While I Wasn't Blogging: Essays and Eses

I'm going to spend the next few days trying to get back into the swing of things after having abandoned my blog to go frolicking in Fort Collins and Phoenix (the latter of which is actually a fairly non-frolic-friendly locale during the month of June, can I just say).

Today's "While I Was Living My Life Somewhere Other than in My Armchair" entry will focus on some of the folks I met while scoring AP World History essays for the College Board. No, not the charming Texan gentleman I sat next to on the shuttle or the lovely Alabaman professor with three sons and two dogs or the fellow Californian vegetarian. That would be far too upbeat. Rather, I'd like to share with you my fond remembrances of the guy who made me want to shove my empty wine glass down his throat in hopes that it would dislodge the silver spoon that was undoubtedly planted firmly in his gullet.

Some of you may be familiar with the Absolut Vodka ad that sent Loofah O'Reilly and his ilk into a tizzy:



How unamerican! How incendiary! How... historically accurate!

I was in the midst of deciding exactly how much tequila one ought to consume before having to get up at six in the morning when lo and behold, one of my AP-reading happy hour companions — who ought to by his very station as a history teacher know better — began a most craptastic instructive monologue regarding how all of this "hubbub" about how the southwest used to be part of Mexico is "crap" because (and I'm not making this up) "they weren't using it anyway."

Indeed! The crux of his argument was that hardly any Mexicans lived in what was at that time northern Mexico — part of an undisputed sovereign nation — and so they had no business getting upset when the United States began annexing it in bits and ill-used pieces.

Fascinating argument, really. Just one problem.



I fully expect this gentlemen to chortle in amusement and take another sip from his deeply dirty martini when Russia annexes the northern half of Canada since, you know, they're not using it anyway.

Furthermore, I find it interesting that someone as undoubtedly devoted to the capitalist ideology as this fellow must be defines ownership solely on the basis of usage. Perhaps he'd endorse a sliding scale for theft-related prison sentences based on the extent to which the original "owner" actually utilized the possession. You know, seven years if you steal his liver, seven months if you steal his brain.

We can call it the the "I'm Taking Your Ball and I'm Going Home Act."

Fighting Fire with Fustian

Today I spent four hours in a sauna-like auditorium shoved into a tiny wooden chair that literally left bruises on the backs of my legs, all for the privilege of unloading on the school board that sent me a layoff notice two months ago. I'm not entirely sure what I said (there may have been some podium-fist-pounding and a poker metaphor), but people clapped when I was done and I felt a hell of a lot better.

Weirdly, I'm actually not sure if I'm fired or not. There were amendments to amendments of recisions of incisions, and in the end it was all very Byzantine.** I'll find out Thursday.

In the meantime, I'm pretty sure there are now five people on the planet who would turn tail and run if they saw me in a grocery store. As well they should — I throw a mean cabbage.

** And now your Moment of Zen: According to my union president's address to the board, the last time my district laid of teachers was in 1918 in response to those teachers' refusal to take loyalty oaths.

Me, Myself and Obligations

I am schisming. Half of me is closing in on 30, owns real estate and has developed a taste for artichokes soaked in vinegar. The other half of me likes distorted guitars, watches crappy teen dramas and relapses into a nocturnal schedule by day three of a vacation.

Generally I am able to relegate these two spheres of myself to opposite corners of my brain (to mix geometrical metaphors), but tonight they've been forced into uncomfortably close proximity by an unforseeable scheduling calamity. Normally possessing two tickets to go see Modest Mouse would be unequivocally of the good. But (and why is there always a but these days!) tonight also happens to be the night I'm required to stay until all hours of the evening supervising the production of the school newspaper.

Tomorrow I expect to come to work dressed in a burlap sack and a beer hat streaming black coffee directly down my gullet.

Nails, Meet Chalkboard

The only thing better than an all-day training workshop is an all-day training workshop hosted by someone who likes to use words that aren't. I feel quite comfortable asserting that motivational speakers and their ilk are culpable for some of the most irreverent massacring of the English language since the colonists decided to start calling their knickers underwear. We can thank these would-be wordsmiths for contributions including deliverable as a noun and synergy as, well, a word.

Perhaps you or someone you love is a fan of this sort of guerilla linguistics. If so, I pose a question to you: What in the world is the difference between competence and competency? As near as I can tell they're synonymous, rendering competency unnecessarily redundant, but what the hell do I know? So like any committed researcher, I decided to ask Google.

According to WordNet, competence is defined as "the quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually." Conversely, competency is defined as, well, "the quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually."

Huh. Well, whatever - that's not a real dictionary anyway. Surely a more reliable source will clear things right up.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, competence is "the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified; ability." Per Merriam-Webster, it's "the quality or state of being functionally adequate." As for competency? Why, how odd! Each dictionary refers back to its entry for competence.

I guess competence just doesn't sound as... refined? Sophisticated? Word-like? Perhaps I judge too harshly. Maybe if I were getting paid the money that these people make for the swill they shovel, I'd feel compelled to engage in these sorts of parlance parlor tricks too.

Or, you know, not.

I move that people who use "words" like competency spend less time figuring out how to add y onto the ends of perfectly good words and more time figuring out why I have to spend two eight-hour days listening to two hours worth of actual information.