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one_giant_creep
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Name: Noah
Country: United States
State: California
Metro: Orange County
Gender: Male
Interests: aiko, asiancinema, comix, pho, koreanbbq, thaifood, boba, killbill, indiefilms, indiecomix, southpark, simpsons, sealab, harveybirdman, pictures, music, wine, mischief, mayhem, soap.
Expertise: Slacking. Sleeping. Eating.
Occupation: Education
Industry: Education
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
1/6/2003
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| for good, this time, i think.
onegiantcreep.blogspot.com
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| So it's been a while since my last post (February, in fact), but I think I can be excused. This has by far been the busiest year at work I've ever had, and the last three months in particular have been intense.
At any rate, last Thursday was my school's graduation. This was a special graduation for me for a number of reasons. The first was that my sister graduated, and she's the last one of my family to finish high school. I made sure to give her a scream and a big kiss when she walked on her way to the stage.
The other big reason why this was a special night for me was the fact that the kids that graduated this year were the first students I ever taught at Fairmont. In a weird and odd way, it was like watching one of my own kids graduate. There were so many kids that I loved teaching, and a few that I am going to miss a great deal. During the ceremony itself (which was boring, as usual), I began to reflect about how much I've changed in the last three years. Three years as a teacher - it's insane to think about it. And as much as those students grew, matured and changed, so did I. As one student wrote to me: "I went from Fairmont to China and then to Greece and back with you". And it's true - I literally traveled the world with some of these kids. And as much as I taught them (and forgive me for being cheesy), they taught me too. Everything I do in the classroom I figured out and tweaked when I first had them. When I was sick, they'd bring me tea, or coffee, or even sometimes cough drops. When I was having a bad day, they behaved in class. When I was having a good day, they knew it and took full advantage of it.
I enjoyed the last two graduations. But neither of them had as much emotional impact on me as this one did. Saying goodbye to CT, to Phil, to Alice and Rocky, to Sarah and Anette, to Spencer, to Ari, to Todd, to Ross and Dave, to Sophia, to Jen, to Liz, to so many of them...
And I'd be remiss not to mention a few other special moments that night. One of the big ones was hearing TJ give me a shout out in his speech. I grew close to that kid over the past few years - over movies, over philosophy, music, literature, life, etc. Saying goodbye to him was tough. Saying goodbye to CT - who was the student who wrote me that quote talked about above - that was tough. Another student, Stella, literally broke down in my arms when I hugged her and told her I was proud of her.
And I am. I'm proud of them. All of them.
-------- On a lighter note:
My three favorite TV shows wound down a few weeks ago, and I'd be remiss in my duties as a pop-culture nerd if I didn't break all three of them down here.
Heroes:
As a whole, Heroes had a GREAT year. The first 12 episodes of the season ruled, with consistent storytelling, above average acting from most of the cast (Ali Larter and family can go - they all suck), a self-referential and inspired storyline (even if it wasn't so original), and some very good little moments here and there. Where the show suffered, though, was towards the end. There started to be shaky episodes, the acting started crapping out on me, and even though I liked the 5-years in the future episode, it still struck me as borrowing a LITTLE too much from X-Men. The first half of the finale was good, but the second half was wildly uneven, with a bunch of obvious plot holes that, while nit-pick worthy, were just glaringly obvious to nerds everywhere. That being said, I LOVED the plopping Hiro in time bit, LOVE the fact that HRG's real name is "Noah," and even though it was kind of stupid in retrospect from a logic point of view, I dug Nathan flying off with Peter to explode in the sky.
Season: B+
Finale: B
24
Sigh. I came late to the 24 train - I started watching it last summer, and through the fall and winter. I blew through all five seasons in about five months, even sitting through the particularly atrocious third season (where Jack cuts off Chase's hand and chucks the germ-bomb into a high school fridge to save the day). Seeing as how much fun (but kinda illogical and weird) the fifth season was, I was particularly primed to watch the sixth season. And man, did they let me down. Plots went nowhere. Characters were introduced for one episode, then ignored again for the rest of the season. The writers stupidly killed of Curtis for no good reason at all, the lack of Tony and Michelle REALLY hurts the show (they danced around it just fine in season five, but the supporting cast was so weak in season 6 that the absence was notable), and the amped up romantic subplots (which were up to six in total by the end of the season) just killed any momentum the show tried to build. There was some promise, as can be seen by the flawless opening four hours (which probably destroyed any real chance of the season being able to maintain its awesomeness by nuking LA in the fourth hour), but there was no tension, no "how are they going to get out of this?" moments, and most puzzlingly, they writers just didn't know what to do with Jack anymore, so Kiefer wound up being off camera for the most time EVER in a season of 24. And he's the fucking star! The rumors on the web suggest they're going to revamp the show, taking away CTU, presidential politics (again, this suffered from 5 seasons of stellar actors being replaced by some of the worst actors in the history of actors), and even the usual Arab/Eastern European terrorists. Good call, I'd say.
