. Haven't made cookies in a while.

I've been cruising around this site that talks about how modern public schools completely stifle creativity and turn kids into mindless drones who only care about grades and don't care about learning, and it's gotten me thinking about stuff. I'm reading the comments and entries and thinking about the great teachers I've had in the past, and it turns out that the majority of them were male. Most (not all, but most) of my female teachers have pretty much exemplified the "schooly" kind of teaching that the website deplores and criticizes, like all of the "busy work" and not actually teaching us anything and not really engaging us in what we were doing. Most of the teachers I've had who have made a significant impact in my education were men. Most of the ones who challenged me and made learning interesting instead of just stupid were NOT women.

Now, of course I know that not all female teachers everywhere are like I just described; this has just been my personal experience. But it's still gotten me wondering why it turned out that way, especially since I'm just talking about middle and high school. All of my female elementary school teachers were awesome; the ones later on were mostly the ones who sucked. And it's also not to say that I didn't have female teachers in middle/high school who were great and that I never had male teachers who sucked. I just find it odd, is all, that when I think of the typical "drone" teacher that the website describes, I mostly picture my former female teachers, and one of my male teachers who STARTED OUT as awesome but gradually stopped being awesome and started being lazy and giving us busy work instead of actually teaching us.

I dunno. It's midnight and I'm rambling, haha. If I was less lazy tired I might try to make this into a more thoughtful post, but instead I'll just ask you what you guys think and about your own experiences with awesome teachers and crappy teachers.