Zito's World

Moving Day

Zito's World is officially being retired. I'm joining forces with my friend Jeff on a new blog called Mostly Safe For Work, which is up and running. Now all I need to do is figure out how to tranfer archived posts from one blog to the other. I hate technology sometimes.

A New Dilemma

This year is the first time I have experienced a new class as a teacher. What I mean is that as a second year teacher, I have never before had to adjust to a group of kids with an entirely new dynamic and collective personality than the class from the year before. Though it seems an obvious thing, this wasn't something I was prepared for as the school year began. Now, more than a month into the year, I am constantly amazed by the drastic differences between the two classes.

Last year's group of boys were obsessed with sports, particularly football. They all played together on a rec team, and in all likelihood they will continue to play together all the way through high school. The girls were split into two groups, one group was more studious and their main interest seemed to be reading fantasy novels, and one whose main interest was socializing. Cliquishness was not a problem for the most part, and the boy/girl dynamics that characterize the middle school years didn't emerge until very late in the year.

This year's boys are primarily skaters. Long hair, junior Jackass-esque antics, and general silliness prevail. Some of the boys are astonishingly immature, even to the point of baby talking in a manner that is embarrassing to witness. The girls are again split into two groups, but they are much different from the two groups from last year. There is a group of ultra-tomboyish girls who all play sports together and are at the age where they are actually athletically superior to most of the boys due to different developmental timelines, and there is a group of social girls who fawn over the skater boys and are constantly flirting or gossiping. Cliques are already rampant among both sexes.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about these differences, and there is one thing in particular that I've been struggling with quite a bit. I can already tell that several of the aformentioned skater boys are headed for trouble. Some combiniation of drinking, drugs, general mischief, and poor schoolwork all seem likely. This worries me a great deal and I feel a strong sense of responsibility to try to keep them from self-destructing, but at times I can't help but feel that my efforts are somewhat futile. Once they move on from fifth grade, my influence will be drastically reduced, and besides that, teenagers are going to get into trouble regardless. It's just how things work. Like many people, I found trouble with the help of all of the aforementioned vices during my formative years. I suppose this is how parents feel as they try to usher their children safely through puberty and adolescence. You can do your best to try to keep them on the right track, but ultimately they have to make their own decisions in life. This lack of control is frightening, especially when the kids are already showing signs of trouble to come. I suppose all I can do is provide them with a positive role model, and be an ally when things get rough so that my small part in shaping who they are, and who they will eventually become, might help them come out the other side of this crazy time in their lives intact and relatively unscathed.

I'm not sure if this has been even moderately coherent, or if I just diarrheaed random, halfway developed thoughts onto the page, but I can't seem to escape thinking about this issue of late, so at least this helped me come part of the way towards understanding and crystallizing my views on the situation.

-T      

I'm Obsessed

It has finally happened to me. I resisted for years, but I've finally been overcome by the lure of fantasy football. I still have no interest in NFL fantasy, but my college teams are more than enough to occupy way, way too much of my time; more time than I could ever justify spending on sports during the week. The first sign of trouble was shortly after my first draft some weeks ago. It was such an exhilirating experience that I immediately signed up for two more public leagues just so I could do two more drafts. I now spend at least an hour each day - and often much more - micromanaging my squads to an absurd extent. Trades, signing free agents, researching matchups - these things will almost certainly lead to my eventual ruin. Losing my job and my girlfriend over this are turning into real possibilities. Well, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration, but it definitely pisses my girlfriend off; and the sick part is that I have no defense. I freely admit that I have a problem, how could I not? Do they have fantasy sports rehab? Are there twelve steps I can follow? I may have to turn to alcohol to break away from my fantasy leagues much like alcoholics sometimes rely on cigarettes to help them stop drinking. Twenty years from now when I am a broken shell of a man standing on a street corner, I will remember this moment in time as the point where it all began to unravel.

-T

Uh-oh...

