just john

I seem to have stirred some unrest in my "angry" post because I left is as an undirected venting. I did so because I was angry for normal, albeit stupid, reasons. 

Always define normal before someone does it for you.

I think the switch to all German at work has prompted a minor relapse of culture shock. I've had to face conversations that are a strain to contribute relevancy to only to end my day with people who refuse to wait in lines and drive like the own the  entire universe. To me, the things are not normal but over here they are perfectly normal. I've tried to adapt by refusing to queue in lines and driving as if I too own the universe but it is still unnatural and takes it's toll. These things will, and in fact have, pass(ed).

I was thinking just minutes ago about my eighth-grade English teacher. She forced us to write a one page journal entry every day of class and based our quarterly? journal grade on the number of pages it contained. I usually got a "C" because I just wasn't interested in writing anything those days and personal reflection is not the forte of most 13 year olds. She was a very caring and popular teacher interested in the well being of her students. How else could you explain giving my account of a suicide attempt "another big C" as she so eloquently wrote. I still have the journal.

Turns out I still don't write a full page every day and never really got into the habit of chronicling the excruciating daily minutiae of my existence. It all sounds so good in my head and seems to transfigure into crap once it hits the page. Am I really that good of a mental orator? With an audience of myself the peer reviews may never come back.

The eighth grade teacher just prompted another old teacher memory; the first grade teacher. We were having our science lesson which I believe was early in the day, prior to the un-revised version of the food pyramid. I remember them telling us liver was a super-food instead of the cholesterol laden, waste repository of a gross tasting organ that it is. So she's going on about the solar system and Mercury's penchant for being hot on one side and cold on the other. This is due to its heliosynchronous orbit. We did not cover "heliosynchronous" that day. We also did not cover the concept of steep thermal gradients, which prompted my question. "What if you stood in the middle?" In retrospect, I think I knew what would happen but I wanted some explanation or the vocabulary to describe it. What I got was "I guess you would freeze on one side and burn on the other." On that day, I decided my teacher was an idiot.

If you're still concerned about paragraph four, I wouldn't put much more effort into it. It was 24 years ago and my parents had just completed a perfectly lovely divorce. I think I had a right to some intense teen angst. Too bad I was already too tall to find proper gothic clothing. One of my biggest regrets.

I have managed to find common ground with George Bush. I like his immigration stance. Too bad his base does not.

I have a shared experience with Mitt Romney as well. I've used a rifle on exactly one animal my entire life. I, however, felt guilty to the point of not using it again. I guess i don't get that insane rush of adrenaline that comes from personally diminishing the sum of existence on Earth. I prefer to condone by purchasing in pre-packaged quantities and keeping myself stylishly shod.

With Rudy Guiliani, okay, I dressed in drag one time (two if you count Freddy Kruger) as a "tall woman" circus freak for an architechture college party. I think he has me beat on gown fit and make up though.

Not sure how this identifying with candidates theme came up, but hey, it's been a slow week and I've got a vacation coming up.