Mornings

Dear Internet,

I have always loved mornings.

Okay, that's a lie. As a teenager, I definitely did NOT love mornings. In fact, my appreciation for mornings is a very recent development, within the past year or so. It probably started the first morning after my last practicum, where, instead of sleeping in like a normal person, I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be great to get up at 6:30 every day and have a little bit of extra time in the morning to relax and prepare for the day ahead of me?" And so I did. All summer, in fact, I made an effort to get up early. When your body has become used to getting up at 6:30 and going to bed at 9:30 every night, it's not that much of a challenge.

Many people think it's pretty nuts that my sleeping schedule is like this - after all, why would a healthy adult without children go to bed so early? The night, right before bed, is a time that most people take to unwind from their long and busy day. What I like to do, however, is unwind before my day has started.

This might seem pretty familiar: your alarm goes off at 7. You hit snooze as many times as you know you can before it is officially necessary for you to get out of bed. You groggily jump in the shower, put yourself together, perhaps grab a cup of coffee and a small breakfast, then head out to whatever it is that you do. It's pretty much what I did all of high school.

In contrast, I wake up without aid of an alarm between 6 and 6:30 every morning. Admittedly, getting out of bed is challenging, especially now as we get into the fall season where the sun doesn't rise until later. But once I'm out of bed, I can take it slow. Get ready. Have some coffee. Browse the web. Have a good breakfast. I have a nice, relaxing start to my day. When the clock hits 8:50 (beginning of first period) and it's go-go-go from there, I have the energy to keep going-going-going for the rest of the day.

I like it that way.

Sincerely,

Caro

The Way It Is.

Dear Boston,

Once upon a time, I lived close to you. Close enough, and for long enough, that I tell people that you are my home town. So, you are approximately my home.

This was a tough week.

There have been times this week when I was devastated and times when I was fine.

For me, it's awkward. On the one hand, I don't know a lot of people in the city. On the other hand, I identify as approximately-Bostonian.

Where does this put me?

I don't know.

What I do know...I will remember the moment my sister asked me, on the 15th, "did you hear about what's happened at the marathon?" I will remember how I woke up at 1am on the 19th and randomly decided to check my messages, only to find a message from a friend about the apprehension of the marathon bombing suspects (which, at the time, was "only" a shooting at MIT).

Perhaps we will figure out why it all happened, but probably not.

Maybe we'll wonder forever.

I don't want to make more bricks in the wall, Part 2

Dear Internet,

In the first part of this yesterday, I discussed what I do here at teacher's college and what I don't like about my program. Today, I want to discuss a couple things I do like in addition to how I would personally structure a course here to be most useful to teacher candidates like me.

WHAT I LIKE: This may be a short list but I do want to be fair in these posts - I don't hate absolutely everything about my program here.

First off, I find that most of my professors really do care about our success here and in our future classrooms, and I really appreciate that. Most are prompt about responding to emails and questions, and are always willing to meet outside of class time to discuss assignments or practicum.

Secondly, some of the assignments are useful. Like I said before, the only useful paper I've written was my practicum summaries, but we do have a number of assignments that are not papers. I've created a couple lesson plans and gotten feedback on those, as well as some unit plans and assessments. Assignments where we practice doing things that we are expected to do in a classroom are the most useful, and as you'll see in my following course description, are something I would like to focus on.

Lastly, we have no exams in the traditional sense. I have said before that I believe that teaching is very practical and therefore teacher's college should focus more on the practical, and in this respect they do. Ontario does not have teacher examinations; so, since taking exams is not something we will be expected to do professionally, it is reasonable to not include it in our teachers' education.

MY COURSE PLAN: In general, I would prefer a course focused on practicing skills that are needed in one's day-to-day life as a teacher, including (but not limited to): planning (lessons, units, etc.), understanding what you are teaching, marking, etc. I am going to describe a math curriculum course here: not because I have the most problems with that course, but because curriculum courses are a common component to most teacher education programs. In addition, I will follow the same structure as my program - basically, 1 month class, 1 month practicum, repeat.

Block before first practicum: Each class day is split into half topic and half theory. 

By topic, I mean actual high school curriculum topics. You can't be an expert in everything (personally, my weakest points are vectors and probability/statistics), and there are many people going through the program who have not seen some of these topics in years. So, the teacher candidates (TCs) would create a list of their weak topics they would like a refresher in and an hour of each class would be focused on one of these topics. 

By theory, I mean the kinds of things that are already included in classes here. What kind of assessment to use when, strategies to differentiate instruction, etc. While I disagree with the extent to which it is included in some of our courses, I think that some is definitely necessary to differentiate an actual teacher from a random person standing in front of a group of children talking about math.

Every class (except the first), each TC would bring in a completed lesson plan for the topic discussed in the previous class, hopefully including some of the theory that was also discussed. As part of the theory portion of the class, TC's will take a few minutes to discuss their choices for their lesson plans with a partner and describe how they applied the topics from last class (good practice for interviews, where you would be expected to similarly describe/defend your teaching choices).

The overall project for this block would be to create a unit plan in a pair or group. (This is actually an assignment that we did in real life which I felt was really useful.)

Block after first practicum: The general structure of half-topic half-theory will remain, as well as the lesson plan homework. In addition, each TC would complete a short reflection of their practicum experience describing one successful lesson and one not-as-successful lesson (regardless of whether their practicum was in mathematics).

The overall project for this block would be to create a course outline in a pair or group.

Block after second practicum: Each TC would do another practicum reflection as in the previous block. At this point, all topics that were problematic have (hopefully) been covered, so that part of each class would no longer happen, as well as the lesson plan homework. Instead, that part of each class would be focused on assessment. In-class activities would include creating "rich learning tasks" (another thing we actually do in class), creating rubrics and distinguishing a good one from a bad one, improving on test questions, etc.

The overall project for this block would be to create a final assessment in a pair or group (another real-life assignment).

Final block: Again, the first assignment would be a short practicum reflection. The non-theory half of the class would be focused on technology. TCs would be split into groups, and each class would have the chance to play with a different piece of technology. The next class, they would be expected to have a lesson plan involving the technology they investigated in the previous class. Again, some time each class would be spent discussing the lesson plans, and after discussion and revision, the lesson plans would be submitted for marks.

There would be no overall project for this block, and instead the mark for this block would be based on the technology lesson plans.

