Hello loyal followers (or just people who might read this but don't follow me ... who am I to judge)
I'm just writing this up to regretfully inform you that due to deadlines (look up one of my most recent rants) and inhumane amounts of homework (I think that's a rant predating #100daysofrants) I will not be able to post a rant for today.
If you're actually following the rants come back tomorrow and I promise I'll have a beautiful rant for you to pore over.
Not a day goes by when at school (my school's a mixed high school with middle school and elementary school) I hear some little kid swearing louder, and with more frequency than ever I have. What the legitimate f%#k?
When I was their age I swear my parents would've scrubbed my mouth with soap for at least 5 minutes just to make sure I wouldn't swear even once; if a teacher ever caught us swearing he or she'd make sure we didn't forget we swore by having us make a public apology at the front of the classroom (when you're 5 years old that right there's some scary stuff).
Anyways sadly I have to keep today's rant short and sweet because I have a crap ton of homework to write up by tomorrow (have I ranted about homework yet?) So I'll just conclude it here: Why are we allowing newer generations to have a lack of respect for everything and everyone?
Again, sorry about the short post, I promise later rants will be longer
In keeping to my promise to bring you one daily rant, here's what I'm gonna be dissecting to kick off #100daysofrants: Cafeteria food
Before I start ranting let me make one thing clear, I'm not a picky eater; I will eat most things ranging from ant eggs (thank you mexican fine dining) all the way to goose liver (foie gras for those of you who actually know what it means). Although I will eat mostly anything that looks edible, and is in a plate in front of me, one thing I can't tolerate, is food that looks like it was prepared by someone who shouldn't be fu%£#ng making it to start with. We've all come across the cafeteria people who look at you with a look of eternal disgust when they hand you your food right after you've paid up. That brings up another idea, they hand you your food with the hand that just took your money, someone please tell me I'm not the only one who finds that disgusting? Seriously though, you have no way to know where that money's been before, more importantly think that they've been handling other people's money before accepting yours ... Anyways enough on that side note, back to what this is actually about.
The idea behind cafeteria food is that it provide a 'healthy' (to some extent) alternative to food you would usually make (or get if you live with your parents) when you're at home, for what should in theory be a fair price. This is however a bunch of bullcrap in reality. Just to give you an example, at my school's cafeteria (may a hole into hell open up and swallow it whole) if I want to get a bag of chips with Worcestershire sauce, they'll charge me the mexican equivalent to two US Dollars. Crazy, right!? In the civilized world (the food stand right on the school's corner) I can get a whole flipping hamburger for the same price ... OUTRAGEOUS I KNOW
Problem with most cafeterias in the world, is that their service is provided by multinational companies *cough* Aramark anyone *cough*. The issue is that these companies don't really care about quality so much as they care about the profit margins they can show their stockholders. Taking Aramark as an example, does anyone know their main clients? (If you did without me telling you send me a message I'm curious to know how many people know this ... no googling cheaters) After that brief parenthesis, Aramark's main customer are half of the United States' jails. So next time you hear Aramark, a "professional multinational company that's committed to the highest standards of service" and whatnot, remember the company is used to serving jails, so this means you're getting what exactly when you order a veggie wrap for your after school lunch?
Again going back on the point that I'd eat most about anything you put in a plate in front of me, there's one important thing I have to say. When I'm paying for food, and they're overcharging me (the two dollar chips for example), I'm expecting a certain quality of food AT LEAST. So when I have to pay the equivalent to $4 USD for a small chicken wrap, I expect the meat to ALWAYS be fully cooked, I expect the lettuce to be fresh, I expect the tomatoes not to taste as though they forgot to wash them, and a number of other things. OK, now that that's off my chest, let me tell y'all why I'm writing this rant in particular.
If you don't complain to the people heading your local cafeteria how can you ever expect them to get their s&!t together and provide you with a service that's actually in line with what you're paying for? The point I'm trying to make is: "complain". Seriously though, if people actually complained about the crapy service they received in most places, those places would have a much better service to offer. Reason being; if you're willing to take the time to complain to them, what's to stop you from complaining to some authority that actually has some degree of power over them?
Anyways, that ends today's rant. Remember, I'm gonna be keeping up this daily rant thing for another 99 days, so if you have anything you'd like me to rant about, now's the time to let me know.
Ladies, gentlemen, and people in between who follow me on Tumblr. Today I'd like to announce that I'm going to try something completely new, by posting one new rant about something every day for the next 100 days. Some of you may be facepalming, some of you may be cheering, some of you may be indifferent.