I just learned that I will be going through a standard evaluation process for second year teachers at my school. I wonder how long it will take before my evaluators realize that I have no idea what I'm doing. Then again, I think they knew that when the hired me. Still, I better polish up the old resume.

A random disturbing note - Strangely, the new fun game amongst the faculty at the beginning of this year is to try to guess who among us would be the most likely to wind up on To Catch A Predator. How terribly sick and inappropriate...but it's still kind of fun. I guess that's gallows humor for teachers.

-T

The Pornification of America

I've seen several things in print and on television recently about how pervasive sex has become in our society, most recently in the latest edition of Details magazine and in this article on MSN's newsmag Slate. I have a particular interest in this topic as it relates to fashion amongst 10-12 year old girls. That sounded creepy - what I mean is that as a fifth grade teacher I deal with this issue on a daily basis and as such I have a vested interest in the matter. There are many things out there that defy belief, but to me the most telling thing of all is that when I tried to link to the 'tweener line of Juicy Couture in the Slate article, it was rejected by my school server as "Tasteless and Offensive" material. Yet I guarantee there will be at least half a dozen of my 45 or so fifth grade girls who show up wearing Juicy tomorrow for the first day of school. This makes me think of the song "Ted, Just Admit It..." from the Jane's Addiction album "Nothing's Shocking", which is about the desensitization of our society. Perry Farrell looks smarter and smarter with each passing year.

CORRECTION: Now that I've gotten home and can open the "juicy" link, I've found that my assumption that it goes to the line of clothing was wrong. It goes to some site with a definition of "juicy", the language of which triggered the network filters. That ruined that little bit of irony...but the clothes are still slutty.

-T

Hmmm...

During the new teacher introductions at our beginning of the year faculty meeting, each teacher was introduced and we were told their professional biography in a nutshell. One of the new librarian's traits was that she is an avid reader of young adult literature. Isn't that kind of like introducing an elementary teacher who's qualification's include her being an avid watcher of the disney channel?

A Day of Firsts

Yesterday I had two experiences that I had never had before. The first was my first time participating in a fantasy league draft. I have many friends who spend countless hours obsessing over their multiple fantasy teams, but I've just never been interested in devoting so much of my time to such an endeavor. However, when I was invited to join a league for this year's college football season, I had to jump at the opportunity since I am a college football junkie. I figured that since I will spend the next four months immersed in the NCAA football season anyway, it might be fun to add a little friendly competition to the mix. Unfortunately, the draft itself did not go as well as I'd hoped. I'm positive I know more about college football than anyone else in the league and I spent an absurd amount of time - somewhere north of twelve hours - preparing for the draft, so I was convinced that I knew all the sleepers and I would be able to put together a dominant roster. Sadly, I soon learned that I had greatly underestimated an acquaintance named Pete. While picking directly in front of me he stole my picks on several occasions. And they weren't just any picks, they were many of those aforementioned sleepers that I thought I alone knew about. So now Pete has a rediculously loaded roster and I'm stuck with the leftovers. What a bastard.

The second new experience happened last night after a softball game I'd been invited to join. In any rec league softball games in which I've played, none of the players take the game too seriously, and no one bothers to give the umpires too hard of a time when they miss a call. An offhand remark or two is usually about as bad as it gets. But last night, after the game ended on the third botched call of the night and us down by a run, all hell broke loose. Since I try to keep this blog relatively clean I can't possibly do the scene justice, but it involved all ten of my teammates and most of the girlfriends and wives in the stands storming the field and screaming the absolute worst possible obscenities at the umps. I have never in my life seen a group of people have such little regard for common decency. It got so bad that the other team tried to stick up for the umps, nearly inciting a riot in the process. After about three minutes of absolute chaos the umpires, who were clearly and perhaps rightly concerned for their safety, called the police. As I was leaving the complex a moment later two squad cars were pulling in to sort out the mess. I've played sports all the way throught to the professional level and I have never seen a mob scene that even approached what I saw last night. Needless to say I was terribly amused by the whole situation. Does that make me a bad person? Perhaps, but it was just one of those things that was so over the top, so hard to believe even as I was watching it unfold, that I couldn't help but laugh in amazement. Curiously, one of the umpires decided to eject one of our players even though the game was over and it was the last game of the season. Hmmm....

