To push that little red button….

Anyone here remembers my post about the 9h and 10th graders in my school and how much I disliked them? For those who do, I applaud you. For those who don’t, shame on you! Go read it right nao!

Anyways, those little terrors are now in 10th and 11th grades, respectfully. I have classes with the 11th grade so I’ve grown use to the few that I come into contact with and have grown to like said few. However, the rest of them and the rest of the school for that matter has become a pool of retardation that needs to be dealt with swiftly.

Now let us go into context. My student body ranges from 6th to 12th grades, with about 100 kids each. I’m currently in 12th and every grade below is acting the fool. Somehow they all seems to think they own the place when, oh I’m sorry, its my peers and I that should be at that throne without contest. Yet still, we’ve been run to the corner of the room while every other ego gets to run around.

It has gotten so bad that my friends and I have been wondering about pushing that little red button and declaring war upon all those little monsters. For too long have we let them get away with their arrogant crap and it has to stop. The funny thing, in many ways, we already have pushed that button, or at least I have.

Twice in the past months I had to tangle with miniature agents of hell. Here is what happened:
The first time I was put in charge of the computer lab and told to take care of the place. So, the teacher left and a few of my fellow seniors were around doing whatever they were doing. What to know why I don’t remember what they were up to? Its cause they were flipping quiet. Much unlike the fleet of 10th grade ‘loud as all ghetto hell’ bastards. So it finally started to piss my people off and I had to step to the plate to quell the situation. I went up to the loudest offender of the peace and asked very nicely for her and her group to stop.

Know her response? The girl – really want to use another word here, but didn’t. I must get points for that - looked dead at me and laughed. So as she turned to walk away, I stuck out my leg, tripped her then said when she hit the floor, “I wasn’t done yet” in the coldest voice I could muster.

I will pause to let that marinate.

Before everyone gets on my case you have to understand that 1. I have a tendency to be a wee bit sadistic. Yes, I admit that. So it is clear from here on out that I will enjoy all of this and am willing to deal with what happens (hence why I’m ok for posting this). And second, I have an ego – points to this blog - and while I do try to keep it in check most of the time, you don’t laugh in its face and expect nothing in return.

So, after that she knew better than to mess with me again. I even got a laugh out of my friends. But still, the other 10th race of people weren’t so easy. One was about ready to fight me.
The second story is more recent. Some midget 6th grader felt he had the right to yell at us ‘big kids’ when their time for gym had come and we were trying to hurry to leave. He directed his crap at me, so I stopped and looked at him. He made motions for me to go at him, but I just left it alone. Later that day, the kid popped up again behind me still slinging his bull at me so I got fed up. I jumped after him, caught him, then dragged him down a half flight of stairs and when we reached the landing, I threatened to throw him down if he ever did it again. Of course, he was pleading for his life the whole time.

Perhaps, the most beautiful part of the story is what happened when I let him go. I was yelling after him “Run! Keep running or else!” when a teacher came down the stairs. She looked at me, I looked at her and she just laughed and moved on.

All of this now brings me to my point. Seeing as how I only have a few months left, I’ve lost all my ‘social niceguy-ness’ to these children who think they get away with it. If they keep on this path, many more incidents of pain will occur, and I haven’t been the only one to be administering these blows. The 12th grade is waking up and will reclaim our spot at the top of the natural food chain. That is the only way peace can be set in place.

Or, my favorite alternative could could happen where everyone could just get wiser and not piss off those older than you, but hey, either way works for me.

Notes to the rant:
Some may wonder why the 12th grade isn’t fighting within ourselves and let this happen in the first place. It is because everyone is so wrapped up in their own affairs, they don’t care to deal with each other, thus relative peace. However, these people are throwing it into our faces and many of us want to be able to walk the halls without having to hear stupidity.

And people wonder why I refuse to teach. EVER.

(Relatively old) New Blog Design

Not too sure anyone noticed, but a long while ago now I changed up the design and colors around here. This feels really nice and clean and easy to deal with, so its going to stick around till I get bored of it or something. Now, what would be great to start making my own, but thats another story.

Oh, btw incase you all didn't catch this by now: I'm back to blogging. Been out of it for too long - quick sickness, laziness, life, etc got in the way, but no more. Well, more honestly not for a while at least. Lets see if we can start things rolling again, shall we?

Guns, Germs, and Steel - An Overview of Part I

Given the nature of the book, the only proper way to begin it would be with a brief run through of history, starting from around 11,000 B.C. Diamond focuses on an event he coined as the ‘Great Leap Forward’ - in which the human race began to set off down the path we all benefit from – and our expansion into the other continents from our cradle in Africa.

The whirlwind history lesson wasn’t at all overwhelming. In fact, I rather quite enjoyed it. There were two anecdotes that just happened to stick out to me: the first would be the events on the Chatham Islands involving the Moriori and Maori, found in the second chapter; and the other being what took place at Cajamarca, found in chapter three.

The Moriori and Maori were two groups of people that could be traced back to the same ancestral group. When they had split apart, they followed two different paths – the Moriori remained a hunter-gather population with low-level technology while the Maori became a culture of farmers with better technology. The Maori eventually came to violently conquer the Moriori.

What had happened at Cajamarca that the book detailed was the capture and murder of Atahuallpa, an Inca emperor by a conquistador named Francisco Pizarro, and the consequent slaughter of Inca troops. Pizarro and his relatively small force of men were able to take out large – I do mean seriously large. I believe that the book has mentioned upwards of 60,000/80,000 men - chunks of Inca warriors.

Both incidents hold similar patterns – patterns that illustrate the author’s point behind why certain groups are able to overcome others. The gap of technology and the exploit of such a divide is an obviously important one. Another which I expect to be explored in later chapters would be the difference in the habitats the different cultures where raised in. This is most likely going to be one of the cornerstones of conquest because it helps to influence many different prolific and individual factors of a civilization.

This, interesting enough, didn't seem to be anything exceptionally new or groundbreaking to me. I, almost naïvely, at some level understood that technology would be a major deal breaker in taking over any people. Though, I did enjoy the stories and background even to show this point. I felt that what the book did instead of introducing something new, was to expand on a shallow understanding that was already there - which at times is more valuable, especially when I'm expecting GGS to start dropping some very wicked ideas at some point.

So there: a run-through of the first part of Guns, Germs, and Steel. This was long over seeing as how I promised to do so quite some time ago, but hey. Better late then never, no?