All Work and No Play Makes Allison a Crabby Allison

If my teacher ed courses are teaching me anything (which is doubtful), it's that my teachers were all idiots. Did they really willingly go through the hell of teacher education so that they could take home $24,000 a year?

Today one of my professors sprang a stupidly massive assignment on us. Specifically, a 25-minute presentation. Due in just over a week. Please remember that this is midterm season. So, recap: no forewarning, 25-minute presentation due on Halloween, two days after my big giant Brit lit midterm from hell, and five days before the due date of my big giant Brit lit paper from Hell.

Dear Professor,
DIE DIE DIE FORNICATE 666 DIE DIE FORNICATE.
Cordially, Allison

On the bright side, I found graffiti in the bathroom that reads: "If you have not died already, you will be killed by me."

I have to go--Joe's new kitten, Saxo Grammaticus, has managed to get himself stuck on the bamboo blinds during his relentless pursuit of a one of those satanic orange Asian biting insects that look like cute little ladybugs until they chew your face off.

Coming Home Present

When you haven't been home in a few days and you have two white cats who shed like it's a competition, the general effect is as if a cloud threw up in your living room.

Double Feature Picture Show

I love my science fiction class simply because I get grades for turning in response papers with paragraphs like this:

"While I loved Moore and Kuttner’s story and its exploration of what, exactly, makes children special, I wrestled with my inner Alice scholar. I could not suspend my disbelief long enough to avoid annoyance at a major plot hole. In 'Mimsy Were the Borogoves,' one of the little girls with whom Carroll kept company, presumably Alice Liddell, finds one set of the toys from the future, and she sings the first stanza of 'Jabberwocky' to 'Uncle Charles' (207). The analytical critic in my brain raged at this plot device. I knew full well that Carroll had composed the first stanza of 'Jabberwocky' when he was twenty-three years old, seven years before he made up the first Alice story for Alice Liddell (Gardner 7, 148). Moore and Kuttner’s idea of the stanza’s composition charmed me, but the timeline already in my brain shattered the fourth wall."

" Despite all the cold-blooded murder and moneylust, 'The Little Black Bag' presented a heavenly scenario. After all, I am twenty years old, and the prospect of a hypodermic needle in my arm still reduces me to blubbering sobs. Between a vicious bout of meningitis during my teenage years and a childhood dentist not entirely unlike Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors, I have developed an acute and all-consuming fear of dentists, syringes, hospitals, doctors, and that funny smell they pump into the waiting rooms. Kornbluth’s idea of painless, bloodless, needle-less medical care makes me dream of a beautiful, serene world in which none of my phobias exist. Of course, this dream assumes that the Kornbluth’s vision of the future also excludes bees, but that’s another matter entirely."

"Today, we encounter a portrait of the American family. A man, a woman, and his little girl seem to have built a normal, happy life. But beneath this happy facade, a secret lurks, a secret that will turn a father into an aggressor, a mother into a tyrant, and a child into unwitting fuel for their violent fire. No, this story is not presented by the Lifetime network. Instead, Richard Matheson, noted science fiction author, brings us this tale of familial horror and woe, a tale he calls 'Born of Man and Woman.' Mother’s horrible secret would shock their friends and neighbors: she gave birth to another child, a beast-child of massive strength, extra legs, and green blood. I hate it when that happens."

RiotBecki Is My Favorite

1. There is a kitten sleeping on my elbow.

2. I am minorly obsessed with the Pipettes.

3. I am almost done knitting a new strap for a corduroy bag that has been sitting in my living room ever since its leather strap broke.

4. My mother took me and Joe out to dinner for her birthday tonight. I found out that I still don't really like Chinese. On the bright side, I really, really like my mother.

5. I can only tell a good story if I get to gesture and wave my hands around like an angry Russian diplomat.

6. Dad and I were debating as to which is more homoerotic: ultimate fighting or wrestling. I maintained that the use of unitards in wrestling automatically made it more questionable, but then we turned on the closed captioning on ultimate fighting. After the announcer did a recap of the match that involved the phrases "getting it from the rear," "pulling it in, pulling it in, pulling it in," and "finishing it off with a naked choke hold, and boom, it's over," I made my concession speech.

Special Friendships

Sometimes I worry that I have lost my sense of humor completely, but then I just go on Facebook and check my wall-to-wall with someone random, and I find instances where I posted things like this:

One time, Kyle kicked a puppy.

Not only that, but the puppy in question was so young that its eyes weren't even open yet.

And then he ate it.

So only talk to him if you like people who kick and eat little tiny newborn puppies.

God, he's pretty much a total cretin, isn't he?