Blud Fyood, My Demographic, PTSD and the 8th grade . . .

Last night on the way home from Ross (my first venture there in years and a massive disappointment) Piggs and I noticed a folded piece of binder paper taped to the door of an apartment in his complex. I'd actually noticed it on the way out, too, and my curiosity was piqued. I sidled up to the door and read this message "We are your nabers but we dont like you. We are mad and we want you out. LOL bitch."
A: 8th graders in Miss Mockula's class are poor spellers.
B: The writers of this note are bad spellers.
C: Therefore the writers of this note are 8th graders in Miss Mockula's class.
I know it doesn't work, but it's funny. They must be having a blud fyood. Someone must have enstugated something. There must have been a terrible uffense cummited. Perhaps Jim Nabors was involved. I think Piggs was a little hopeful there would be a similar note on his door, but alas, no one is enfyooreated at him.

In the last week or so, one of the three radio stations I listen to regularly started playing these listener tesimonial things. They all go kind of like this: "My name is Mike/Tim/Kurt and I'm a mechanic/trucker/machinist. In my spare time I like to mountain bike/shoot guns/kickbox. I love Korn/Limp Bizkit/Metallica."
Okay, I thought, good for them, but my name is Miss Mockula, I'm a junior high school English and drama teacher, and I like to write poetry and practice ballet and I love Nirvana, Black Sabbath, and AC/DC. Why don't I call in and give them a testimonial that celebrates the diversity of their listeners? I call in, and the DJ, after letting me know that it's a PR guy that creates those things, tells me in no uncertain terms that they do not give a crap about diversity, they don't reach out to my demographic, their demographic is 18-45 year old males, those are the listeners they court, and it's all about advertising dollars. If chicks listen, great, but basically it is a man station, for men. Well, okay. Actually, I appreciated his honesty and told him so, then requested Metallica's "Creeping Death" and hung up feeling fairly satisfied. Really, I'd rather someone just be honest with me than hand me some horseshit and brush me off. So I turn on the radio (you have to have it off when you call, of course), and hear, no shit, a commercial for the new Gilmore Girls, then one for One Tree Hill, a planned community commercial that emphasizes the pool and fitness center, a decidedly sports-themed bank ad, then a spot for Sex and the City on TBS. Then the DJ played Enter Sandman. Did I get fucked with, or what?

I try not to go on what an old professor called "birdwalks." Basically, students' entire lives are wrapped around trying to get you off topic and avoiding work by getting you to talk about, oh, say, drivers in Canada (if I may use the example of my 11th grade biology teacher's favorite birdwalk subject). But every once in a while, they trick me into it by pushing my buttons, and every once in a while I consciously agree to it. Today was the latter. We were reading a selection about the Vietnam Veterans' memorial in D.C. and the kids had a lot of questions about veterans. It kind of got started off when Tony asked why you see homeless people with signs that say they're vets. "I thought if you joined the military you were like, set for life? How come you would need to beg for change if you'd been in the military?' Well, it was a frickin' good question, and I decided to address it, rather than going "Now Tony, let's not get off topic." We talked about mental illness, the VA, Veterans' benefits, PTSD, and whether giving change to the homeless was really helpful or if there were better ways to help. Some students also shared stories of their family members who have been or are currently in the military. One girl asked why her cousin couldn't come home, when his tour of duty in Iraq was supposed to be over. Another student asked what the draft was. Today was one of those days when I answered their questions as honestly and objectively as I could manage, and didn't pretend to be an expert on anything. Students who shared stories that didn't really need an answer, I just thanked them for sharing. I hope I also got some sensitivity towards the homeless and mentally ill in there. They were definitely not just trying to get out of work today, though. They all seemed really engaged, and wanted to talk or listen. Even though we didn't exactly get any further in the "talking walls" unit, I think I made a good call today.

I guess that's it for now. I rented Charly for the kids (they just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon" and Charly is the movie based on it) and made some crack to the clerk about watching a movie about retards and dead mice being a great way to spend a Tuesday evening. He hadn't seen the film. Ooookaayyy. Now I feel dumb.
Mockula out.