FINAL COMMENTS: There you have it, my idea for a general course structure. Obviously, I am not a university professor, so my plans probably have all sorts of holes and terrible things going on in them. If you spot any or have your own ideas for what you think would be better, let me know! This is a topic that I could probably talk endlessly about, so if you feel like talking endlessly, I'm on board.

I'd like to point out the various parallels between what I have described here and the course that I am actually taking right now. As much as I enjoy whining, I do not feel that teacher's college has been pointless. I've come away with ideas of what I like about education, and what I don't like. And isn't the point of education to get students to think critically about what they know and what they are being taught?

Sincerely,

Caro

I don't want to make more bricks in the wall, Part 1

Dear Internet,

I feel like I spend a lot of time complaining (maybe more in real life than here) about teacher's college and how things are run, but not a lot of time talking about what could be changed to make things better. I've been thinking about that lately, and I want to share my ideas with you. This post will be split into two parts in an effort to not make one giant super-post. There are two things I will cover today: a disclaimer, and a (hopefully somewhat objective) description of my program and what I don't like about my experience here.

DISCLAIMER: I understand that this current program has been designed and run and taught by Ph.D.-having experts for many years who have a full understanding of the requirements to be a teacher in my province. I'm sure that they all had very good theoretical reasons for each pedagogical decision they made. I do not even have an undergraduate degree yet, so in no way am I qualified to professionally criticize this teacher education program. My ideas come from a purely practical place, based on my own experiences.

DESCRIPTION: In my teacher education program here, I am studying to be a secondary school teacher. For this program, I am required to take the following courses:

• 2 courses focused specifically on my 2 teachable subjects (for me, math and computer science)
• 1 course focused on preparing me for my practicum placements and constructing my portfolio
• 1 "focus" course of my choosing, meant to give me a particular specialty (for me, teaching Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes)
• 1 course divided into disparate modules focused on miscellaneous concepts in teaching - e.g. assessment
• 1 "course" that is made of different presentations and lectures and workshops each week
• 1 online course focused on education law; and,
• 1 elective of my choosing (for me, using information and communication technology in the classroom)

In theory, these courses would produce a teacher candidate who is well-rounded, with a couple particular courses that set him/her apart from others. Some of the courses are marked on a pass/fail basis, and some are marked with the usual A-F scale. Many of the assessments are reflection-based; e.g. "what does education mean to you?". Most assessments are papers, typically ranging from 500-1000 words. There are no final exams (they consider our practicum placements to be the "exams" in a way).

WHAT I DON'T LIKE: Right off the bat I'm going to say all the papers we have to write. Coming from a math background, where I haven't really written anything substantial for years, at the beginning I found that generating pages of text was somewhat of a challenge. I do not find that most of the papers are in any way meaningful to my future, and are simply an exercise in "how can I fill another half page?" Of all the papers I have written, and will write for the remainder of this month, there has been 1 which I felt was a useful exercise in reflection - my practicum summaries. I found these to be a better assignment than others because it gave me a chance to meaningfully reflect on what was good in my practicum, what was bad, and what I could do to improve things for the future; that is, I produced a document that exhibits my growth as an educator and possible steps for myself going forward to continue improving. Other papers we have been required to write were on what I would call "fluffy" topics - for example, reflecting on times when we have felt prejudiced against and how these experiences will make us better teachers (that particular paper was a little slice of 2-page-single-spaced hell).

Another thing I dislike about my experience here are the focus of the classes. I find that much of our curriculum here is rooted in theory, when teaching is really a very practical field. What I need to know how to do on a day-to-day basis in my classroom sometimes does not line up with what we are taught here. A lot of this, I think, is difficult to avoid: in addition to being very practical, teaching is also very personal. You cannot teach how to teach, you can only suggest particular methods to use to teach most effectively. A professor once told us that "everyone already knows how to teach - they've been observing teachers for years!" So here, we learn the background rules and theory and put names to things we have already seen in action (e.g. differentiated instruction, assessment as/for/of learning). They tell us what these things are, and that we should be using them, but they don't tell us a lot about the "how". How do I create math lessons that can appeal to all different types of learners?

Next post: how I would structure a curriculum class to be most useful to teacher candidates like me.

Sincerely,

Caro

This is for you, Cassy

Dear Internet (and Cassy),

It was brought to my attention this morning (by my friend Cassy) that I hadn't posted in a while! So I am rectifying that. I have a lot to talk about, anyways.

I don't remember specifically what I mentioned about my practicum experiences in October and December, but, long story short, they were not pleasant experiences. In fact, I may or may not have mentioned this, but I was severely doubting my career choice for a while and felt kind of lost. I guess most people probably go through a phase when they're all like "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIIIIIIIIIFE" but I had never really been at that phase before, and going through it so late in my undergrad career was scary.

But don't panic! I kinda have some of it figured out now. There's still a lot of uncertainty, but I figure that's not so bad because I'm only 21. The bottom line of what I'm thinking right now is going to grad school (or trying, at least) after undergrad to keep my options open. Then when I'm done, I can either go on to do some sort of real-world job, or go back to teaching and make more money (hopefully/probably) than I would have without a master's.Win-win? Next goal: get into grad school. That'll be interesting.

Anywho, let me tell you about how awesome my last 7 weeks have been (January kinda sucked because I was in classes, so I'm going to pretend for the sake of this blog entry that it didn't happen). For 4 weeks in February, I was at practicum yet again. I was dreading it a little because of how discouraging my previous experiences had been, but I tried to retain a bit of hope because I would be at a new school with a new teacher and a new subject. And it's a good thing that I did retain that hope, because it was super awesome! I was teaching computer science, and it was just a super great experience that made me think, "hey, maybe I'm NOT totally wasting my time in undergrad and COULD do this for the rest of my life." I've decided (as I have rambled endlessly about in my copious reflection papers) that it's all got to do with the students in the class. Which may seem obvious, but I don't think you can really fully understand the full scope until you're standing up there and teaching. Even between sections of the same course, students change the entire flow of things. Between math and computer science, there was a HUGE difference. I attribute it to the fact that students who are taking computer science are taking it as an elective and are more likely to be motivated in the class, whereas students are forced to take math and likely do not actually want to be there.

