Bg's Random Ramblings And Thoughts 3

[BG45]

[AnneLine]

THAT is hilarious.... and it took me a few mins to figure it out!!!!!

 

Hey... do we have a puppy, uh, baby yet?????

[BG45]

Oh!!  Yes we do!  Ben was born yesterday, 7 pounds and 13 ounces.  His pulse started to drop during delivery and they ended up doing an emergency c-section!  But he's fine and so is K.  T. and K. are both so happy about him!

[AnneLine]

That is wonderful, BG!!!!!!   Please give mom, dad and Ben a hearty greeting for me!!!!  We have been praying for them... and will keep on doing that!

 

:pray: :welcome:  :pray:

 

[BG45]

Thanks and will do!  Today has been pretty unhappy.  A student either accidentally or intentionally stole my textbook for Courts while asking questions after class.  There were about six of them asking questions, so I'm hoping it was just an accident.  Sent out an e-mail asking for its return, no questions asked.  It had papers in it from last semester, I do not know if these papers included a repair bill for the car and a credit card number.

 

May the good Lord help them if I do not get that book back.  You can ALWAYS be more lenient than your syllabus, but never more harsh.  If I don't get that back, I will go to Syllabus level harsh.  Every amenity I've given them will be taken away.  They will not get the slides we go over in class, they will not get the Jeopardy slides to study from, the anti-texting policy will be strictly enforced, and the test will be remade to include obscure things and be far more difficult than any other I have ever written.

[AnneLine]

Heyyy.....  BG..... one step at a time.   

 

:console:

 

 

Make sure you know who did the crime before you make everyone do the time.....

 

Are you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVILY certain it must have been a student?  Could someone else have lifted it?  Or could you have left it somewhere?

 

I realize you're upset... you can always call the credit card company and get it cancelled/reissued and get a duplicate bill.

 

You can let the whole herd know it will cause major probs. if you don't get the stuff back, but breathe a bit, ok?

 

(Spoken from somebody who has gone off half-cocked more times than I want to remember, and wished I had never done ANY of the things I did in that state....)

 

Praying for all of you.

[BG45]

AL, it was not left somewhere and it had to be a student.  I used it in my first Courts class, put it down on the desk next to me.  Half a dozen of them came up to ask questions afterwards.  I never left the room, or that part of the room, and when I went to use it next class, having been in that spot all that time, it was gone.  And I'll let them know it will cause major issues, such as "Given I now have to question the integrity of the tests, I'll have to rewrite them all."  And rewrite them to be far more difficult.  Thanks for the prayers!

[AnneLine]

OK, Fair enough. :)  Sorry if I sounded like a spitting llama, btw....

 

I just didn't want your obvious (and sadly, sounds justifiable) anger to overshadow the work for the coming semester with them.... it is so hard when something like this happens at the start of a semester.

 

MY prayers will be that someone will just return the stuff... taking you up on the 'no questions asked' option....

 

Let's pray someone does the right thing. :) :pray:

 

[BG45]

Oh no I sounded like a spitting llama!  (I showed my classes a llama picture today, they found it funny.  A  llama in Times Square in the 1960s.)  And you're right, I worried all day until class began about how to handle it.  And your prayers (and mine) were answered!  It was brought in by a very red faced apologetic freshman.  to show him just how "no hard feelings" I was about an honest accident, I gave him 3 bonus points for honesty

[CrossCuT]

 And your prayers (and mine) were answered!  It was brought in by a very red faced apologetic freshman.  to show him just how "no hard feelings" I was about an honest accident, I gave him 3 bonus points for honesty

:winner:

[AnneLine]

And you get BROWNIE points (from a real live Secular Order Formation Director!) for the humility to admitting to being ready to spit at your students... and for doing the right thing with the :blush: student....

 

I have learned to recognize the arrival of the meat cleaver-wielding evil spirit that whispers.... "I am going to slice and dice this person" ...as the sound of the same evil one revving it's engines in my own soul..... Now I recognize it (most of the time!) as a sign that I need to slow down and let Jesus come and be merciful to the other and to me....

 

but it takes a superhuman love that comes from HIM when it starts to hack its way into my soul to get it to leave...

 

That's a bad one, the evil spirit carrying the meat cleaver....

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

CHANGING THE SUBJECT>>>>>>!!!!!

 

And... how are the little guy and his mom & dad doing????   We're still praying out here...

 

 

 

 

I'm paying for my professional memberships and insurance today... and BOY I resent all of it... none of it is ever useful, but you just have to carry them.  But I really don't have a spare... $400 a year.  Grrrrrrrr...  

