Ok… look who’s playin some magic…

Yes I did ask her NOT to eat the cards.. I will give her props for being the most creative Magic player ever. She can utterly make up some rules.. and then look at you STUNNED if you question them…

Rule: Draw 7 random cards…
Christine’s Rule: I want to pick the 7

Rule: Use the Cards in your hand
Christine’s Rule: This one isn’t useful I’m going to trade it out for a new one…

Rule: Under certain circumstances you can respond to what one player did.
Christine’s Rule: She can respond regardless of how many card she has, or even if she has cards that work in that situation.

Rule: When damaged either your creature is damaged or the player is directly damaged.
Christine’s Rule: Pfffft… Damage me… ya right.. my turn.

Rule: When a my creature dies it is removed from the game.
Christine’s Rule: When my creature dies, it becomes her creature.

I could go on.. and on..

Let me start this by saying I’ve always been very attracted to Christopher. An all-around athlete in high school, he still looks it. Nice build, strong jaw, blue eyes, dark hair with a touch of gray, big hands with big, thick fingers… and we all know what that means… in short, the boy is hot.

It wasn’t until last night that I realized I’d been blinded by his good looks… prevented from seeing something that must’ve been there all along…

Last night, I realized, that Christopher is indeed… a geek.

Here’s what happened…

Christopher and I decided to go buy a new board game because basically, we’ve run out of things to do besides have sex. So we go to a game store in the mall and it turns out there are no interesting games there and the place is apparently going out of business. So Christopher has the idea that we’ll stop at this comic book store that sells games on the way home. He assures me that he goes to this place a lot and they have good games there.

So we go.

As we walk in, the three men over by the counter, in the midst of a passionate discussion about “how the armies are unbalanced,” stop and stare at me like they’ve never seen anyone of the female persuasion walk into the store before. After a moment of letting their shock subside, they go back to their discussion of comparing the wizards to the warlocks and the witches to the whatevers.

I walk over to the aisle where Christopher stands, reading the back of the box of some ancient Roman empire game. I must’ve had a smirk on my face because he gives me an admonishing look.

“Stop it,” he says. “I don’t like you making fun of my peeps.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I said with a little grin that I could seem to hide. “And these are hardly your peeps. It’s Saturday night, and these guys are hanging out in here talking about fantasy games instead of going out with their girlfriends and getting laid.”

“On nights you’re not here, I do the same thing,” he says.

I stop. “What?” I ask, not sure if I heard.

“I come in with my glasses on and my linux shirt…” I shove him hard, trying to get him to stop, to snap out of it.

“No you don’t…” I’m in complete denial, even though I love how he looks in his glasses– damn that boy can talk me into so much stuff when he’s wearing his glasses. “Honey… are you really a geek? Am I like that girl on Revenge of the Nerds?”

“Christine, come on… You’ve known for a long time I was.”

“Not true. I was duped. When I first met you, you talked about how you were on all those sports teams… basketball, wrestling, racquetball, volleyball, gymnastics, non-sanctioned boxing in your dorm room… I just thought you were a really smart jock. Not a really athletic geek.”

Christopher smiles and shakes his head. A new geek walks into the store (hopefully on his way back from the store where he purchased some Stridex) and walks over to a few other geeks and high fives them. I suppress a giggle. Christopher witnesses the whole thing and sets the game down.

“Let’s go.” He’s trying not to laugh too. “I’ll download Magic for you and we can play online.”

I try to protest, but suppressing the laughter is taking everything out of me. We get in the car and go to Blockbuster.

So that’s it. The moment I realized that the boy I love is a geek. Who would’ve ever thought…?

One of my girlfriends sent me this… I thought it was sort of cute…

One day, the Penis, had some complaints and decided to shoot off the following email to his boss… the vagina.

I, the Penis, hereby request a raise in salary for the following reasons:

I do physical labor.

I work at great depths.

I plunge headfirst into everything I do.

I do not get weekends or public holidays off.

