For Jenn L
For Ms. Jenn L. The rest of you can read if you want, but it probably won't make complete sense if you do.
Hey! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you; my life is full of incredibly interesting things and people to see. And if you believe that one, then you don't really remember me that well.
No worries. As you can probably tell by the length of time between my journal posts, I'm not exactly a timely person, so I don't hold "tardy" responses against my friends. And you're not as uninteresting as you might think. Believe it or not, you're one of the people in our class that I've thought "whatever happened to" about.
Aside from all that, I do remember you at least half-well, m'girl. After all, I think I have a kindergarten picture around here somewhere that has both of us in it. ;)
I'm in a class right now and I make everyone listen to me give a rundown of your posts.
um. Okay. That's just a little weird. Not in a bad way, but still. I'm used to my audience being people that I know right now; friends and family and such. It's an ego stroke to think that I'm writing well enough that someone thinks it's worth even mentioning to someone else, let alone quoting me in whatever limited way. To think that I have an audience outside the one I knew is intimidating ... but kinda cool.
But it's a bit ... strange to realize that you might be talking about what I write to kids who are no older than you and I the last time we were in friends-circles that met at least on the edges (I'm thinking of Jeff and Clyde and Eric, etc.). Not that it's a bad thing. It's just that now I feel like I should always be posting something important and pertinent to their lives as much as my own.
That's not to say that that will stifle my writing or make me post my thoughts any differently. I've always been a performer, in writing. I don't see that ever changing. So, if you feel like sharing anything I've publicly posted, then by all means do. I rarely ever post a private entry--I live out in the open as much as I can.
Speaking of which: I'm going to add your journal to my friends-list after I finish this reply--hope you don't mind. If you like, you can add me back, that way you can also see the posts the rest of the world wouldn't. I'll leave it up to your discretion if you happen to share any of those posts with your students. After all, I'll be just a faceless internet entity to them, so it's not like I fear that they'll go tell it on the mountain and cause me any great grief.
All the same ... It's a pretty cool feeling to think that I have any kind of audience outside the people I currently know in meatspace.
(And I realize "meatspace" is a bit gross, but it gets the point across, doesn't it? heh.)
Besides, your students are a buncha tigers--AND WHO CARES WHAT THE IRONTON TIGER THINK?! HA! ;D
Were you this creative in high school?
Yep. I just didn't show it to all that many. Clyde knew. Mrs. Williams knew, although not in this particular vein. I think Mr. Nucklos (sp?) had an idea, too--his son and I hung around a lot, Ian being my best friend my senior year, and all.
By the way, Mr. Nucklos plays a pretty mean fiddle. Don't know how much that got around, but it's quite true. The whole family is musically-inclined. That's one of the reasons Ian and I started hanging out. He played bass, I played guitar, and together we didn't sound half-bad.
If I remember correctly, you were usually quiet and sort of the artsy-rebellious type.
HAAA! Oh, the years of teenage angst!
You're not wrong. I was the artsy, rebellious type. Tell the truth and shame the devil, I still am, by and large. I have, nearly thirty-five years on from birth, found something of a place in society; but that doesn't mean I'm entirely without my rebellious streak. I still "subvert from within" (which is really rather redundant) when I can. Now-a-days, my artsy side tends to show in how I can help businessmen get their points across to various people. My rebellious side is in fighting the system in ways that make it work more strongly for The People, so to speak.
And there's the writing, which, even I'll admit, I do too little of. MOstly I use the written word to vent my spleen, and such. I wish I was doing more with it, but I'm trying to survive in the adult world, so I'm limited, sometimes. Sad but true.
I love your writing style
Thankya, thankya. That actually means more than I can put into words.
- with the exception of the foul language,
Believe it or not, I know what you mean. There are times when I know that, in my writing, only an expletive will work. Other times, I wish I could find a more graceful way of stating what I mean. I do have a tendency to chalk it up to having a Marine for a father, but I know that's a crutch, for the most part. It's said that one should write what one knows, but sometimes I wish I had read the dictionary more often than I did (and that's the truth--I used to browse the dictionary regularly in school).
but I was in prison for four years so I've pretty much heard it all.
Excuse me while I pick up my face. Is there a story there somewhere? Or do you mean that you taught in prison? Because, holy crap on toast, I can't quite imagine Jenn Lester in prison. I just can't. My brain can't quite find its way through that particular black hole.
