April 18th, 2007

blogging / creative writing / current events — 3 Comments
18
Apr 07

F’d Up English Major

Joshua Minton’s blog entry “Why You Shouldn’t Fuck With English Students” got me thinking of the killer of the Virginia Tech shootings. In recent years, we’ve had our series of tragedies with the proverbial bad apples as the perpetrators: the Oklahoma bombers, the Columbine shooters, members of al-Quaeda, and now a lonely, anti-social misfit of an English major.

McVeigh’s crimes drew scant attention to domestic terrorists, while the aftermath of the Columbine shooters made the lives of school children miserable as security was increased and black as a fashion color was looked upon with suspicion by lily white parents. A big part of the Middle East was punished for 9/11 and airline travelers have had to endure more hassles ever since. Now, will there be a backlash against English majors?

I hope not. The crime is simply heinous. The kid was greatly fucked up. I have to applaud the creative writing teacher who tried to get him to see a counselor. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to get help and she couldn’t force him. Talk about a horse that wouldn’t drink after being led to water.

Here’s my attempt at damage control for the rest of us English majors.

Some really cool English majors include:
Emma Thompson
Dave Barry
Reese Witherspoon
Sting
me and some of my friends

Update: AOL has copies of two of his disturbing works.

blogging / writing — No Comments
18
Apr 07

Good Crazy

Some days are just crazy. Yesterday, it was good crazy.

I make it a policy not to write about my personal life on this blog, though I don’t follow this policy 100 percent. I do write personal essays and creative non-fiction; however, this is not my diary. An essay such as Set A Course For Earth may reveal a lot about me, but this was more a piece of writing versus treating the blog as a newsletter or confessional. I have to admit, writing that piece unnerved me.

Given that, I have been busy non-stop today. I did some job searching, I e-mailed department heads at the community colleges in San Diego county just to keep in touch regarding teaching assignments, and got an e-mail response to an ad I have in Craig’s List for freelance writing. Around noon, I drove out to Rancho Bernardo from Downtown San Diego to meet this prospective client, a website. I sped down the I-15 and managed to make it on time. I clocked in a speed of 85 mph. Nissans are not speed cars at all, but I stayed in the left-hand lane and kept steady, occasionally annoyed by some people who only wished to cruise in that lane. I made it on time, and the interview was really cool. On the way home, there was a truck 75 feet in front of me, and a ladder fell out of its bed. I was fortunate enough to get into another lane. Later in the evening, I met with a doctoral student to proof read part of his thesis.

Now, back to the regular programming on shindotv.