So yeah, computer science teaching is super cool but I won't bore you with it too much because, well, if you're not a teacher then you'll be super bored by my incessant rambling. So I'll move on to the next 3 weeks I had after that, where I was teaching back at my old high school. I actually did very little teaching there (I came at an awkward time in the trimester when they were winding down and preparing for tests/exams), but it was still pretty cool. The 3 or so lessons I got to do in an AP calculus class were so worth the boring downtime I had - I got to teach about slope fields, exponential growth/decay, and, most importantly, DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS. I bored the hell out of them by starting that lesson by rambling about all the different uses for DE's and how they're everywhere and so cool and how sometimes you can't find solutions and sometimes you can and sometimes you can only find properties of solutions blah blah blah. (My favourite part about teaching that class was being able to go full nerd at them.) That particular lesson was another moment of "maybe I can do this" - I realized while rambling to them about math that I just loved being able to share with them all this knowledge that I had, like the knowledge was pointless until I was able to share it with someone. Super corny, I know, but it was just so exhilarating and wonderful to share what I know with them.

Another great aspect of teaching at my old high school was being able to live at home. That was great - I got to hang out with my youngest brother and my parents, whom I don't often see any more because I'm in this whole other country and it's hard to get back on a regular basis. Which is funny because I'll be back the first week of May. Then for a weekend in June. And see them all over the July long weekend. So maybe I see my family more often than I think I do (not to mention I live with that sister person of mine currently). But still! Family is cool.

If you finish reading this and are like, "I totally do not understand all the things she's saying about teaching - she loves it, but doesn't want to do it, or does she hate it.....waaaat", that's kind of how I'm feeling right now, so I'm glad that I was able to accurately convey that for you.

I think it's that moment in my blog post where I realize that I've pretty much said everything that I want to say for now but can't think of a good way to conclude it.

Sincerely,

Caro

P.S. Do I use the word "super" enough? Wow.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

Dear Internet,

Happy new year! I am pleased to report that my New Year's Eve was a lovely, low-key night spent with family, and that my New Year's Day was spent watching Fringe (my favourite TV show, in case you were unaware). Today I'd like to take a look back at some of my highlights from 2012 and look forward to what I hope 2013 has in store.

My Top Moments of 2012

1. Vacation in Antigua with My Family

For a week in February, the entire clan escaped the bitter cold of Canada and soaked up some rays in beautiful Antigua to celebrate my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. It was the first time in a couple years that everyone was able to get together, and we all had a great time (minus a couple incidents with Long Island Iced Teas and bumpy boat rides). Here are some of my favourite pictures from the trip.

The view from our room

My sister relaxing on the beach

My mom and sister at the open bar

My brothers and me by the pool

My uncle rocking a flower

My brothers' sandcastle tree

Rainbow!

2. Cooking and Baking

I got a lot more into cooking and baking delicious things this year. Here are some pictures of the menu! Some pictures are currently trapped on my phone (don't want to use data while I'm roaming), so some things  are missing.

Biscuits

Courtney's birthday cake

Dad's birthday cake

Cookie cake with cream cheese frosting

White chocolate fudge squares

Chocolate mousse

Banana muffins with cream cheese frosting

Maple pecan squares

Chicken noodle soup

3. Teaching My First Lesson

January through April of 2012 found me working at a school for the first time ever. Near the end of January, I had the opportunity to teach my first lesson to an actual high school class. If I recall correctly, it was trigonometry applications in a grade 11 university math class. Was this the first in a long, long line of lessons to come throughout my life? Only time will tell!

4. Surprising My Dad on His Birthday

In September, my dad turned 50. My mom decided that, since it's a big milestone, we should all be there to celebrate it, so she flew my sister, my brother, and I from Canada as a surprise for him. He was definitely surprised - although it was hard to tell at the time!

5. Weight Loss

I tend to find this one difficult to talk about, but it was a major part of the latter half of 2012 for me, so I'll discuss it briefly (no pictures, though!). Between May and November, I lost a total of 25 pounds. I was not overweight to begin with...but I saw my habits taking me in a direction I didn't like, so I did something about it. I went to the gym almost every day and counted calories, and now I feel better and more comfortable with myself.

My Hopes for 2013

I haven't organized a particular list of goals or resolutions, but there are a few things I want to accomplish this year.

1. Continue Improving My Health and Body

I am really pleased with the weight loss progress I made in 2012. In 2013, I want to continue this progress a little bit. I don't have much more weight I want to lose - in fact, I really just want to lose what I gained over the holidays. After a couple more pounds, I want to focus on gaining muscle instead of losing fat. My goal is geared towards "fit and strong and healthy" as opposed to just "thin and skinny." One of the first things I have to do this year is to take this and translate it into a better-defined goal (i.e. a quantifiable one).

2. Finish Teacher's College

If you've read any of my other posts in recent months, you know how much I am looking forward to being done with this. Assuming all goes well and I don't do anything stupid, I will be done at the end of April.

3. Improve My French Skills

This term, I started taking French courses again. I used to take French in high school, and was pretty good at it by the time I came to university. I took a French course in my first term, but once my major courses started to take over my schedule, French took a back seat. In fact, until this fall, I hadn't taken a French course in 3 years. I was quite rusty, and still am, but I hope to take a couple more courses and get into the swing of it again. I'd love to someday be fluent - not just because French is a pretty language, but it also opens a lot of doors for teaching in Ontario.

Those are the major things I can think of off the top of my head. 2012 was a great year. A little bit challenging at times, sure, but nothing can be really rewarding if there is no challenge. I hope that 2013 will be at least as amazing as 2012!

Sincerely,

Caro

My Practicum Experience (...so far)

Dear Internet,

For the past three weeks, I have been student-teaching at a high school as part of my B.Ed. program (and we all know how I'm feeling about THAT so far). It has certainly been an interesting experience (in some good ways and some bad ways). Now, I have taught in a high school classroom before, so this experience didn't completely blindside me. The difference between my previous experience and this experience is that this time I was in an applied-level classroom whereas last time I was in an academic-level classroom. For those of you who are not familiar with this classification of classrooms: applied-level is for students who maybe aren't as motivated or strong with math and can't handle faster-paced classrooms, whereas academic is for higher-achieving students.

I knew going into the classroom that it was going to be a challenge - my only mistake was thinking that I was prepared for it. I had learned all these "classroom management strategies" in my classes and I told myself that I could apply them and get my students to learn and make them love learning and inspire them to do great things in math and become their most favourite teacher of all time (okay, maybe that fantasy spun out a little too far into unrealistic-land). Needless to say, I did not quite achieve this. Three weeks with this class and I feel like a bitter old hag who never wants to deal with another teenager ever again. Don't get me wrong, there are a few students in my class who are great and do their work and answer my questions and are generally good kids. Unfortunately, they are not the majority. For my last day tomorrow, I'm going to play a game with them, so I really hope that they actually get into it and that I get fewer contemptuous stares standing at the front of the class.