(Please don't think I'm judging in any way. Heaven knows I've seen and done some Really Bad Stuff, both in high school and after. I lived on the streets of Columbus for a while, after all. But you ... you were one of the "good'uns," as they say where we come from. I'm having a hard time reconciling that image with the image of you in my memory. Again, there is no judgment on my end. I'm just honored that you so boldly shared something like that with me.)
Did Ms. L / Mrs. M / Ms. L ever know you could write so well?
Yes. Sorta. She's a Ms. L again? Didn't know that.
For a little while after high school, I published my own 'zine, called The Ugly Truth. It was full of my writings. In school, Ms. Lester was ... I hate to say this, because, looking back, she was a good kid, but she wasn't ready to teach anyone with an actual creative writing talent.
I'm not saying she wasn't a good teacher of English grammar and the French language. I'm just saying that her mental sieve wasn't the one to filter students having a creative writing bent. Standard of writing involving the common processes of thesis writing, exposition, etc.--no problem. But true creative writing wasn't her forte.
Mr. Wheeler, now ... That was a man who knew. And he knew me. He knew what I was capable of. At the end of our sophomore year--the very last day, in fact--he told me "Go home and write me a masterpiece over the summer, Mr. Lewis." I eventually wrote something that summer that won Honorable Mention at the SCORES Academic festival in the fall of '89. Not too bad, considering it was a horror story, of sorts--with Mrs. McGuffin's blessing on it, no less.
I don't mind saying this, and admitting that I still get a little choked up: I miss Mr. Wheeler. Badly.
How I wish I could see him one last time.
I still live in South Point.
I don't get back anywhere near so often as I'd like. If I make it back once every two years or so, it means the planets are in optimal alignment. I miss the Point. I've lived in small towns since I left it, as well as big cities, but ... there's nothing that quite compares. I'll always carry part of it with me, true, but ... I dunno. There's nothing quite like it, that I've seen, in there rest of the states. Let alone the world.
I think my goal in life is to die of sheer boredom.
We should all be so lucky. It's no coincidence that there is a Chinese (I think) curse that is "May you live in interesting times." :)
I have a terrific son who is seven and absolutely hysterical. He loves the 80's heavy metal bands and he rocks.
No children for me. As I said, all my kids are covered in fur. There are people I don't mind seeing spawn--and I intend no offense by using that word--and you are one of them. For myself, I would not make an ideal parent. And I couldn't bring myself to be a parent if I knew I would be anything less than ideal. That's just the way I work.
And by the way, ANY KID WHO LOVES 80s METAL ROCKS. They know what's cool.
I teach for the Ironton Tigers.
boo. hiss. And stuff. The Tigers suck!
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I say good on ya. I never completed my teaching degree, and I so wish I had, at this point. Not that I'd teach here in Florida, where the teachers are paid absolute crap for the service they render, but ... I'd still like the chance to help shape a teenager's future.
I burned out hard in college, but that has never lessened my yearning to teach. I envy you, Jenn.
I miss being a Pointer and always go to watch them lose one game a season. I don't think they'll ever win.
YOU ARE STILL A POINTER AT HEART! HA! You should never forget that! I was never a jock, despite that I played baseball (though never for the school). All the same, I still have Pointer pride. We were, and always will be the (under)dogs of the state. There is something to be proud of in that, though I'm not sure exactly what. heh.
I look forward to your posts, they always make me laugh.
For the most part, such is my intent. Always leave 'em laughin', and always leave 'em wantin' more.
I was shocked when I found out you were someone I knew. Funny how the world works, huh?
Indeed. I've searched for our schoolmates online, from time to time. For a while I was on classmates.com, where Kevin Davis and Jeff Ford were, but never heard from them. I've been in contact with a close friend from school who was a frosh when we were seniors. He's doing well for himself and is actually putting out free music on the 'net. But overall, I haven't been much in contact with anyone we went to school with. You'd think such a thing would be easy, really, but evidence proves otherwise.
Then there's the whole thing about how everyone thought I'd come back to any class reunions with a gun, just to even the score of me being in the picked-upon class. And that's patently untrue. I'd never come back to a reunion with a gun. I'm not that kind of guy.
I'd come back with a nail-studded baseball bat. At least that way any target I might choose would have a fighting chance.
That's a joke, by the way. Although I'm not sure how big a joke. ;D
Keep writing!
Will do. As the mood strikes me, anyhow. And you should do the same, chica. Use your LJ for what it's intended. Get crap off your mind by putting it down for others to read/pick apart. LiveJournal is a wonderful tool for clearing the soul. I swear. And you can lock any posts you don't want your students finding along the information superhighway. ;)
--Chris L.
