Daily Nonsense

Clearly I am insane. I have things to write and do. It’s 3 in the morning, and I am not in bed. No. I am searching for an infomercial to watch. Not just any infomercial either. I have gotten it into my mind, in some masochistic move, to find an infomercial about fat people. I’ve slept too much today really, or at least during all the wrong hours. And even though I did accomplish some things today (hello bottom of the kitchen sink. I wondered what you looked like), I feel like a waste. I just have been doing everything wrong. I can’t seem to follow the rules like everyone else. I can’t do what I’m supposed to do. Even though I punish myself unendingly and cry every day, I don’t do anything I’m supposed to. I don’t do anything that normal people would do. Even when someone tells me what s/he wants, I don’t do it. I just persist in the wrong. And now I’m awake at 3 am, listening to “Dirty Little Secret” and thinking of all the ways that I am one and all my secrets and stupidity and insanity. Such an unending waste I am. It’s no wonder things turn out as they do. What else could I ever expect when I look like this and act even stupider? Moron me. /me stabs her eyes out so she doesn’t have to look in the mirror anymore. Dagger eyes, cutting everything, even when they’re closed. Never do it right. Even though I see everyone else do it right. I can’t get over the wrongs and failures. I can’t get past everything, and the only option is to disappear into sleep. But it’s 3 am, and I’m awake, with my mind racing on the wrongs. Stupid. Maybe tomorrow I can write all the real entries, deal with all the drafts of my life that never get finished. Meanwhile. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

In the News: Pupils warned over web bullying

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Hampshire | Pupils warned over web bullying—though positioned as “a very unusual case” this situation seems just like any other school cases of bullying. A new medium may be involved, but this kind of attack is hardly new. Besides, didn’t these people see Cruel Intentions? Geesh. Online attack pages are hardly new stuff.

ReadWriteThink: Exploring Audience and Purpose with a Single Issue

I wrote Exploring Audience and Purpose with a Single Issue as a spin-off of the Communicating on Local Issues lesson published yesterday. We needed a lesson that worked through some of the ideas that yesterday’s lesson was based on. Basically this lesson does some of the audience analysis that would be necessary for students to understand before writing letters.

In the lesson, students explore the rhetorical concept of audience and purpose by focusing on the evolution-creationism debate raised by the Scopes Monkey Trial (which will tie to a July calendar entry). Students analyze the audience and purpose of at least one resource on the debate and then consider how audience and purpose might shape other communication on the issue.

For Web: Easy DIY online database

Easy DIY online database – Lifehacker—one day I’ll join the present and get a database set up, but there’s no sign when or where. This might help.

10 rules to manage your boss

10 rules to manage your boss—Not quite sure why Lifehacker didn’t share this piece from the August Money till March, but here it is nonetheless. Given the shakeup at work this week, we can all use some tips :)

Daily Work: Being Coached

And today we begin hell. A “life coach” is coming in to help our team be more, well, I don’t know what. These psychosocial analytical things make me sick, and by that, I mean physically sick. I do not want analyzed. I do not want my psychological tendencies probed. I would rather go to the dentist. Because I am insane, the result of the related stress and anxiety of this nonsense makes me physically sick with varying gastrointestinal nonsense. Now, of course, I am procrastinating. The longer I can put off going to work, the longer I may be able to ignore the hell.

ReadWriteThink: Communicating on Local Issues: Exploring Audience in Persuasive Letter Writing

Communicating on Local Issues: Exploring Audience in Persuasive Letter Writing asks students to identify and research a local issue that concerns them, using Internet and print sources. They then argue a position on the issue in letters to two different audiences, addressing their own purpose and considering the needs of the audience in each letter.

In the News: Bound by Words And Much More

Bound by Words And Much More—an example of how an authentic audience grows writers. This article describes a memoir-writing activity, completed by students and family members. With these real readers, both from their families and others in the classroom community, these students seem to blossom as writers.

For Windows: Identify unknown files and processes – Lifehacker

Identify unknown files and processes – Lifehacker—for those days when twizzlefoo.dll is clogging up the firewall and I can’t figure out what it is.

In the News: Teen craze over networking sites

BBC NEWS | Technology | Teen craze over networking sites—darn those crazy teens. Apparently the UK version of MySpace or Facebook, Bebo faces the same challenges from schools and colleges that worry the site is potentially dangerous for students. The article explains, “Debbie Cowley, technology teacher at the college, told the BBC she was concerned about what pupils were sharing via the site. Some were posting personal details, pictures and even making disparaging comments about the school and its staff.” As is the case in the states, it’s so much easier to ban things than to teach, at least as far as administrations are concerned.