Virgil=0, U.S. Customs=1

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One quick story about my trip, and then I'm off to Indianapolis & Kentucky for visiting purposes.

The vacation was wonderful, and there will be forthcoming posts and pictures soon. The trip home, however, was terrible. It's bad enough that I came from 90 degree weather and the Pacific Ocean into snow blowing sideways in Pittsburgh in a matter of hours. But I have to say that U.S. Customs can kiss my slightly sunburned ass.

In the Acapulco airport, I wander into a duty & tax free shop and pick out a present for my husband's stocking. I think nothing of it. On the first leg of the flight back from Acapulco to Houston, we get the customs forms to fill out where you're supposed to declare anything you had purchased in another country. For whatever reason, I didn't think to put my new purchase on my customs form--I put down everything but that. When we hit the Customs & Immigration lines, Director/buddy asks about the tequila she bought. The woman rolls her eyes and says, Yes, you have to declare that. Whoops, I say, I forgot to put down the present on my form. I tell her what it is. Oh, my GOD, she says, as though I just plopped down a baggie of cocaine on her desk. She grabs my customs form and writes on it and puts it in a blue folder, where blue clearly equals b-a-d, and tells me it's at the officer's discretion whether to let me keep the present or not. So we head on down.

Now, from working for immigration for a while, I know that many of the people who work there can be pricks. The sympathetic side of me says its because they see a lot of people every day; most of those people are also worried, nervous, angry, etc. It's easy to get irritated. The hateful side of me knows its very easy to go on a power trip when you have that kind of control over someone else's belongings. So I get sent into the Bad Room because of my special blue folder. I'm standing there looking at everybody else who is in the room: one guy who went hiking and had dirt all over everything (you can't bring in foreign soil), one guy who had brought in 5 times the allowed amount of coffee, two Middle Eastern guys who had been randomly pulled for a search, and one young dude who looked like he was tripping on acid and whose suitcase was being searched for drugs. And me. I decided I would try to play up the sympathy angle about Christmas presents and whatnot.

When it was my turn, I explained to the officer that I was in the Bad Room for being dumb honest to the upstairs customs lady and trying to do a nice thing for my husband's Christmas. I explained that I had no idea that what I bought was not allowed into the country, and that I would gladly pay an additional fee for it, considering how small it was. I tried to be sweet about it. He asked for the present. I whipped out the pack of three MonteCristo cigars from Havana, Cuba. I could see him having a stroke in his left temple. Things went south pretty quickly, mostly because of the absurdity (in my opinion) of the whole thing and because of one stupid form. A sampling:

Customs Ass: Didn't you know we were running an embargo against Cuba for decades??
Me: Not particularly been working, has it? And anyway, it's only three of them. The money went to the store in Acapulco, Mexico, not to Castro & Company.
Customs Ass: You can get those things over the internet, you know.
Me: Which would apparently still be ILLEGAL, right? Why not just let me keep these three instead of breaking the law twice?
Customs Ass: You can get MonteCristoes that were made in Guatemala--that would be OK.
Me: It also wouldn't be the same thing. Which is the point of purchasing THESE MonteCristoes.
Customs Ass, after breaking them in half and shuffling through the tobacco inside: Wow, these smell good.
Me: Well, yes. I'm sure they would've smoked even better.

He handed me back the box he'd torn into as though there was some consolation in that. That pissed me off pretty good, so when at about that time he whipped out a form for me to sign, a dose of the ass was eminently forthcoming. This is where the danger of being in the English department kicked in.

Customs Ass: You'll need to sign this form saying that you abandoned the product. We have to have this on file.
Me: But I didn't abandon it. You took it from me.
Customs Ass: But you have to sign the abandonment form.
Me: But I didn't abandon it. Do you have a You Took It From Me form?
Customs Ass: ........You have to sign the abandonment form.
Me: But I didn't abandon it.

