Summer So Far (Also an unintentionally lengthy rant about 8th grade promotionals)

Evening gents, sorry I haven't posted in a bit but I have been sort of living out of a suitcase for two weeks. I haven't had a job since I got home but have been busy dealing with family stuff. My grandfather had a stroke while I was graduating (don't worry, he does this every few months, stubborn bastard refuses to let it take him down). As a result he was a little more mentally discombombulated than usual. So the first few weeks of break I was heading out to the grandparents house pretty frequently to keep an eye on him while Gram ran chores in town. He keeps on forgetting that he can't walk good and getting out of bed and falling over. His head is absolutely covered in bloody scars from all his falls (as I said, stubborn bastard, refuses to admit it hurts as he bleeds out multiple holes in his face). One time he fell out of a chair at our house and went right through the sheetrock wall. Laughed it off as we pulled him out. So I'd sit over there and watch Deadliest Catch while he'd explained to me how women did all the work in Okinawa while the men just sat around and drank. Also they would apparently cut your lawn with scissors for $1 which one of my relatives informs me may be a metaphor for something. My mother is 100% convinced she has a Japanese half-sister she hasn't met. Korea was a neat war, MASH told me all about it.

Then I got on a plane for Detroit, MI to see my cousin Heather graduate high school. Not a very eventful trip, all the flights were on time, TSA was helpful and courteous and I ate a really big steak. The graduation ceremony was textbook, they wanted to thank family and friends who were present, the faculty, but most of all this graduating class of 2013. A bunch of stuff about how Davison was a unique high school, which is super touching when you went there and think of it fondly but when you're an outsider flown in to view the ceremonies it is hard to relate. At the end of the day their super unique local graduation ceremony looks like all the other several thousand super unique high school graduations happening all around America. Perspective can be a bitch. Flew back and was happy to get home to my desktop computer.

Side note: My family has referred to my desktop as my girlfriend for some time now. It doesn't help that I call her Linda. This is primarily because Linda is one of the finest female names, in my humble opinion, to yell angrily when the damned thing won't play The Matrix on Blu-Ray. Ended up watching Equilibrium instead, which is really the poor mans Matrix. Fuck you Linda, you Blu-Ray scratching cuntloaf. This side note got off track quick...

Side Note II: Adding this because the following rant got way out of hand really quick, I didn't even know I was going to rant about this, but I did. If you want to read this later skip down to the TL;DR, conveniently in bold.

Anyway, the day after we got back I went to my cousin Ian's Grade 8 promotional (my fourth godforsaken graduation in a month). I went because Ian is Grade A respectable folk and deserving of celebration. He ranks high on my Quality Related Peoples list. In spite of Sir Ian's qualities, this promotional was by far the most unbearable of the cavalcade of congratulatory ceremonies I had to attend this month.

First of all, hot ass gymnatorium or audinasium or whatever the official terminology, hot as hell ceremony. Bad start, poor air flow is never good. Then there were the awards. Everyone got like twelve, at least it seemed that way. The awards were frequently explained to be prestigious and incredibly difficult to obtain and then like 75% of the kids got it, which in my opinion is not very prestigious at all.

Then there was the fact that this 8th grade promotion was longer than most of the real graduations I attended, it took like two hours. It was lengthened by the horrendously inefficient awarding style. Even though every award had like 96 recipients they first would call out all the names, so they could form the line. They didn't call names to receive the award, they called them up to form the long ass line. Once this line was formed, they called all the names again and the recipients walked all the way from the left side of the stage to the right to receive the award. Keep this in mind, every student walking alone across the whole stage, it plays into the final nail in the coffin.

We had to wait until the end of each award, so all 96-ish 8th graders, before we could applaud in anyway. Would have been nice to break the monotony and maybe stir up a little airflow in this hot box they may or may not refer to as an audinasium (gymnatorium? It might be a cafeteria too, I just don't know) . So they called a name, that student walked across the stage, alone, awkward and in complete fucking silence. Each time they called a name the audience member was greeted with an 8th grader who would walk out and look out at the audience. They were trying to find their family whom they couldn't find because the family isn't allowed to make their presence known. Then they get awkward as they realize the only noise in this entire Cafetorsium (Audicafenasium?) was them walking across the stage. They usually sped up about halfway across, I mean that's only natural. Then there were some kids whose parents couldn't hold it in, so you'd hear a solitary whoo-hoo that was usually cut off before the hoo by a bystander. Therefore it came out as sort of at a "WHOO-Heeeeeyyy sorry..." which left that kid feeling more awkward and left out. They would resort to averting their gaze from the audience and staring at their friends with an eye roll. No matter what strategy the family/kid went with, it was awkward.

Then there was the sheer number of awards. Perfect attendance for the school year, perfect attendance for all of middle school, high score on reading section of exam A, high score on math section of exam A, high score on reading section of exam B, high score on math section of exam B, presidential fitness award, honor roll, high honor roll, presidential scholar award, citizenship award, community service award and fuck all just about everyone in that damned class won every damned award.

Also lets just break down the reality that they had a proper goddamned ceremony for 8th grade graduation. The parents around me were lamenting that this ceremony was more agonizing than the 5th grade graduation they had just attended. 5th grade graduation? Who are these ceremonies for? The kids don't like dressing up and sitting quiet, the parents don't want to sit in a crowded auditorium and none of those certificates will be remotely locatable in one years time. They said that the perfect attendance awards would look good to employers. Tell me how many middle school awards you list on your resume? Did the fact that you made high honors in middle school ever matter at all in day to day life? IT'S MIDDLE SCHOOL! The entire purpose of middle school academically is to prep you for high school and socially the purpose is to learn how to cuss properly and get into awkward prepubescent relationships! Nowadays it's main purpose is to create a generation of people with exceedingly embarrassing Facebook histories.

Now I want to rant about that, maybe later.

TL;DR Congratulations to Ian. Not you Ian. Congratulations to Ian, not Ian, Ian.