Sunday, September 20, 2009

Top 15 Movies

I was asked by a friend to post this list on my blog, so here it is:

1. The Princess Bride

2. Star Wars Trilogy (original)

3. Karate Kid

4. Mr. Mom

5. Young Frankenstein

6. Murphy's Romance

7. Pretty Woman

8. Dirty Dancing 

9. What a Girl Wants

10. Breakfast Club

11. Miracle

12. Dead Poets Society

13. Mr. Holland's Opus

14. Searching for Bobby Fischer

15. Goonies


p.s.  this is not an open invitation for film-preference harassment 

Monday, September 7, 2009

Life is Fair

I now have two followers, so I feel a responsibility to my audience...

Unfortunately, I have nothing earthshattering to say at the moment, so I'll just offer a few observations and notes on life in Burlington (here after, BTV) as of late.

As many of you know, I returned to school this week as a paraeducator at Burlington High School (BHS), and while I spent my days learning all the new rules and regs for various English and Social Studies teachers, my dog, Indy, spent hers playing and cuddling with her Back-to-School Cow.  At the end of the week the BTS Cow had sustained major injuries and is now coalescing in the corner of the living room, hoping to avoid further attention.  This troubles me somewhat, because BTS Cow (which is how Indy and I refer to him) looked so durable in the store -- like he could live forever -- but alas, his plush skin and cotton stuffing succumbed to the wrath of Indy the Fierce in a matter of days.  Minutes, actually, if we're being completely accurate.  

But never fear, because even in the animal world we see karma in action.  When not consuming BTS Cow, Indy has been tormented and taunted by a mischievous and brave squirrel who likes to run back and forth across our little porch.  Sometimes Squirrel looks in the window at Indy and shows his two front buckteeth, as if to say, "You ain't no diva, girl!"  Indy responds by rocketing herself back and forth across our living room floor, stopping occasionally at the door to see whether she can break through.  That's something that amuses me about dogs -- no matter how many times they run smack into a wooden door, they always seem to forget its density the next time they pass.  Then when we go outside, Indy searches frantically for Squirrel, who by that time has scurried up a tree.  Frustrating, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, for my second job, working for Kaplan test prep, I had the pleasure and privilege of spending three days at the Champlain Valley Fair, sitting at a little booth, trying to get people to sign up to take a free SAT, ACT, or test of their choice.  Now, everyone knows that fairs are excellent places to do people-watching -- talk about seeing the world go by!  But if you really want to see some amusing parts of humanity, try combining the types of people who generally populate fairs with the idea of choosing to take a standardized test.  I saw everything from annoyance to shock to horror on the faces of people passing my booth.  Often people who had previously been moving at what I'd call a meandering pace stepped it up to a full trot and suddenly became extremely interested in the Vermont Pure water booth directly across from me.  Older people -- every older person, actually -- said, "Whoah -- I'm well past that nonsense."  A few people told me they couldn't even score a 100 on the SAT, which I find hard to believe since you get 200 points for simply filling in your name.  Teenagers who passed by were cool about it -- no running, no purposely avoiding eye contact, just a simple snort or chuckle and a, "Yeah, right."  I managed to say hi to a few people and got a split reaction of either sheer relief that I was speaking but not asking them to sign up to test or polite but guarded communication which clearly said, "Don't even think about it."  

I did talk to one woman who wanted to know if Kaplan did any kind of classes for preparing to be a farmer.  I said that I didn't know there was a test for that; she said, There isn't.  I said, Well we do test prep; she said, Exactly.  I nodded my head in large, sweeping movements and said, Ah-hah!  She did the same and said, Ah?  Ah-haaah.  I said, Unh-hunh.  This went on for some time until I began to feel we had just created a language right there, on the spot, although I had no clue what we were talking about.  In the end she flashed me a toothless grin, tipped her hat, and mosied to the next booth.

I think the best feedback by far, though, was the ten-year-old girl who was being dragged by at a fairly rapid pace by her parents, but who stopped in front of me long enough to stick her tongue out, make that raspberry sound with it, and punctuate it with, "homework!"