[Transportation Cabinet] Computers Seized in Ky. Child Porn Probe
Thank you, Kentucky. Thank you.
Category: Kentucky
Okay, one more nitpick. From Jon:
“… a Danville Cracker Barrel restaurant has been unwittingly selling postcards of Louisville’s skyline, emblazoned with ‘Lexington.'”
Danville: Home to Centre College. Host of a 2004 Presidential Debate. Thanks, Danville. Danville.
Last night was the least stressful opening night I’ve ever been through, thanks largely to the way the stage is set up, I think. The musicians play behind what’s called a scrim at the back of the stage–a very loosely woven canvas that’s semitransparent straight onbut opaque from an angle. Because it makes the audience look fuzzy, it fosters the illusion that we’re behind some kind of two-way mirror and don’t have to worry about being watched. Even though I know consciously that the audience can see us just as well as we can see them, that still put me at ease enough to play as well as I ever have. This is neat!
It seemed to work pretty well for everyone else, too, and the music really sounded great. More credit for that goes to the writer than to us, but hey, he gets his bow too.
This is the big crunch week, in that I have no more free evenings to work until Sunday, and I’ve been struggling to keep up. I did finally get in an appointment to see my career counselor about a resume critique; we’d been having a little difficulty finding a time because, and I quote, “she’s got a mare due.” Only in Kentucky.
Anyway, she seemed to like my resume and my cover letter (the first one I’ve ever written!), so that felt good. It still bemuses me, though, how little one’s qualifications matter compared to the monumental importance of making them all fit on one page. My counselor’s a nice lady, but I honestly think she knows as much about line spacing and margins as she does about, y’know, jobs.
Another thing I’m behind on: sending out graduation announcements. Eek. I went to the library yesterday to copy pages out of my mother’s address book, which is kind of like a library in itself. There are sheaves of apocryphal driving directions, notes and updates, about five different styles of handwriting, and some entries that take up half a page alone because they’ve been crossed out and corrected so many times. It’s a fascinating object, and I feel like I should get a grant and do an archaeological dig on it.
Too many things on my head. Why is everyone getting sick? Should I bleach my hair again? And how the hell am I supposed to wrap up this entry?
Louisville: Hands cuffed behind his back, fifty years old, two white cops, one black man, twelve bullets, and you know, I can’t stand it when people get uppity over every little thing, honestly, but what? What?
The heat appears to operate entirely independent of my control, turning itself on sometime around 10 am and turning itself off around 10 pm. The knobs on some of the radiators don’t turn at all,and the ones that do turn have no effect. I wasn’t under the impression that this was how radiators worked! Evening is interesting, at least, as I have to open windows around 6 and turn the space heater on again by 11.
Things that have distracted me lately:
- “…our machines have to keep grinding over it, the grit in their backwash sandblasting the blood away.”
- “Ah, it’s just someone sitting there, because you don’t see dead bodies, you just don’t.”
- The same girl who recommended
- Also, they have a song about Lion-O.
- As the only one of my friends still here for the break, I’m taking care not only of Idaho but of Meghan’s turtle and Ken’s red-bellied frogs (plus their cricket-based food source). The resulting situation can be seen camwards.
And that’s the news from Kentucky.
I quit running around finals last term, and I just got back from my first attempt at it since then. It’s been at least a month, and it shows, and the cold air is unkind to my raspy secondhand lungs–but I feel better, and I haven’t slipped as much as I thought. Then again, I also have new shoes, so that could be part of it.
Part of KERA (Kentucky Education Reform Act, which went into effect around seventh grade for me) meant that we wrote a lot more in school. I think that’s a good thing. What’s stupid about it, though, is that we were doing the work for nothing. As we got older we started to realize it. I have no doubt that the low scores for our junior KIRIS tests were due not to a lack of ability, but to a lack of caring.
My tracery of KERA results:
- Students began to write more.
- Because this writing was intended to judge teacher ability levels, teachers made students spend time on these pieces instead of regular course work. At the same time, students were not graded for said pieces because they were portfolio-bound. This had two direct results.
- Students were not taught as much useful material.
- Students were taught that it was more important to write more than to write well.
- Students did a great deal of work for which they were not held accountable. They got a wishy-washy level like “apprentice” or “distinguished” for it, but they couldn’t put it on a college application.
- Because it was stressed that students have a wide variety of work available for portfolio assembly, no piece could be thrown away–which, as most teachers translated, meant no criticism.
And that’s what really gets to me about the whole damn thing. We as a generation have not been taught to separate critiques of work from personal criticism, a desperately important distinction that most of us are forced to learn on our own. I think it hurts a lot of people when they get to college, and it’s not their fault.