This goes on for some time. Finally, I decided that missing my connecting flight to Pittsburgh wasn't worth digging my heels in this hard, especially since the man had already torn up the cigars. I signed the form, and then he slapped a green "you've been bad" sticker on my luggage. I plan on leaving it there for a while. As I was leaving, he asked (required by the gov't) if Customs could have done anything to improve the experience.

Yes, I told him. You need to create a "You Took It From Me" form. And thanks for helping me make my husband's Christmas a merry one.

If I had more of a layover, I would still be arguing the abandonment form. I settled for making his jaw drop and his temple stroke out. Happy Holidays, Officer Sanborn--I'm sure Santa brought you a lump of coal last night.

-- Virgil

Wheeee!!!

My school work is turned in, my grades are submitted, and my office desk is cleared of work.

I'm going to Acapulco, baby!

I'll be back in a week, with lots of pictures of my own, and then it's straight to Kentucky for Christmas. So, see you around January 2nd or so. If you choose to flame yourself silly, enjoy it while you can. Because I don't give a fuck--I'm on vacation.


See that little speck on the beach? Imagine that's me, not giving a shit. :D

When I get back, the Undesirable Element and I have a serious score to settle, so watch for that. He's got questions, I have answers, and we'll settle them over his drink of choice! Have a good break.

Love, Virgil

Eight More Things

Virushead tagged me for an 8 Random Things about me meme. I like Heidi quite a bit, so I'll play along.

Here are the rules.

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight ( or whatever number) people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

OK, on to the eight random things about the Contemplator!

1. I am secretly afraid that I will swallow a battery. When I was a little girl, I heard that batteries would let off a charge if you put them to your tongue. Now, I won't get close to a battery, for fear it will somehow end up shocking me, I'll swallow it in a jolt of fear, and it will dissolve in my stomach acid and kill me. Bet you didn't want to know that.
2. My family is well documented for over 400 years worth of fighting and throwing metaphorical bricks. The very first recorded instance of us ever in history is when we declared war on our next door neighbors in southern England in the 1600s because we thought they were shoving their religion down our throats. I shit you not--I've seen the paperwork. There are more recorded instances of this particular strain of family purposely standing in the line of fire on principle (usually a stupid principle) than there are natural recorded deaths. In one instance, the entire neighborhood turned out to intimidate my great-great grandfather. When threatened with a shitload of guns if he chose to unlock the school room (another story in itself), he reportedly turned around, gave them the "look" (ask me, I'll show you), and turned the key anyway. He fell dead with over 30 bullet holes. But by god, he did what he wanted. Eyeroll. So you see, I can't help it. Causes nobody dares to take up? I'm there. It's in my blood. Our root name in the Old English means "to contend with." Seriously, people, I'm not making this up.
   
3. I have the alcoholic tolerance of someone twice my size. It's been tested. I don't look like I could drink like I can, but I can handle myself quite well--until the shots come out. I'm vulnerable to shots. Especially butterscotch schnapps shots, which taste nothing like actual butterscotch, which I hate with a passion.
   
4. I've been asked to model approximately twice per year since I was 17 years old. It's because I'm about Kate Moss's size and height, and I have a good face for makeup, but I've always been rather suspicious about it. But approximately two times a year, somebody gives me a card or somebody who has been in the business asks me if I've considered it. It's a mark of how hard my Jehovah's Witness mother tried to quash any feelings of beauty I could have about myself that when I get these offers the cynic in me says "internet porn scam!!" and not "huh. I must be pretty." Which I rarely ever think about, except for two times: once when I saw myself in stage makeup when I was an undergraduate in a play (I was far and away better looking than the other people--which could just mean they were quite ugly :D-- and my stage director asked my mother "Have you considered putting her into modeling?") and the other day when I saw my old passport of me at 23 years old. I'm not saying I have bad self-esteem, because I really don't--I was just rigorously taught to avoid any thought about looks.
   
