Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Misadventures part 3: "That" Teacher part 1

So, this one is not really an "adventure" per say, but another hilarious tale of things that happened to me. This is another story familiar with friends. Afterwards, I want you to tell me if you think I handled this correctly, keeping in mind the age (middle school).

Now, in life we don't always get great teachers. I can say I have a handful of great and awesome teachers who taught me a lot about life, college, and how to make sure I was a good person in life. Then, I can say I had plenty of teachers who just taught and were on par. Then I had multiple teachers who were sub par or even bad. And then there's those few teachers who just, no matter what you did, they seem to just not like you and hate your life. This is one such story....



Back-story: So this teacher we shall call Ms. "M". She was my 7th and 8th grade Earth science teacher and she not only hated me, but like 5 other male students in the class. Now, I am not a trouble-maker or hell raiser, nothing of the sort, but when I'm finished my work and have nothing else to do, I will talk and do things that bored unchallenged minds would do. This teacher would constantly give us packets and worksheets and would rarely teach us. By rarely, I mean  if her actual teaching was a pokémon you'd have to use the masterball to catch it. Or if her teaching was a mythical creature, she'd have less sighting than any of the mainstreams ones, somewhere in the range of 1-4 sightings. So constantly I'd get kicked out for dumb things such as I sneezed to loud, I laughed to loud (though in many cases I wasn't laughing), or I appeared to be doing nothing. It got so bad that the other earth science teacher, Ms. Galitzer, would adopt me as one of her own students when Ms. M kicked me out. The other 5 guys, some of them caused trouble or were disruptive, but for the most part she just had it out for us. One kid "Dez" got kicked out because he was walking down the hallway before class. Another kid "T" got kicked out for walking into class too fast. Like these were the "legitimate" things we got kicked out for.
Yes I did watch iCarly


So before I get to the main story, here are other short stories I got kicked out for:

1) My friend "Gerald" wanted some skittles from a friend across the room, and since you just can't get out your seat, he throws his pencil across the room and says "whoops I seemed to have dropped my pencil" and goes and gets skittles. Since I know this kid, I wasn't laughing but I got kicked out for laughing too loud.

2)I got kicked out for doing other class work in her class, though I was finished with her assignments.

3)I got kicked out for assisting a student with a question she refused to answer

4)I got kicked out for...I don't know she just just told me to get out. I might have been sleep in her defense though.

Main story: So this is the one I think I should receive some sort of award for. I prevented a physical altercation AND I came to her for a peaceful resolution. Here's what happened.  AHEM!
Egoraptor FTW

So, this particular day in Earth Science,it was thick packet day. Since me and my partner were two intelligent people,we decided to get things done faster by splitting the work into ground stuff and air stuff. I was good with the air stuff, he was good with the ground stuff. About halfway through class, we were almost finished our packets, sans like one page. It was about now that  I noticed my friend "Dawn" needed help with a packet even though she was across the class. I decided to help her, after being bribed with a pack of skittles (don't judge me. That rainbow tasted awesome that day.)

As I'm over there telling her how me and my partner found the answers, without cheating I must add, I noticed that "T" was up to something. So he sat two rows in front of me and in between us sat a girl "Sheena." Those two didn't get along that well and T was a known troublemaker at time. At this point, I observe him taking his pen and drawing a rather long line up and down Sheena's packet. She wasn't there at the time, she had left to go to the bathroom .  In my mind I'm going oh crap this is going to end badly for him. WRONG!

Unfortunately for me, as I'm coming back from helping Dawn, Sheena had just came back from the bathroom and assumed that I had did the line on her packet. Now we had never had any problems in the past. I never done anything to her nor her to me, but this time she snapped. Without asking me if I did it, she grabs my packet, goes to the trash can.... rips it up and throws it away. She may have also spit on it too...I'm not too sure, I kind of temporarily lost all my marbles.
To many of you readers out there, "demz fighting werds." (western-cowboy accent), and to me too those were fighting words. BUT...but I knew better. Why hurt someone over something fixable, right? *Sigh and count to 10* I decided since my partner had all the answers, all I needed was another packet, and order would be restored to the world. That is until the fire nation attacked...er I mean Ms. M.

