25 Years

January 28th, 1986 was a pretty big day.

First of all, there were birthdays. One of my cousins, who lived nearby and was (and still is) a pretty big part of my life was having her birthday. More importantly on that day though was my high school best friend turning eighteen. We were about halfway through our senior year, and the 18th birthday is a pretty big milestone so the day felt a little different.

Then in my 3rd hour journalism class, one of the other English teachers stuck his head in the doorway to tell our teacher, and us, that the space shuttle launch scheduled that morning had ended in an explosion. Shuttle launches had become so routine that they barely earned a mention on the news, but of course things changed that day. My 4th hour physics class saw us putting aside a day of curriculum to sit listening to the news coming through the teacher's portable radio. No Internet then, no TV in the classroom with access to a 24-hour news cycle back in those days.

I met up with my friend at lunch after physics. He was standing by our lockers with his bag lunch, waiting like he always was since he got there before me and the other guys we ate with. It wasn't a good day for him. His dream back then was to be an air force pilot, and in his wildest dreams maybe finding his way into something as potentially adventurous as flying in a shuttle. "Some birthday present," was his reaction, and that was about the extent of our lunch time conversation that day.

My little sister and I got home from school to find we were again home alone. We had the TV on almost right away to see whatever news we could find out. Our older sister was in her first year of college and had moved out, and our parents were down in the Cities somewhere at a hospital with my grandmother, my dad's mother. She'd been in very poor health for some time and they'd been spending a lot of time down there. Our mother had called the night before to check in with an update of what was going on -- she said that our grandmother wasn't expected to live much longer. It hit me pretty hard to hear that news, since I had not experienced a death that close to me before, and it was all uncharted territory. (If only I had known what the coming decades had in store....)

Our grandmother died within hours of that phone call, though she'd made it long enough for the calendar page to flip over to January 28th. The same day my cousin celebrated her birthday. The same day my best friend turned 18. The same day the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing the six astronauts and the one teacher aboard. I remember that fact vividly, since even though I don't think I'd formally decided to go into teaching yet, I had already known in the back of my mind that was where I was going to eventually wind up.

So, like I said. It was a pretty big day.

Amendment

Back at the end of August I listed 50 things that had changed about my life after losing 50 pounds. I've lost a few more than 50 since then -- depending on what time of day it is, what I had for dinner, etc. -- so I think I've earned the right to add at least one more thing to that list. Especially since this change has been so very evident in just the past few days.

Less body fat = less insulation. Below-zero temperatures feel amplified. I'm experiencing winter cold on new levels that I cannot say I'm enjoying very much.

How to Improve Discourse on the Internet

This is something that's been sticking at me for awhile now. Speaking both as someone who spends the bulk of each day trying to get students to express themselves coherently and as someone who tries to express myself as a writer, there are some Internet offenses that I feel can remain unchecked no longer. Here's what needs to change about Internet communication before the English Language completely falls apart.

(A) Emoticons. As a writer, I probably spend way too much time searching for the perfect word to evoke some kind of feeling. It troubles me that these once almost-amusing combinations of characters have evolved to the point that they often appear as automatic "smileys" if you accidentally punctuate your way into one of them.

(B) LOL. Yes. It's time to retire lol and any derivation of it. If something is funny, can't you just type something like "That was really funny!" or "That made me laugh?" And for the people that tag an lol after their own comments... you know, if you have to tell people it was supposed to be funny, you either aren't trusting the rest of us to pick up on the subtleties of the humor or you're throwing up a preemptive white flag and admitting your joke was weak to begin with. LOL should have been extinguished back in 1997.

(C) j/k = just kidding. I have a problem with "just kidding" even in spoken conversation, so to say we don't need the j/k is more of an extension of that because I think "just kidding" should be banished altogether. If you have to tag a "just kidding" in real life conversation, then no, you aren't just kidding, at least not completely. Anytime you hear someone say "just kidding," think hard about what they had said just before. They partially meant it, otherwise why would they have to point out it was just a joke? They're concerned the person they said it to might take it the wrong way because there's likely a grain of truth buried in what they just said, and it's a big enough grain that they expect the other person will recognize it.

(D) Substituting single characters like "u" and "2" for words. You aren't Prince. I'd like to point out that in both of those examples, typing u instead of "you" or 2 instead of "two" or "too" saves you exactly two keystrokes, lazypants. (And only one keystroke in place of "to".) Your life ain't that busy.

(E) WOOT WOOT! No. No more. Generally the people who type this would never make this sound to express their excitement in real life, except in, hopefully, an ironic manner. Stop it.

(F) Fear of capitalization. You all know the rules. Capital letters at the beginnings of sentences, proper names, etc. You knew these rules in fourth grade. Is the shift key in a different room or something? Reach over the pinkie finger and type like a grown-up.

(G) Over-capitalization. I can get behind occasionally writing a few words in all caps to express excitement. I'm talking about the people who have accidentally hit the caps lock button and aren't sure how to turn it back off, and have it on all the time. It used to be considered rude back in Internet 1.0, thought to be a way of shouting at people through your keyboard. Now I think it's just an extension of not capitalizing anything and a convenient way to avoid the shift key.

I'll wear the Grouch Hat proudly over this if you think I should, but in the end, I think if we each can do our parts to make small changes the world will wind up being a better place, filled with better communication, less misunderstanding, and a general heightening of the human condition.

Thank you for your time.

;)