I Made It! I Made It!

Whew! I'm on my blog!

My absence has been involuntary, believe me. The goody-goody priss-heads at the Utah State Office of Education are trying to stifle my artistry. The school where I work has several types of programs, including an elementary school for Kindergarten through Third Grade. It is our great good fortune that the State Office provides our Internet service. Ahem. Look, I'm telling you with a straight face that I'm grateful! I am!

Now, the adult education part of the school doesn't have a lot of contact with the children. Some, but not much. Our hours are different; well, the whole culture is different. We in adult education like to view ourselves as geeky wonks, devoted to our narrow little specialty; as more cynical. We use bad words. (Well, not all of us; but the ones who don't use bad words are gifted at saying good words in a way that makes them sound bad.) We like unfettered Internet access.

Now, I kept my cool a few months ago when I couldn't go on Flickr or Facebook anymore. Who cares? I didn't like them that much anyway. But, on Monday when I came in and discovered that I couldn't get any Blogs!?! I joined the ranks of the living dead. Oh, and we can't Google images any more. WTF!?!

This is war. I wrote a snooty e-mail to my boss telling her that blogs are the go-to network for everything these days. And, no kidding; how can you have a team of English as a Second Language teachers who can't Google images? We use pictures all day long. After my initial complaint and request for an override code, I got an e-mail from our business office, asking, "Well, tell us what images you need to Google. Maybe we could get you access to those images." Hilarity upon reading this back in our office. What images DON'T we need to Google? (Well, all right - there are a few.) I replied that, on a typical day we might have the need to Google, "volunteers helping with a community cleanup"; "man walking with his dog"; "common caution signs"; "9 X 13 inch pan". And, if we occasionally want to debate the relative merits of the different Bonds through the ages (the new guy is too mean-looking, if you ask me), well, it's a handy tool for this as well.

Which gets me to the heart of the matter: am I a lazy, unprofessional slob because I want to read and write blogs at work? The thing is that I work hard, I work a lot of hours, and I'm salaried (AKA owned). And after working a lot of hours at school, I throw a bunch of stuff in my briefcase and take it home to work on it some more. As I see it, if I want to top off a twelve-hour work day by staying for an additional half-hour and writing a blog entry, what of it? And if I want to read your blogs while I eat my lunch, well, big deal. I can't type with my hands full of sandwich, anyway.

My boss knows this, and she understands. Or at least, she acquiesces. But convincing the bureaucrats at the Office of Education will be a different matter.

And before I finish my rant, let me explore the possibility of blogging more at home.

1. This is possible, but challenging, since Si jumps on the computer first and hogs it, doing his own office work. To get a look in, I have to stand there like Puss in Boots in the Shrek movies and promise him sexual favors in exchange for a few minutes in Blogland. It makes me feel so cheap.
2. Then there's our computer. Start it up and it sounds like a jet taking off. Log on and go make a cup of tea. By the time you came back, it might have set up the desktop. Or not. Go to your blog. Click "View Comments". This rash act will cause the whole thing to freeze up. The computer tells me, "Come back tomorrow, bitch, and we'll see what's what." It does not respond favorably to my offer of sexual favors.
3. And finally, it's COLD down here! The office is an ice palace. I'm proof-reading this with my hand covering my ice-cold nose.

So, there you have it. I'm in exile. No, in prison. Digging through my cell-wall with a spoon. If anyone out there knows how to circumvent content blockers, let me know. It would be the equivalent of passing me a hacksaw in a cake.