5. I am on the short list to the JW shit list. It's bad enough for them that I'm their equivalent of excommunicated; but the interference I've done recently has me on a watch list. The next step for me is "apostasy", and the only way to really define that is to say that you're one of Satan's confirmed imps (like there was ever any doubt??). Mainline to hell, baby, except they don't believe in hell--so mainline to certain destruction with no hope of recovering your hard drive. Whatever. I've seen student portfolios that were scarier than that possibility. But even just five or ten years ago, that would've really bothered me. Now, I could care less. In fact, I would welcome the opportunity. See #2 above.
6. If I could command my future, apart from the scantily clad men who would feed me cheese and pour my wine all day every day, I would be the director of a nonprofit. I love this work more than any other work I've ever done. I feel like I'm moving a problem with my own two hands. I get so much personal return from this job, that I don't even know how to adequately describe it. I'm so happy in my low paid assistant director job that I'm in no hurry to leave it. In fact, I didn't realize that I was actually making more money than I thought I was working for within the first few weeks of the job, that's how much I liked it--the pay didn't matter. Somehow, I've got to work it to where this is all I do. 'Cause I love it, baby.
7. And now, for the controversial bit. I wish more people lived in free love commune style relationships. Yes, I realize that's inherently complicated because people are immature twits, but I think most people fall somewhere along the middle of the monogamy--play the field spectrum. Frankly, I think some people would do well to have a wife and a mistress, or a husband and a boyfriend. As long as the limits are understood by everybody involved, of course, which is where such things fall apart. My girl Bitch PhD. manages to do it--a husband and at last count two boyfriends. And now for the disclaimer: I'm not complaining, and, yes, everything is fine at home. :)
8. My other secret wish is to start traveling and never stop. I want to go from one country to another for varying periods of time, but I want to be "away" for far more games than I'm "home." On my hit list in the next few years are Ireland, the UK, Mexico a few more times, Jamaica, and Italy. I've got *way* more than that, and I should've gone to the damned Middle East before my cousin moved back to Hickstown, Nowhere, but live and learn the hard way. When I get super fancy with my wishes, I start figuring how much it would cost to have a place in Mexico (surprisingly very, very little). I want to go to South Africa for the World Cup. I might convince Batmite! to show me India, but his culture might get in the way--maybe I could pretend to be his American fiance? C'mon, just for a few weeks? I'm dying to go to Japan. I really want to go see Morocco. Pretty much just...everywhere, really. Where there's a will, there's a way. Oh, and did I mention I'll be in Acapulco, Mexico in less than a week? Whee!
   

You can do this meme if you want to, but I'm particularly interested in three people:

1) JP, a never ending fountain of interestingness--what are your dark secrets, slave boy?

2) Batmite!, who, although his home base is a gazillion miles further away than JP's, is not the one I dream I'm looking for while I'm driving around in the car in a city at night. He's in the passenger's seat. Neither the lost one nor the passenger boy will help me interpret just what the fuck this means.

3) El Hijo de Verde--although it absolutely must be wrestling related. Maybe 8 unconventional wrestling facts? 8 secrets you horde about wrestling?

-- Virgil, who has said far too much already...

Your Me-Maw Told Santa About You!

Every year our organization does letters from the big red guy as a fundraiser. It's one of the most successful things we do, especially for the amount of work it takes, which just amounts to data entry and picking out pretty stationary with a giant envelope stuffing session for 1 1/2 to 2 hours (JP, Batmite!, want to do a good deed??). There is always one really old Grandma who orders every year. And every year she has more grandkids to order for! And she'll get you on the phone and ask for more order forms and then count on her fingers how many she needs, making sure to say "Now, wait a minute, there's a new one..." lol. But there are two things about this event that never fail to amuse me each year.