Anyways, the reason I'm announcing this is because I will eventually run out of inspiration, so I need your help to actually finish this ranting spree. If any of you come up with something I should write about let me know, and I'll write about it.
People have asked me before: 'What's one of the things you dislike the most in the world?' To which I've had a very simple answer: Deadlines.
The more I think about it, the more I find I dislike deadlines, the reasons being a few. For a start, deadlines bring out the worst in teachers. For example, those who are familiar with the IB program are familiar with what an Internal Assessment (IAs oh those little bundles of joy) is; as well as you're probably familiar that IAs are all sent to the International Baccalaureate on early March at the latest so they can get graded by (as one of my teachers put it) the "nerd Welsh tyrants" (the British are fond of the IB program). A deadline such as this one usually makes teachers confident that they have all the time in the world to give their students the corresponding assignments, so they start putting off the assignment ... month by month, the deadline gets closer, and the teacher stays confident that their students will be able to submit a good piece of work in time for their deadline. Then all of a sudden, the deadline is upon them, and they let their students know: "hey guys get what, we have to write an IA for this class, and I want you all to submit your IAs to me in three weeks time". Instead of being met with cheers as the teacher expected, this news is met with looks of disbelief and the occasional groan or two. What the teacher didn't know: The students have IAs from other classes (together with regular classwork) that they have to turn in at the same time, because all teachers had the same perception about the deadline.
What I hope you pick up from that really short story is a simple thought: "DEADLINES SUCK!" They force you as a person to work on something you probably don't want to work on for a start, and then they give you a date by which you have to turn things in. Furthermore, as the teacher example illustrates, not even they are immune to procrasinites (medical term I just made up for a person afflicted with excessive procrastination). If you're unfamiliar with what procrastination means, you probably haven't been on the internet long enough ... or you simply haven't experienced the joys of procrastinating before. In short procrastinating is finding other things to do instead of something you're supposed to do. Anyways back to the point: even teachers aren't immune to procrastination since for the most part they will leave deadlines such as that up to the last minute; this begs the question: what's to stop their students from doing the same with the deadline their teachers set for them?
I could probably keep going for hours giving examples, and giving even more reasons why deadlines are a thing sent from hell itself, but I'll just leave it there for know. If you want me to keep ranting about it, let me know :P .
Anything else you'd like me to rant about? Ask me about things, or send me mail, or even submit on my blog, I'll gladly talk about them.
People seem to relate the banjo to hillbilly music, as well as American Redneck culture ...
If you follow me, you should know by now I'm a geek; and as the geek I am, I make it my purpose to defend the people who like me decide to be different, and remain true to what makes you "you".
For a start: People assume the banjo originally comes from 'mericaland since they popularized the banjo in recent times through Bluegrass and Country music. If you're amongst the 98% of people who had this mindset, I am appalled ... In the age of internet when everything is a google search away, I would at least expect you to be capable of doing at least that, if not even opening a dictionary (where for some reason or another I found the banjo's origin to start with). Anyways ... the banjo (a different form of it) comes from Africa. During the era in which slavery was a way of life, slaves brought over to the Americas began fashioning simpler forms of the banjo with whatever they could find. In short: the banjo comes from Africa.
Now that we've established where the banjo comes form, let me line out why the banjo is a cool instrument:
Not that many people know how to play the banjo, therefore if you can play the banjo you are unique. And hey being unique is awesome ... Who wants to be a square anyways? Better to be a torus or a dodecahedron instead.
If you play the banjo odds are you can easily switch to the guitar at a moment's notice. This doesn't work the other way around though, so woop de hoo if you're a banjo player, because the banjo is tuned VERY differently to the guitar. Ergo banjo players better understand tuning than guitar players, hence they can play either instrument just as easily.
The banjo sound different to everything else (kind of self explanatory since its an instrument ... but oh well)
Bluegrass is catchier than it seems before you actually listen to it.
I could keep going for a while, but I'll leave it at that for now, if you wanna learn more about the banjo as I said before I suggest you google it before you stay an ignorant circus monkey like a large percentage of people in this world. If you don't feel like googling (beautiful verb by the way, added to the official dictionary of most languages not so long ago ... I'll save that for another post) just send me a message and I'll help you notice how the spoon isn't there (if you don't get this reference you should watch The Matrix ... this instant).
Wanna add to this post? Have something you'd like to debate about? Myths you'd like debunked? Or just a question you'd like answered? Reblog this post or message me and I'll get back to you ASAP.
On a separate note, quick thanks to #betterthanfish for introducing me to the world of banjo.
