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Phrases I hate...

From the beginning of time clichés have plagued society. If you didn't just get the irony in that statement please proceed to hang yourself with your mouse. Suicide wishes aside, I would like to address a problem in our society. The problem of empty catch phrases that individuals use to explain complex life issues. An example would be the ever overused "life isn't fair." We've all heard it, whether it is from our parents, our friends, teachers, the media (let's just blame the media AGAIN just for the hell of it, after all, is there anything the aren't responsible for?). It is a phrase that is so blatantly obvious, so blatantly idiotic that I can't even begin to fathom why people would use it, never mind seemingly intelligent people.

Well, actually I can. It's a cop out, a way for people to masquerade their lack of understanding or unwillingness to take responsibility by using a common phrase and pass it off as intelligence or wit. So when I complain that something is unfair/lame/bullshit I get this rebuttal from the usually significantly older "wiser" moron who smugly states "life isn't fair". Well, as if receiving this little cynical remark that is about as scathing as a Hallmark greeting isn't enough of an insult to my intelligence, the person genuinely believes that they're doing me a favor by putting me in my place. That they are giving gentle reminders to life's arbitrariness that I just can't handle. Well, to respond to their insanely original statement I offer this equally original rebuttal: "Fuck off you dumb bitch." But why the hate, you inquire? Let me explain the various reasons why this, and various other catch phrases get my blood boiling.

For instance, I KNOW that life is unfair. I have ALWAYS known life isn’t fair, even when my retarded elementary school teachers tried to convince me it was. So when I complain about something it's not because I didn't take into account that people are ridiculous, it's because I expect that the world should be fair and am either disappointed/outraged that it isn't. Now wait, before you start accusing me of being a communist hippie, hear me out. I never said equal. Most things in life shouldn't be equal, as fate would have it. But they should be fair. In fact, equality often threatens fairness. For Christ's sake, this is fucking America. Our whole bullshit philosophy is that hard work will get you ahead. So excuse me if I have the unreasonable expectation that people will choke on their own dogma.

"Everything Happens For A Reason."

I guess I have to be careful here not to offend religious fanatics on this one sough cough BRANDON( by the way, I still love you anyway). But please, tell any rape victim that everything happens for a reason. Tell every girl who gets the shit beat out of her every night by her drunken dad that everything happens for a reason. Let’s face it, cause and effect is overrated. Hardly anything happens for a reason. Life IS a random

“Real beauty comes from the inside.”

So you want to fuck my spleen? And by the way, a vagina is specifically designed so guys cum in the inside, so I guess true beauty is just a woman’s gash, eh? Oooo, it refers to “personality”.  Whatever. I’d actually like this phrase if it wasn’t used by sleazy men with a basket full of STD’s trying to get in women’s pants.

So there’s my blacklist, my top three all time evil, overused phrases.

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Guilty Pleasures...

All of us have qualities and habits that we would rather not have others know about. Some of us enjoy Walker, Texas Ranger, others masturbate to anime in their own feces. My confession is this: on occasion, I love to hear a mindless pop tune. I hate everything about the beast of pop culture. To borrow a term from my dearest class macro economics, pop music crowds out other music almost completely. Seldom does rock get main stream radio play, and with MTV increasingly turning into reality tv, the one music show left- TRL- is a bleak option for any decent music to get exposed. Furthermore, pop music has no soul. It is manufactured beyond all belief. It has no message and no genuine emotion. Now this is not true of all pop songs. But most of the pop songs that do have some spark are actually "crossover" hits. An example of this would be Berlin's fantastic ballad " Take My Breath Away". Even Faith Hill was a respected country singer before her ditties graced main stream radio. The exception to this rule, of course, would be Madonna, who until recently was consistently responsible for some of the finest music in the past twenty years. Today's world of Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears, and John Mayer just don't make the cut. They impose on this planet everything I hate most. Superficiality, unachievable ideals of romance, oversexed, oversimplified depictions of human relationships, and finally, claustrophobic stereotypes of what makes a person cool.

Yet despite all of this I find "Toxic" stuck in my head. Whenever the dance team performed I'd be excited to hear "Lose My Breath." Even watching the Grammy's last week I thoroughly enjoyed Usher's performance. Part of me wonders if I'm getting soft in my old age. Part of me wonders if the angsty middle schooler has now given way to the worn out senior who just doesn't possess the energy to fight the establishment anymore. But then I realized something. Back in the summer of my sophomore year I went to Ireland. They only have six or seven radio stations there and the content is not based on station, but rather on time. Therefore, on my beloved indie alternative station, around two in the afternoon Justin Timberlakes "Body Rock" and Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" could both be heard daily. And over time I learned to like these songs too. And back in seventh grade 702's "Where My Girl's At" was the black anthem for my white ass.

