Posts Tagged ‘stories’
More True College Roommate Stories
Thursday, February 26th, 2009Less than a week into the semester, CrazyBones decides that he doesn’t need to go to class anymore. So this, along with the fact he doesn’t have a job, provided ample free time for him to sit around in sweat pants and be an all around scrub. As a few weeks went by I could just tell by some small actions and a glint he had in his eye something was definitely not right in this guy’s brain. But I’ll spare the small details and go straight to the shit.
So it all starts one night when we threw a party. Everything is going fine until about 11pm when one of my buddies says that CrazyBones just ran half the party out because he yelled at whoever was in earshot that they were all essentially worthless because they weren’t paying attention to his crappy attempt a freestyle rapping (mind you he is 6,4 250 or so lbs and a goony looking white guy). I took this with a grain of salt and continued having a good time until about 4am when some dude comes into the basement all bloody and says I need to take CrazyBones to the hospital. oh, shit…..Well apparently the two had gotten in a massive fight in CrazyBones’ room and there was blood everywhere and a window was broken and his hand was sliced up pretty bad. So I drive him to the hospital and I wait in the lobby as he is being attended to. And after about an hour he comes out having stole a bunch of the hospitals crap saying they were taking too long and he was going to deal with it himself. He disappeared the next morning and eventually subsided a few days later fixed up. I don’t know and don’t want to.
Maybe a week or so after that I come downstairs to find all the furniture we had had (which was mostly his) he moved to the basement, where he set up shop and reversed the lock so only he could get in. At this time he is hanging around some pretty shady people (he always did, but these were even worse) going in and out of the house. All he is doing is hanging out in the basement and maybe he would run an errand or two during the week. Mind you he isn’t going to class and has no job. And there are empty bottles of prescription pills everywhere.
Then he starts antagonizing people and attempting to pick fights with just about everybody. At one point he threatned to kill myself and the other roommate, DnD, as of now I completely forgot what the premise of the conversation was, but this type of thing happened pretty much every night for a month. Dealing with CrazyBones was like walking on landmines. With the aid of the Univeristy (who owned the house) we encouraged CrazyBones to move. A few months later I hear he is charged for felony B & E. I don’t hear anything about him for three months when he calls and tells me that he was going through rehab and some twelve step programs and is calling to ask my forgiveness. I give him my forgiveness and he tells me that he had been dealing crystal meth out of the basement and he was doing tons of meth AND he, at the time of all this, decided to quit taking medication for bipolar disorder.
BUT, this is only the first part of the story
After CrazyBones moved out, we still had a room to fill and since DnD was too much of a cheap ass to split $750 down the middle he wanted to get another roommate. He suggests his brother, who turns out to be another completely worthless human being. What DnD failed to tell me about his brother at first (he waited until it became an issue two months later) was that his brother had been kicked out their parents, his girlfriend’s
, and and alcohol rehab center. DnD’s brother major problem was that he was drunk and loud and would actually get so drunk he would stumble over his own feet. I put up with this until the night when this dude somehow tipped the entire refrigerator over. I can’t even begin to explain what that kitchen looked like the next day. And DnD also found his brother was hiding some small weapons by his bed. Needless to say we kicked him out as well.
The main morals of this story are
1.) If you plan to live by yourself….DO IT!!!!
2.) If someone seems a little crazy chances are they are a lot crazy
Ghost Stories
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009When I started teaching English at Northwestern Military and Naval Academy near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, nobody warned me about the ghosts.
Northwestern a beautiful, old granite building was a boarding school. A hundred boys lived there, ranging in age from seventh grade through twelfth, although the building could have accommodated maybe twice as many. The school had been in existence for about a century. The hallway leading to the gymnasium was lined with photographs of all the graduating classes
The entrance to the school featured two wrought iron gates and a long driveway that wound through the extensive grounds. Trees, flowers and shrubs added to the park-like atmosphere.
Northwestern was both a military and a naval academy, and some of its graduates had served in World War I and World War II. A couple of those who had been killed in action were buried on the grounds. Considering the age of the building and its history, I suppose I should have expected ghosts or rather, I should have expected ghost stories.
But I didnt.
Not until one fall morning when my students came to class so upset that they couldnt concentrate on their school work.
Do you believe in ghosts? one of them asked finally.
Yeah, Ms. Ralph. Do you believe in ghosts? several others chimed in.
While I was attending the university to earn my teacher certification, none of the professors had mentioned how you were supposed to handle a question like this.
Well, I said, I think there are probably many things in this world that we dont understand.