-T

Links and Other Randomness

A while back I wrote an entry on our society's tendency to lie to one another rather than to issue any form of rejection, and I vowed to refrain from doing so in the future. Then this morning I was standing in my bathroom, half-dressed and thirty minutes from a dentist appointment when I realized that I would rather be mounted by an angry water buffalo than get my teeth cleaned today. And considering one of the perks of being an adult is that you don't have to do anything you don't want to, I decided to call the dentist and make up a lie about my keys being hidden somewhere amidst all of the move-related flotsam littering my apartment. Clearly, in this instance the lie was a better option than calling to say I just changed my mind or simply pulling a no show. Nevertheless, the question remains: Did I break my vow, or in this instance was my fib a justifiable action to take? The honorable thing to have done would obviously have been to show up for the appointment, but that wasn't about to happen. Hmmm..........Oh, who cares?

My girlfriend and I have come across our first hurdle in living together. We both are obsessed with reality television, but unfortunately our tastes differ greatly. As such I am subjected to two nights a week of So You Think You Can Dance, everything related to the curiously named The Real World, and endless reruns of America's Next Top Model. I am convinced that you can find Top Model on TV at any hour of the day, seven days a week. It drives me crazy. And seeing Tyra Banks continuously condemn high fashion's desire for anorexic models while doing her best to facilitate and encourage women to try to conform to that same image is absurd. Oops, Righteous Tony snuck in there for a minute. Get back in your cage! Anyways, why can't my girlfriend just like the same terrible shows I like? You know, the ones that center around the humiliation of minor celebrities and a total absence of any sort of cohesive plot. Has any couple ever broken up over television? At least I'll have my revenge once football season starts. College football every Saturday from 11 in the morning until the last game of the night ends. I can't wait.

In keeping with my penchant for stealing links from my friend Jeff's blog, I felt it my duty to pass along a link to this cyber-paradise of distraction. I went to this website around 10 this morning and spent the next four hours exploring its wonders. I'm a sucker for lists, and there are a multitude of wonderful lists on various rediculous topics related to pop culture. The one I have linked to is my favorite, "Top 15 Most Outrageous Claims In Pop Music History".

Regarding the Michael Vick saga, I find it interesting how much outrage has been stirred up by his alleged involvement in dogfighting. As this MSNBC article points out, from a PR standpoint he may have been better off being under indictment for sexual assault. Because so many people have dogs, myself included, there is an emotional component tied to people's reaction to dog fighting that warps their view of where it actually stands in the hierarchy of crimes. That's not to say it isn't a disgusting practice, but were people similarly outraged by Kobe Bryant's alleged rape of a teenager in Colorado a few years back? I don't remember that being the case. I'm not often intrigued by questions of a sociological nature, but this one makes me wonder.

And one final link to a video I saw this morning on some news outlet. It shows a baby water buffalo being attacked by a lion pride, then a crocodile joins the fray and plays tug of war with the lions, then the herd of buffalo returning en masse to stage a last minute rescue of the youngster. I couldn't find the edited version of the clip and the one on youtube is long, but it's pretty cool and you can skip through it to find the good parts.

-T

This Dreadful Summer...

I fight a daily battle within myself to try to keep the cynical side of my personality in check. It's very easy for me to start to see only the negative in things and start acting like one of those crotchety old men who insist everything used to be better in the old days. The obvious problem with this mindset is that in addition to irritating the hell out of the people around me, it also makes me miserable. So I actively try to find the good in things, if for no other reason than just to keep myself afloat. This summer has been the ultimate test of my ability to stay positive. It seems that most everything I care about has found itself in trouble lately.