I know that learning proper classroom management is a skill learned through LOTS and LOTS of experience. I know that I am an inexperienced 21-year-old who, after only three weeks, could not possibly hope to earn the respect of a class of 25 students who do not want to be there in the first place. But it's still disheartening when I get students who cheat on my quizzes and are outright rude to me and pretend they don't hear me when I talk to them. I do my best, but I'm just way too passive of a person to effectively manage students' behaviour right now.

Whenever I complain about something to you, I like to add in a bit about the good side of things so that I don't seem so whiny, and this time is no different. Here is what I liked about my practicum experience.

First of all, I have a really good idea about my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. The thing about working with higher-level students, as I have in the past, is that they can pick up on concepts easily and quickly and lessons do not need to be particularly differentiated. Really, you don't have to be a particularly good teacher to teach these kids. This is not the case with applied-level. With my class, I have learned how to break up my lessons into smaller chunks and give them a lot more time to work through examples on their own. I think I'm starting to get a bit better with the classroom management thing, too, but that will take a lot more gradual improvement over a long time.

Also, despite my complaints above about rude students, I do have a good number of very nice students. If it weren't for these kids being respectful and doing their work and doing well on my quizzes and actually talking to me, I would have gone mad after day one.

In addition, in no particular order:

• I have had a lot of practice with making handouts
• I have organized, planned, and replanned a unit when things did not go as planned
• I have been able to see some friends and my wonderful brother and hang out with Steven
• My friends who are housing me during my practicum are super super nice and have a beautiful home (and make awesome food!)
• I've been sleeping really well (working with these students is EXHAUSTING)

So now I'm torn! I'm definitely ready to take a break from teaching...but I REALLY don't want to return to teacher's college and go back to classes. As frustrating as teaching can be, the classes about teaching are more so. Just a couple more months of teacher's college and I can return to my math.

Anyways, that's all for now!

Sincerely,

Caro

Teacher's College So Far

Dear Internet,

I started at teacher's college (excuse me, the faculty of education) this past week. I'll be here for 8 months to earn my B.Ed. before returning completing my B.Math. There are no words for how tired of school I am. I'm tired of assignments and going to class and putting up with boring classes and annoying profs. Of the 7 total classes I have here, I (so far) feel that one of them will be useful to me.

The problem is that it's a lot of stuff that I need to know but don't care about. For instance, politics of schools and developmental psychology for adolescents...stuff that I should know to be an effective employee of a school, but not necessarily needed to be an effective teacher. But then again, what the hell do I know? I'm a 21-year-old teacher candidate, and presumably these programs have been designed by people who have been working in education for many years, possibly longer than I have actually been alive.

I think my main problem is that I'm frustrated with the format of my schedule and courses. In math, it's easy: you have an assignment every week that you complete and turn in on the same day every week, there are 50 minute lectures at the same times on MWF, one (maybe two) midterms not quite midway through the term, and a final exam at the end always worth at least 50%. My classes here follow a much stranger schedule (some have 2 two-hour blocks in a week at different times, some are 1 hour and meet once, etc.) that I'm not sure I'll ever get used to (much less memorize). Assignments that are worth marks are sporadic. Most classes require some sort of reading for every class. And I'm pretty sure I don't have any midterms or exams or tests (which, I suppose, is a plus). Really, I'm mostly annoyed with the reading. For example, I have a class tomorrow (that I of course put off doing the readings for) that wants me to read about 5 15ish page papers on equity in classrooms. I looked at that earlier and just thought, that is not going to happen. It's one of those things where, the more work you have to do, the less you're going to do.

But that's enough complaining. Here's what I LIKE about being here so far.

• I'm living with my super awesome sister in a super awesome house
• I have an opportunity to get to know the girls in my program a lot better
• My prof for my math teaching class is really awesome and I've already learned a lot from him
• After I finish teacher's college, I will be in the home stretch of finishing my degrees

I guess that's about it! I'm off to contemplate doing my course readings and probably just play The Sims instead.

Sincerely,

Caro

Short Story Time!

Dear Internet,

When I was in high school, I enjoyed writing short fiction stories for fun. Unfortunately, since coming to university, I haven't done a lot of writing. I just stumbled across this story I wrote back in 2010 though, and I really enjoyed re-reading it, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Sincerely,

Caro

The Hardest Thing

The funeral, he decided, was the second hardest thing he had ever done in his life. Looking back over the years made him realize this definite and uncontested fact. Most definitely, the funeral was the second hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

It was a drizzly day in mid-March, the kind that is nearly cold enough for snow but Mother Nature decides to drench the world with freezing rain anyways. Most of the attendees at the graveyard were wrapped in huge coats, clutching umbrellas as close to them as possible, as though it could offer some meagre amount of warmth. He wasn’t, though. He thought that it was poetic and well-befitting his misery to stand in the freezing rain with little more than his sportcoat to protect him from the elements. He regretted that decision, as poetic as it may be, because he did not find that the fact that he was physically miserable helpful towards the fact that he was emotionally miserable at all. The rain simply made him cranky in addition to being inconsolably depressed: a dangerous combination.

The priest at the head of the grave seemed not to notice the rain or the cold or the discomfort and general unhappiness of the people around him. The priest, let it be known, had an interesting theory that there was a perfect balance of sullen and cheery that best serves the mood of those who are in attendance of a funeral, especially when the funeral is made particularly sad and morose by the untimely death of the subject. He had a small, sympathetic smile on his face that most of the attendees, and most particularly the man with no coat or umbrella, hated the moment they saw it.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...”

He was numb. At this point, he wasn’t entirely sure if it was from the cold, the copious amount of drugs he had been taking ever since her death, or the fact (that he had quite conclusively decided) that his soul was as dead and gone as she was. In fact, he had decided that not only would he never love again, he would never feel anything ever again. He was annoyed (and only a little bit relieved) to find out that he could in fact feel emotion again: he was quite angry at the priest, and wanted more than anything to shove his fist into the small, sympathetic smile on the priest’s face.

