Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Both Of Us

Can I just tell you how rockin’ my drive to school was tonight? Spotify was definitely on point tonight. Especially when “You’re Gonna Go For Kid” came on. People may have stared, but I sang and rocked out all the way into New Mexico.

Maybe if I had put that much energy in to getting my shit together as I left the house, I wouldn’t have left my note cards at home. I had to spend all my pre-class time handwriting new ones and listening to Fat Alberto and Typhoid Maria talk shit about me in Spanish. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

The Deputy came in as I was feverishly writing and said “Oh Tiffany’s gonna kill it tonight, huh?” I ignored him and kept writing. He didn’t take the hint and repeated it. Juarez Teenager Female had just come in and she tapped me and said that he was saying something to me. I begrudgingly looked up and asked him to repeat himself as if I had not heard him. “I was just saying that you’re gonna kill it tonight, right? You’re gonna have the best presentation. You always do.” I smirked and said “Well, it’s a team presentation, so I am only as strong as my weakest link.” He said, “Oh, yeah, that’s nice.” That was meant to be an insult; maybe I’m losing my touch.

I didn’t have time to study for the quiz before class, what with all the note cards. Ms. Frizzle left the classroom and Katniss and I basically discussed the answers. Who needs to study when it’s so easy to work as a team? Isn’t that what University of Fictitious Bird wants us to do?

The Deputy has already announced that his group will go first. He said they might as well because they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about anyway. Peircy Pauly made the presentation and then didn’t come tonight. I guess they want the teacher to know they did nothing and didn’t prepare. Not like Ms. Frizzle would know the difference anyway.

Boy is this a bad one. You can’t see the text because it blends in with the photos that they used to make the background. We’re supposed to pretend we are a special committee presenting to the state legislature our recommendations for the juvenile justice system and it’s future. Except he just spent five minutes talking about teaching kids to use guns. For the next portion, he said “This was PP’s part and she’s not here and she was supposed to do law enforcement.” He then proceeded to read her portion word for word off of the slide and then stated the same thing in his own words.

Here’s what I don’t get: if you worked on this as a team, shouldn’t you know all of the portions? I mean, I made our team presentation without input but I sent my team the whole presentation, not just their part. It’s important to see the whole thing so you know what you’re talking about. Maybe that’s just important to me. My bad. Doppelganger Housewife is up and boy, she’s good. And by good I mean terrible. Her slides are 12 pt font and full paragraphs. I also just realized that they don’t have the presentation in slide show mode. Wow.

We had offered to go second but Typhoid Maria said “NO! We are going second.” Going second won’t make your shit better. They started off with an idea bubble of sorts. The center said “Youth Juveniles” and then all this random shit spurred out of it. She said that those are the many things involved with juveniles in a community. One bubble said “Psychedelics.” No explanation. Those are some hardcore communities. Her voice keeps raising to a shout every other sentence. It’s very jarring. She had some of the audience read her slide and she also has note cards. Honey, copying my swagger isn’t going to get you an A. I don’t read from my cards verbatim, I use them as an aid if and when I need them. And her cards weren’t speaker’s notes. They were exactly what the slides said. She’s got them glued to her the front of her face. When she finished her portion, she looked at me with this smug smile. Yeah, you nailed it. I’m super intimidated.

Moobs went next. That’s their other team member’s official blog name. He has man boobs and they are perky. Thanks for the name Katniss. He talked about how kids are violent to cops. I didn’t comprehend anything he said. But Fat Alberto is up and I cannot type fast enough! He said that kids, you know, do things, you know? He talked about kids getting shackled and needing to be nicer. The slide said “Proposal: Easy sentencesing for 1^st time offenders, even for felony or violent crimes.” I’m ignoring the spelling and going full force into the last portion. Violent offenders should get easier sentences…or sentencesing? Wow. I hope they make you their victim next.

“Halfway houses is what they use, they use them you know for juveniles that don’t want to change, you know, but they put them in the halfway houses you know.” He is telling us a story of a 15 year-old-girl who was an “Unwanted mother” and the church made her go to this house that was a halfway house because she was pregnants, you know. “She saw all these bad things she saw and she didn’t need to be in this halfway house because her only crime was a moral crime, you know.”

During break, Katniss and I had a long convo with Moobs about how his group works. I needed an insiders take on the mind of Fat Alberto. It was very enlightening. He said Fat Alberto dolls out the work, but only does one paragraph himself. Then he puts it together without showing anyone the final result. Moobs said Fat Alberto tries to boss everyone around because he’s a security guard. Yep. That makes him the authority.

We went and The Deputy was correct, I killed it. My girls did well too, but oh to see the look on Typhoid Maria’s face. She looked like a pissed-off adult Dora the Explorer. In the words of Charlie Daniels in that one Geico commercial “That’s how you do it son.” Fat Alberto, or the dad from Dinosaurs, just kept nodding his head like he understood. No, you didn’t understand. There is no need to pretend.

After we sat down, Ms. Frizzle said “Very good job!” then paused, and added “…for everyone else too.” That just made TM even more furious. Her scowl got tighter and her eyes screamed “KILL THEM!” 

We have to go over the topics for tonight’s class, though she said she’d be brief. Which means we will be here until 9:45. We talked about gangs and I told them about how gangs are using the military to get tactical training and for recruitment. I gave an example of a man who was beat to death in Germany, whilst getting jumped in. The gang originated here at Ft. Bliss. That’s all Fat Alberto needed to decide he was an expert. Except, he just repeated my opinion plus some you knows. Even The Deputy had to jump in and echo my military gang knowledge. I guess they sat in the same flight intel briefings I did. I don’t remember seeing them around the squadron in Germany, but they say they know so they must. Here I was thinking I added to the conversation, but alas, I just told them what they already knew.

Ms. Frizzle is now telling us stories of Sun City gangland past. Back in 1993, this city was overrun with gangs. Graffiti covered everything, tons of drive-bys; she’s making it sound like a post-apocalyptic Sun City. Everyone is nodding their head with somber looks on their faces like they lived through it. Sun City was hard, yo.

Doppelganger Housewife/Mother of the Year had to add her two cents. Her son picked up his friends in his car, but they had just gotten done tagging a wall. The cops busted them and her son was guilty by association. She said “I knew my kid didn’t do it because I always told him, you want to do that shit, here’s some paper and crayons. And they knew.” She has a solution to every juvenile delinquency problem, this one just happens to be coloring. Maybe she can solve the problems in the Middle East next? I'll ask.

The entire class (excluding our presentation time) Blond Sonja read People magazine. It must have been pretty darn interesting, as she didn’t look up once. She just finished and held it up to me and said “You want to read it now?” I declined, but I have to admire her commitment to failure. She then pulled out her NOT iPad and played Angry Birds for the remainder of the night.

Next week I have a brand new class with these folks and also an online course. Intro to Film. My first assignment is 300 words on why I like movies. Little Bug is going to write it for me.

See you tomorrow!

Don't act like you don't see it.