By now, all of my students were giving me their utmost attention. If only they were this interested in English.
Have you ever seen a ghost? one of them asked.
I shook my head. No. Ive never seen a ghost.
We have, said one young man.
Really? I said. And when was this?
Last night.
In our room.
We did, too, said a couple of others.
What happened? I asked.
It was just after lights out. Our curtain started moving.
Instead of doors, each of the dorm rooms had curtains covering the doorway.
At first I thought it was the sergeant coming to check on us, my student said.
Military personnel were on duty around the clock to supervise the boys.
Then what happened? I asked.
S-sss-some, he stammered.
Something pulled the blanket off his bed, his roommate finished.
By now, all of the boys looked frightened.
I dont want to stay here anymore, said one young man.
Me, either.
Im calling my mom to tell her to come and get me.
Me, too.
All right everybody, I said. Take a deep breath.
I waited for them to take a deep breath.
Now let it out slowly.
They all did.
What else happened?
Other boys described pranks of a similar nature waking up in the middle of the night freezing cold, only to discover that their window was wide open when it had been shut and locked hours earlier; math books that had been sitting on their desks when they went to sleep were in the bottom of the garbage can when they woke up; uniforms were switched so that when they started to get dressed in the morning, they discovered they didnt have their own clothes.
Hmmm, I said. Who do you think would play tricks like that?
My students considered the question for a few moments.
Well, it kind of sounds like something we would do, said one young man.
Hey it DOES sound like something we would do!
You mean you think its a real person ?
Or is it a ghost, one of those guys thats buried here ?
I think its one of us.
But even if its a ghost, its still one of us a cadet.
Yeah, it WOULD be a cadet, wouldnt it
I smiled to myself as they continued their discussion. At least they didnt seem so frightened anymore.
For the rest of the fall the incidents continued. Then they stopped as abruptly as they had started. Either the culprit was afraid he was going to get caught, or else. . .
Wait a minute. You dont suppose there really WAS a ghost?
Naaa. . .couldnt be.
********************
Writing Your Life Stories
Friday, February 13th, 2009Or what about the time that your little sister. . .?
Or how about the time that your mom was making. . .and burned the. . .?
You probably have hundreds of these stories tucked away in your memory. Perhaps you’ve even thought that someday you would like to write about them. There’s only one problem. “I don’t know where to start I wouldn’t know what to write,” you think to yourself.
One simple technique that will help you recall those stories and put them into written form is called “clustering,” which is featured in a book titled Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Lusser Rico (copyright 1983; J.P. Tarcher, Inc.)
Whether you are aiming for publication or whether you just want to write down your stories for your children and grandchildren isn’t important. The technique will help you to recall your life stories.
Materials needed: several sheets of paper; a pen or a pencil.
1. Find a comfortable place that’s quiet where you can work for 15 to 30 minutes without being interrupted (kitchen table; desk in your office; easy chair in your living room).
2. Think of a subject that is meaningful for you, such as Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July, Easter, New Year’s Day. Other possibilities include birthdays, a beloved pet, a best friend, an older brother or sister, a younger brother or sister, a cousin, grandmother, grandfather, your mom or dad, a neighbor who was like a mother/father/grandmother/grandfather. Additional possibilities could include an enjoyable hobby, such as growing flowers, vegetable gardening, baking cookies, baking cakes, making candy, or sewing.
3. Write the subject that you have selected in the center of one of the sheets of paper and then circle it.
4. Draw a line with an arrow from your central word. Put it wherever it feels “right” to you. Up or down. Left or right. At an angle. Fill in the point of the arrow. Filling in the arrow will give your brain a few seconds to make the connection to the next word or phrase associated with your subject. The basis of the whole exercise is to allow your left brain and right brain to work together (to coordinate the analytical and the creative).
5. Draw another circle and write down the word or phrase inside the circle that has popped into your mind.
6. Repeat the steps of drawing arrows and circles and writing down the words or phrases that come to mind.
7. At some point in the exercise, you will suddenly think of an introductory sentence and you will feel a STRONG urge to start writing. Do not ignore the urge. Take another sheet of paper and start writing immediately. Do not try to edit what you are writing. Do not try to over-think what you are writing. Let yourself write what comes to mind.
8. Write for as long as the words keep coming.
9. When you feel that you have nothing more to say on the subject, put down your pen or pencil and relax for a few moments, then read what you have written. Whether it’s one paragraph, a whole page, or several pages congratulations! You have just written the first of your life stories!