He turned a deaf ear to the entire affair. He stood there, nodding every so often as so-called friends and family approached him with empty words of sympathy, and soon everyone had dispersed, discouraged by the rain and cold to linger for too long. The coffin had been lowered into the large hole in the ground, and the men who intended to fill the hole (as quickly as possible due to the condition of the weather) stood a respectful distance away. After what seemed like a long time to those men, he nodded to them curtly, and walked briskly towards his car.

He felt fine on the drive home. He felt fine as he unlocked the door to their – his – house, and he felt fine as he locked the door behind him and hung the keys up on the hook. He felt fine, in fact, until he noticed the ridiculous stuffed animal she had always insisted on keeping in their tiny living room. When he saw that goose, he felt all the feelings at once, and it was overwhelming. He fell to his knees, crying and silently screaming, shoving his clenched fists into his eyes. She was gone, but that ridiculous stuffed goose (of the Canadian variety) would stay there with the ridiculous smile on its face, sitting ridiculously on her favourite couch, staring at him ridiculously every time he entered the door. But she, she was gone, and would never again smile at him, or sit on her couch, or greet him when he returned home.

He stood, furiously grabbed the goose by the neck, walked outside, and threw it with all his might into the forest by their house. He screamed in triumph, walked back into his house, and proceeded to get ridiculously drunk.

When he awoke the next morning, he decided that the only explanation for his current misery was that he must be dying. His head ached, he was about to vomit, and his entire body ached as though, well, as though he had gotten ridiculously drunk the night before. By late afternoon, he was more or less back to his new usual level of misery, and he found this satisfying in a queer sort of way. He made himself another mug of coffee, and decided that he would get ridiculously drunk again that night. Before he could even begin reaching for his next trusty bottle, he was frozen by a sound that he heard outside.

He walked towards the door, and paused before opening the door. He had a brief, powerful vision of Claire standing at the door, bruised and bloodied and broken, demanding to know why he didn’t help her, why he wasn’t there to help her. He wrestled with himself, emotion versus logic, and finally he opened the door. Standing at the door was not Claire, but an average sized Canadian goose. He jumped back in surprise. The goose simply stared at him. He looked at it for quite some time, and eventually came to the decision that it was waiting for something.

“Hi?” he said uncertainly. The goose honked curtly, then fell silent again, and continued to stare at him. He approached it slowly, but when he came within a few inches of the animal, it backed a short distance away and hissed. When he withdrew back into the doorway, the bird approached again and continued to stare at him. He sighed.

“Well, you might as well come in.”

He thought he saw the bird nod, and it walked past him into the living room, where it sat in Claire’s favourite chair. He looked at it, too stunned to really comprehend what was going on.

“As long as you’re going to be here, do you want something to eat? I might have birdseed or something.”

The goose stared at him.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

He decided to ignore the bird, as he was clearly imagining things. Probably a combination of the alcohol and the drugs he had been taking recently. He went back to the bottle of whiskey that he had been in the process of opening before he was so rudely interrupted by his hallucination. He turned around, bottle in hand, and suddenly the bird was in front of him, looking into his face. He was so startled that he dropped the bottle to the floor, where it loudly crashed and made a mess of the floor. The goose seemed satisfied, and returned to the living room.

“What the fuck!” he yelled loudly, anger flaring and pulsing in his mind. “Fucking bird!” There was a disgruntled honk from the other room.

“There is no fucking way a goose, in my living room, just honked disgruntledly at me.”

Ignoring the fact that he was now talking to himself, he cleaned up the mess he made, muttering to himself the entire time.

“Happy?” he called, “That was our best bottle of whiskey. Cost a pretty penny, that did.”

There was silence from the other room.

“Yeah, okay, it wasn’t that special. It was just your regular 20 buck bottle from the liquor store. You got me, okay? I was lying. Damn bird.”

The bird was in front of him again, as though irritated by his name-calling. It stared at him expectantly. He backed into a corner.

“Yeah, okay, I’m sorry. You’re a beautiful bird. Exquisite really. A paragon of your species. Happy?”

The goose appeared to nod again, and walked back into the living room.

“I have got to stop doing so many drugs.”

The bird was still there a few weeks later. He had taken to calling it Bobo, the name that Claire had given to her stuffed version, and it seemed to like that. He fed it scraps of bread, and it seemed content with mooching his food and warm house and occasionally scaring the shit out of him. Somehow, the bird’s presence was comforting, and soon he found that the apparent hole he had felt in himself since Claire had passed didn’t ache and burn as constantly.

One morning, he arose groggily, and walked into the living room.

“Hey Bobo, I was thinking we could watch some football today, how would you feel about that?” There was silence, and he gazed around the room and found that it was empty. “Bobo?”

On closer examination, he found the bird outside his front door, staring at the door expectantly and holding something in its beak.

“How did you get out Bobo? What did you find?” He reached forward, and the bird gently placed the item it was carrying into his hand. The stuffed goose. It was a bit wet and dirty, but surprisingly intact. He looked at Bobo, who nodded his mysterious goose nod, turned around, and waddled away. That moment he knew, staring at the slightly damp and dirty toy in his hand and watching the only strange comfort he had had in the past weeks walk away from him, that that would be the hardest thing he would ever face.

Life Update!

Dear Internet,

It's been a rough couple of weeks. It's like one of those days where it seems that you never had a chance to stop working and relax...except stretched out to 3 or 4 weeks. Between assignments, midterms, travelling, having an annoying cold that won't go away......it's pretty exhausting. Just when I think I've caught a break, something else seems to pop up. This upcoming week is looking pretty empty, though, so I'm holding my breath and hoping that it stays that way.

On a less whiny note, my weekends have been pretty cool, even if the weeks in between them are stressful. I try to do something exciting at least one in a weekend. This past weekend, Steven and I went out for sushi and I went to my friends birthday party (wasn't expecting to have much fun....ended up not getting home until 6am the next day). The weekend before that was the long weekend, and I went home and hung out with my family (always a good time...every time I go home it feels like I never left). Not sure what shenanigans I'll get up to this weekend, but the weekend after that I'm going on my annual trip to Stratford, Ontario with my mom and sister to see some awesome plays. We've been doing this for...5 years now, I guess. It's a lot of fun to explore the adorable little downtown area, hang out by the river, eat delicious food....oh, and watching the plays is pretty cool too. Typically we try to see a musical and 1-2 Shakespeare (my sister and I have a love affair with Willy's plays dating back to high school). Long story short, Stratford is a cool place to be.