I work in a damp environment.

I work in a dark workplace that has poor ventilation.

I work in high temperatures.

My work exposes me to contagious diseases.

Sincerely,
P. Niss

The Response:

Dear Penis:
After assessing your request, and considering the arguments you have
raised, the administration rejects your request for the following reasons:

You do not work 8 hours straight.

You fall asleep after brief work periods.

You do not always follow the orders of the management team.

You do not stay in your designated area and are often seen visiting other
locations.

You do not take initiative – you need to be pressured and stimulated in
order to start working.

You leave the workplace rather messy at the end of your shift.

You don’t always observe necessary safety regulations, such as wearing the
correct protective clothing.

You will retire well before you are 65.

You are unable to work double shifts.

You sometimes leave your designated work area before you have completed the
assigned task.

And if that were not all, you have been seen constantly entering and
exiting the workplace carrying two suspicious-looking bags.

Sincerely,
V. Gina

Nationwide, there are now at least 253 public schools offering single-sex classes (meaning boys aren’t allowed in the “girls” class and girls aren’t allowed in the “boys” class). Fifty-one of those schools are single-sex schools. They are increasing in popularity, up from just three schools in the U.S. in 1995. Due to changes in federal law allowing for classes other than P.E. and sex-ed to be “single sex,” the executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, predicts that if public schools follow the path of private schools, where 7 percent are single sex, some 5,000 single-sex schools could open in the next 20 years.

Why? Because some administrators feel having the opposite sex in the classroom distracts students from learning.

Frankly, I’m disturbed by this. Not just because it seems to be a throw back to segregation (so boys are distracted by girls, but whites aren’t distracted by blacks?), but because of two reasons:

1. The purpose of education (which I think we have ignored in many ways) is to prepare young people for the outside world. In addition to the U.S. public education system ignoring the teaching of very pertinent concepts (like money management, social skills, methods of birth control other than abstinence in sex ed), we now want to limit the social skills they learn that specifically help them deal with working and co-existing with the opposite sex. How does that help prepare them for jobs where they will most certainly come into contact with the opposite sex (some which might be very distracting) on a daily basis. And since we know that men and women (girls and boys) approach problems differently and think differently– something which helps give children a new perspective on topics, or at least helps them understand that different people approach things differently, why would we want to make sure they are given less information than more? Are students really so caught up in ogling members of the opposite sex in a classroom that they aren’t learning the material taught? If that’s the case, it sounds like a problem with the teacher to me.

2. There is no research that backs up that students learn better in single-sex environments. The fact that the public school system is making changes based on absolutely no evidence to support that it helps education doesn’t surprise me, but it does worry me. How about instituting some changes that have actually been tested and proven to help students learn? Oh wait… that means the faculty and administrators would have to do something different than what they are doing now. Well, fuck it. That’s too much work. We’ll just separate the kids by sex and continue to teach in the same shitty way we are now and hope it makes a difference because we’re sure the exceedingly low test scores have more to do with the fact that the kids are distracted by members of the opposite sex than because we’re not effectively delivering the material.

Public education in the U.S. needs a major overhaul. Every time someone tries to do it, they’re stonewalled by teacher’s unions, uncooperative administators, and even parents who decide on their own that the child should be moved up a grade level after all of his teachers have recommended he repeat the grade (yes, law changes now allow parents to override a teacher’s recommendation that a student repeat a grade level even if the student failed every single test that year).

We’ve basically created a system where students don’t have to learn a damn thing and can still graduate.

If you really want to go the segregation route, how about segregating non-English speakers from those that are native English speakers? Hearing a teacher repeat everything in Spanish is distracting — more distracting I’d say than a boy sitting next to a girl. Think that would go over well with all the people who want tests to be given in both English and Spanish so that students who don’t speak English well can still do well on the tests?

I’m really saddened to see another step toward avoiding the real problems plaguing our school systems and coming up with yet another way to keep people unaccountable.