I applied for 6 jobs today. Already I’ve gotten 2 auto-replies, which probably means I’m not going to get any of them. But I must keep a positive attitude! I’ve been wallowing for long enough – time to stop being slovenly and get a frickin’ job if it kills me.

But since I still have some time to kill… I’ve decided to listen to every CD I own in alphabetical order. I’d say a good 90% of them haven’t been listened to since I purchased them, so it’s time to get my money’s worth and hopefully remind myself of why I bought them in the first place.

Fortunately, there’re only about 250 on the shelves, so it shouldn’t take more than… four weeks. That’s providing I listen to them for eight hours a day, five days a week. Not bad. Maybe I’ll even have a job by that time. Wouldn’t that be nice? In fact, I like the sound of that: I have to find a job by the time I’ve listened to all of them. If not, I have to rob a bank or something. See, it’s an ultimatum. Either find a job, or destroy my life. I’m willing to bet that with motivation like that I can find a job.

Speaking of music, last night I was ICQing with an old acquaintance of mine, and the conversation goes something like this:

Adder: Hey, man, do you play an instrument?

Me: No. I sing, but not very well.

Adder: That works. My friend and I are starting a band. But we have no talent, and we still need a drummer, guitarist, and singer. You any good at writing songs?

Me: I don’t think so.

Adder: We all suck at songwriting.

Me: Well, that could work if everyone sucks at it.

Adder: That’s the spirit!

Me: Have you guys come up with any sketches yet?

Adder: Hell no. We just like to make noise and annoy the neighbors.
Me: Ah. Well maybe I’ll fit right in.

Adder: See, we’re calling our band “hedgehog”, and it’s based on admiration for porn legend Ron Jeremy. We’ll play punk-type crap that takes no talent whatsoever.

Me: That’s funny.

Adder: If you can screech, you’ve got the job.

Me: Well, I think I might be able to pull off guttural, but I don’t know about screech.

Adder: That’s cool. Whatever comes out of your mouth.

Me: I can’t read music or anything.

Adder: Read music? We just get fucked up and play along with the drum machine on the PC.

Me: I get it. I’m feeling more comfortable now.

Adder: See, we have no aspirations, no dreams of stardom, and are still getting over the fact that we can just move our fingers and noise comes out of the instruments. That pretty much sums up the band.

Me: In that case, count me in.

Adder: Woo-hoo!

I guess that means I’m in “hedgehog”. Now I just have to come up with a good porn name. And I’m willing to bet that at least one of my readers has some good ideas in regards to this…

I mentioned my crappy writing class a couple of posts ago, so I’m going to expand. See, this class had the potential to actually be interesting, if it weren’t for the laziest teacher in the world.

Since it had essentially been 12 years since I’d written a paper of any kind, I figured it would be a good refresher course. I actually had the option of testing out of it, since my placement scores were high enough, but I though it might be useful. Boy was I ever wrong. I should have just picked up a writers book and skimmed it. That would just about cover the knowledge I’ve gained from this $150 class (plus books). He uses in-class time for us to write “journals”, the content of which is just reactions to the essays we’re supposed to have read for assignment. On top of that, maybe 10 minutes of in-class time are spent going over any kind of writing structure, and I think only once has the class been released within a half-hour of it’s official ending time. Usually it’s a good hour short.

It’s because he’s busy getting his novel published. And asking us for feedback about the title… or opening quote…

Sometimes I get the impression that he feels none of us really need the class, and that we know the stuff already. Other times, he’s almost condescending in explaining the simplest of things. The problem is that some of the people in the classneed the information, while others of us don’t. Sadly, he fails on all levels to try and accommodate. He lets two non-native English speakers be partners on paper peer reviews. He leaves class early on days when we’re having group discussions. It’s like he wants to give us freedom, but instead it comes off as a complete lack of structure. Really he should be a creative writing teacher. Not a structural writing teacher.

What’s really sad is that I’d probably like the guy a lot more if he didn’t come off as so lazy.

So there’s my bad teacher rant. There’s nothing I hate worse than a bad teacher. That probably had a lot to do with my 51% attendance rate in high school. Teachers who don’t inspire and challenge me are pretty much just wasting my time, because I’m not going to care a rat’s ass about their class. And that really pisses me off, because this time I’mpaying them to be learning, and if I’m not excited to learn, it makes it all the harder for me to get the information. Hell, I prefer the military way of teaching to this. They beat it into you, not just hand you a book and say, “go read or something, I don’t care.”

This poses today’s question: What is your ideal method of learning?