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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: February 23rd, 2024

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  • Those kids are at MOST in 3rd grade.

    Here are the approximate word counts for each book in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling:

    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: ~77,000 words
    Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: ~85,000 words
    Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: ~107,000 words
    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: ~190,000 words
    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: ~257,000 words
    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: ~168,000 words
    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: ~198,000 words
    

    In total, the series contains around 1,082,000 words across all seven books.

    They would have had to read the entire Harry Potter series. They would have read “War and Peace” twice. They would have read about 80 Capt. Underpants books. They would have had to read about 50 Goosebumps books. A book for a 3rd grader typically consists of about 20,000 words, so in 10.5 months (school year) they would have to read almost 5 chapter books a month. Impressive at that age.




  • I understand that the roots of these holidays are religious. Even Christmas. However, I argue that the meaning and traditions of these holidays have been heavily high jacked by American culture and mean more to American culture than they do religion at this point. St. Patrick’s Day? The most people can tell you about St. Patrick’s day is that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. And by snakes, they meant Pagans. Who knows what the fuck Halloween means to religious people these days? Hell, without looking it up, what are its roots? I even argue that for a higher percentage of Americans, Christmas is more about presents and Santa than it is Jesus birthday.






  • The elementary school I taught at offered free lunches to all students. Still, parents who packed food for their kids would give them Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Takis and a huge can of Arizona Ice Tea daily. These students looked down on hot lunch kids. I remember seeing a student that had a lunchable everyday, but clearly their parent got it from a 7/11 or something because there was a price tag on it and it was for $5. There were also parents that dropped of fast food EVERY SINGLE DAY to their student. These were low income families too.

    When lunch food is a status symbol, the system has failed you.










  • Game:

    GoldenEye 007, but I want it to be in 1997 playing on the 27" CRT TV in the basement with my brother. Technically, it was my N64, so I always got to use the gold controller that it came with. We sat on the carpet within feet of the giant wooden TV cabinet, because the cords weren’t very long. My dad was a carpenter and only recently refinished the basement with tongue and groove cedar. I still remember the smell of the wood and the sound of the furnace clicking on down there. He even cut a crescent moon into the bathroom door as if it were an outhouse.

    We liked to play Golden Gun in the temple. We even made up our own games within the game, like hide and seek. Back then he was my best friend. He made some life choices that were different from mine. We were never as close as when we played that game. We’re not in a bad spot or anything, but those days now just memories.