Why I Have Beef With Karen O

This weekend, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (fronted by Karen O, as referenced in title), and Gogol Bordello are both playing all-ages shows. On the same day.

OH, THE TRAGEDIES OF MY LIFE.

Really, I'm pretty freaking lucky that deciding which show to go to is my biggest concern, but hey. Couldn't Karen O have called Eugene Hutz? Partially because that would be THE BEST PHONE CONVERSATION EVER? Anyway, in honor of both of them, here are two videos, one from each.





So, which show would you go to? Which one do you think I should go to?

The E-Mail Unwritten

Yesterday, I heard back from Nancy X (in the interest of leaving this unlikely to be found via casual Google search by involved parties, I'm leaving identifying details John Singer Sargent-y), the new intern director at X Literary Center.

I've been trying for about a month, fruitlessly, to contact Claire X, the woman who promised me an internship at X Literary Center about, oh... three months ago. I finally went straight to the source and e-mailed Nancy X about what was going on, who got back to me yesterday with something along the lines of "Yeah, actually, we don't have an internship available. Our bad!" To which I kind of feel like, okay, fine, but why didn't you tell me that THREE MONTHS AGO?

Ugh.

Anyway, I'm going to write the requisite polite response, but the e-mail I'd like to write would be something along the lines of:

Dear Nancy:

You suck. This means NUCLEAR WAR.


Cheers,
-Anna

You know, something along those lines...

Winding Down, Winding Up

First of all-- I had a freaking fabulous weekend. Soundset (an outdoor hip-hop festival) was this weekend, and even though it's easy to mock for being a whitewashed, bro-tastic celebration of middle-class male insecurity, it was also a really good time. I got a very cute one-sided sunburn from standing facing one direction for six hours, and I used my sneaky short girl skills to weasel my way up close to the stage.

The weekend also involved an L Word marathon, ordering in Chinese food, lounging at a park, chatting with mall security, going on runs (plural! Actually!), and trying not to laugh hysterically with my best friend through a Catholic mass. Excellent.

Second of all, as the title suggests, things are ending and beginning. My two Central classes are wrapping up (meaning we haven't been doing anything in them for weeks), this week is the last week of track, and summer is just generally chasing out the school year. However, due to this new-fangled unschooling thing I'm doing, I'm trying not to see summer as a time when my personal efforts end. I'm slowly drafting a plan for summer, and for the next year, and that (along with my creeping dread Cross Country captain's practices every day this summer at 9AM) is winding up.

Summer is Hereee

Come on-- two 90-degree days and Memorial Day weekend? Sounds like time for a summer jam to me. I'm loving this song right now-- it's getting pretty heavy circulation on The Current, and, unlike 35-80% (depending on the DJ) of the music played on that station, this makes me want to: a.) dance AND b.) not yell at the radio.

Yikes!

So, it's May 20th, and I've blogged like five times this month. My bad! Although I kind of doubt that my millions of readers are super torn up about it, I do promise to blog every day for the rest of the month.

Double yikes...

My Sister Graduates

My sister, Laney, is now done with college. How about that? Were she so inclined (she's not), she could now enter the workforce, settle down, get married, pop out children, and spend the next 18 years driving them around. So that's cool, I guess-- having officially reached a stage of education where your socially-acceptable "real life" can begin.

Incidentally, that phrase kills me. "Yeah, I can't wait to graduate high school and go into the real world." "I graduated, so I guess now I'm going to have to deal with the real world."

I'm sorry, where were you before? In a world of make-believe and unicorns? I mean, kind of, (you're never really taught to do anything in school-- you're taught to pretend to do it. You don't actually ever apply your Physics knowledge to constructing a building, or your math knowledge to mastering the stock market, but, you know, you could. Theoretically.) but you are still ALIVE in the very same world that you will be living in once you graduate from higher education XYZ. You do not suddenly enter the "real world" once you're handed a degree. Either you've been living in it all along, or you never will.

Anyway though, my sister graduated.

Four Hours of Fun

Am I talking about the SAT or prom (which was last weekend, and which I got into as a Central student, despite no longer actually being a student there)? Whoo knows??

I'm talking about the SAT. I got an SAT review book yesterday, and I've been reading through it since then, and it's pretty funny stuff. First of all, The Princeton Review, which is the test-cracking organization that wrote the book, treats taking the SAT as if you're entering a highly secretive, highly dangerous spy mission. Actual quote: "The SAT has remained highly vulnerable to our techniques. And the current version of the SAT is even more susceptible to our methods." THIS IS YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT.
Oh look, it's me taking the SAT.