The first is how people don't take the time to write legibly on their stupid order forms. I mean, come on, how hard is it to form your letters correctly? Do you really want Santa to send your little Nicky a letter that says "Dear Nichkoalaus" where you've marked through the name four or five times?? Take the extra thirty seconds. Because when you call me to bitch about the misspelling, I'm going to whip out the copy I made of your order form and watch your reaction when you realize that yes, you really *did* spell it that way. I'm pretty sure "Jestina Carder" is really "Justina Carter", but if you don't return my phone call to clear it up, Merry Christmas to "Jestina." Hmph.

The second is the sheer variety of names grandparents have for themselves. My own grandparents had two sets of names. My stuffy grandparents were "Grandma" and "Papa." My country grandparents were "Mamaw" and "Papaw." Get a load of some of these:

* Hotsie Hotsie. I have no idea why this name exists or how it came about. I don't know if she's an aunt or what. But she sent two letters to kids with this name.

* Boo. This isn't a Halloween letter, it's a Santa letter. This is somebody's Grandad.

* Pap & Nunnie. I think Nunnie is probably a take off of "Nonni," the Italian word for "Grandparents." Nonna is the Grandma and Nonni is the Grandad, and together they're "Nonni." There are lots of Italians here, and have been.

* Pap & Babe. Guess Grandad did alright for himself, eh?

* MeMe. A grandmother who is a bit more cute and sophisticated than Maw Maw.

* Grandma & Poopah. WTF happened to Grandad's name? Did the kid get Papaw mixed up around potty training time? And who the hell let that stick? Of course, my only neice is allowed to call her grandad "G-Daddy", so what do I know? He sounds pimped out, when nothing could be more anti to his personality!

* Grammy Furbee. Sounds like a toy in a WalMart aisle.

* Papau. Looks like somebody wanted to give Grandad some "class."

* Aunt Bethie-Pooh. You're kidding, right? No?

* NanNan & PapPap. Cute in an onomatopoeia kind of way. Sounds like the kind of thing a little baby just learning to talk would say over and over: "nanananananan" or "papapapapapapap." :D

And my personal favorite, a repeat order from "Mammal." I'm pretty sure you pronounce it "Mam-mawl". But it still looks like a warm blooded animal to me.

We'll be all done on Wednesday. And then there will be 570 calls saying "Did the letters mail yet? How about now? Did they go now??" Sigh.

-- Virgil

Buh-Byeee!

So, the last day of teaching came and went. Another 40 or so faces that I'll be more or less happy to forget. Seriously, there' s probably five people total I'll give a crap to remember for the rest of my life. Most of them are complete slack-asses, as I'm sure their portfolios will demonstrate. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised. This was so not the group to test my civics/community learning gig on. But it turned out relatively OK in spite of them. I think with a decent group of people, the idea could work out even better. For whatever unknown reasons, they like me. Some of them way too much. Oddly, I still don't like them; normally I warm up to them after a few weeks. A fellow GTA said the reason they liked me so much was probably because they felt like they really got something out of this class. I appreciated the mad props, yo, but I'm still not convinced. It's really hard to shake kids out of being super absorbed. I think a few of them did honestly have a big jolt from what we did. The rest stayed in their weed and beer induced haze and tried not to drool on the desks. Jesus, this was a "bad batch." I have enough experience now to look back and say that with confidence--if this had been my first semester, I'd have thought I totally screwed up.

We did evaluations today--not that they have any idea what they're actually evaluating--and I fed them treats. I do this at the end of all my classes, and I've discovered that they actually love Capri Suns, for whatever reason, so that's my stock drink. They always "ooh" on cue whenever I pull the boxes out of my bag. It's funny and incredibly predictable. So, I gave my little announcement about how I don't change grades, ever, but that I would help them figure out how to file an appeal if they really felt justified in doing so. They signed off on permission for me to use their work as examples. They turned in their portfolios with few incidents, and then they filled out the evaluation, for which I have to leave the room, so as not to be considered as influencing them.

