Times I Wanted to Straight Up Punch Captain Janeway

This is written for the DPChallenge: And Now For Something Completely Different.  I usually write about how the bomb Janeway is, so I decided, for a change, to write about times she sucks.

Love is such a complicated emotion, especially when the object of your affection is a fictional character who’s been written by more people than a priest-and-a-rabbi joke.

So, while in general I can’t get enough of Captain Janeway, sometimes she does something so absurd and out-of-character that I want to punch her.  Here are some of those times.

(Dis)Honorable Mention: 5.23 “11:59”

The Episode: Nothing’s happening out in the Delta Quadrant, so everybody starts researching his or her ancestors and talking about why these ancestors have been such great inspirations.  Most of the episode follows Janeway’s great-great-great-times-a-million grandma, Shannon O’Donnell, whom Janeway believed to be an astronaut.  Turns out, O’Donnell was just some out-of-work nobody who helped a bookstore owner come to terms with selling his store to a shopping mall.

Why I Want to Punch Her:  Janeway is so proud of her lame ancestor and so dejected when she finds out this lame ancestor was, indeed, lame.

Redeeming Quality: It’s not so much Janeway I want to punch–having childhood heroes and then being flummoxed/disheartened when they’re not that heroic is pretty human, after all.  Shannon O’Donnell, though.  Your story is SOOOO BORING, girl!

Metaphors and Similes and Other Things You Don’t Need at Welding School

Written for this week’s DPChallenge:  Easy as Pie

Once upon a time when I had a job and an income and approximately the same amount of stress but coming from different areas, I was a high school English teacher in a kinda-stupid-but-ridiculously-snooty-even-though-it-is-mostly-populated-by-well-off-white-trash-types suburb.

The educational paradigm there was trying to shift itself into a thing that was totally student-centered.  As such, students were supposed to figure out what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives by age 14 and subsequently take only classes that would further this aim for the rest of their high school career and beyond.

I thought this model was pretty dumb. I’m certainly pro-career-minded education and allowing students to choose classes that will appeal to their interests as well as their individual learning styles; however, how’s anybody supposed to know what he’s going to do for the rest of his entire life at age 14? And shouldn’t we force him to read some things he doesn’t like, and do some math problems he’ll never use just to expand and exercise his brain?

Anyway, the point of this post is to fit into the weekly writing challenge and to set up, in your mind’s eye, my classroom in which the following frustrations took place:

Teaching metaphors and similes to ninth graders is like putting a Santa Claus costume on a cat.

Hey Gurrrrrrrrl! It’s your inbox!

Hey gurrrrrl!

It’s your inbox!

I hate to be a downer, but I don’t see you as often as I’d like. Usually you check me quickly from your phone since your computer died and you have to use Tish’s all the time. She doesn’t mind, you know. She never uses it. She prefers looking at the internet on her phone. But you don’t. You like using a computer. Haha! You would actually prefer a desktop! You’re kind of a fuddy duddy.

OMG! I just said fuddy duddy. How does an email inbox even know a gay ass colloquialism like that! And now I’m being un-PC. Ugh! This is what happens to me when you don’t clean me out for months on end: I get all clogged and reclusive and think in offensive phrases.