But despite all of that, it's kind of an interesting book. Instead of teaching you any real concepts or information, it teaches you the techniques that the test creators use to mess you up, and promises that knowing the trick part of SAT trick questions will raise your score.

Gee, I wonder if that means that there might be something wrong with the test?

Guess What?

I'm gonna build a boat soon.

How cool is that? My dad promised a loong time ago to help me build a kayak of my own (he builds them in same way other dads... I don't know-- construct Fantasy Football teams?), and I'm going to make him start today. BOAT BOAT BOAT. I don't even much like kayaking--my feet always fall asleep after like five seconds, and my butt always feels soggy--but rolling kayaks is cool, and building a boat for funsies is cooler.

On a completely unrelated note, I had no idea how much today's bike-polo-ing, Pabst Blue Ribbon-drinking hipster style is influenced by late 80's/early 90's style. My sister got me to watch the Rapture music video by Blondie last night, and hipster style does not reference those looks-- it straight-up rips them off the backs of their emaciated brethren of the past.

What decade are these disaffected youth from? Whoo knows!

Anyway, it's time to get to class.

Naitonal Poetry Month

Was in April, it's true. But here's some poetry videos, as promised.

Ruth Kohtz, who's local, and performing in the video at Kieran's, in Minneapolis.


Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani (who is also a fantastic poet).


The mesmerizing Patricia Smith.

Op-Ed

Finally, right? Here it is. Tell me your thoughts! (Sorry it's long and ugly-looking-- I'd like to make one of those cool "read more" tag things, but after half an hour of messing around, I've concluded that the level of nitpicking required exceeds my level of interest.)

Dropping Out of High School: A How-To Guide

If you’re a parent of a kid over the age of eight, you probably already know the drill.

“Mom, do I have to go to school? It’s so boring!”

“I hate Calculus! It’s so pointless. I forget it as soon as I take the test. When am I going to use it, anyway?”

And so on. Even the brightest and best kids don’t love the daily drudgery of school. Waking up before 7AM to sit in an overcrowded classrooms with few windows and bored classmates, shuffling through stifling hallways listening to overzealous administrators admonish kids to get to class before the bell rings, counting down the minutes until class ends—correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not how most kids learn best.

Of course, it’s easy to criticize the public school system, and equally easy to dream up sweeping changes that would magically fix it. That’s not what I’m proposing. I don’t think your kid should try to fix the school system.

I think your kid should abandon the school system.

That’s what I did, now almost four months ago. I’ve created a curriculum for myself of high school and college courses, along with plenty of free time, which solves my qualms with being a student in a Saint Paul public high school.

The majority of the problems facing public schools are borne of too little funding, which is not a problem that can be fixed by the average family. However, it is a problem that affects the children of the average family. The next time your kid starts in on a tirade about why school is the worst idea ever invented, listen to what they’re saying. Know that there is an alternative.

I’m not suggesting homeschooling—an option that is simply not possible for two working parents. I’m suggesting unschooling. If you are a working parent with a working spouse, I might advise you to hold off until your child is old enough to transport his or herself to activities, classes, and experiences that he or she has planned. Naturally, this age may differ from family to family and child to child.

But when you believe your child has reached that age (and it’s probably significantly before 18), why not suggest an alternative to school? School is not spent learning much of anything besides how to surreptitiously pass notes in class and stay quiet while the teacher is talking, and yet it takes up seven hours of your child’s day, five days a week. There are better things that your brilliant, passionate kid could be getting mixed up in for seven hours a day.

As a starting point of structure, Saint Paul high schools have a wonderful dual enrollment program, in which students who are homeschooled may attend up to three classes from the school. That means your kid doesn’t have to miss out on that brilliant Biology class junior year, or doesn’t need to drop out of band.

Minnesota also offers homeschooled (and regular high school-attending) students the possibility of taking college classes during high school through the PSEO program. This program allows juniors and seniors to take college classes from institutions like the U of M, or St. Kate’s, for college credit, without even being enrolled in a public high school.

Besides these traditional, classroom-centered ways to fill your child’s day, why not help him or her find a way to delve deep into a passion? Many organizations are eager to take on enthusiastic young volunteers—it’s just a matter of asking. Your kid could also use the sudden swath of free time to start a business, act in a play, rebuild a car engine, paint a mural, perform a science experiment… The list goes on. But the beauty of performing a task for the joy of performing it is that you don’t forget it how to do it after the test.

Tell your kid to drop out of school, and encourage them to become a life-long learner.