So I guess I've always had a weakness for pop. But I think that it's an excusable weakness. After all, music can serve many different purposes. And pop music, more or less, is specifically designed for club play. It's not like I go home and listen to Usher to unwind at the end of the day or think that Britney's music is the soundtrack for my life or anything. So perhaps I'm like the people who masturbate in their own feces. Maybe my hidden fondness for crappy processed pop is actually the inner dance whore slut bag in me rising to the surface. Perhaps it's Freudian. Perhaps my subconscious id is pushing my ridiculously prudish superego back a little, giving it a run for it's money. In any case, I suppose pop music is like junk food. Once in awhile doesn't do much harm, but you should be careful what you put in your body.

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Showing Up to Class Ontime...

Everyday I wake up approximately 7:00 am. School starts at exactly 8:02 am, by the school clock, which as fate would have it, is two minutes fast of the official Pacific Time. Yet this folly on the part of the school is no excuse for me showing up late to my second period nearly every day. I accept this fully and completely. Now, Mr. Brennan, my English teacher, has made it a habit of requiring to make us do absolutely nothing during the 56 minutes we are imprisoned with him approximately five days a week. I say approximate because I've made it a practice, in addition to gracing the class with my presence a mere 54 minutes a day, of not showing up too terribly often. But Mr. Brennan is such a nice guy. His IQ is clearly double mine yet he is never condescending, I sit right by his desk and make several highly inappropriate, blasphemous comments and I am never reprimanded. And finally, he makes us do no work. Zero. So therefore, a while ago my sad sorry excuse for a conscience began to eat away at the fat of my apathy and I concluded that I owed Mr. Brennan the respect to show up on time.

   So for about a week I showed up on time, even early. This was a mistake. It seems that Mr. Brennan makes it a habit of waltzing in- decorated with his 18th century Irish peasant cap- with only seconds to spare before the impending bell. And on the rare occasion that Brennan shows up early he does not make the classroom accessible to students until well after the first bell. Instead, he opts to hide out in his bat cave and leave all of his Advanced Placement students in the cold, cruel elements, freezing our little Advancely Placed asses off. This, coupled with the fact that the man doesn't give a shit if I show up late- as long as I arrive before Dipayan- has led to resort back to my old ways.

 However, do not mistake me, there are teachers who care about attendance. Mr. Ladd, AKA big brother, a man who I am convinced is aware of every aspect of every single one of his students lives (no doubt he knows I'm writing this right now), is not only obsessed with students showing up on time, but obsessing with their attendance record in every other class. Now, luckily for me Mr. Brennan is too damn lazy to mark off that I'm ever tardy. However, a certain Mr. Greg Zissel has not had my good fortune. His excessive absence and tardiness to a vast array of non-Ladd classes had him somewhat blacklisted in Ladd's book. This was understandable, because we had Comp Civics at the time and Greg's negligence undoubtedly strained teacher relations as well as endangered him of not being able to perform at one of the competitions. However, Ladd's motive had nothing to do with any of the factors I mentioned. It had to do with control. Much like a bulimics or rapists teachers obsessed with attendance are not concerned with attendance or education, the are obsessed with control. Just today Mr. Murphy had me check if a student in one of his earlier classes had an alibi for his/her tardiness. Now, I am not criticizing Murphy's investigation for the following reasons:

A) He needs proof to clear her should he/she be innocent

B) I'm a useless TA with nothing to do

C) It made me feel like Ice T on SVU

Now, the punishment this individual will have to suffer is not known. However, in Ladd’s class I believe that the punishments for tardies are something like this:

1^st offense- Student of the week eligibility revoked, smart- ass comment

2^nd offense- meaner smart-ass comment followed by questioning on the material one undoubtedly didn’t read

3^rd offense- Detention at 3am in the morning while being verbally flogged with an avalanche of smart- ass comments, may about ones mother

4^th offense- brought outside the classroom and shot in the back of the head like a dog.

Greg, like so may others who come late to classes in the middle of the day, are puzzling. After all, there are only three explanations for why one would be late to a class in the middle of the day.

1)      Triumphant return from doctors/ dentists appointment

2)      Conversing with friends/illicit drugs caused time warp

3)      So fucking stupid forgot way to class

I don’t have much experience with any of these as I have no friends, my mom schedules appointments after school, and I’m not THAT fucking stupid. But punishments for these offenses are usually even stricter than a 1^st or 2^nd period absence. Teachers often humiliate students who boldly attempt to shave time off the class by making them wait outside or refusing to let them turn in their homework.

So as one can clearly see, teachers obsessed with tardies are not to be messed with.  In all fairness, perhaps they are not like bulimics but more like parents: overprotective, caring, and horrible dressers. So next time you get busted for being late, don’t be offended or defensive. They only do it because they love you. Just like they beat you because they love you.