Some more life updates (I assume whoever reads this blog is interested in knowing about my life even if I'm not being particularly entertaining):

• Getting ready to enroll at teacher's college for the fall and winter, where I will complete my teacher's college bit of becoming a teacher.
• Doing classes and stuff still. Still going well.
• Steven has an electronics business now, and it's going well! Check out his blog here.
• Been doing the healthy-eating, gym-going, calorie-counting thing. For those who know me, I am obviously not overweight, but I figure I should try to do the improvement thing NOW while I'm pretty young and my metabolism isn't shot (plus eating less food = buying less food = $$). I've lost nearly 10 lbs since the end of May when I started.

That's all for now, I think! I hope you enjoyed my update :)

Sincerely,

Caro

Why I Love Teaching but Hate Students (Sometimes)

Dear Internet,

I am currently nearing the end of my first teaching experience ever. Since January, I've been teaching and tutoring at an independent school in Ontario. It has been a great experience, and I have learned a lot. Here is the main thing that I have learned about teaching: students are a pain in the ass.

Never trust the students! I learned this the hard way. I was covering a class the day before March break, and a student who walked in late (red flag!) asked if he could skip and go pack instead of doing the worksheet in class. I was unsure, and (stupidly) said it was okay. Marked him present on the attendance, and didn't think anything more of it. A couple minutes later, I get a call from the attendance office, asking if I knew where that particular student was. I admitted to letting him go pack, and was informed that he was just spotted walking down the hall chatting with some girls. I got chewed out a bit for that. Sadly, I didn't remember his name, so I was not able to track him down and yell at him later.

Another time, I emailed a student to remind him about an extra tutoring session that we had scheduled. In the email, I accidentally said that the time of the session was an hour later than we had originally said. I emailed him again, once I realized, to correct the previous email, but as he never responded to either email I didn't know what time he would think our session was. So I go to the library for 6, he doesn't show up. I figure he missed the second email, and will be showing up for 7. I hang out for an hour, and by 7:15 I decide he's not showing up and leave. I send him an email letting him know that he missed his tutoring session, and he replies later, saying that he was there for 7 and didn't get my second email correcting the time. I called him out for lying, since I was there at 7, and he had no response for me. Since apparently the students aren't held accountable for missing tutoring sessions, nothing came of it.

The biggest thing that makes me mad about students is that some (not all) show zero motivation to understand what's going on in class. I had one student who stopped me mid-explanation and told me that he didn't care about the explanation of something and all he wanted was the formula. Then he was angry when I told him that he would be expected to know how to derive the formula on a test.

Teaching is frustrating when you look out into the class and see a mix of blank stares and sleeping faces looking back at your (or not, as the case may be). Sure, every student should not be expected to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for every single class. Hell, I don't always pay full attention in my university classes. But from the other side, it does not cease to be frustrating. Here I am, standing at the front of class with the sole intent of getting these students motivated and learning to prepare them for their futures, and all I get in return is blank stares.

I don't just want students to be able to find answers to questions - I want them to understand the question, to understand the process of finding the answer, and understand what the answer is and what it means. I know very well that most of these students only take math because they have to, and most won't continue with it through university. But the skill of knowing how to solve and approach analytical problems is important and applicable to any professional setting. All I want is for these students to learn, but all they want is to get a good grade with minimal effort.

That being said, it is a glorious moment when a student finally understands something that has been eluding them. No matter how apathetic that student is, his or her face lights up and even if it is just for a fraction of a moment, they are excited to have figured something out. That fraction of a moment - that tiny millisecond that we teachers hope to multiply into a love of learning - makes all the other crap we have to put up with worth it and it is why I love teaching.

Sincerely,

Caro

The "True" Meaning of Christmas

Dear Internet,

The other day, I noticed that an acquaintance of mine had posted a link to her new blog on Facebook. Being bored and nosy, I decided to check it out. The first post was about the "true meaning of Christmas." The first few paragraphs were about how it seems that people have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas, how easy it is to forget the true meaning of Christmas in this day and age, etc. She didn't get to what she thought the "true meaning of Christmas" was until maybe about halfway through, and when she did I was so surprised I spit my drink all over my screen. Or probably would have had I been drinking anything. I was expecting something like "spending time with family," or "taking time to appreciate all we have," or something sentimental like that, but I should have known better. Who is it that spends all kinds of time spouting off what the absolute and true meaning of Christmas is? Christians. She said that the true meaning of Christmas was the birth of Christ. I was quite taken aback by how fervently religious this girl seemed to be, since none of my encounters with her had ever hinted at it.

But I'm not one to go about bashing Christians (I used to be one myself, don't ya know), and that's not what this post is about. I am following her lead and discussing the "true meaning of Christmas," or, at least, what Christmas means to me. (If you haven't gathered yet, it's not the birth of Christ.) My favourite part of going home for Christmas? Seeing my family. I don't think that I appreciated them when I was still living at home quite as much as I do now that I never see them. I'm not sure what I would have said the "true" meaning of Christmas was back when I was still living at home, but family might not have been #1. I love hanging out with my siblings, chatting with my parents, and being with everyone at the dinner table. I love handing out presents from under the tree on Christmas morning while everyone is still half asleep. I'll even put up with going to Christmas mass (up to an hour early so that we can get good seats) because I know that it makes my dad happy. And, of course, I love seeing my dog again (the big lug sleeps with me in my bed when I'm home because I'm too much of a softie to kick him out, even when he takes up the whole god-damned bed).

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited to be on my way home for a few weeks in just 2 days' time. The last time I saw most of my family was back in October, and I haven't been home since August. I'm pretty sure this is the longest amount of time I've been away from home, so I'm beginning to feel a bit homesick for the first time since first year. I just have to get through one more exam tomorrow afternoon, then I'm headed home Thursday morning.

I wish everyone a happy holiday season!

Sincerely,

Caro

Housing Conundrums

Dear Internet,

Yesterday, I received an email from my current landlords requesting that we tell them ASAP whether or not we plan on signing on for another year so that they can begin advertising our place, if not. That's a legitimate request from a landlord...except for the fact that they are making it 4 months into our 12 month lease.

From their perspective, it's a good idea. It's a university town, and there are a lot of students who will want a lease starting in September. Lots of competition, so they want to get in the game early.