10. Set your story aside for an hour or two or even a day or two. When you read it again, you may find that you have remembered more details that you would like to add. If so, go ahead and add them. If not, and you are satisfied with the piece, that’s fine, too.
This exercise can be repeated for virtually any subject. You can also use it to help flesh out parts of your story to add more detail. Focus on a key word for a certain section of the story and see where the clustering technique takes you.
If you are interested in interviewing family members to record their life stories, be sure to check out LeAnn’s e-book: “Preserve Your Family History (A Step-by-Step Guide for Writing Oral Histories)” at http://ruralroute2.com — “Preserve Your Family History” ($7.95) contains more than 400 questions on 30 different topics to help you conduct your interviews. Even if you only record those interviews on tape (and don’t actually write the oral history), you will still have collected some of your family stories. And isn’t that the important thing?
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: HEIRLOOM STORIES ARE A PERFECT GIFT
Sunday, February 8th, 2009HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: HEIRLOOM STORIES ARE A PERFECT GIFT
WORD COUNT 435
Selecting the right gift for a special someone is sometimes joyous, sometimes a chore. Give a gift thats free. A gift that no one else could give. A gift of your legacy!
Consider giving to or requesting a very personal, one-of-a-kind gift this year: heirloom stories. A perfect gift for an adult child who has everything. A perfect gift to request from aging parents who dont know what to give.
A daughter knew that the quilt protected in her mothers cedar chest was her great grandmothers. But until her mother recorded the story of the quilt she did not know how dear it really was. The quilt was a wedding present received the day before her newly married great grandparents climbed onto a covered wagon in Pennsylvania to begin their journey westward to Colorado and a new life. Protected and hand carried across the U.S. the quilt bumped for a thousand miles along the Santa Fe Trail with a wagon train. That quilt is now much more cherished.
People forget that they live in their homes with history all around them. Old tools, equipment and machinery have a history all their own. A womans gloves, hat or shoes describe an era never to be seen again. Most of the stories go untold, leaving generations without the knowledge of an items uniqueness, history or sentimental value. History lessons and family stories can be integrated, enjoyed & remembered by any age recipient.
Personal belongings and family heirlooms have so much to say. Have yours told their stories yet? They will be welcome and engaging gifts. Here are some ideas to help you tell those heirloom stories:
~Tell them to someone who will act as your scribe.
~Write them down in longhand or on a typewriter or computer.
~Record them on a tape recorder in your own voice.
~Have someone videotape you while you hold an item and tell its story or demonstrate its use.
Even a person with Alzheimers Disease can often share the stories that others may think are lost. If she can still speak, put an item in her hand, and it may remind her of events or uses, people or places. Ask her questions, and you may get more history than you expected.
Start now to preserve those stories, histories and ways. Give or request a loving legacy for any season or occasion.
Linda LaPointe, MRA is an ElderLife Matters Coach and the author of several publications on aging and eldercare, including, Loving Legacies: An Heirloom Organizing Kit which can be seen at www.SOSpueblo.com
Still More Crazy College Roommate Stories
Monday, January 12th, 2009A few weeks later we had thrown a small gathering and had people in and out of the house. Well I noticed that (and I mean no offense to frat boys when I finish this sentence) some ‘think you are cool trying to take our cheap whiskey’-fratboy walked outside and tried to stash our cheap whiskey to take at a later point. Little did he know I noticed this. So instead of taking our cheap whiskey back, I tell one of my other roommates and we decide to piss into the whiskey the rest of the night. When we started pissing in the whiskey there was about a quarter of the handle filled; we ‘filled’ it up back to about three-quarters.
After the night was over we went to check on the handle to see if maybe the fratboy forgot, but sure as shit, he didn’t. The funniest part is that the next night my roommate (who pissed in the bottle as well) and I ran into him at a convience store. So we start bullshitting with him and ask him what he is up to and he says he is picking up some sour mix so him and his frat brothers can make some whiskey sours that night. Ah, didn’t he mean ‘Pisskey Sours.”
I’m sure he laughed under his breath a little thinking “I stole your guys’ whiskey”, but we laughed even louder when we realized that sig-ep fraternity was about to drink our piss.
Fathers Tell Your Stories!
Saturday, November 29th, 2008I must admit to having a fear that I believe I share with many fathers. I fear that I will some day be insignificant to my children. Its not as though theyll completely forget who I am; its that what I stand for and what I believe in wont be a significant part of their lives.
Perhaps popular culture will take over or perhaps they just wont care. The fear is there because its so important to me that my children have a moral compass to live by, and that they have a value system that honors and respects others.