I go to Ms. M, "Ms. M, Sheena has ripped my packet, I don't know why she ripped my packet, but may I have another one to work on so I can finish the work?"

This is her response. Oh, by the way she talked very similar to Ben Stein, so yes read in that voice now. "Ryan, you are responsible for you own packet. I cannot give you another packet. Whatever happened to your packet is your fault."
For those who don't know who he is.
"But Ms. M, I don't know why she ripped my packet, shouldn't you talk to her."
"Sheena, did you rip his packet? [yes] Why? [Oh because I thought he had did "this" to it, but it was T.]Okay go back to your seat."
"So, can I get another packet? [No!] ..........................."


"So you mean to tell me that even though she just admitted that she did this for no reason, and it was not my fault, I can't get another packet. I thought I was doing the right thing by asking you for help, but I'm still being blamed for doing this. I'm out!"

Yeah, I grabbed my stuff and kicked myself out that day, otherwise things would have transpired I wouldn't be proud of. But wait, there's more!

So I go across the hall to Ms. Galitzer's class, the other Earth Science teacher, and tell her everything. She's even tells me that was unfair and that she thinks that Ms. M was wrong. She gives me another packet to complete and so I complete it. At this time, Ms. M comes over and is in my bubble now talking about "I don't understand why you're upset, you just can't leave class like that. You need to come back... blah blah blah." This happened for about 5 mins until Ms. Galitzer stepped in and told her that it was okay, let him stay, that Ms. M should re-think why I'm mad.

To top all of this off, the packet I had received from Ms. Galitzer I turned in to Ms. M. She still gave me a big fat ZERO. That's a F for those who are probably trying to figure out what just happened. Her reasoning was that I wasn't supposed to have another packet.
From Swoozie's "Cheating in High school"

This was my 7th grade year...I had her again 8th grade and couldn't get transfer to Ms. Galitzer's class. To this day, I know I NEVER want to see Ms. M again. She personally marred my middle school life and made sure it wasn't pleasurable.

Now was I wrong for not liking her or doing what I did?  Did I deserve that F on that assignment? Let me know. I'm curious.

And I have been forgetting to leave ya'll with quotes so here's to make up for that: "Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed."- Cavett Robert

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Misadventures part 2: Planet Hoth and the Haunted Root Beer



This is one story that people always told me to write down and one I get to tell often. So this is my personal favorite and it all started because of Ramen.

This story starts in 2010-2011 when Maryland had that freak double blizzard. I was attending college at the time and living with my roommates Alex, D.K, and Dan. Now, as any college student knows, you are always poor living on campus, somehow, so a pack of Ramen can be your one meal for the day and you'll be fine. Also, any college student knows that if school closes you have like 2 options: Sit around and do nothing all day or "study" and by study I mean look at your computer screen all day...

On this snowy day, it just so happens that there was only one pack of Ramen left in our whole apartment, which also just so happened to be mine. How do I know? I'm the only one who puts his stuff away in the cabinets way in the corner, plus I've been keeping an eye on it just in case the snow got out of hand-I knew that this was my emergency ration because I don't do the cold thing and I was not going outside until the next day. So I planned out my day as so: wake up late, watch some TV, "study", eat some Ramen, play games, and sleep.  Everything was going according to plan. I didn't wake up until like 10am (because I'm normally up for work at like 7:30) I caught some Teen Titans, and I typed my title on my paper due next week. Everything is on schedule....

At this time I knew it was time to pull out the Ramen. It was close to noon and I figure if I eat this now, I can find some small snacks around the apartment to eat if I get hungry. I open the cabinets, and nothings there. Hmm.... Now I'm slamming through all the cabinets and my buddy D.K comes out his room all pissed like "Why the hell are you slamming things around." Apparently he was sleep and waking up D.K is like the worst thing to do at times cause he gets pissy. It's at this point I'm like "where the hell is my Ramen!?" I turn and D.K is no longer there, and I hear his door close and lock. THAT BASTARD!!! (I knew he had eaten it cause he tried to run). So, now I'm banging on the door like we have nothing to eat what the hell dude, we have to go to the store and get some supplies or else we aren't going to make it another day.

*random aside* This is where in the background you hear the newscaster telling people to stay off the streets, state of emergency blah blah blah....