 

Now... where did I put that meat cleaver again????  ;)

Edited September 13, 2013 by AnneLine

[BG45]

Busy week, have dissertating, Skyping, needing to clean and do laundry because mom's coming Thursday for the book sale this weekend.  Book Sale and class on Friday, going to a convention on Saturday, Mass and the book sale on Sunday!

 

Thanks CC!!

 

Thanks AL, I appreciate that brownie point!  And agree, that's not the sort of thought we should be having, heh.  Evil One or not, it's bad in and of itself.  Glad He gives us all the strength to face it though. :)  Ben, K. and T. seem to be doing well!  He's home from the hospital and the cats apparently are already loving him, which they'd been afraid wouldn't happen.  I think T. has temporarily forgotten his monetary troubles of the past year in the afterglow of being a dad. :)

 

Gah, that's sad with the professional memberships.  In a similar situation; I have to pay to have them on my vita, and to attend their conferences (plus additional registration fees).  But no meat cleavers :P

 

Last night M. and I spoke on Skype for the first time...it began awkwardly, but eventually 4 hours passed by LOL.  Ended up having to watch the new Breaking Bad at midnight instead of 9pm!  

 

Ended up writing a blog post on that episode actually....

 

 

Ozymandias

 

When this season of Breaking Bad was being advertised, they had Walter White reading the famous poem "Ozymandias", by Percy Shelley.  In some ways, after last night's episode, I first thought that Yeats's "The Second Coming" would have been appropriate with such lines as:'

 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

Such lines do describe last night's episode well, but it does not tie in to the desert technique of the show as well as Ozymandias does.  When I saw the episode title, even before it began, I thought back to the advertisements with Walter reading it, "Look upon my works, ye Mighty and despair".  It was not a portent of a good episode, at least for the touchy feely side of the show.  What it was, however, was something that deserves a slew of Emmy awards.  Spoilers ahead my friends, spoilers ahead.

The story about Breaking Bad is primarily broken into three types.  The first is that of crime; Walt as Heisenberg, is a meth drug lord and all that implies.  The second is the story of Walter White's transformation from mild mannered family man, to ruthless kingpin Heisenberg.  The third is Walter's relationship with his family, trying to hold on to it, despite the evil things he has done.  Last night hit upon all three of these elements and tore them apart.

The episode began with a flashback to a simpler time, where Walt had to prepare himself to lie to his wife about cooking meth.  We see him as the man he once was, the man who wanted to help his family with the drug money and the loving father who was incapable of easily betraying the trust of the love of his life.  Yet that did not continue for long, as fans know.  Cut forward in time and Walt is laying in the back of a bullet riddled car.  Agent Gomez is dead.  Hank, Walt's DEA brother in law is bleeding on the ground.  As the white supremacists move in to kill Hank, Walt struggles from the car and begins to beg for Hank's life, "He's family!"  In the past, this is where Walt would have managed one more deal and boy did Walt try, informing them about his $80 million and offering them the money if they would just spare his brother in law...this time however, Hank gives the most chilling line of the entire show, "You're one of the smartest men I know.  Can't you tell he made up his mind ten minutes ago?"  Then he turns his face to the white supremacists and utters one last line, dying with some dignity as he's killed mid sentence.

Walt tumbles to the ground and lies there, as if upon the sands of Hell, or perhaps Purgatory, just trying to process how things had come to this.  There were only a few lines that Walt had held as being uncrossable, and one was to kill his brother in law.  The thugs give him one of his barrels back, $11 million, and ask if there will be any problems, with an implication they'll happily kill Walt too.  At this moment, Walt stands in silence before finally shaking hands with them, and in that instant...Walter White has ceased to be any semblance of a good person.  His fall from grace has finally cost him his soul, just like the Gospels ask in Matthew 16, ""For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?"  Within moments, Jesse is captured, and before it seems he'll be killed (he isn't), Walt turns and tells him that he was there when Jane overdosed and did nothing to help her.  Another of Walt's unbreakable lines is no more, as Jesse was like a second son to him, and he leaves him to be tortured and possibly killed, but only after rubbing salt in the wound as it were.

Walt's empire has been destroyed, just like that lost kingdom of Ozymandias.  There is almost nothing left, but the remnants of a once proud operation.  The sands stretch around Walter and he begins his trek back to civilization, through the ruins of what he has spent the last five seasons building.  However, things have not fully fallen apart yet.  His son, off-camera, his son who is so adoring and worshipful of him has learned the truth and is also falling apart.  When Skyler and Flynn return home, they know he should be with Hank, but he screams at them like a madman to pack only what they need...finally Skyler snaps and pulls a butcher knife, ordering him out of the house.  She ends up slashing his hand open and he wrestles with her on the ground, until he gets the upper hand and his beloved son dives between them and calls the police, telling them that Walter is the one who pulled the knife.  In that moment, Bryan Cranston's face is truly heartbroken, and this scene alone is deserving of an Emmy nomination.  He flees his home, with his money, and grabs his daughter Holly as well.

