if it's not love, then it's the bomb that will bring us together...

oh boy.  well, it's almost may (already!) which is good for many reasons: it's that time of year between when nyc resembles a frozen tundra and when you feel as if you are being cooked on the asphalt like an egg on a griddle, where you can actually enjoy being out and about in the streets of new york.  i have been doing just that; taking every opportunity to walk around town and enjoy the springtime.  it's wonderful.

school is coming to an end, which means i have a ton of stuff due.  at the moment i think i am relatively on-track; however, i feel as if i am in a sort of freeze-frame, and at any moment the film will pick up again and i will find that it is may 7th, and i have a project to present.  hopefully i will not be caught off-guard.  

as for said project, i have been doing a bunch of research and have found the usual disillusionment at the end of the rainbow.  there are some certainties in life which seem to get overlooked, even though they are startling in their predictability.  the bureaucratic, nonsense-ridden, money hoarding nature of the human service "industry" is certainly one of those things.  perhaps it starts with the ridiculous contradiction of the terms "human service" and "industry."  yesterday in my notes i jotted down a line or two about how the funds necessary to run programs such as the one i tutor in are always in the possession of those who least understand what they are needed for.  and in an attempt to explain, somehow or another it always gets reduced to gains and losses, losses and gains, as if human existence could ever be reduced to something so rigid and disembodied.  

why would it ever make sense to shift the emphasis of a program that teaches middle-aged, mainly learning disabled, underprivileged, often disenfranchised people how to read, to the task of attaining scores on standardized tests, the only purpose of which is to generate numbers that indicate someone should continue to pay money to a program which can administer those standardized tests?  what the hell difference does it make if these people can score one point higher than last time on some ridiculous, out-of-context series of questions?  these people want to be able to read a can of spaghetti sauce!  they want to be able to go into the post office and stand on the right line!  they want to be able to read the subway map.  teaching them how to take a fucking standardized test is the most egregious waste of time this side of doing the same thing to children.  

it makes me crazy.  

but that is how this stuff goes.  it's the same deal, over and over and over.  the work of people, the NEEDS of people are overlooked and more importantly, disregarded, in favor of using them to create a series of statistics which can be printed out and taken to a meeting and regurgitated to people who really don't give a fuck, but who are just trying to decide which check to sign this week, or month or whatever.  

have you seen that cable commercial with ed begley jr. (is he desperate for work or what?  those hybrid cars are expensive...)  where the guy is like "statistics can be made to say pretty much whatever you want them to!"  yes.  exactly.

anyhow.  enough of that.  in other news, it's almost summer, as i mentioned.  i am still beating a.b. in fantasy baseball, which is really my goal for that endeavor.  i don't have to win the whole thing, or even be in the top five.  i just have to continue to beat her, and her crew over at chico's bail bonds.  that's right... me and manny, doing it for the people.

the nba playoff's are in full swing, reminding me of how much i love basketball... i even used it as an excuse to work b.ball into my lesson plan on monday.  good times.  

finally, i will be out and about in the lovely weather all week rocking my new Diana+ camera...  so exciting!