Grammatically speaking

I just cannot come to terms with the state of grammar (and, coincidingly, the acceptance of the lack thereof) today.  I know that's young and naive and old-fashioned of me (all at once!), but it comes up in so many different forms all the time, and they all make me very sad.

Two important ones:
1. You and your business.
I would probably be very interested in what you have to say.  In fact, there's a couple of you out there where I AM VERY interested in what you have to say.  I am obsessed with your product.  But you don't know the difference between "its" and "it's," you misspell common words, and forget about correct comma and apostrophe usage.  And that makes me profoundly sad.  I know grammar is going out the window, especially with all these standardized tests in public schools that don't test grammar, especially with the internet that doesn't care about convention, just straight text-to-speech where no one cares how it looks, as long as it's understandable (which, you know, it is).  I just know that in a simpler time, in the good old days, we wouldn't patronize a business that didn't appear educated.

2.  Um, a legal document.
So there's this thing called the IEP.  Individualized Education Plan.  The end-all, be-all legal document that details a student's special education accommodations, modifications, services, testing, goals, and progress.  And yes, copy-and-paste rears its ugly head, and we have dudes being called by ladies' names and pronouns and vice versa.  That is careless and unprofessional.  But what crosses those lines into unforgiveable are things like "ciculator," "multiplicatin," and "Although [student] has som good calculation skills, he nedds to be reminded to apply them. He quite frequently rushes through and does not check his work. often, his poor test grades reflect this test taking behavior."  Not a joke.  Straight from the IEP itself.  The kicker to this gripe is that I was advised not to fix this.  Now.  This document lives.  It is passed among many hands: teachers, therapists, parents/guardians (frequently grandma, uncle, etc).  I offered to fix what I saw, but I was told to leave the wrong ones and make sure mine were fine.  Mine will always be fine, and it broke my heart that the system wouldn't want a united, correct front presented to parents but that vicious 'every man for himself' mentality.  It continues to blow my mind that teachers are so frequently incorrect.  Not that we're superhuman, but I firmly believe we are and should be held to higher standards.  We instruct.  Shouldn't the instructors be the best at the subject at hand?  It seems obvious for the high school and AP teachers among us.  But shouldn't elementary school teachers be the most correct and the strictest about the big concepts as well as the important details?

Advice

Try to outgive each other, and you'll have a good marriage.
-RAR

Oh my goodness gracious me.

Thank you, Ryan North, for seven years of Dinosaur Comics and also for pointing out www.axecop.com.  And thank you, Nicolle brothers, for existing.

xkcd (specifically, the Spirit one from 1/27)

Sometimes, I think they're intended to be funny, but I find them amazingly, desperately sad.

Four things without anything in common

1. I said something awesome last night catching up with friends at a Caribou Coffee, and the 30-something stranger behind us overheard, laughed, and put it on his facebook page.  I have rarely been so honored.
2. I hate when people say that they "could care less" about something.  Then you still care, bucko.  Probably the opposite of what you're trying to convey.
3. Don't those new-ish cars that are one color (looks best when they're white) and have almost no seams remind you of Macs and Google?
4. I know this feeling will go away some year, but I love doing my taxes.  Federal yesterday, MD on deck.
5. Perpetually excited to dance.
6. Twenty-eight hours!

This post belongs to two years ago

But I'm going to say it now anyway.  I've always half thought this, but just said it out loud for the first time last night.  It's not going to be nearly as profound as that previous sentence implies.  It's just that in the world of psychology, pretty much the only reason you get funded for a study is if you're attempting to demonstrate something new.  Maybe a new trend or topic or idea.  But maybe an old trend or topic or idea, applied to a new group of people ("population," we fancy psychologists call it).  The lamest thing to do in the world is to do exactly what some other schmo did.  But IRONICALLY, the validity of ANY schmo's paper is that it's replicable!  So circular!  So who's out there, getting grants and funding to literally recreate to the nose someone else's paper?  And what does that paper actually look like?  ("Yup.")  Oh, and for those of you keeping score at home, that whole research thing I did where I wrote that study and that paper, it only had 13 participants or something crazy like that, so Dr. Josh and co tried to continue, but to no avail!  The children's answers were suddenly more inconsistent than my .781 correlation.  Sigh!  They say it was because they were comfortable with me.  I say it was because I fudged all their answers.  KIDDING.  Kidding.  I didn't.

In other news, every day I am more and more grateful for my handwriting- and grammar-oriented family and Catholic elementary school (grammar school!).

ps, Can someone please tell me why people are still wearing Uggs?
pps, Working at my new school puts a whole new spin on life and death.

Seek and you shall find

Once, a long time ago, someone very important asked me how many examples of infinity I could find in everyday life.  It was late in my junior year of high school, I was doing very well in all my very high level classes, and I was very taken with this young gentleman, and so I looked.  And as soon as I looked, I found.  The circle of the clock, the divisibility of a second or an inch or any other measurement, the sky and the galaxy and the universe, the potential number of combinations of any musical notes, the possibilities of sentences. 

Once you start looking for infinity, you see it everywhere.  Once you start looking for faces, you see them everywhere.  Once you start looking for vanity license plates, you see them everywhere.  The crazy part is when you actively bend and fold things to be faces, or manipulate them into infinity, or make your own acronyms out of what license plates may or may not say.  John Nash, anyone?

facesinplaces.blogspot.com