Editorial

Written by capnasty

Despite the fact that I am far from happy incredible inability to write anything that satisfies my picky requirements, I have to give in to the many complaints that I have received on where this issue was. So here it is.

Everyone's life has shifted into school mode once again. Well, not for me, since I've been in school since January, and the only change I've seen is that now I have two placements and one class, giving me a total of half a day off on Saturday to do things like change my underwear or brush my hair.

One of my placements has been a learning experience. Sent out to do work on ADSLs, and working on esoteric operating systems that I don't understand the workings of, while having preoccupied CEOs ask me questions that I answer in babble-tech just to confuse them even more.

Jeff and I have been attending regular Toronto Movie Festival films, without too much fuss (except of course the fact that Jeff could not see Dogma, the one movie that he desperately wanted to see). Other than that, Benny Hinn was also in Toronto, bringing an incredible amount of handicaps, mutants and various other freaks to town from just about anywhere, to witness his "miracle cures" on stage.

The other day I got on the streetcar, after coming back from a client, and an old Greek lady started hitting me with her purse. It was so logic defying that it took a while to sink in the fact that I was getting beaten by an 80 years old lady yelling obscenities in Greek. I'm not sure, to this day, what I have done, other than climbing on board.

Among placement, we have but one class, on Monday mornings. It's called "Professional Practices", though I am not sure exactly what the purpose of this class is all about. So far we have been told about Brain-Gym(TM) and how we should be drinking lots of water. Long discussions on our bodily fluids. She told us how the Church of Scientology, to which we later discovered, she belongs, is being persecuted by the German government. There are only 3 months and a half of this silly drivel, and hopefully I will survive, get some rest, and be able to bring CoN back to you in its original glory and distribution time.

William, from the organization of the "Purple rabbit runners" writes in regards to the usual hidden comments on CoN issue 12:

Just a short note. Squirrels chasing nuts is mentioned twice, but Ihave never in my life seen a squirrel chase a nut.
Birds fly was mentioned with one of them, but that too I have neverseen. But that may just be because they travel as cargo, and Iget a seat in the pressurised cargo bin known as 'coach' when I fly.

I'll leave you with an entertaining e-mail from David Dylan, who goes to show that school in North America just sucks, and that those wacky Belgians(*) have it all figured out.

Hi there,

Your school-bashing and talk of famous femminists leads me to share a little anecdote.I'm the type that used to get "strongly advised to find another school". In the .nl they can't just outright kick you out unless you killed someone or something, but if they tell you, you won't promote to the next year unless you go to another school, what's there to do? And I was an angel, I never did anything wrong! Granted, I once Molotov-ed the school yard in a protest against new cuts on student income. But that was in part also defending the teacher's income. OK, I handed out "go home - school makes you stupid!" flyers printed by a local Anarchist group, but that just shows healthy interest in society, right? Maybe it's the time we burned our draft-cards and accidentally set a bush on fire? Or the time we glued the plug of the glue-gun into the wall-socket? If the teacher hand't yanked it so hard, the entire socket wouldn't have come loose, and he would never have fallen through that glass door! Ofcourse my English teacher was pissed at me for glueing his orthopaedic ergonomic ten-speed chair to the ceiling, but hey what's a little fun inbetween classes, eh? And don't think I was doing it alone. In fact, I was the "nerd", the stuff the rest was up to was even worse, albeit more stupid and less thought-out. I usually didn't get caught. Perhaps that ticked them off most? Anyway, after some adventuring sans-diploma, I decided I needed one after all. By then I was old enough to be accused of being an "adult".I went to a school for adults, named after a famous local femminist. Joke Smit. (Not a joke name, by the way) This school showed just about every quality other schools lacked. Art class meant painting nudes, and gettting decent instruction by real artists! Not just some frustrated crafts-teacher handing you some red green and blue finger-paint. They were on the forefront of the computer revolution, with internet-connected computers lining the hallways, for all students to use. In English class we read Baldwin and Joyce, not the silly "easy reader" books I still have nightmares about. In Dutch class we read a book, picked a character other than the narrator and rewrote a chapter of the book from this person's perspective. Fun to do, and it really teaches you something.

The fondest memories however I have of the Biology teacher. This guy only taught as means of supporting himself inbetween discovery-missions to the Amazon. And he would share his finds with us first. Famous were his slide-shows. After a few pictures of snakes and such he would suddenly put on a slide of a tiny fish in a puddle of blood in the palm of someone's hand. Then he would explain that this fish feeds on blood of bigger fish, which he gets by attaching himself in the gills. He finds the gills (blind as a bat this fish) by swimming up any strong little stream. So, warns the teacher, DO NOT URINATE IN THE WATER! Ofcourse someone would ask what happens if you do anyway, and the teacher would reply, matter-of-factly.."machete time!".Demonstrating in an air-guitarrish way how one would cut out the fish from some poor soul's genitals. After enjoying our silence for a moment he would add, "this one we found in a big fish ofcourse".

Yup, it was a fun little school.I got my diploma with high grades, and as a parting gift, glued a condom-shaped hat on the statue of Joke Smit.

Greetz.DD.

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