From my perspective, though, all I can think is that, had I signed on for another year with my former roommates after 4 months, shit would have hit the fan harder than it did. If you recall, things went bad fast with my previous roommates just 4 months before our lease was up. While I am optimistic that something like that won't happen with my current roommates, you can never be sure of that sort of thing. I don't want to be lamenting signing on for another year next August. Not to mention the fact that I won't be around 8 months next year due to my upcoming stint at teacher's college in another town. Is it really wise to sign a 12-month lease for a place where I will be living for only 4 months?

I'm hoping my brother, who will be here next fall and winter terms, will take over my lease for me, but I can't expect that because, well, he'll want to live with his own friends and not mine. If he doesn't want to take the lease, I'll have to choose between signing on and finding sublettors for each term and simply not signing. While wiser from a financial perspective, I don't want to stick my current roommates with having to find a replacement if I don't sign.

What a pickle! I was hoping I could put off this decision at least until the winter term, but it's looking like my landlords are going to be rushing my decision.

Sincerely,

Caro

The Right Answer

Dear Internet,

As a math major, I find that many of my mathie friends are resistant to the idea that I would choose to take an English course as an elective instead of, perhaps, a class that does not require the writing of essays.

I questioned my choice, too, nearer to the beginning of the term and particularly when I was writing the first essay due in the course. It seemed like a lot of work to choose to have on top of some demanding major courses; not to mention the fact that you can never find "the right answer" in an English class!

I found that frustrating nearer to the beginning of the term. Class time consists mostly of superficially fruitless discussion. By the end of class, there is never a conclusion to be drawn about the text we read as a whole. What the hell is the point?

I discovered that point today, and it is really quite elegant. We discuss the stories to help each other think more deeply about them, and then - and this is the best, most beautiful part - we find our own "right answer." And each person's "right answer" can be different from each other person's "right answer!" And that is perfectly fine! In fact, it's encouraged! For the first time in a long time, perhaps for the first time in my life, I feel that I am being taught how to think for myself instead of the "right way" to think.

I do not, however, find this to be contrary at all to my love of math. I love to find "the right answer." I love to be told that I have found "the right answer." I love solving the puzzles presented to my by my professors. This leads me to propose that, fundamentally, there are but three differences between math class and English class:

1. Math class presents puzzles in the form of logic and mathematics, whereas English class presents puzzles in the form of stories and essays.

2. Math professors have "the right answer" to the puzzles. English professors do not.

3. In math, you are graded by the correctness of your answer. In English, you are graded by how well you can argue that your answer is right.

It is because of this I argue that every math student should take English classes and vice versa. Math teaches you to always search for the truth. English teaches you that, sometimes, the truth is what you make it.

Some people will disagree with this. Perhaps your truth is simply different from mine.

Sincerely,

Caro

A Busy Summer.

Dear Internet,

Well, the summer term is in full-swing, and damn is it busy. Several assignments per week, plus English readings, plus two marking jobs, plus the occasional essay and midterm have made this term fast-paced and stressful thus far. This month, in particular, is ridiculous. Not only do I have something due nearly every single day, but my weekends are booked as well. Last weekend: first aid training. Weekend before that: Hitchens debate. This weekend: traveling to Boston for the weekend. Weekend after: orientation stuff.

Not only is it busy, but it's also HOT. This is the first summer in my life that has been/will be spent nearly entirely living in an apartment without air conditioning. We've had a few ridiculous heat days so far, and let me just say that I really hope that they continue to be sporadic and don't last the entire months of July and August (although I'll be home for most of August anyways). At least it's not Toronto - that was utter hell, in case you missed those entries from last summer.

I don't really have very much clever to say because all the work has robbed me of the ability to think properly. This is the busiest summer I've ever had. I would just take it day-by-day, but there's so much to do that I have to always be thinking like 2 days in advance. Luckily for me right now, that means that my mind is in a place where my work for the week is done. Now I just have to wait for time to catch up...

Sincerely,

Caro

A Long Overdue Post

*Note: this was originally written back at the beginning of March when this was going on. I decided not to post it in the hopes it would blow over. But that didn't happen. And now I've moved out*

Dear Internet,

I am in the worst situation right now. Honestly, I should have seen it coming. Let's go back to where it all started.

I have been living at my current place for about 6 months now. There are two problems that I have consistently: our internet sucks (cap at 60GB that we always go over that my roommate in control of the internet never "has time" to get changed), and apparently I'm the only university student in existence who likes to keep a clean apartment. These aren't typically huge problems. It's frustrating when I have to pay between $30 and $40 every month for internet when I know that there are better options out there, but come May/June our soul contract with our ISP ends and I can finally choose a better option. Had I been living here and not in stupid Toronto last summer, I would have been able to prevent this problem. Oh well. As for the cleanliness problem, every few weeks I find the time to clean, and in between I often leave notes for my roommates asking them to take care of a chore (our schedules are very different and I barely ever see them, or I would ask them in person), and this has seemed to suffice pretty well until now.

Now, to the current problem. Our lease ends at the end of April, so our landlord asked us last month if we were planning on staying on for another year. If we weren't, he wanted to start advertising the place ASAP. We decided to stay on for another year. We have not yet, however, signed another lease. Just yesterday, chatting with one of my roommates online, she lets it slip that she doesn't think that she's going to be able to stay another year. This is extremely inconvenient to everybody else in this situation. At this point in the term, it would difficult to find somebody to take her place for the summer; difficult for me and our other roommate to find somewhere good to live starting in the summer; and difficult for our landlord to find tenants starting in the summer. I tell her this. She flips out, claiming that I don't care about any of these family problems that she is having (problems, I might add, that she did not tell me about before). I tell her (admittedly rather rudely) that she should calm down and that I didn't know about these problems that she had.

Then, she decides that now is the time to tell me that basically she's been angry at me for over a month. I quote: "Seriously Carolyn I have been biting my Tongue since early Jan ..... Instead of actually talking to [us] you have decided that leaving passive aggressive notes was the best way to deal with things people respond better to kind words and conversations." Because obviously, she is such an expert with "kind words and conversations," as she is exemplifying by vilifying me over Facebook. I'd like to mention, again, that we all have very different schedules and I had decided that leaving notes for them to read and deal with when they had time would be the best alternative to struggling to talk in person. Do you have any idea how angry I am that she decided not to communicate her unhappiness with me at all (not even through passive-aggressive sticky notes!) and let it arbitrarily explode?

