Are they really FRIENDS?

Are these really friends, these WWF associates who beat you shamelessly time and time again, only to keep challenging you to further wording duels with merely one goal in mind: to cement your level of embarrassment?  Aren’t these truly (by definition) enemies (a real word, by the way), these alleged wordsmiths, and (come on!) shouldn’t it rather be called the WWE(nemies), instead of F?  Am I a masochist for continually agreeing to lose AGAIN?  (Hit me some more!)

The challenge I choose to embrace is not whether or not I can successfully place my Z in a triple-word square or whether I can find a use for a J at the end of an existing word and use it to begin my new word.  Nor do I choose to define myself by how many successive games I am miraculously able to lose! (Lookout Guinness!)

(does this lady just casually walk in for a manicure to places that accept walk-ins?)

…the real challenge I find is how to incorporate these pseudo/bizzaro words that WWF has blessed as acceptable into real life—namely, mine. 

In the next week, I hope to use the following “words”...

1.     QI means… apparently it’s a variant of “chi.”  It doesn’t even have it’s own definition!  Instead, the online dictionary only defines it’s “variant,” CHI. Definition of CHI: vital energy that is held to animate the body internally and is of central importance in some Eastern systems of medical treatment (as acupuncture) and of exercise or self-defense (as tai chi) Variants of CHI chi or ch'i also qi Origin of CHI Ch (Beijing) qì, literally, air, breath.  First Known Use: 1850. 

How I plan to use it: don’t mess with my QI.  OR, Can I get a grilled QI sandwich? Or, my brother’s fraternity was called Theta-Qi.

2.     Definition of AG (adjective) : of or relating to agriculture <ag schools> First Known Use of AG circa 1918

How I plan to use it: “Because I have a blue thumb, and the 99cent store plant my student got me died the same day she gave it to me (after it had been transPLANTED to my care), I would never pursue AG study.

3.     Op is short for optical art and also... abbr operation; operative; operator, operation, opus.

My near-future use: “I’m having an awesome op today!”  I hope the listener understands my intended meaning: I’m scheduled for a hysterectomy.  You see, to me, never having my period again would be awesome!  What an OPportunity!"
"

4.     Gan is passed tense of GIN, which is short for begin. 

My use: “It wasn’t long after my WWE’s game GAN that I GAN to lose.”

5.     Jane: Slang chiefly US a girl or woman.

My intended use: “Did she have a John or a Jane?”

There are more weird words I’ve discovered in the week and a half I’ve GIN to play WWE.  There’s lee and jo and da and ed and ne and zig and zag (not zigzag.  These are separate).

I’m too lazy to look them all up now because this jane OPts to GIN her AG so I don’t ‘sturb my QI.
 

I also don’t want to look them up now because it’s about that time to return to my newest addiction…  

ABA: Addiction, Bullying, and Abuse: Who's To Blame

A couple of months ago, a colleague of mine walked passed the little autistic boy at our school, “Ben.”  She saw what was going on—that he was being bullied.  She watched how NonAutistic kids, Normal Kids, Kids with Power, circled around him and pointed and laughed and mocked him.  She made it her business.  She intervened.  Here’s what she did: she talked to…

1)   the students who tormented him

2)   the young man in charge of the after-school program

3)  our principal

4)  Ben’s teacher

Weeks later, Ben’s face got bloodied and bruised from bullying during that same after-school program.  She said she felt like Joe Paterno.  What if Ben’d been killed?  No, not dramatic: shit like this happens.

Before all this, I had jumped on the “Joe Must Go” bandwagon.  F-him.  He KNEW about it?  Then I learned of my colleague’s experience and it somehow made sense to me that Joe Paterno must have (mistakenly) trusted that after having talked to his Supervisor, some sort of investigation must have Happened, and it must have been determined that everything was OKAY.  Joe Paterno must have trusted that People in Power took the Responsibility they were Supposed to.  These people get Big Bucks for taking Responsibility.  (They even get big bucks when they don’t.)

My colleague/friend had also mistakenly trusted that things would Work Themselves Out after having relayed information to so many people, including the Head of our School.  They didn’t.  While Blatant Bullying of Ben has (apparently) ceased, just yesterday the Biggest Bully of them all (a little sociopathic twerp) stole Ben’s ball and kicked it over the fence.  I stuck my head in AGAIN.  I told the young man in charge of the program that it was time to kick out the Biggest Bully of Them All because he didn’t deserve the opportunity to get to play freely on the yard.  I have no idea what will happen.  I’m not the Young Man’s Supervisor.  I’m just trying to Intervene. 

I’m embarrassed to admit, that I also jumped on the Fire Everyone at Miramonte! Bandwagon, initially. Somebody had to know Something!  F them all!  Shame on them!  But after all I see going on right before my eyes at my own school, I realize how possible it is that some teachers did express concerns about the Pedophile to their supervisor.  After having done so, teachers must have trusted that People in Power took the Responsibility they were supposed to and Investigated Properly.

What are we teachers expected to do?  Should we bypass our Supervisors and call the police?  I’m tempted to call them for the bullying episodes.  But I’m not in charge and I don’t get the big bucks that go along with it, either.   What’s happening is that people who should be taking responsibility, often aren’t.  It’s easier not to.  It’s easier to live life, I guess, wrongly hoping that things will Work Themselves Out.

The other night at a school function for my son, my partner and I were saddened to notice that a mother of one of the kids in his class was drunk off her ass.  We felt it necessary to talk to people at the school—a responsible teacher who would tell the principal.  Was the drunk mom driving her kid home?  After having talking to a Teacher we Trust, we let go of the situation.  What were we supposed to do, call the police?

It was sad, though, to think of the little girl in our son’s class.  She needs someone to Intervene too.  She needs someone to take Responsibility.  I had flashes of the children of alcoholics I know.  Sadly, who knows when and if such an intervention will take place for my son’s classmate.  Her probable childhood experience also flashes through my mind.  

Whitney Houston And (probably) many of her doctors who perhaps Freely wrote many a prescription for this notable Addict,  as well as the Bullies at my school and their Parents, and Those in Charge at Places of Education, and Alcoholic Parents are largely the ones not taking Responsibility for all of the Sh*t that’s going on.  Taking Responsibility is hard but Must be Done.  

By Removing the entire staff at Miramonte Elementary, our Superintendant tried to show that he was Doing Something.  For that, I don’t fault him.  What he did was Entirely Wrong, but at least he acted.  Hopefully, he will realize or remember, that the tone of a school, an organization, a family is set by those in Charge.  Us underlings Do the Best We Can.  The tail can only wag the dog so hard and for so long.  All these wrongs need to be righted by those who have the Power to do so.