School’s out for summer

The song rang through the office yesterday as students joyously filed out of buildings toward their buses. School is out! We have survived another year. Next year, they will come as sophomores of juniors or seniors and be all the wiser for it. Except “next year” is only two months away! Which got me thinking about the weird crazy world and schedules of schooling.

I don’t live on a typical schedule that is divided in finical quarters and broken up by projects and report deadlines.  I live on semesters and fall breaks and winter breaks and spring breaks.  I live on a schedule of midterms and finals and years ending at the end of May and starting in the beginning of August.  Who cares about New Year’s Eve?  That just means that second semester starts on Monday.  What beginning of a new year?  I’m halfway through my year already!

Being a teacher means thinking about years in a completely different way than most people my age view them.  I am truly at the end of my year right now.  The school year 14-15 is over.  On August 5th, the school year 15-16 will start and my new “year” will start.  And it will be completely different from last school year.  Sure, some of the daily routines and rituals will stay the same, but I will have a new group of students, try new ways to teach them, and have new technology as my disposal.  There are not too many other jobs that I know of that get to basically start fresh at the beginning of each year.  Most people work with the same team year in and year out and work on the same on-going projects year in and year out.  Not that the stability of knowing exactly what to except when you get into the office is a bad thing!  I get to come into school in August with only a vague idea of the personalities that will be waiting for me.

Being a student is very similar, I think.  Students change teachers every semester at my school.  Basically, every 4 months, they get a new set of “bosses” with new rules and policies and procedures.  I know people now who would flipped if a new boss came in every 4 months, but they seemed to deal with it just fine when they were in school.  It just fascinates me how the culture of school is so different from the culture of business and work and career.  Unless of course you’re a teacher.

But school’s out for summer.  Teachers and students get a wonderful 2 month break before we have to head back for the new school year.  Congrats to students who passed all their finals!  Congrats to seniors graduating this week!  Enjoy your break before heading off to college or the military or careers.  And congrats to teachers.  We finished another amazing year!

Mad Max: Hidden Agenda

I wasn’t very interested I seeing Mad Max: Fury Road. I never watched the originals with Mel Gibbson. I never really cared about the world of the story line. That was l, until I read this. Basically, this blog posted about how the new Mad Max movie was part of the feminist movement and had all this propaganda about women’s rights. Their thoughts was that all men and “real women” (their line not mine) should boycott the movie. So of course I had to go see it. 

It was actually a good movie. Like, I actually really enjoyed watching it. First off, Charlize Theron was great. She really carries the movie. Tom Hardy was good as Max, but Theron was the real star. 

Spoilers ahead!!

The movie centers around Theron’s character, a driver for a gang who’s main purpose seems to be to rule their small plot of land with an iron fist. It’s a world with limited water and limited fuel and Immortal Joe wants to keep his property to himself. He deems everything his property: the water, the fuel, the food. Oh, and his harem of breeders, aka young women who he bangs to produce an army of warrior boys. 

Enter the feminist agenda! Turns out that these young women don’ liike being used and abused. They want to go to “the green place” where Theron’s character grew up. It’s an isolated place where trees still grow and is ruled by a matriarchy. They beg Theron to take them and she does. Along the way, they run into Max and fight the bad guys and shit blows up. A lot of shit. I’m pretty sure something blows up everybody 5 minutes or so. 

So Theron and Max and the women are on the run from Joe and his warriors. Finally, they meet up with the old mothers only to find out that “the green place” was destroyed. The only logical solution is to go back to the community where Joe was holed up (because his whole army is out looking for them) and take it over. Decided, they go back, more shit explodes, Theron almost dies, and they kill Immortal Joe. Everyone lives happily ever after. Oh, except the pregnet girl who Joe had cut open so he could save her baby while she was dying. That’s the bad guy in this movie: a dick who values the life of an infant baby boy more than the mother who birthed him. 

So you can see that this movie is dripping with anti-male sentiments (enter sarcasm here). These women want to leave an oppsive tyrant who basically rapes them so he can have more sons. Shame on those women (more saracasm folks). And heaven forbid that Theron held her own in a fight against Max. What is this world coming to?

I really enjoyed Mad Max not because of the supposed feminist twist, but because it was actually a good movie with decent character motivation, great fight scenes, and a pretty believable plot. Can we please just enjoy a movie based on those and not look for hidden agendas?