Rewards for Reading

I feel that the concept of rewarding children for reading more than the required amount or scoring above and beyond the average is a great idea. While some argue that it is a bribe for children to do what they should anyway, I feel that it reflects the adult world quite well.
In life, those who excel in their field are given rewards, are they not? From raises to promotions, hard work in the right direction pays off. What better direction is there than reading? Reading is a skill that children will need for every class they take, and without that basic building block, everything else fails.

Cosplay!

I'll be planning on attending Dragon Con this September. It will be my first convention, and I'm pretty excited to go. Going with me will be my girlfriend, Nicole, and a few friends. Naturally, one of my costumes will be my Joker. Another will likely be Johnny Depp's version of Willy Wonka, mostly due to already having the costume. Since I already have two costumes, this gives me spending money for my third.
My girlfriend suggested Brooklyn from Disney's Gargoyles.

She's been doing most of the work. This is more due to her biting my hand if I dare touch her baby, rather than me being lazy or busy. And honestly, I'm glad she's doing it; it looks friggin' awesome!


It has yet to be painted. It's carved from high-density foam (which happens to be EXPENSIVE x.x) Anyway, it has a working bottom jaw (as in I open my mouth, the mask's mouth opens). We have to make some finishing touches, as well as find a wig, and then we can move on. Since Nicole has already decided how the digitigrade legs will work, and probably won't let me touch the ideas for the wings, this only gives me one real freedom- do I want body dye, or a skin-tight jumpsuit? I personally think dye would look better, but it presents many problems. No matter how secure the make up is, after hours it WILL begin to come off, and the fact that application onto my body could take hours would make it difficult.
The suit, on the other hand, would be easier to slip on, and would only need to be made once, rather than applied every single time.

Overload!!

Well, I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I have papers due, I need to start looking for a summer job, read a book I borrowed, and what did my dumb butt do? Audition for another play. Now I've got four rehearsals a week in Prattville. I have to spend extra time and gas driving. x_x That was smart of me, huh? Oh well.
Currently finishing up a rough draft for a report of information on Non-Equity acting tours. It took me forever (and a few e-mails to actual professionals) to figure out what I was gonna write this paper on. Honestly, this paper is serving one of its purposes. The research I've done for this topic has let me know what I'm going to need to do to hope to be successful as an actor.
Now, if I could only figure out how to re-word all this. Honestly, this paper is crap. Oh well, good thing it's a first draft. I guess my professor will give me guidance on how to fix how screwed-up it is, and then I can rewrite it all NON-sucky.

Discipline

I used to think that spanking was the most effective form of punishment, due to the way I've seen parents that don't use this form of discipline treat their children in public. Countless times have I seen a child running around a restaurant, shoving past people as he or she laughed loudly, and countless times have I seen the parents react to this by... counting. "One... Two..." The child still laughs, still cuts up. Why? Because they know three isn't coming, and even if it does, nothing will happen to them anyway.

However... while I hate to be influenced so heavily by one simple telivision show,having watched a few episodes of "Super Nanny" has changed my feelings on spanking a little. I still see nothing wrong with it (in controlled amounts), but if discipline and good behaivior could be taught without it... why not? I think the most important thing I've learned with the show is to get the child's attention. Bring yourself down face-to-face with them, look them in the eyes, and tell them straight-forward that you mean business.

Of course, I've also noticed a trend in this show. The worst of the children have parents that simply do not pay attention. From the mom that won't stop watching soap operas long enough to tend to her children, to the father that does nothing but get online all day, to the parents that go on business trips and don't even care to call their family, it seems the worst of behavior problems are due to parents not giving their children parents.

When analyzing the situation at Oxford High School in Decatur, Alabama, one needs to forego emotional responses about the absurdity of the punishment when deciding whether or not the concept and enforcement of the dress code is fair. (Yes, I do know that was a terribly long sentence with way too many preopositional phrases, but I'm feeling too lazy to fix it.) While it was the form of punishment that garnered the national attention of this particular case, it should have no effect upon arguments on whether the dress code should have been placed. It is my argument that the dress code in itself was perfectly acceptable. It was the students' and parents' responsibility to maintain this dress code. Such dress codes are set to protect students, not to stiffle their rights.
To begin with, this dress code had to have been announced and news had to have been spread quite easily. If this were not the case, it would be likely that much more than eighteen out of the two-hundred-something students would have been in violation of this dress code. It is the responsibility of the students and the parents to ensure that the clothing they wear is well within school policies.

I WAS totally gonna write a whole argumentative paragraph here about keeping students safe about dress codes, but I'm out of time and I know I'm not gonna come back and re-write it.

So...err.... insert conclusion here!! \o/

Prom Paddling Predicament!

So,recently, in good ole Alabama, 18 students got in trouble for wearing too-reavling prom dresses. While this may be a tad bit conservative for a public school, that doesn't sound TOO odd. Only just a little ridiculous.

But HERE'S the good part. The choice in punishment was 3 days suspension... or PADDLING. Given, these are juniors and seniors we are talking about: Far too old for paddling punishment, for sure. That's not what disturbed me. What disturbs me is the fact that somewhere along the line, someone thought it would be appropriate to spank 17 year old girls that the school had already deemed as "under-dressed". Really? Did anyone THINK about how that would look? Creeeepyyy. Well, that aside, 17 of the 18 girls prefered paddling to suspension. For some reason, I get the mental image of some eager middle-aged man carrying out the sentence, but hey. I don't know that for sure, so I can't judge, right?
Honestly, I don't know what else to say about this. I don't do well with talking about recent events. There were things. These things happened. I wasn't involved, so aside from the creepy mental images of said spankings that I can't get out of my head, what else is there for me to really have an opinion about?

Uhhh...

I came in late for class today, so I only caught a little bit of what the blog's supposed to be about. Apparently, some girl killed herself due to severe bullying, and criminal charges were filed against the bullies.

What can I say about this, really? I don't think anyone's gone without being bullied or picked on. Sure, I had to deal with it a lot growing up. It led to many, many fights, and I didn't always win. Sometimes, I got in trouble for it, despite the fact that I had been defending myself.

Bullies are and always will be an issue. It can get rough some times. It can get physical, and on rare occasions, it can get dangerous. That's when you file charges, not kill yourself. Yes, I do believe those who harrassed her should be criminally punished. However, this should have happened long before she decided to take her own life. It may seem easier said than done, but it's got to be easier than taking one's own life.

I don't really know what else to say. People die every day, and I'm not really moved by one more person's death.