Season: C-
Finale: D
Lost:
If this wasn't the most wildly inconsistent seasons of television ever, I don't know what is. The first six episodes were just complete abortions, with HORRIBLE pacing, plots and sloowwwwww, dragggging storylines, even by Lost's methodical standards. I nearly jumped ship when they killed Eko, who is still my all time favorite characters, and the stuff with the Other's camp was just ridiculously bad. Then, when the show returned, there were five episodes where they'd do something good (Desmond's time-travel episode), and then bog it down with stupidity (the Karl/Alex crap, Jack's adventures in Otherville). And then a funny thing happened. The last 12 episodes caught fire. The acting noticably improved, some answers FINALLY started coming (Locke's paralysis! Sawyer kills Sawyer!), Charlie FINALLY died, and that finale - that was one fucking hell of a finale. Lost won me back, and I'm sorry I ever strayed. I now have the feeling that when I sit down to rewatch the season, that first half is going to look a lot better in retrospect.
Season: B+
Finale: A+
Some movie notes:
Knocked Up was awesome. I actually enjoyed Pirates 3. But Shrek and Spidey were the most tragic and depressing pieces of shit to ever be committed to celluloid. Spidey 3, in particular, had a Batman and Robin level of atrociousness, from acting to pacing to storyline. I was so pissed at Sam Raimi that I forced myself to re-watch the Evil Dead trilogy to make myself feel better.
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| I know, that's kind of weird heading for this entry. But I have two specific things running through my mind, and one of them is kind of heavy, and the other one is a bit lighter. I'll start with the former.
I've had a few students whose parents have, unfortunately, passed away recently.
And, if you know me at all, you would know why I'd be sympathetic to what they're going through.
Most of these students are sophs, meaning that they're a scant two years older than I was when I lost my dad. I want to reach out to them and support them, to tell them it'll eventually be okay, to give them a shoulder. But I also feel a bit reluctant to do so. Why?
Because nothing pissed me off more than people trying to take pity on me after my dad died. I know that I spent a few angry years after his death internalizing every single feeling of pain and anger, lashing out at random intervals and letting my grades in all my subjects except English and History just slide away.
I mostly wanted to be left alone. And I absolutely hated it when someone would saunter over to me and told me that they understood how I felt.
"No. You fucking don't understand how I feel."
Sometimes I said that. Sometimes I just shot them an angry or distant look. But I always kept my distance from dealing with these things emotionally.
And I don't want to pressure these kids. But I want them to understand that if they don't talk about it, to someone, anyone, whether it's me or their surviving parent, a therapist, a friend, whoever...then it just builds and builds. And sometimes, as it was in my case, it lies unresolved and festering. My rage finally culminated in a drunken meltdown during my first year of college. I was lucky, then, to be surrounded by a truly caring group of people who were able to pull me out of how I was feeling.
The pain of losing my father never went away. I suspect it never will; every big event only punctuates his absence. I want them to understand that.
Being a teenager is the absolute worst time for this to happen. In addition to all the hormones, the tests, the drama of high school, the adolscent awkwardness, the bullying, the crying and everything else that comes along with being a 13-18 year old, you have a crushing sense of loss that can never be totally filled that follows you around a burrows itself into the pit of your gut.
So, going back to what I was first saying - I'm a bit at a loss on how to approach these kids. I suppose all I can do is offer an ear, or a shoulder, if they need it. To let them know that, while I don't, can't and never will understand what they as individuals are feeling, I have certainly wandered down some of the same dark roads that they are approaching.
-------- On a lighter note: The Oscars.
Well, that was a letdown.
I am very happy for Marty Scorsese that he won his Oscar. This was basically an apology from the Academy for dicking him over for waste of human life Kevin Costner and his piece of shit Dances With Douches.
I was already disappointed with the Best Film nominees. No Pan's? No Children of Men? Bullshit.
