I'm not really an angry person...

I'm reading over my very few posts and considering sharing this blog with my family but before I do I just want everyone to be aware I'm really not an angry person! I really could care less if you don't know the difference between manatees and dugongs, what you do at sporting events or if you are not the best teacher.

But -- I really started this blog just to write. I happen to enjoy writing in a sarcastic and angry way.

Family: if you are hoping to read this blog and get updates about my life... I can't guarantee that'll happen. This is a venting place. I just want to enjoy it :)
I do enjoy talking about my every day life to no one in particular though so who knows, it may have the occasional journal entry but let's not hold our breath for it... Love you!

Manatees and dugongs are not the same!

When I was in 3rd grade I did a power point report about manatees. Ever since then, I've been in love with them. They're so cute and fat and slow and lovable! I don't know why this particular assignment from third grade had such an impact on my life (probably because I aced it like you wouldn't believe! My teacher even used it as an example for her other classes. That's a pretty big stinking deal for an eight year old!) but it had such an impact that I have not forgotten about manatees.


Well recently my wonderful brother went on a trip to Florida for some training for his work. While he was there he thought of me when he saw some items claiming to be manatees. My very supportive family of course knows of my obsession with manatees and so I'm sure he was excited to be able to find me a small manatee pen just to let me know he cares about me. Little did he know... this pen is stupid! (don't worry I still love it cause it was a gift from my brother)


The pen is red and then the top half is clear. It reads: "Manatee Endangered Species" on one side and then on the other side there is an image of blue water and a small manatee swims across the pen when you tip it certain ways but... wait what?! It's not a manatee?! Why is there a dugong swimming across my manatee pen? Who do these people think they are selling dugong pens to manatee lovers?! Do they think we won't know the difference! Well ha! Ha, ha, ha! I've caught you in your lies!


Manatees have flat round tails that kinda look like a pancake. Dugongs have a whale tail. Manatees live in shallow water and eat plants. Dugongs live at sea and eat bottom dwelling creatures.

Dugong

Manatee

Maybe I should use my blog like a journal like normal people so you don't get stuck reading these ridiculous posts about manatees... but I gotta be ridiculous sometimes...

Sports

After attending a recent sports game I have noticed there is a common belief among many people that sporting events, especially outdoor ones are kind of a free for all. It’s a time to yell and scream and bring the kids out of the house. As a frequenter of sporting events let me tell you – this is not true. There are rules of etiquette even during a sporting event. So since not many people seem to understand this, allow me to spell them out for you.

1.     Just because there is an empty seat in front of you does not mean you must put your feet on it.  Putting your paraphernalia on it such as jackets, bags etc before the game has even started is completely out of the question. If, during the course of the game it becomes clear that that seat will probably remain empty then by all means – have at it. If someone leaves to grab something to eat during half time, that is not an invitation for you to put your feet up. If there is someone sitting in the seat next to the empty seat, it is not ok for you to put your feet up. They will come dangerously close to the other person’s head and they’re probably pretty dirty so that is gross. Basically, keep your feet to yourself for the duration of the game, ok?!

2.      Just because the girl who sang the national anthem totally forgot the words and pretty much had to start from the beginning again and really didn’t hit all the notes very well, does not give you the right to give her two big thumbs down as she’s walking off the floor. I’m sure she’s humiliated enough without you being a jerk about it. While we’re on the subject of this character, please leave your naked girl shirts at home when you leave for a public place. They’re gross and I don’t want to have to sit behind you and stare at this naked cartoon all night. The fedora doesn’t make you any cooler either. Nice try.

3.     If your children are old enough to walk, they should be wearing shoes out in public. There’s a lot of nasty people at sporting events and your child is walking around with no shoes? Umm… gross.

4.     While we’re on the subject of children, if your children are not mature enough to sit and watch a game, please leave them at home. This will not only prevent the people in front of you from having to be touched by your kids nasty pizza fingers or have their chair kicked throughout the entire game, you can support your local economy by hiring a babysitter. It'll probably actually save you money in the long run since I'm pretty sure most kids go to these things just for the food.

5.     Yelling “over here!” during the shirt toss probably won’t give you any better shot at getting a shirt than simply jumping up and down would. Yelling it louder still doesn’t help. Yelling obscenities definitely doesn’t help.  Please just SHUT UP DURING THE FREAKIN SHIRT TOSS!!! Thank you.

