Hey there, minions. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I think that I’m gonna make it a new rule that I have to update this thing at least, like, once a month. Because if I don’t then what’s even the point? Maybe the point is that there IS NO POINT. Oooh, existential. But anyways. Let’s outline today’s lesson shall we?

1. The joys of being a 6/7th grade T.A.
2. Video games that you need to play (like I promised 800 eons ago).
3. Nicaragua, and all that it entails.

Okay, so, being a teaching assistant. My school does this annoyingly cool thing that they like to call “WLE” or Workplace Learning Experience. Basically, it means that you get to go be someone’s bitch for 10 weeks and not get paid. I looked to my old PreK – 8th to do my internship, because I love to teach. 6th and 7th grade seemed like a nice, sane age to teach for. No screaming little kids. These are practically high schoolers! Well, that worked in theory.

A lot of them were super cool, and a lot of them just reminded me of the Middle School drama that I hated so much. I mean really. You sort of assume like something has to have changed when you grow up, but it doesn’t. It’s the same old he-said-she-said-did-you-hear crap. It sort of disappointing.

I handled a lot of paperwork, and graded papers. It was super fun. There’s nothing quite like getting to be behind the red pen. You don’t know how totally rad it is until you get to do it for yourself. And then, honestly, it just makes school seem even more ridiculous. It’s what I want to do anyway.

My one T.A. nightmare story has to do with making copies. My mentor sent me off to make like 32 copies of two text book chapers (that’s like 8 pages each). Lets do the math here. That’s 32 times 8, which come out to 256 pages, give or take. Now, silly me, I forgot that these fancy, newfangled copiers have a ‘collate and staple’ option. There went my lunch and prep period. Ouch.

In the world of other internship crap: I applied for an internship at Buddyhead. I think the anxiety waiting for an answer might kill me. Cuz, really, how fucking cool would that be? Great experience, too.

Now for that video game nonsense that I promised everyone about a hundred years ago. I was probably just going to sing the praises of Stubbs the Zombie, which I now cannot for the fucking life of me get to play on my computer anymore. No great loss or anything – I torrented it. But let’s see what else I can pull out of my hat for y’all. I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate II non-stop for the past few weeks. It really is the kinds of game that grabs hold and never really lets go. Which reminds me, I still need to grab a copy of Neverwinter Nights 2 for mac, because they finally put that fucker out. Christ on a cracker, they kept pushing back the release date and I thought I was never gonna get it!

So far I have not succumb to Super Smash Brothers: Brawl like every other nerd on earth has. SSB:64 was the best, man. Call me old school, but really. Then I had a brief love affair with Heroes of Might and Magic V a few months ago, but then I got stuck on this one campaign level, and I haven’t busted it out since. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 was disappointing. What is this sandbox bullshit! I mean, in all the other games the sandbox was challenging! You had to work your way up to getting items. Here though… they just throw them at you and it sucks. I suppose that means that, in conclusion, tonight when you’re off getting stoned in your mom’s basement and you need to pop something in to play on the computer right fast, go for anything in the forgotten realms universe. Because D&D never steered you wrong before.

In various other news, I got back from Nicaragua about a week and a half ago. I was staying in Granada with a host family as part of my school Spanish Club. We worked through the whole year, fundraising our asses off, and this was our reward. We got to go to Granada and help out with the school for disabled artists (that was the translation of their name, anyways). It was a little school that took in the physically and mentally disabled, and those with learning disabilities, and gave them art projects to do as well as basic math and grammar lessons. In the morning, they’d learn, and for the rest of the day they’d do crafts to sell. Part of the money went to keeping the school running, and the other part would go to the students so they could make a living.

Now, I walked away with a lot of things from that trip, a sunburn being only one of them. I learned that it is actually possibly for my to live out of my suitcase for two weeks (which has led to me doing an overhaul clean-out of my room), I learned more about the Nicaraguan civil war than I thought possible (god, the U.S. government are a bunch of fuckheads), and as cliché as it sounds, I learned a lot about the power of friendship. You should have seen these students when we went to leave – they were heartbroken. Our group meant so much to them, just the fact that we wanted to be friends. We treated them like people in a culture where they were social outcasts. It was really something else… I miss it a lot, honestly.

I could probably go on for another hour talking about giant cockroaches and bathing with a bucket and really nasty peeling sunburns – but I know you have better things to do. Wish me luck on my possible awesome internship, and then get out of the house and do something! Or just play some of those games I recomended. Cuz really, dude, they’re win.