The sports world, which usually provides a wonderful escape from all of life's worries, has been beset by a laundry list of scandals. From my intense disappointment with the NBA's decision to ruin the Spurs-Suns series with their thoughtless suspensions, to Barry Bonds' shameful quasi record chase, to the Tour de France becoming a mockery, to the Michael Vick dogfighting indictment, to the Tim Donaghy fiasco, this summer has seen one disaster after another. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the entertainment of a good scandal every so often, but to see every major American sport embroiled in such controversy all at once is extremely disheartening.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to fully enjoy immersing myself in my other favorite distraction either - television. The summer TV lineup is always pretty lousy, but this has been the worst. Aside from the recent emergence of Flight of The Conchords and Rock of Love, I've been stuck watching nothing but TLC and cable news murder mysteries. I like TLC and all, but there are only so many episodes of Miami Ink and shows on 700 pound people that I can stand. I miss The Office. I can't wait for season three of House to come out on DVD. Same with season two of My Name is Earl and season three of Lost. I want, I need.

And forget about finding any refuge in current events. Our current president has already cemented his position on the short list of the worst presidents in our nation's history, if you turn on any cable news channel you're treated to the same insufferable blowhards having the same useless debate about the Iraqi quagmire over and over and over again, and I can't stand any coverage of the upcoming election because nearly every single presidential candidate nauseates me. At this point I am planning to vote for Obama strictly because he has the least baggage. His lack of experience in our broken political process is the most appealing characteristic of any candidate in the field.  How disappointing that the political discourse in our country has reached a point where I feel compelled to cast my vote based solely on who is the least disgusting. Local news offers no help either. On a good night I count four negative stories for every positive one. All you hear about are disasters, accidents, scandals, crime, corruption, and greed. Who cares about anything positive that may be happening in the community? Scandal sells!

So the cynic in me finally won out. I had to declare my frustration in print. Even my beloved college football continues to be a source of controversy. How can anyone defend a system of crowning a national champion in which over half of the teams in D-I are mathematically disqualified from consideration before the season even starts? But I still find being a college football fan to be an overwhelmingly positive experience. Sure, the BCS is crap, and sure, many programs cheat with virtual impunity, but there is a certain purity in all NCAA sports that is lost in the professional ranks.

I know I've gone off the deep end here. Things are never as bad as they seem when you find yourself in a funk. Three weeks from now I will be watching season three of House, anxiously enduring the last hours before football season, and bubbling with excitement at the start of the new school year, so I know my disillusionment is only temporary. But sometimes it just feels good to vent. In fact, I feel better already.   

-T

I Am A Homeowner

Today was closing day, I now officially own a townhome. My biggest worry with all of this is that I don't want to wind up "house poor". There were so many more expenses associated with buying the place than what I expected up front - activation fees for various utilities, appraisal and inspection fees, more owed at closing than anticipated, and, of course, moving expenses. I hope these semi-hidden fees come to an end after the first month. I can't imagine why they won't, but the whole process has me a bit scatterbrained so I know nothing for certain. I now face the challenge of trying to decide what my little bit of extra money each month goes toward. I've got three debts to pay, an emergency fund I'm desperately trying to build, and there are some home improvements I'm eager to get started on. I guess that's the order I need to go in, but it's the opposite of what I want to do. That's life, I guess. I also have ugly, mismatched furniture that I'm going to replace bit by bit. And I want to buy a bowflex. Donations, anyone?

Moving day is tomorrow. That is among the most predictable days in my life. I'm going to be pissed off all day long because of the tedium and effort associated with of moving all of our stuff, my girlfriend and I will get into 37 arguments about how to do things and where things go, and at the end of the day my five time surgically repaired right elbow is going to be throbbing out of control. I can't wait! My reward is that my girlfriend has some hydrocodeine to give me for my arm at the end of the day. Hooray! A random bright side to all this, though, is that Shark Week on The Discovery Channel is only a few days away. I get excited about this every single year, but I don't think I've ever once actually remembered to watch once the week rolls around. This could be the year, though...I've gotta believe!

T