So, I finally guilt him into walking to the store, but we didn't know if they were open. We call the Giant, which is about 2 miles off campus and they tell us they are closing at 1 due to the weather. We look at the clock 12:15. So we tell the lady we'll be right there and gear up. We put on so many layers of clothing that we looked like Ralphie's little brother Randy from a Christmas story, and we emptied our book bags and headed out. Normally this is like a 30 min walk or a 5 min drive....nope not today. See First off, the apartments we lived in was at the bottom of one steep hill, then the entrance to the University was up another hill, and the entire walk towards Giant was up hill. Fudge.....




So, we start our arduous trek towards Giant, DK and I, and 5 mins of walking up the hill we were already tired, but we see a familiar figure in the distance. It was our friend DS. (We had a lot of friends named David so we usually went by initials because we had a D.A- D.Z literally.)He had nothing better to do so he decides to join us; it was either that or go "study". This was probably the longest walk of my life, the entire time we are making star wars, star trek, video game, and anime references to pass the time (Hence the title). We make it to The Giant parking lot at about 12:50 and we see other college students pushing a cart towards us, full of booze and alcohol. All you heard was, "yeah man gotta do what you gotta do. (Hell yea!)" Now we are walking up to Giant and notice subway is open, do we go here or Giant? How many days might we be stuck? We open the door to subway "What time do you close?" "We Stay open" We'll be right back! Run to Giant, 1pm. Made it just in time. Grabbed as much food as we could and went to check-out. This is when our "college-ness" started to show.

Somewhere in the mess of things we picked up 3 soda packs and were placing everything but the sodas into our book bags, when  you see the cashier face palm herself and say "what's heavier, the sodas or this 'stuff'"? So then we proceed to put the full cases of soda in the book bags. Again she had a face palm moment. "Why don't you take the cans out of the boxes and that way you have more space?" OOOOOOOH. Needless to say she was our savior. After that we ran to subway to take a much needed hour break. This is where the shenanigans happened. Since we had a long walk back I purchased their largest drink and filled it with root beer and started the trek back towards UMBC.


As we are leaving Giant's parking lot we are walking in the street; keep in mind it's not plowed, snow is still pouring out the sky, and you can't really tell the sidewalk from the road anyway, we noticed this car speeding behind us (10mph+) and going towards a huge embankment of snow at the top of the street. So, as fast as we could we are trying to get out the way of this car. And as we do, everyone in the group unanimously looks at the car like what a dick, I hope it doesn't get stuck in the snow.....it got stuck in the snow! Should we help? Okay let's go get this good deed done for the month.




We get up to the window and it's an older lady (maybe early 50s) in a RAV4 with 4x4. As we are putting our cargo down I hear my friend ask "do you have 4x4" while he's looking right at it and this lady says No. *sigh* Alright well let's get this done. Before we started though I made sure to keep my root beer cold by making a snow mound around it on the median in the middle of the street (this is important). Now, we tell the lady when we count to 3 hit the gas as hard as you can. So 1...2...3..... We push as hard as we can but no acceleration from the car. ....................................... soon as we stop pushing she floors it. This happened about 3 more times before a local snow plow with two guys came along. Now we have 5 people and we are going for the final try.  1...2...3... she finally floors and gets unstuck, but guess what she does? Go on, guess. If you guessed she sped off without a thank you, you'd be correct. Even the snow plow people said (and I quote) "wow what a b**ch, she didn't even say thank you, or offer you a ride. We would offer you a ride but you know the salt equipment is in the back." We were cool with that and just vowed that if she got stuck later on down the road, we would just walk passed her. 


Because I was a little irritated, I was just ready to go back, so I left my root beer where I had stashed it. I just wanted to go. So fast forward, we finally get back to campus, make it to our apartment, and me and DK were so spent that we pretty much passed out.

