Rag Land

Oh yes...today was another day in which I substitute taught in the High School. Now, besides it being little more than glorified babysitting (or not so glorified), it makes me a little sad, a little mad, and kind of depressed to see the state of high schoolers in our country.

Now, granted, I am not a full time teacher and I remember being worse for the sub than for the real teacher, but there is a sense of apathy from such a large majority of the students that it is a bit frightening. We tried to go over a few things in class (it was a music class so I decided to do a little compound time with them), but when I introduced something that wasn't extremely easy to do, most of the students gave up and began to say things such as, "This is stupid","It's too hard","I hate doing stuff like this", and "Is this busy work?" I couldn't help but respond to that last comment with, "Well can you do it perfectly?" to which she says, "Uh...no..." to which I reply, "Then it's not busy work, is it?" to which she turns red and then plays with her neighbor's hair for the rest of the period.

Now I didn't witness this sense of apathy and lack of caring here for the first time. I would dare say that half of all my classes talk, act, or otherwise show me that what we are doing in class is about as interesting to them as a root canal. If it isn't directly applicable (ie why South Park was funny last night), they give up and classify it as dumb.

As I ponder this conundrum, I began to wonder, however, who's fault is this? Does it have something to do with the age and the search for individual identity? Does the love of learning denote an identity with which most teenagers would rather distance themselves from? Does intelligence facilitate interest and, if so, should we blame those who are less intelligent or is that simply in line with their IQ? Or are the teacher's to blame? Have we taugt facts, figures, and every who, what, or when, but failed to ever mention why? Is there even an emphasis anywhere in the learning process to teach the love of learning or even how to learn? Because of differing intelligence levels, are most students put off from an early age because their best achievements are never touted as high as the more intelligent of their classmates?

I think it may be a combination of all of these, but I think the major problem is that we don't want to learn and we don't love to learn because we've rarely been given a reason to love it. How many guys can tell you every stat about every person in the NFL? MANY!!! Why? Because it's interesting and they want to know it. But how often are we told why it's important or interesting for us to know why the Roman Empire fell or why famous generals won battles or why we should know how our body works? It seems that we may have asked a few too many whats, whens, and wheres, and forgotten the why altogether.

Well we are getting down to the wire now and everything has needed to be done yesterday for this wedding. We just got the invitations out today so you should be receiving them shortly. If for some reason you don't get it soon, you can still see all the details and RSVP at rcwedding.com. You might have to refresh the page once but it's a really cool site designed by a good friend of mine. However, I must digress for a second.

There is a fundamental difference in men and women that accounts for a woman's proclivity in planning, designing, and otherwise pulling off massive events such as weddings, parties, and inaugurations. Mark my words...at the head of every successful party is a woman...or maybe a successful party is that you get the woman...one of the two. Now I have never professed any great ability in detailed planning and am, I will admit, quite unable to care. This wedding, on the other hand, requires minute planning to the smallest detail. Did you know that you are supposed to send invitations to your rehearsal dinner? These are the people who know, and have probably known for months, that they will be a part of your wedding and knew the date almost before you did...and you are supposed to send them invitations to come to the practice the night before?! Suffice to say that I am trying to nix that...we'll see if the feminine contingent lets me...

It is quite common for a woman to spend a year planning this one day and feel as if they need that entire time to do a decent job. I guess I am just too cynical and think there are better uses for a year than planning one party. I am not saying it is not important, because I know it is, but a year still seems a bit like overkill.

Since Rachael is in England, I am dealing with most of the stuff which means I am delegating most of the stuff which means I am asked for my opinion and then told it should probably be done a different way. When this occurs, one of two things happens. 1)I accept it and it is done the suggested way or 2)I persist in disagreeing and am told to ask Rachael (in an attempt to set me straight, I suppose). Now I cannot tell you how amazing the people helping me have been and that I couldn't do it without them, but I am learning daily that there are certain ways to do things at a wedding and my sense of humor about what would be cool or fun is rarely appreciated. Oh boys, if e're there was something of which we should take no part, it's name is wedding. Run...run lest it consume you...RUN!!!!!