My friend Dave pointed out that there should be a separate category for actors who portray real people. I'm inclined to agree; where do you draw the line between a great imitation and a real performance? Perhaps you can't. Are Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker deserving? Probably. They've been great in other things. But was Whitaker really better than Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson? When Gosling had to create that character out of whole cloth rather than embody a pre-existing personality? I'm not convinced. I saw Notes on a Scandal, and Judi Dench was fucking amazing in that film. Why not her?
And the other travesty of the night was Pan's not getting Foreign Language film. I haven't seen The Lives of Others, but considering the widespread appeal and success of Pan's, I can't fathom that it didn't win. In 20 years, people will still be talking about Pan's. Will they be talking about The Lives of Others? No.
And out of all the actors nominated for the Departed - we only have Marky Mark? Jack FUCKING NICHOLSON was in that film. C'mon.
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| You know what I'm talking about. We all have them, sometimes more frequently than others.
As some of you know, I was ill the past couple weeks, which culminated in my going on an antibiotic. This, as they say, was a phenomenally bad idea.
Yes, they made me feel better. A million times better. But.
Number one, they ruined my gastro-intestinal system.
And two, last night, they fucked with my head.
So here's the story:
Last night, as I lay in bed trying to sleep, I started to hear things. Little noises, at first, like the shuffling of bushes outside my window. Then, things got weird.
I heard footsteps. In my room. Keep in mind I live in the guest house of an 11,000 square foot property, by myself. My doors were locked. My windows were shut. So the notion that there could be footsteps meant one of three things.
1) I'm dreaming
2) Someone broke in
3) It's a ghost
Now, depending on your state of mind and how supernaturally inclined you are, the most logical explanation is number 1, which, for the sake of my own sanity, is the one I'm going with.
So anyways, I'm hearing these footsteps shuffle about, and then I hear a clank. This clank sounded a lot like when someone sets a glass down on a table. It was a sharp noise, and it sounded close. At this point, I'm starting to get freaked, so I get up and walk around. Nothing there. No one there. No glass. But I heard that sound.
So I get back in bed, after a jaunt dealing with my stomach problems in the bathroom.
While I'm lying there, I supposed I drifted off to sleep.
Then, the even weirder part: I could SWEAR that the door near by bed was open. And through the door, some kind of animal walked through it. Circled around my bed, and stood there, staring at me. Though my back was turned, I could feel it looking at me.
As I was lying there, I was overcome with an intense feeling of fear and anxiety. I broke into a cold sweat.
I sat up, turned, and nothing was there.
And then I woke up.
Fucked, huh?
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| Okay 2007. So far, you've given me laryngitis, the flu, and a cold, all within one week. You've given me a crappy Grammys show, a bad Lakers road trip, a pitiful SIX new Bourdain episodes, shitty movie theater releases, and a dearth of readable materials. I've barely been well enough to see my friends. What are you going to do to make it better for me?
- More Aiko. Two weekends? Only? We gotta fix that. She's coming down in March, and then we gotta kick into gear. Road trips? Anyone interested? On a positive note, yay for us for being together three years now. We had a lovely weekend in Monterey.
- More Pfeifer. It's his birthday, the day after accursed Valentines Day. Does anyone else smell lube? I've only hung out with Ken and the guys a couple times. Another problem that's gotta be remedied.
- More Hapa. Kris, Cliff, Kanita and Des - the dinner crew (sans Tessa, who left us for the Bay). More restaurants! More weekend hanging out!
- More RA homies. Vegas? Soon? Please?
- More restaurants = more Yelp. More Yelp = happier me.
And here are some nerd demands:
- LOST NEEDS TO BE BETTER. FIX IT.
- Continue the quality on Heroes. Please, for reference, notice the decline of LOST. Avoid it.
- Death to Nicholas Cage. I won't see Ghost Rider, but I just know that it sucks.
- Pirates 3 - please, please, please make this good. Someone? Anyone? Please?
- Spidey 3 - yesssssss
- My Name Is Bruce - new Bruce Campbell movie about Bruce Campbell being mistaken for his movie alter ego, Ash, and being forced to fight a monster.
- New Bourdain in August - why the @#$% is there that long of a wait?
- Super Mario Galaxy - I'm salivating over this already.
- New Smash Bros. - the nerd juices are flowing, believe you me.
- Better Virtual Console releases - Mario World, Kid Icarus and Mario Kart are good starts. Give me Chrono Trigger. NOW
- A PS3/XBOX360 - I need.
- Apple iPhone - want. desperately.
See? It's not that complicated, 2007. Avoid the crappy odd-year curse and bring home the goods.
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