When the police come and Walter calls again, he leaves Holly at a fire station with her address, after realizing at "mama" that he can never have family again and any attempt to force Holly to love him is doomed to fail.  He knows the police will be tapping the call, so Walter does the only thing that may possibly save him from damnation when the cancer finally kills him...he rips into his wife.  He calls her stupid, and told her this sort of thing is what happens when you cross him.  That he built everything up himself.  To the police, it seems like he's being an abuser, but from the gorgeous acting with the body language between the two, on opposite ends of the phone, its apparent they both know this for what it is.  For one last time, even though he's lost his family, Walter White is saving them from destruction.  His ranting "confession", saves Skyler and his son from any of the consequences of the meth business, at least legally.  He also confirms for her, even though he didn't do it as he implies, that Hank is dead and off to the side, Skyler's sister Marie, who was married to Hank, bursts into tears.

As the episode ends, Walter is being picked up by the van from his lawyer's guy who starts people with a new life.  He looks down the vast barren stretch of desert road.  Walter White, King of Kings of the meth business has been reduced to a wreck, alongside that of his empire which has faded away with the sands.

 

 He goes to take one last look at the surrounding area before he gets into the van, evoking the last lines of the famous poem, " boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away."

 

[CrossCuT]

Last night M. and I spoke on Skype for the first time...it began awkwardly, but eventually 4 hours passed by LOL.  Ended up having to watch the new Breaking Bad at midnight instead of 9pm!  

 

Who is M?

[AnneLine]

Busy week, have dissertating, Skyping, needing to clean and do laundry because mom's coming Thursday for the book sale this weekend.  Book Sale and class on Friday, going to a convention on Saturday, Mass and the book sale on Sunday!

 

You DO have a busy week.  Tell ya what... I'll put the Crisis Cleaning podcast on my thread, and we can all do a 1 hour miracle in ALL of our homes in solidarity with you!!!!!!!!!   Sounds like you will be looking forward toward a fantastic weekend!

 

 

Thanks AL, I appreciate that brownie point!  And agree, that's not the sort of thought we should be having, heh.  Evil One or not, it's bad in and of itself.  Glad He gives us all the strength to face it though. :)  Ben, K. and T. seem to be doing well!  He's home from the hospital and the cats apparently are already loving him, which they'd been afraid wouldn't happen.  I think T. has temporarily forgotten his monetary troubles of the past year in the afterglow of being a dad. :)

 

 

It's good I can't put all my evil temptations into practice... they'd lock me up!!!!   So... yup, I bet we all get 'em.   But Jesus is Lord and HE is the one who keeps all of us on the straight and narrow..... makes us STRONG!!!!!!    Glad the new family is doing well.. good reason to put other stuff in perspective, absolutely agreed. :)

 

Gah, that's sad with the professional memberships.  In a similar situation; I have to pay to have them on my vita, and to attend their conferences (plus additional registration fees).  But no meat cleavers :P

 

Can't afford the meat cleavers, either of us!   rotfl    And... the computer wants a new antivirus subscription... and the archbishop wants a share of my blood, too... well, actually, HE wants money.   The BLOOD BANK wants what is left.....

 

AND.. I bet that "M" is a new lady friend .... and hopefully this will be something that will work out for both of you.  I am sure you will tell us more when you are ready.....

 

Now I gotta go put my groceries away....

Edited September 16, 2013 by AnneLine

[BG45]

AL got it right CC, M would be the woman I'm talking to on AMS. :)  (No relation to M. who turned out to be psycho and emotionally abusive from there.)

 

And thanks you two, glad the family is doing well too.  Apparently baby Ben loves to sleep with his arms and legs all akimbo!  I laughed, but only slightly at the blood and money, because it does sound utterly realistic....lol.  

 

Sooo...looks like PM was trampled by a herd of drama llamas this weekend, from the look of things in my gmail (it sends me copies of all the bad stuff).  I'd like to apologize to everyone for missing it.  My mother was in for the book sale and I went to a gaming convention on Saturday (where I never once touched my computer the entire day), and then I saw mom off at 6pm yesterday...after a bookshelf collapsed on us (no injuries) in my apartment, and then went to a prof's house.  So I'm dead tired, and about to go finish writing today's lecture.

 

Edit:  The Newman Used Book Sale was amazing as always!! My mother came into town for it and between us we bought 103 books for $77 and got $1,946 worth of books (going by listed prices and lowballing $5 on anything without a price). Picked up some great stuff too: Blalock's stats book, Utilitarianism by Mill, a lot of Friedman and Woodward books, DeMonteFort's "Secrets of the Rosary", etc.