6.     If you are performing during half time and your best friend is on a date somewhere in the crowd, don’t go find her when you’re done. Definitely don’t make her date move over so you can sit next to her. He’s probably kinda pissed about that…

7.     If you realize you are running late to the game, it’s a good idea to leave your way oversized, OMG-how-do-you-even-walk-with-that-stupid-thing-sized purse at home. You’re going to be entering a crowded arena with seats kinda close together. If you’re carrying a bag that big there’s a chance it’s going to get very much in the way. It’s annoying enough to arrive so late but to arrive late and then smack the people sitting in front of you with your way too huge back is probably bad karma.

8.     If you’re going to take pictures at the game, at least turn off your screen. Your shots of players 50,000 feet away suck and it’s probably driving the semi-skilled photographer behind you crazy to see you chop off everyone’s feet. What are you gonna do with that crappy shot of that player anyways? You definitely won’t hang it up (though, by the way you’re showing it off to everyone around you maybe you will, idk) you’ll probably show it to a few more people and say something like “I saw this guy from 26 rows away! I was using binoculars the whole time but look how close my camera can zoom! Yeah I know he’s blurry…” and then it’ll sit and rot on your hard drive somewhere, never to be seen again. Maybe if you had gotten his feet in the shot it’d have a little more meaning.

9.     There are trash cans in these places, I’ve seen them. I can also see you, and you have legs and hands. So… there’s no excuse for leaving your trash all over the ground. If you don’t have arms or legs, then feel free. J

I’m sure there’s more etiquette to be learned but this was all I saw as important for this particular night. Please apply these things next time you go out and enjoy the game!

I may have a problem with teachers who care too much about what they are teaching and not enough about their students future...

This summer I took an economics class. Our teacher was easily frustrated throughout the class whenever someone asked a question. It was only a month long class so I can understand that it was a lot of material to shove into one class but there's only so much you can do about that. So rather than taking out some of this info and reforming his class to fit the time and still give us all the information that we needed, he just got frustrated whenever someone asked him to slow down. 

However, whenever someone asked a question that had nothing to do with what we were being tested on, but just a curious question about our economy, he seemed excited to go on an hour long rant and explain the issue. 

We had a LOT of students in this class that did not seem to grasp that our class was time sensitive and we needed to get through the stuff quickly if we were going to be prepared for future economics classes, so we spent a lot of time discussing China's roll in our economy rather than how our money system works. 

Maybe I'll tell that full story later. 

However this semester it seems to be happening again. Psychology. 

Our professor seems to want us to discuss everything we learn. It's psychology so I can understand that but this is a large lecture class and honestly I don't see any discussion happening. But -- she holds out hope! Even though she has a lot to get through, she makes plenty of time for pointless discussion questions and long awkward pauses. 

What exactly does she need to get through? Well we have a very large, thick and boring textbook which we are assigned to read a chapter from each night. Yesterday I began my reading and after two hours I finally turned to the end only to find out I was only half way through. TWO HOURS!

You may say, "Silly Alli, just look at the pictures and skim the articles" but this is not an option. She wants us to know details. I've taken this lady's tests -- she wants details. 

So we've got about 4 hours of textbook reading to go through. I don't know if you've ever read a textbook but I'm not gonna lie, it's not real exciting. In fact, I get lost. I count on that precious lecture time to make sense of it all! 

But does it? Sadly, no. 

Why not? Because this professor is so obsessed with knowing every thought in our head that she would rather spend our class time listening to our ridiculous answers than actually teaching the material we need to know.

 Today for example she posted a large list of items on the board and asked if we would add anything to the list. One guy ventured a guess but his silly little thought was already part of the list. Other students tried to explain this to the professor but she was so interested in knowing his thoughts that she would not forget about it until he said something. So after about ten minutes of confusion we were finally able to move on.

Then she could get back to explaining the material... you'd think. Wrong. Movie time! Let's show a 30 minute video I thought was interesting -- who needs to know the basics?! Let's learn what's being done now! Applying this information will help you automatically understand all this, right? Ummm... no. 

So as everyone is getting restless at the end of class and getting loud as they gather their bags this professor is forced to yell tiny details at us that will be important that maybe she could have explained had she not spent so much time teaching us stuff that we will not be tested on. 

I just want to clarify -- I'm all for applying what we've learned, but let's learn it first, m'kay?!