It is so hypocritical of her to decide that my leaving sticky notes for communication is not okay, but bottling up her anger with me and allowing it to come out on Facebook is perfectly acceptable (even though, as she says, "people respond better to kind words and conversation"). Her response when I called her out on it? "I bite my tongue because I hate confrontation and you know that, but I am done being bullied." So bullying = leaving notes for roommates and expecting them to do a fair share of the chores, but attacking somebody on Facebook is perfectly legitimate.

Before this happened, I was already planning on asking them to get together with me for a meeting, as I had drawn up a potential roommate agreement and was hoping we could take care of some of these problems. At the time, the only problems I was aware of were that the place is never clean and it stresses me out, and they picked a crappy internet service provider in my absence.
Now, I didn't think that our other roommate, J, was having the same problems with me as she was. The reason I thought this: I see J more often than her, and he's never said anything to me about being unhappy with my methods of communication. However, after the argument with D (the first roommate), I wrote an email to them proposing a meeting and attaching the roommate agreement I had written so that they could look it over and decide what they liked and didn't like about it before the meeting, with the intention that at the meeting we could draft up a final version together that would help to take care of some of our problems. Finally, I asked them when they wanted to have a meeting.

So far, I've passed a few emails back and forth with them about it. The gist is that they have both now decided that they're going to be jerks to me because of problems that they never tried resolving with me in the past; they're mad that I've gone ahead and done a draft because apparently that means to them that I am trying to control everything; and they won't tell me when they want to meet. I attribute that to the following reason: they are children who are incapable of making adult decisions for themselves and who will avoid conflict wherever possible, even when it results in an utterly horrible and undesirable conflict situation such as the one in which we currently find ourselves.

What makes me angry is that they're mad about me being controlling, when I wouldn't have to be controlling if they would get off their lazy butts and do anything. For instance: dishes barely ever get cleaned unless I request that it is done or I do it myself; trash barely gets taken out unless I request that it is done or I do it myself; we would never get together to discuss things that are going on unless I organize the entire thing (i.e. come up with a date/time, propose the date/time, and work things out with people's schedules from there). They need to understand the difference between controlling and initiating. If they would step up and take responsibility for themselves as adults, they would understand this.

I would love to tell them all this. In fact, I would love to look them in the eyes then punch them in the face. I would love to call them out for being all the horrible things that they are. Sadly, however, I have to live with them for at least 2 more months. I don't think that there is anything salvageable left of our friendship, which I would be disappointed about if I didn't hate them so much right now. In fact, part of the reason I am writing this is that I hope they will see this and know exactly what I think of them, which is extremely passive-aggressive and possibly hypocritical of me but I'm too angry right now to care. Instead of saying this to their faces, however, I have to grovel to them via email so that living together will be even slightly bearable.

The problem now, however, is that I need somewhere to live this summer and I don't want to move...but I don't want to live with them either. I've been checking out various apartments online, and while I would love to live in a single bedroom place where I can keep things as clean as I want as consistently as I want without idiotic, childish roommates, the rent for one bedroom places is much too high for me to afford (nearly twice what I am paying now).

Is a clean apartment really so much to ask for?

Sincerely,

Caro

Lesson and Fun Fact of the Day #2

Dear Internet,

Lesson of the day: When you enjoy what you do, it's never really work.

Fun fact of the day: My boss had to tell me to stop working and go home yesterday.

Sincerely,

Caro

Lesson and Fun Fact of the Day #1

Dear Internet,

Lesson of the day: A lot of students think they can get away with not reading directions to assignments and just do them however they want.

Fun fact of the day: I failed a lot of students in the assignment I was marking today.

Sincerely,

Caro

P.S. I want to try to see how many of these I can come up with on consecutive days. Because I've just told you this, I will fail at it.

Vacation Wisdom

Dear Internet,

I just completed one of my assignments for my professional development course (I am required to take a certain number during my work terms). Do you think it's redundant that one of my goals is to make better goals? We'll see what they think of that.

Anyways, in other news, just recently I got back from an amazing break. I went home, and had a great time (what a shocker). Showed my old friends how awesome I am (at least, that was goal), partied with my siblings, hung out with my family, celebrated Christmas the awesome way, then eventually came back here to Canada. When I came back, I hung out with STEVEN and we celebrated New Year's by killing zombies.

Although I did have a good time over my break, I must say that it was an educational experience. At least, there was one thing that I learned that I feel I will share with you.

Never be the last person in a house of 14 people to shower.

Sincerely,

Caro

Vandalism == Marketing?

Dear Internet,

Over the past few weeks/months (time really all blurs together when you're a university student), there have been little symbols spray painted all around my university campus. This symbol has been painted onto benches, walls, even the ground, and you can't escape it. Understandably, the entire student community has been pretty angry. Someone has been going around and vandalizing our school that we pay a lot of money to attend. This isn't like high school where everyone who thinks he's cool hates school/community/government/society ("Yeah dude! Stick it to the man! Graffiti is art, yo!"). Most students at this school are here because we like the school (or are strangely masochistic and enjoy paying money to an organization to make us feel stupid). The worst part was we had no way of knowing what this was, what it stood for, who put it there, etc.

Then, just the other day, it comes out: the symbol is a logo for a clothing company called "Incognito." A website is released, as well as a Facebook page, and everyone goes "oooo mysterious, I'm interested by your lack of information, not to mention your sexy anti-establishment actions." Except not. A website is released, and because most of the students at this school are far from technologically challenged, the name of the person who has been doing this is found quickly. Turns out that he is a student here. I imagine that he has, at this point, been turned into police services on campus for being a stupid vandal.

What's funny is that I found all this stuff yesterday...and I go to look at it again today, and the Facebook page as well as the guy's old blog has been taken down, but it was still available in Google's cache at the time of writing this.

If you scroll down somewhat, there is a post that contains a picture of the guy holding examples of the spray painted symbols. He might as well have been trying to get himself in trouble.

I think about it and I just think it's absolutely ridiculous. I mean, say someone creates a new clothing company. If he had the following marketing choices:

a) Legitimate means, such as actual advertisements
b) Incomprehensible vandalism

who would actually decide that b) was the best answer? If this guy had gone with a), at worst his marketing attempts would have been unsuccessful and he'd be a failure. Instead, he now has the potential of getting into legal trouble, not to mention an entire campus of 31,000 -ish students hating his guts.

Although I would never do this myself, I'm really hoping that people (using our school's directory) have called him out for being an idiot.

Lesson to be learned that should have been obvious from the start: vandalism != marketing.

Sincerely,

Caro