Hey! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you; my life is full of incredibly interesting things and people to see. And if you believe that one, then you don't really remember me that well.
No worries. As you can probably tell by the length of time between my journal posts, I'm not exactly a timely person, so I don't hold "tardy" responses against my friends. And you're not as uninteresting as you might think. Believe it or not, you're one of the people in our class that I've thought "whatever happened to" about.
Aside from all that, I do remember you at least half-well, m'girl. After all, I think I have a kindergarten picture around here somewhere that has both of us in it. ;)
I'm in a class right now and I make everyone listen to me give a rundown of your posts.
um. Okay. That's just a little weird. Not in a bad way, but still. I'm used to my audience being people that I know right now; friends and family and such. It's an ego stroke to think that I'm writing well enough that someone thinks it's worth even mentioning to someone else, let alone quoting me in whatever limited way. To think that I have an audience outside the one I knew is intimidating ... but kinda cool.
But it's a bit ... strange to realize that you might be talking about what I write to kids who are no older than you and I the last time we were in friends-circles that met at least on the edges (I'm thinking of Jeff and Clyde and Eric, etc.). Not that it's a bad thing. It's just that now I feel like I should always be posting something important and pertinent to their lives as much as my own.
That's not to say that that will stifle my writing or make me post my thoughts any differently. I've always been a performer, in writing. I don't see that ever changing. So, if you feel like sharing anything I've publicly posted, then by all means do. I rarely ever post a private entry--I live out in the open as much as I can.
Speaking of which: I'm going to add your journal to my friends-list after I finish this reply--hope you don't mind. If you like, you can add me back, that way you can also see the posts the rest of the world wouldn't. I'll leave it up to your discretion if you happen to share any of those posts with your students. After all, I'll be just a faceless internet entity to them, so it's not like I fear that they'll go tell it on the mountain and cause me any great grief.
All the same ... It's a pretty cool feeling to think that I have any kind of audience outside the people I currently know in meatspace.
(And I realize "meatspace" is a bit gross, but it gets the point across, doesn't it? heh.)
Besides, your students are a buncha tigers--AND WHO CARES WHAT THE IRONTON TIGER THINK?! HA! ;D
Were you this creative in high school?
Yep. I just didn't show it to all that many. Clyde knew. Mrs. Williams knew, although not in this particular vein. I think Mr. Nucklos (sp?) had an idea, too--his son and I hung around a lot, Ian being my best friend my senior year, and all.
By the way, Mr. Nucklos plays a pretty mean fiddle. Don't know how much that got around, but it's quite true. The whole family is musically-inclined. That's one of the reasons Ian and I started hanging out. He played bass, I played guitar, and together we didn't sound half-bad.
If I remember correctly, you were usually quiet and sort of the artsy-rebellious type.
HAAA! Oh, the years of teenage angst!
You're not wrong. I was the artsy, rebellious type. Tell the truth and shame the devil, I still am, by and large. I have, nearly thirty-five years on from birth, found something of a place in society; but that doesn't mean I'm entirely without my rebellious streak. I still "subvert from within" (which is really rather redundant) when I can. Now-a-days, my artsy side tends to show in how I can help businessmen get their points across to various people. My rebellious side is in fighting the system in ways that make it work more strongly for The People, so to speak.
And there's the writing, which, even I'll admit, I do too little of. MOstly I use the written word to vent my spleen, and such. I wish I was doing more with it, but I'm trying to survive in the adult world, so I'm limited, sometimes. Sad but true.
I love your writing style
Thankya, thankya. That actually means more than I can put into words.
- with the exception of the foul language,
Believe it or not, I know what you mean. There are times when I know that, in my writing, only an expletive will work. Other times, I wish I could find a more graceful way of stating what I mean. I do have a tendency to chalk it up to having a Marine for a father, but I know that's a crutch, for the most part. It's said that one should write what one knows, but sometimes I wish I had read the dictionary more often than I did (and that's the truth--I used to browse the dictionary regularly in school).
but I was in prison for four years so I've pretty much heard it all.
Excuse me while I pick up my face. Is there a story there somewhere? Or do you mean that you taught in prison? Because, holy crap on toast, I can't quite imagine Jenn Lester in prison. I just can't. My brain can't quite find its way through that particular black hole.
