An encounter with an old... person I guess.

Sophomore year of high-school I had a teacher that well... didn't much like me. She felt that her position as a teacher made her better than the average person, and I did everything I could to impress on her that that wasn't the case. I never actually broke the rules. I was far more subtle in my approach. I hadn't thought about any of this in years, but it is on my mind because I ran into her. Was shocking to find out she was still alive. She was very near retirement age when I had the misfortune of her class.

I was at a store looking for a good bargain. While looking I heard a very old sounding voice saying "Is that you?". Turning around I saw a very old women, hunched from age, I had no idea who this was. "Um.. who are you?" was all I could respond. There was some back and forth, that lead to her being offended that I didn't remember someone I had driven to retire. She said through look of rage that "I loved teaching, and intended to keep teaching after reaching retirement age, but after you, I only taught for one more year. You made me hate every second in the classroom." She went on more, but that was the important bit. She had clearly spent a lot of time focusing on me as the source of all of her problems, wonder how much was true, and how much was just in her head. Shame I don't have a recording of it.

Once she was done, I had only one response. "Then it would seem I did a favor for all the students you didn't have a chance to teach". She was fighting back tears. It had meant so much to her to tell me off, and it meant nothing to me.

I never did anything to her that was actually mean. All I ever did was treat her as a equal. I think to her the idea that a student would not see her as better was offensive. Maybe she was just from an earlier time, or maybe she hadn't been taken down a peg in years. I will admit, I am a little happy to know I won this one. Took almost two decades find out, but still nice.

School Drills.

A child of a friend of mine told me that his school is doing drills for what to so if there is a gunman on campus. The odds of that being useful seem rather slim, but it is in school, so I guess it is a fitting place for a pointless task. It made me reflect on the amount of time that was wasted on fire and earthquake drills when I was a boy.

As a child in California, we did earthquake drill a lot. Never mattered. I knew as a child any quake big enough to actually cause damage to the building would likely kill the students too, but at least an earthquake felt like a real threat. It was wasted time. but was better than most of the "education" going on.

Fire drills were another time waster. Never felt like a real threat. Even if part of the school was on fire, odds were that it wouldn't be big enough to effect the whole campus. Always kind of hoped for a fire, as I would of said to hell with doing what the drill had taught, and just ran off campus and back home. If the fire had been in the classroom I was in, I did have a fantasy of trying to kneecap the teacher to leave them in the fire. Not that I would have done it... really.

It all makes me look back at school and wish just one person would have been honest with me. Just once to have had a person tell me that "none of this will matter". I might of found ways to enjoy school. As it was, it was 8 hours a day of psychological torture from the age of 5 to 18.

Not around.

I am away from my computer and can't do one of these right now. Was a big enough pain to write this much from my phone's touch screen.

Serious Questions: Catholics

Does the pope get a paycheck? If so, how much? Also, what does he spend it on exactly,  seems like most of his needs would be taken care of by his minions. Assuming the pay is good, has anyone risen to the rank of pope just to pay off a bookie or something? Not saying something like that has happened every time, just asking if one or two pulled something like that.

How much actual freedom does he have to do as he would like? Betting getting some cocaine and hookers is out of the question. However, could he announce he is in the mood for some burgers and head down to get some? Or like he if he was a foodie, could he go down to the farmer's market to pick his own produce? I know he has minions for this kind of thing, but if he were inclined how much could he take care of himself?

How much corruption is the average pope involved in? It undoubtedly goes up and down as popes come and go. Is it more or less than the average cop? Is it any better than the average politician?

How much can a pope push his own agenda? How much of what he does is just toeing the company line? The current one has made a few comments, and "his people" then claim "he didn't mean that". Doesn't seem to happen as much now, maybe he got a stern talking too. Not sure from who, I thought he was at the top.

Augest Games 2019

A rather small list this month.Was, and still currently, playing several other games, but they were not finished.

• Mario Kart 7                                   3DS           8/1/2019
• Mario Kart 8                                   Wii U        8/8/2019
• Bendy and the Ink Machine            Steam       8/12/2019
• Far Cry Primal                                Xbox 1      8/17/2019