Being a grown up

I'll be 27 in about a week — well six days to be exact. I don't feel 27. I don't feel like an adult, but I've come to the realization that I have been doing adult things lately. For instance, I am making the attempts to cook at home more and doing my best to be even more frugal than I usually am. But these aren't necessarily adult things, just things that I guess I've upgraded. I keep a tidy apartment and worry not only about bills, but what I'm going to write about for articles and research. Maybe this gradual shift in maturity +20 is due to the ever awesome Awesome Sauce in my life. I want to set a good example for her I suppose. Ever since she was born my schedule has been hectic and sometimes it becomes damn near impossible to get anything done. I don't know if the chaos that is my schedule and life is due to my trying to make sure I see her nearly everyday or what. With school, tutoring, and doing research it sometimes feels that I have no time for anything. The only thing that I look forward to is seeing Awesome Sauce and keeping her for the weekend. *Sigh* I'm so tired even now as I force myself to write this. I need a nap. I really don't have much else to say. I guess I'll try to come up with something later to entertain you all with. Later!

Working as a test scorer

Lameness ensues. They can't decide what the hell counts and what doesn't. Spelling sure as hell isn't important. If I was to try and list the many different ways you can actually spell "apologize" I think the internet would crash. The education of today's youth worries me greatly. I mean, if a child cannot even spell "like" at the fourth grade level... I mean what are the teachers doing? I know many a great teachers and I know that educators cannot follow the children home to make sure that they are doing homework and reinforcing what they've learned. Home environments should be taken into consideration but how exactly do you stop a neverending chain of limited education? It's a bit bleak, but something needs to be done. The most discerning thing about my job is that I am not making a difference. The higher ups come and tell us to essentially lower the standards so that more kids are able to pass. There's no way to alert anyone about the absolute inability for a student to spell words to make a coherent sentence. ...And this is why we are all screwed if the zombie apocalypse hits us when we're old and the children of tomorrow unleash hell on earth and open a fire exit which then lets the zombies in to devour all of us stuck in wheelchairs because they couldn't read. But seriously, these kids need some hooked on phonics or something. Ish.

Say whaaa?

Okay, so obviously keeping up with stuff is not my forte. Anyway, a lot has happened since I graduated. I have a niece named Addison whom I call Awesome Sauce. I am a graduate student who is also a professor/part-time lecturer, and I work as a tutor for Japanese language and Humanities. For the summer though, I am working at this lame place that grades the standardized tests that kids have to take in school — more on that in a minute. I have been nothing but busy busy busy. Unfortunately, I am still an unpublished person, but I did manage to present a paper at a conference. Come fall I will be attempting a panel at an anime convention with two of my friends who share my interests and are mostly sane too!

Right now for the summer, I cut grass on the weekends, and keep my super awesome niece on the weekends. During the week I grade those tests I mentioned. They are horrible. If you really want to know if your kids are learning anything...let me just tell you that no they are not. For every 20 stupid kids there's like one smart one. I wish I was making this up. Apparently kids are not on the same level I remember being on. Come on, I mean in the fourth grade I could spell "special" and "poisonous" — granted I was at a high school reading level, but still! It's quite tragic to be reading what they have read and seeing their responses! I would like to talk more about the hilarious responses but I signed a thing that said I wouldn't talk about the tests outside of the company. ...Because I'm totally going to sell this information to the other countries that are much further ahead of us in education (PLEASE NOTE that this sarcasm). We can't even take our cell phones into the building because there is "sensitive" material. I'm sorry, I can't take these policies seriously because when you hire people that have 40+ hours of college and no degree, I'm a little leery about how legit it can be. Don't get wrong though, I love $11 an hour, but this is one of the most tedious and boring jobs I've ever had. I had my "table leaders" as well. They suck. They're like managers only they're worse because they're not even really managers. When we grade the tests we have to do so by following a criteria that we are trained on. Well, it doesn't help when my table leaders always disagree on the grade I want to give (which I grade using the rubric given to us) and they insist on not following the rubric. Let me give you an example that I am totally going to make up:

Me: So this student says that "Tigers are orange with stripes to help them hide in a Wal-mart gardening section." The rubric states that if they at least infer that the animal they have chosen is the way it is then they get at least a 1. I gave them a one because they obviously understand that tigers' color and stripes help them to blend in...granted Wal-Mart is the last place I think I'd find a tiger.
Them: No it's a 0.
Me: *looks at rubric* Um, well there's this example that they gave in training. This example has the student saying that "Cheetahs have spots to help them hide in Target when they go through the home and garden department." This kid got a 1 because it was inferred that they were referring to a cheetah's spots being camouflage. ...Isn't this sort of the same thing?
Them: Nope. Not at all.
Me: ...Fine. *swallows rage and urge to flip a table over*
***Twenty minutes later*
Them: Kendora, why'd you give this a 0?
Me: What is this a trick question?
Them: What?
Me: Nevermind. Because you told me to give it a 0.
Them: Well it's actually a 2.

And that's how lame my table leaders are. Did I mention that they are bitches? Because they're total bitches. At least I get to talk to the super effeminate gay gentleman that sits next to me and we totally have awesome conversations about Victorian literature, how big of bitches our table leaders are, and vintage horror movies. Win.

Well I think that this is a good comeback post. I am going to make a better effort to update because I think my niece needs a chronicle of just how awesome I am and how mega awesome she is. ...And on that note, she has awaken from her 20 minute power nap and is now demanding that I cater to her. Later!