So what are fathers to do? We live in an increasingly complex society and the answers to our childrens questions are neither easy nor simple. Many of these questions may be difficult to answer and may show your kids that ideas about whats right and wrong are not always very clear.
What fathers can do is to wish and hope that things turn out for your children–or you can have the courage to make passing on your values an absolute priority in your family. You can challenge yourself to pass on love, faith, courage, freedom–the eternal truths that will have meaning for your children for generations to come.
There will certainly be some bumps along the way and it wont always be a smooth ride. After all, theres an entire culture out there thats telling your kids that what they wear and what they buy is the most important thing in their life.
Theres a way for fathers to succeed here. They can do it through the stories that they tell their kids and also through how they models for their kids.
You can start by taking a different and closer look at the daily events that happen in your life. Your life is filled with significant happenings that you can sometimes pass over if youre not paying attention or if you get too busy. These events can become stories that your children will cherish.
Why is it important to tell your stories to your children?
One important reason is that it serves to connect your children to previous generations and to help them to feel a part of the larger whole of your family. Perhaps a more important reason is that telling your children your stories helps them to deal with the difficult challenges that theyll be facing in their life.
The truth is that your kids will go through some real struggles. As parents, it can be painful to watch–and it is seldom useful to try to come to the rescue. What can be helpful to your kids is to know that their father, and other significant people in their lives, have gone through similar struggles and have survived.
Stories are often about struggles and failures. Your children love to hear stories about these struggles because they have them often in their own lives. They know failure and struggle extremely well; thats a lot of what being a kid is about.
The stories you tell them will ultimately be comforting. That you have had these struggles and have come back and recovered is encouragement to them; your kids will need a truckload of encouragement to navigate their way through life.
It is truly a gift to be able to communicate to your children what is in your heart through the use of stories. Stories can not only be used as a vehicle to pass along your values, but they are likely to inspire your children to repeat the same process with their children.
Here are five suggestions to help you come up with stories for your children:
1.Tell stories to your kids when they are the most attentive to them–when they are in bed, or settled down so they can sit still for awhile.
2.Make sure to include stories of you failing miserably. These are particularly useful to your kids. Weve all got a few of these, dont we?
3.Have your parents tell your children some of their own stories if they are able–a great way to show the connection that exists between generations.
4.Use stories to answer your kids questions about difficult issues. They need to know that you have faced these issues yourself, and that there are many choices available.
5.Realize that you dont need a history of storytelling in your family to get started, and you dont need to be a great storyteller. Give some thought to experiences youve had that might relate to some of the issues your kids are facing right now or in the near future.
There is a short window of opportunity in which to tell your children the stories of your life. Many fathers fail to tell their stories because of a lack of a story-telling tradition in their family of origin. This can be a wonderful opportunity to begin your own tradition with your own stories.
Its also a great opportunity to contribute to the moral upbringing of your kids by telling them the stories of your life. The lessons within these stories can provide some of the moral anchor for your kids in a world that doesnt often provide many moral anchors.
Teaching your kids about life through telling your stories will be more effective than lecturing your kids any day of the week. Your kids will want to hear your stories, the lecturing they could probably do without.
May your stories live on eternally.
Kidzworld Online Kids and Teen Magazine Top Stories
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
http://www.kidzworld.com/rss/main.xml
More Crazy College Roommate Stories
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008Naturally I overrode it.
I moved in. At first Cathy was really cool, but over the course of days she starts to tell me her story. Turns out she’s a Paxil addict who just got off her meds; she’s bipolar; she may have schizophrenia; and her poor brother committed suicide by shoving a shotgun in his own mouth and pulling the trigger. I’m too nice, and I figure we all have problems, so I figure this is no big deal. Well, time passes…
Cathy knew when our acting workshop coordinator told her that I was a filmmaker and had a small film company. Well, before too much longer, she decides my company is HER company, we are going to shoot only her projects now – which means instead of shooting the pictures I want to shoot, I am now only making Japanese anime about boys bonking boys; I am going to star her super number one idol pop star Jonathan Davis from Korn in a television series I’m working on, and let him even score the soundtrack because she wants to marry him, despite the fact that he is already married – to a porn star; she decides to name my company and tells me it will be named Androphonos Media or Eriboea Media because my company must be consecrated to her favorite Greek goddess, Aphrodite… I ask why… she says, “because we’re both Libras and Libra is ruled by Aphrodite! Tee hee!”; she comes upstairs bringing me this really amateur short story of hers I am to re-write into a screenplay so WE can sell it and then WE can both start OUR company in Britain (she learned I am moving my studio to the UK this winter); and when I told her I was doing none of the above things…
She turned psycho.