(Please don't think I'm judging in any way. Heaven knows I've seen and done some Really Bad Stuff, both in high school and after. I lived on the streets of Columbus for a while, after all. But you ... you were one of the "good'uns," as they say where we come from. I'm having a hard time reconciling that image with the image of you in my memory. Again, there is no judgment on my end. I'm just honored that you so boldly shared something like that with me.)
Did Ms. L / Mrs. M / Ms. L ever know you could write so well?
Yes. Sorta. She's a Ms. L again? Didn't know that.
For a little while after high school, I published my own 'zine, called The Ugly Truth. It was full of my writings. In school, Ms. Lester was ... I hate to say this, because, looking back, she was a good kid, but she wasn't ready to teach anyone with an actual creative writing talent.
I'm not saying she wasn't a good teacher of English grammar and the French language. I'm just saying that her mental sieve wasn't the one to filter students having a creative writing bent. Standard of writing involving the common processes of thesis writing, exposition, etc.--no problem. But true creative writing wasn't her forte.
Mr. Wheeler, now ... That was a man who knew. And he knew me. He knew what I was capable of. At the end of our sophomore year--the very last day, in fact--he told me "Go home and write me a masterpiece over the summer, Mr. Lewis." I eventually wrote something that summer that won Honorable Mention at the SCORES Academic festival in the fall of '89. Not too bad, considering it was a horror story, of sorts--with Mrs. McGuffin's blessing on it, no less.
I don't mind saying this, and admitting that I still get a little choked up: I miss Mr. Wheeler. Badly.
How I wish I could see him one last time.
I still live in South Point.
I don't get back anywhere near so often as I'd like. If I make it back once every two years or so, it means the planets are in optimal alignment. I miss the Point. I've lived in small towns since I left it, as well as big cities, but ... there's nothing that quite compares. I'll always carry part of it with me, true, but ... I dunno. There's nothing quite like it, that I've seen, in there rest of the states. Let alone the world.
I think my goal in life is to die of sheer boredom.
We should all be so lucky. It's no coincidence that there is a Chinese (I think) curse that is "May you live in interesting times." :)
I have a terrific son who is seven and absolutely hysterical. He loves the 80's heavy metal bands and he rocks.
No children for me. As I said, all my kids are covered in fur. There are people I don't mind seeing spawn--and I intend no offense by using that word--and you are one of them. For myself, I would not make an ideal parent. And I couldn't bring myself to be a parent if I knew I would be anything less than ideal. That's just the way I work.
And by the way, ANY KID WHO LOVES 80s METAL ROCKS. They know what's cool.
I teach for the Ironton Tigers.
boo. hiss. And stuff. The Tigers suck!
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I say good on ya. I never completed my teaching degree, and I so wish I had, at this point. Not that I'd teach here in Florida, where the teachers are paid absolute crap for the service they render, but ... I'd still like the chance to help shape a teenager's future.
I burned out hard in college, but that has never lessened my yearning to teach. I envy you, Jenn.
I miss being a Pointer and always go to watch them lose one game a season. I don't think they'll ever win.
YOU ARE STILL A POINTER AT HEART! HA! You should never forget that! I was never a jock, despite that I played baseball (though never for the school). All the same, I still have Pointer pride. We were, and always will be the (under)dogs of the state. There is something to be proud of in that, though I'm not sure exactly what. heh.
I look forward to your posts, they always make me laugh.
For the most part, such is my intent. Always leave 'em laughin', and always leave 'em wantin' more.
I was shocked when I found out you were someone I knew. Funny how the world works, huh?
Indeed. I've searched for our schoolmates online, from time to time. For a while I was on classmates.com, where Kevin Davis and Jeff Ford were, but never heard from them. I've been in contact with a close friend from school who was a frosh when we were seniors. He's doing well for himself and is actually putting out free music on the 'net. But overall, I haven't been much in contact with anyone we went to school with. You'd think such a thing would be easy, really, but evidence proves otherwise.
Then there's the whole thing about how everyone thought I'd come back to any class reunions with a gun, just to even the score of me being in the picked-upon class. And that's patently untrue. I'd never come back to a reunion with a gun. I'm not that kind of guy.
I'd come back with a nail-studded baseball bat. At least that way any target I might choose would have a fighting chance.
That's a joke, by the way. Although I'm not sure how big a joke. ;D
Keep writing!
Will do. As the mood strikes me, anyhow. And you should do the same, chica. Use your LJ for what it's intended. Get crap off your mind by putting it down for others to read/pick apart. LiveJournal is a wonderful tool for clearing the soul. I swear. And you can lock any posts you don't want your students finding along the information superhighway. ;)
--Chris L.