White on the Map

In which this teacher earnestly wants a word to substitute for "chink" in Midsummer Night's Dream, and one person suggests kink which doesn't mean the same thing.

And on the one hand, I'm sure they all have their hearts in the right place, but on the other hand, maybe they should collectively teach a different play instead. Shakespeare wrote plenty of comedies, just pick a different one off the shelf.

And every one of those recs is better than the books. Well, I've shared my opinion on the books, the problems and characterization are insufficiently balanced for dual viewpoints.

But anyway, that's not what I'm thinking about. What I'm thinking about is Fabian and his generically shitty parents who clearly don't care about him very much. ( Read more... )

Them: Go look at any official communication from a company. Have you ever received a ConEd bill that says, “Ya should of paid ya bill on time, now we gonna haveta cut off ya powa”? Of course not. Why? Because that is not standard English, and it would reflect poorly on the company.

Me: I take it you've never called ConEd on the phone in NYC? Because, whew, that'd disabuse you of this fiction pretty quick. Them and National Grid, wow. And I'm not even talking about their representatives, I'm talking about their recordings! Never heard such a thick NYC accent in my life, and I grew up here!

that the Roman calendar was batshit.

Today is the Ides, okay, and yesterday was pridie Ides, so far so good, and the day before that was three days before the Ides, because the Romans a. counted backwards and b. did this weird inclusive counting, so Friday, Saturday, Ides = three days.

(Which is also how Good Friday is three days before the Resurrection, when it blatantly isn't.)

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Seriously, asleep more than I've been awake. And I never did manage to work out the logistics to get to the memorial, which halfway sucks but halfway is "Welp, social anxiety" so....

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So, yesterday I go to catch the bus to get to work. As I'm waiting, the bus disappears off the app and then actually disappears, it never shows. So I say "Okay, I'll catch the other bus route. Sure, I've never taken this before, but it's a short walk and it's only a little drizzly out, how bad can it be?"

Welp, I stepped off the bus, the heavens opened up, I got totally drenched. I also got turned around, twice. What ought to have been an 8 minute walk was closer to 20, and the whole way I said "It's okay, I'll get there, go to the laundry room, strip naked, and spend half an hour drying my clothes. Nobody can fault me for this!"

I show up, and the first thing that L says to me when she answers the door is "The dryer is gone".

I'm not proud, but I cursed her out. And then apologized. And then cursed some more.

I found the ironing board but no iron, so I ended up spending half an hour using a hair dryer on my socks just to get them slightly less drenched.