Suddenly she skulks around the house like a scared, wounded person, staring at me with peering, weird eyes, avoiding me (which was good until it stopped), and acting like I have a mental problem she’s afraid of. She starts calling me “bitch” as my first name, as in “so and so and so and so, bitch” and “so and so and so, bitch, YO”; she talks abstractly about people doing what she tells them to or they will get kicked out of “my house”, as she put it; she then reveals to me she sleeps in her bed at night with a Japanese katana sword, she has katana swords all over the house, even on the kitchen counter in the way of where cooking could be done; she moves in a weird, always-agitated Filipino hacker dude who’s known to steal stuff, and he moves in his cat, which he locks in a closet, which causes it to wail all hours of the day and night (meanwhile I was not permitted to have a cat; nutball is “allergic” to them, I was told – hmmm); and the coup de grace, one day I come home from work, to find her SPOOKED. I ask her what’s up, and she says, “I see little dolls that are alive. There’s one on the stairs right now. She’s evil, she looks like a miniature girl, and she sits there staring at me, while swinging her legs. Lookit her! She’s there right now!”
Naturally there’s nothing there. It doesn’t EXIST~
Cathy proceeds to tell me she sees evil dolls around her like this all the time; that the dolls in her bedroom on her shelf occasionally turn and look at her; that her radio comes on all by itself and won’t I look at it please? And that Japanese anime characters are real people.
Hmm.
The final straw came Saturday a week ago when I saw she had a package on the doorstep, and brought it in. The night before, she had telephoned hysterical because her car had a flat in the middle of nowhere and wanted me to come help her, which I did. Keep this in mind because of what happens next. I took her package to her closed bedroom door and knocked lightly to tell her she had a package. This cave bitch abruptly shoots back, “I’m busy. What do you WANT.”
After waking me up near midnight to go fix her freaking car!
I wrote her a note telling her I was done with her rude behind and I was moving out at the end of September. Then I went to work. While at work I get hysterical calls from her on my cell phone. I switch them off and put her on ignore. She is waiting for me when I come home! The moment I came in and she heard the door, out she came banging from her room acting like I had stabbed her in the chest. Mewling little eyes and face; cute little voice; harmless little act. Why am I upset with her because she is just B-L-I-N-D-S-I-D-E-D by that letter to her.
I told her to bring it up later, I didn’t want to see her right then. In my room I wrote a detailed letter telling her everything you just read above this. I also said I was sick of anime, and even though I liked the muppets, I didn’t shove muppets down her throat all the time like she did to me with anime. She came upstairs and said, “I would like to disprove everything you said in this letter point by point.” She sits down, starts the waterworks (which I saw as extremely manipulative – btw, it didn’t work) and denies everything in the letter, makes it sound like I’m the jerk for leaving, tells me I have to let her call me “bitch” because “my suicidal brother called people bitch” (???), and that basically I need to put up or shut up, and that I’m being unreasonable. She lies about EVERYTHING she’s ever done, then suddenly goes off on this ten-minute rant about the muppets! “I did watch the muppets as a kid!” She wails. “I do know something about the muppets! You lie!”
Meanwhile I am thinking… displaced reality… is she not aware what this discussion is about…? Is this bitch a wackjob…?
She tops it off by sniveling, at the end, “… I think I might be schizophrenic.”
(She “thinks”????)
I patronized and comforted her to get her the hell out of my room, and since then, she’s colluded real tight with Filipino hacker. The two of them sit up laughing together all night (really FAKE laughter) like they’ve been best friends for eleven years, and this I think is supposed to make me feel “left out” (note to readers: I am 35 and the two of them are 20). They both are rude to me and ignore me as I pass thru, but I ignore them right back, stay polite, and stay away from them. I am moving out in a few days, but she had to get her last little jab in…
She came bringing me back some books I’d lent her, and gave me a terse little note saying that “since” I felt things were not working out, and I do not pay rent on time (a lie), I am “ordered to vacate the premises” of her house on October 2nd, and at the bottom of the letter she warned me not to steal her broadband antenna which comes with the rent. As if I want it?
I’ve seen some real crazy roommates described on this board, but I think my former roommate Cathy Leicester takes the complete cake. She needs to be in a rubber room with people talking very softly to her. That way her friend the little doll will not be disturbed. I hope whoever considers her place and plans to move in as her tenant READS THIS FIRST.
Do not move in with this basket case. I repeat, do not!