Several of them said they were sad that this was the last class. I told them they had to be fucking kidding, and nobody was as glad to be done with this as I was. They laughed. This has been the way it's been all semester. I tell them point blank I don't like them, my delivery makes them think I'm bonding with them. No, seriously, I told them, there' s only really five of you that I give a crap about. They thought that was even funnier. They tell me I'm a good teacher, and that's what they're going to write down. I always tell them I don't care, that they should write whatever they feel, that I never see these anyway for months. I don't think I've ever gotten less than a five out of five on my evaluations. I'll have to go back and check. Maybe they're all scared?

Several weird &/or appreciative things happened after class, as I was standing out in the hallway waiting for them to finish so I could pack up:

* The girl who argued that everybody on welfare should have their tubes tied by force because they didn't deserve to bring children into the world (!!!) came up to me and said she really appreciated the class and thought she got a lot out of it. I was fairly shocked, but I guess "got a lot out of it" is in the eye of the beholder?

* My army student came up and shook my hand and said that he had really liked the class; I told him I was really proud of him and all that he was doing, and that if he ever needed help for whatever reason, to look me up. And I meant it. He was a hell of a person.

* My ultimate waste of space came up and handed me his portfolio personally and said "Yea, so, I pretty much failed." Then he hung around waiting for me to contradict him. I shrugged and said I'd take a look. He walked off. I guess that's 39 portfolios to grade and not 40?

* Three students stayed after class just to tell me that the people in this class deserved whatever grade they got. That's exactly what they said. I assume they included themselves in this.

* I had two students tell me they had a life changing experience. I think I believe them.

* A student who has never missed class before missed class today and told me that he didn't come because the snow "confused" him. Seriously. Having taught this guy all semester, I believed him instantly.

* One student expressed incredible sadness at this being the last class. I told him if he was that hard up, he could come and sit in on my class next semester. He politely declined.

* As usual, there appeared to be one love connection made through class. It'll probably last through the weekend.

* My only (known) gay student came up to tell me that my class had been great and that he was glad I was in it (where else would I have been?? I assume he meant that I was the teacher of it). He used to come in and flop down and roll his eyes, just like a 16 year old. It was pretty funny to watch. He was also bitingly sarcastic, which I found funny as hell. He was also the reason I went to Safe Zone training, and while we never talked about being gay, he probably taught me just as much about gay students as I taught him about writing.

* After class, three girls came squealing up to me with arms out--I think they probably had too many of the sweets I brought--yelling, "We love you, Mrs. Virgil!" What is this, the 3rd grade? WTF? I keep forgetting they're closer to being little kids than they are to being genuine adults. I patted them and said "You girls be good." They went squealing away, saying thank you and we love you every third breath. Two female students who were waiting to get into the room (not my own kids) looked at me and said, "What class is that?" I told them it was English 101. "Damn, I hated my 101 teacher." Me too, I told them, it was probably just final exam stress.

And I shrugged and went away.

As my buddy BatMite!, the human countdown clock, would say, five months and 21 days left. Of course, for me, it starts again in 24 days. I've already seen the roster of new people. Sigh. Bring on the next 44.

-- Virgil

An Honest to God Email

I just got this email from a student a few minutes ago. Since class has been over for a while now, I'm assuming it's a suck up email. I swear, this is exactly how it came to me. The only thing I changed was the name:

Hi its Dude just wanted to say thanks I think I really get the hang of writing now especially punctiuation haha I just figured I would send you an email hopefully I did alright in the class Im always thinking that I am doing awful in all of my classes but Im just hoping I get a c event though I think I did pretty well but I guess we will see.

Yes. We see very clearly, don't we? Ye gods. Yes, people, this is what I had to work with this semester.


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Shameless Exploitation of a Fellow Grad Student

So, yesterday was the last day of class (which I have a more extended post about for tomorrow). They turn in their portfolios on the last day, and 40 students plus four papers (plus more short writing pieces) plus usually three or four drafts at four pages plus each for each essay equals...a hell of a load to carry. Plus all their treats and shit for the last class. So since JP is strappingly strong, I enlisted his help in hauling my goodies and junk up to my second class, mainly for the juice boxes, which were shockingly heavy for juice boxes. Now, for those of you who haven't had the distinct pleasure of meeting The Undesirable Element in person, he's a big guy. I mean, he's probably 6'5", but he seems more like seven feet tall. When he gets a little older, he'll be hella intimidating, if we can just figure out how to teach him how to use it.

