The Syndicate

sabie12 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 13, 2019 6:35 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:30 pm Spent like a full on hour today sealing envelopes with wax for my DnD game on Friday so my players will have something tangible to look at and feel and (hopefully) crack open before I absolutely nuke them into the center of the earth.

That sounds fun I wish my DMs would do cool stuff like that when I play haha

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:31 pmAcid splash.

juliets wrote: ↑Tue Nov 13, 2018 5:37 pm Hey, I walked without a cane today which was a major breakthrough. My physical therapist is torturing me though to get me to bend my knee at a sharper angle (meaning he forces my knee to the sharpest angle he can get by pushing my heel toward my hamstrings while I'm lying on my back). Passed my one year anniversary of the break back in October. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Long Con wrote: ↑Sun Nov 11, 2018 7:13 pm

Dragon D. Luffy wrote: ↑Sun Nov 11, 2018 4:03 pmmy father's side has very sensible stomachs

Dragon D. Luffy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:17 pm Same here, my friend. Whatever you chose, I hope it makes you happy.

So I'm supposed to refer to you as a she now? Just making sure I get it.

Turnip Head wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 11:41 am Today is National Coming Out Day so I wanted to share something. For a long time now I've identified myself as transgender. It's something I've kept hidden from my friends and family, mainly because I had no avenue to pursue it financially. I've never felt comfortable in my body, I've always felt like something was wrong on a fundamental level.

So, the idea is that this is something I'm finally going to act on. The road ahead looks long and challenging, but I can now say I have a real direction and real goals for my life whereas I previously had none of those things. It feels like I'm taking control of my own happiness for the first time.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:50 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:48 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:45 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:35 pm One of my old HS teachers had an intake/outtake system. Kinda dumb in retrospect but basically a bin for each period with graded work stapled together or w/e.

I have a bin for each period and an out bin.

Students routinely put their work in the wrong bin (including the out bin). That results in delays (but I get to it eventually, since it's somewhere on my desk). They just bitch that they got a zero for something that they turned in.

What you need is a T-Shirt canon. Blast the lil fuckers with plastic tins containing 3 pounds of homework and written essay projects.

Yes. Cannons at school. I will surely be keeping my job.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:45 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:35 pm One of my old HS teachers had an intake/outtake system. Kinda dumb in retrospect but basically a bin for each period with graded work stapled together or w/e.

I have a bin for each period and an out bin.

Students routinely put their work in the wrong bin (including the out bin). That results in delays (but I get to it eventually, since it's somewhere on my desk). They just bitch that they got a zero for something that they turned in.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:43 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:34 pm
Easy fix

"Who wants to hand back these papers?"

Easy way to lose your teaching license.

Grades are protected by FERPA.

"Under FERPA a school may not disclose a student’s grades to another student without the prior written consent of the parent or eligible student."

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 5:30 pm I have been teaching for ten years.

Today I got a walk-through observation from an administrator, my first of this school year.

Today, after ten years of teaching, I have received a piece of criticism that I have never before received, and would wager that, if I taught for another hundred, I would never receive again.

It must be the key to unlocking my fullest potential as a teacher. It can't possibly be anything else.

Do you want to know what it is?

Here it is:

I am inefficient at handing back students' papers.

That's it, folks.

Someone who makes a lot more money than I do dropped that pearl of teaching wisdom on me this afternoon in an email.

To be clear, the issue is not that I wait too long to give back student work (which is a criticism I'd own, because I do find myself behind with grading).

It's that I am physically too fucking slow when I hand students back their graded work.

I am a turtle.

I am the Shizo Kanakuri of returning student work (look him up).

Your grandma could hand back papers faster than me.

I want to respond, but I fear the administrator will have retired and died before I successfully hit the "send" button.

Maybe I could say, "I used to be able to hand out papers like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee."

Nope.

No.

I refuse to accept this.

I am going to write back:

"Fuck you. I quit. The United States Postal Service just hired me."

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:43 pm Can you talk Aces into doing likewise?

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:28 pm I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with.

Though I acted a long time ago, I never got into the live-action RPG thing. I do like seeing the costumes though.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:20 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:17 pm Just play the new Spiderman game and swing by Central Park

In Florida, I saw a billboard for an erectile dysfunction drug.