The next day, since DK had a gas powered RC car, we decided we'd go snow drifting, which failed horribly because he didn't have good tired. But, as we are walking out the door, he just stops and points. I almost walked into him about to curse him out until I stop and point too. There, on the chair we leave at the front door, was my giant subway cup full off root beer. I know it was my cup too because I had popped the soda tabs on top in a certain order and you can see the snow marks from the snow igloo I made. Immediately we yell to Alex who has the only vehicle capable of driving in the snow an knew of our adventure. "Did you do this?" No, he was out drinking last night and knew better than to drive in the snow. So we call DS. "Did you do this?" Nope, he had been called by his church to go do something the night before and was all the way on the other side of town. Not knowing how it got there, we called poltergeist and never touched that root beer. 


To this day it would be sitting there if Alex or Dan didn't get tired of seeing it there and poured it out. You know how they say, when you get to heaven you get one question, I am seriously considering asking how that root beer got back in the apartment that night. 

Til next time, Stay awesome

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Misadventures Part 1- The Food Fight Failed

It's been a while since I blogged, and I thought I'd come back with stories of things that has happened to me in my lifetime.  Some things are hilarious, some things are embarrassing, and some things were downright, holy crap I could have died or went to jail (which in one case is what happened). *ahem* I'll save that for another misadventure story. So, for my first story I'm going to go way back to high school and the food fight my friends tried to start.

In high school, I wasn't a cool kid nor was I an outcast kid. I was pretty average and had a lot of friends across the spectrum.  This particular story involves  my two friends, Coop and Derrick, who were known around the school for doing fun but semi-suspendable things in our school such as "Matrix day" and sledding in grand case. Now, initially I wasn't involved in the plan but I caught wind of it, in fact EVERYBODY did. In my High school, if people knew something was going down where their clothes could possibly get dirtied or there wasn't a possibility of a fight they would totally avoid it. I forget what lunch period we had, but pretty much no one was there. Half the people who heard about it bailed and the other half suspiciously had their hoodies up or something to say "I want to see this but don't hit me." So, needless to say nothing happened that day.

After that attempt, I pulled up Coop, who is pretty much the mastermind of these hilarious events, and told him we have to keep it small. We came up with this plan: We only need 5 people to start it-one in each corner to throw towards the center, and one person in the center to guarantee that someone gets hit. This was pretty much a flawless plan because after the first one failed no one was expecting another one to happen so soon. Since I wasn't going to be a thrower I decided to be the point-man /spotter and sit in a center location so a friend could easily find me. Besides Derrick and Marcus, I honestly don't recall who else was involved.

A brief look at the plan



Anyway, the next day comes and we are ready to do this. I'm in the cafeteria, I bought actually food, because A) I don't want to look suspicious and B) I need ammunition for when this thing goes down. I note Marcus is in one corner and so I know everyone else is set except the center guard. Turns out that was Derrick, and he comes flying sitting next to me. As soon as I saw this I knew it was going down, so I got ready. Now Derrick had purchased the sub, the 6 inch nastiness they served us in lunch with  a whole lot of lettuce and tomatoes and other stuff so that when it hit it hit and left a mark. This is when everything went into slow-mo.

Over on the far side of the cafeteria is this one lonely white kid. I point out that he was white because we are a predominantly black school so he was like 1 of 10 white kids, so this made him a good target. I see Derrick lock on to him and pick up his sub and fling it over in his direction. The whole time I'm watching this sub in awe floating through the air in what seemed like an eternity. I'm just waiting for this to hit so the rest of the plan could unfold. Moments later (which it felt like) the sub MISSED. It hits in front of the kid and slides off the end of the table, and the best part is the kid didn't even noticed it happened. Well.... *bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*. That didn't go as plan...and as soon as that thought came out Derrick tried again with his milk that came with the meal. Again we wait..........And Again same thing. Lands right in front of the kid and bounce off, didn't notice. Well even though he missed what about the other 4? Well I turned and see them all miss too. 5 people all missed. What the hell. I looked around for a bit to see if anyone in the lunch room even noticed what had happened and no one seem to care. It was at this point I said "eff it" and walked out of the cafeteria. I was sure that plan would work and somehow karma proved me wrong.

But to this day, that one sub, that missed an entire being by mere inches somehow amazes me. Better yet I am more surprised he never noticed. If you are reading this and you were that kid, and you did notice, you could have thrown something back. Just saying lol
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Editor's note: Apparently one unsuspecting girl was hit in the neck/back of the head with a potato as confirmed by Coop. Video may be posted soon.