Well, when he came to my class, he was all bundled up and lugging my giant bag of crap over his shoulder; he shuffles up to the desk, drops everything down, turns around and looks at me, I don't think he said anything, and I think I said thanks, or great, or something (and if I didn't, THANKS!), and he shuffled on out. We were cold. It's been cold as kraut up here. He leaves, and the door shuts behind him. The kids got really quiet. One of them asked, "Is that your slave?"

LOL. I'm like 95% convinced she was serious. I've never talked about doms or anything with them; I have no idea where she came up with this, unless JP just looked particularly submissive.

But you know what? With a very serious expression, I said, "Yes. Yes, he is."
And they all believed me. :D

Sorry, JP, it was just too good to pass up.

-- Virgil, dominating the department without their knowledge or consent for quite some time now!

5 Things

This meme is like comfort food to me. I return to it when I'm really busy and the semester is getting hectic. I finished my Old English paper on The Wife's Lament--finished it last weekend, actually, but sh! don't tell my classmates. I didn't have the heart to tell them I was almost finished with it when they hadn't gotten started yet. I had my last class today. On Tuesday I took my OE final, which I actually gave myself some breathing room to study for. Not that it helped. I still have to finish my first seminar paper (I'm working with Vogue). That's the biggest stress factor. I'm on page 15 of a 20+ page paper. My kids turned in their portfolios today, which I will also have to grade. I just finished a fund raiser Saturday morning. I leave the country in 10 days for Acapulco. I still need to finish Christmas shopping for the family I adopted through a different nonprofit agency. It's a hazardous time of year. So I pull out the comfortable meme when I'm away from the internet for too long.

5 things in my fridge:
1:margarita mix, which I plan to use with Navy Buddy's leftover high grade tequila. I think that if I had a few limes, I could just add the lime juice to the tequila and it would be the same.
2:the rest of the soup El Hijo made tonight. Holy crap, it's good. It takes him a while, but it is totally worth it.
3:A hunk of Parmesan cheese, wrapped up and waiting to be used.
4:sweet Lebanese bologna--a secret guilty pleasure of mine. I roll it up and have it with pickles and...
5:goat cheese. Not the kind saturated in red wine, which is my favorite cheese ever, but a reasonable substitute. If you run the Lebanese bologna through it, it's even better.

5 things in my closet:
1:My new Kentucky Derby dress. It's black. It's swirly. It's awesome. All it needs is the hat.
2:a fox fur coat that I bought for $16--the steal of a lifetime.
3:a pair of black leather pants by DKNY, another score, which I wore to class one day just to scare the kids. It worked.
4:a really, really warm Navy sweatshirt that I cajoled off of Navy buddy. It's realllly warm.
5:a pair of black boots by Biviel that cost me way too much and bring me compliments every time I put them on.

5 things in my purse:
1:left over student evaluation sheets, not that they know what they're evaluating anyway
2:my ipod, loaded with Rob Zombie
3:an Italian pen given to me by one of my favorite students whom I wrote a letter of recommendation for to go to Italy.
4:extra snacks that I brought to feed the beasts on the last day of our classes
5:receipts that are really supposed to be living at the office--I keep forgetting to take them out.

5 things in my car/truck (only 5 things?!)
1:accumulated goodies for my adopted Christmas family
2:two bottles of pina colada something or others from the time Director/Buddy and I went shopping on Black Friday. I keep forgetting to take them in, too.
3:recycling in the trunk of my car that needs to go where it belongs!
4:papers. lots and lots of papers.
5:a towel. Not sure why. It's one of my good ones, too.

-- Virgil, seven more days left in my semester!