The reverse of that same billboard showed Spider-Man (ad for Universal Studios), and said "SWING INTO A NEW ADVENTURE!"

Epignosis wrote: ↑Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:57 pm No thanks.

I've already read DharmaHelper's diary.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Mar 15, 2018 5:51 pm I didn't want to comment from a work computer, but I'm home now.

The comments section in the article are amusing to me. "I wonder if this would have happened to a white girl!" for example. The administrator who didn't let her ride home is black. Nothing was racially motivated.

By the way, the student in question is one of my students now. I am dying because, not only do I have three students I individually visit with in their homes after school, I was asked to take on a fourth class because of a teacher's medical leave. So she is now one of my students and I hope she comes to my funeral in May or June, whenever it is I give out.

At any rate, I detected nothing untoward about her dress, and I'm sure none of her other teachers did either. AND EVEN IF I DID, I wouldn't have bothered, and a lot of other teachers wouldn't either. Know how come? Because it's disruptive. It takes time out of my instruction to comment on a girl's outfit, call an administrator, send her to in-school-suspension (since that requires admin approval now), and document the incident in our online system. That shit takes time. You know who has time to bother with dress code violations? Administrators who have their own offices and don't have three or four classes a day to get through. I am not sacrificing the study of the American Romantics because of poor taste. Never mind the fact that I'm a male teacher, and there's a risk in someone of my sex commenting on an underage female's attire. That's the age we live in. If the dress code violation is egregious, that's different, and I'll deal with it by asking a female colleague on planning to address it, but a leg or shoulder is not going to stop my class. I've got too much to do and the administration already eats into our class time with fire / tornado / lockdown drills, assemblies, having us register students for next year's classes, etc.

I can guarantee you what happened was that when the school let out, so did her shoulders. That is a kind of shirt I see all the time and girls will often wear the shirt normally during the school day and when the bell rings, they figure the dress code doesn't apply and they slip the garment down.

What kills me was this happened on a Friday, and I can't understand why the administrator didn't just say, "Hey, listen. You're violating dress code by exposing your shoulders. Could you pull your top up the rest of the way? Thanks. Have a great weekend." How difficult was that? Is it any different from telling a sagging boy to pull up his pants?

Instead, he wouldn't let her ride home and this made national news. Way to go. People need to learn to pick their battles.

S~V~S wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:23 pm Good call, argue with the hosts before the game, I am sure they are very fair and won't hold it against you, they are very nice people

juliets wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:05 pm So DH, at 3:14 pm Golden said things were starting "in about 2 hours". We haven't even reached that point yet.

Golden wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2018 3:31 pm Get ready for a game to start, DH. It’s happening.

G-Man wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2018 2:25 pm Just a reminder that grammar matters and so does punctuation.

Long Con wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:45 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Sat Jan 27, 2018 5:50 pm

Marmot wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 2:09 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:17 pm Shout out to the time MovingPictures07 PMed me and was like "Hey DH I'm thinking of making another mafia website what do you think about that my best friend?"

Want to play a mafia game on that website?

I will 100% play the next LMS Map Based game the theme of which catches my interest and attention.

See you in Mafia: A World Asunder

juliets wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:19 pm I'm thrilled to report I'm out of the wheelchair and walking with a walker. Also started physical therapy this week to help me bend my knee - those muscles are all seized up. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive over the last three and half long months. Hopefully will make quick progress now.

Marmot wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 2:09 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:17 pm Shout out to the time MovingPictures07 PMed me and was like "Hey DH I'm thinking of making another mafia website what do you think about that my best friend?"

Want to play a mafia game on that website?

Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:41 pm Teaching feels like hosting Celebrity Jeopardy.

"You know what?" *Rips up questions* "Just write a number. Any number. You could write a two. Or perhaps a three. Maybe even a four? Any number."

Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:07 pm I have a student who habitually copies and pastes things from the Internet and turns it in. No, I never give her credit for any of it. She just Googles whatever questions I pose and goes from there. No matter how many times I've addressed her, she insists on doing it.

Today I caught her searching, "How does this piece make you as the reader feel?"

The district says it's my job to get her to pass a state standardized test next month.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?

Long Con wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2017 11:10 pm I would like access to the Politics Thread please. @MovingPictures07 @spacedaisy

Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:06 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:58 pm Two days back and I'm ready to throw my hands up.

Our county leadership is so results oriented they can't recognize a good process when they see one.

juliets wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:45 am What happened Epi?

In a nutshell:

They told us not to teach grammar because it isn't tested by the state.

You know what does tests grammar?

The ACT.

Th ACT scores tanked last year.

Well duh.

So now if we don't get ACT scores up, we're in trouble.

It's the usual bullshit.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:58 pm

juliets wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:56 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:22 pm Eloh is downstairs having a consultation with a customer who wants to get her son a "titty cake" for his 21st.

O wow. Is she going to do it? And a mom wants to get it for her son? That seems a little...odd.

Yep. It was a thing to hear.

Ricochet wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2017 2:45 pm

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2017 2:31 pm I think I'm sort of in a weird place where I'm only playing LMS games and only up until I win one? Maybe?

25 years from now, you'll get to win one just because the others will finally let you.

MovingPictures07 wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2017 9:46 am Hey everyone!

I cannot express how happy I am that the site is back. I also just want to emphasize that, due to working crazy hours and having no relevant knowledge whatsoever, I did absolutely nothing to accomplish this. Daisy and Sokoth were working constantly with every bit of their free time to battle every incoming issue and spearheading the charge. I also want to acknowledge the incredible assistance of Tranq and especially Makaze, whose very generous help was exactly what we needed to get things running again. We absolutely wouldn't be here again without any of them, so be sure to join me in telling them thanks so much for the help!

And it's good to be around you all again. Understatement of the year.

Over the past month I definitely have missed having this place in my life, despite the fact that I've just had one of the busiest months of my entire life so often it didn't have much time to register. The work onslaught shows no signs of letting up since in addition to networking, dissertation, other projects, and everything else I start teaching a 5-week class (for the first time at that) on Tuesday, so mafia is a no-go for quite some time, but I'm happy that now I can talk OT/music/whatever with you folks and hop in the discord whenever I have time. So rest assured you'll see my screenname pop in here from time to time, as much as I can afford for now, and just know that I really miss being more involved around here. Hopefully I'll get to talk to you all again soon.

Epignosis wrote:You know that house we just bought?

It almost burned to the ground.

I'm not kidding.

You see, I bought a propane grill for the first time this weekend, and used it Saturday night. It went well, although the food could've been better I guess.

The next morning we went to church. I had to play the bass and fill in for the pastor. Busy morning.

On the drive back, we encountered fire trucks at the entrance of our cul-de-sac.

"Oh dear God, I've only been here a few months and I've already taken out part of the neighborhood."

I held my breath as I turned the corner.

The house was still standing (I'm in it right now). There were two trucks blocking our driveway. I had to get out and find out what was the matter.

"Are you Mr. Brown?"

"Aw shit..." "Yes."

Turns out a nearby neighbor decided to burn a tree stump with cooking oil and, since it's been dry and windy lately, the wind carried the flames into all the neighbors' yards. We are on a cul-de-sac that is inside a circular street, so we have neighbors and then we have neighbors roundabout us. The fence behind us is charcoal. The trees are scorched. The grass is black.

The fire came within five feet of our home.

Our backyard looks like Mordor.

nutella wrote:I had a strange dream in which Sorsha was hosting a weird game on this site. It was like a complex RPG kinda thing that took up a whole subforum, but had some things in common with mafia. There was definitely some kind of voting phase aspect, because in the dream I realized that I had signed up and then a few days later realized I had forgotten and missed a vote and Sorsha had warned that missing votes in this game was unacceptable. Don't know if it was like a lynch kind of vote or something more event-y/RPG-decision-y, I never really figured out what the game was really. All I know is that the setting/flavor/story was fantasy, like everyone was a wizard/sorceror with magical objects and potions, and that it was a long-term ongoing thing that anyone could join at any point. You could just join whenever you wanted by making your own thread titled with your name. There was a main thread that only Sorsha could post in to update the game story/events. Other than that I have no goddamn idea what was going on. Sounds like a fun concept though.

Dom wrote:wtf is slack