No Going Back Now
This entry was originally private…lots of stuff about what I didn’t like in Arizona.
I’m moving. Yeah, I know, I was pretty shocked when I first found out too. I can’t elaborate too much on the reasons for the move because it technically isn’t official yet, but I do know that it’s going to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it. In some ways, the move is a good thing, but it in other ways, it really isn’t.
And to where am I being shipped away? Boise, Idaho. The city is about one-tenth the size of Phoenix in population. In other words, it’s small. Not that I’m not used to living in small towns; both Springfield, Missouri, and Salt Lake City, Utah, were about the same size population-wise. And in this day and age, most things are available anywhere, such as the Internet or the various chains of fast-food restaurants and movie theaters. It’s not like I’m moving to another country, right?
But it might as well be. Everything will be new: friends, school, clients, church…everything. I might as well break it all down like I usually do:
School
School is…well, high school is high school. No matter where you go, you learn generally the same things, use the same textbook, etc. The school I’ll be most likely going to is Meridian Charter High School, which, from looking at their website, will be pretty cool. They have a computer for every student in every classroom, they actually teach courses on programming and object-oriented techniques…I was floored when I found it. And as much as I like CSHS for the atmosphere and the wealth of clubs and classes to choose from, it is still quite lacking in technology. Right now, I’m writing my own curriculum as maintainer of the school website. There is no such thing as a web development class anymore, and the previous one taught students nothing more than how to use a word processor (because the site was done with a WYSIWYG editor). Worse, all of the school’s web development software is out-of-date, and they don’t have any programming IDEs such as Visual Studio or Komodo. And there is the small problem with not having any instructors that know any more about computers than how to use Office. Or so I hear.
According to several of my friends, our BMT (Business Management/Technology) course is unfortunately simple and doesn’t even challenge most students who have prior computer experience. The main cause of this problem is probably that the curriculum for these kinds of courses was probably written five years ago by someone who thought that they were a technology guru when they really weren’t. Kids need to know more about using a computer than how to print, write papers, and play video games. They should be educated about the inner workings, the Control Panel, the boot process, how to troubleshoot problems, ways to fight spam, spyware, and adware - things that will actually be useful to them in real life. Everyone (especially in this school district) knows how to use the Internet and Word, and most of them have their own ways of doing things that they are taught that are normally superior to those that the school tries to teach. This poses another problem because the students, knowing that they are obviously more technologically-adept than their teacher (or the curriculum that the teacher is teaching), have little will to apply themselves because they aren’t actually learning anything.
So, getting back to the point, CSHS is certainly lacking in the technology field, especially when it comes to more advanced things such as digital media editing (graphics, video, sound), web development, and programming. However, at MCHS, all students must choose their “technology pathway,” be it electronics, programming, graphic design, or networking. (I’ll most likely do either programming or graphic design.) Also, there are only 200 students total in the entire school, or 50 per grade level. And they have LAN parties. Can you believe that? The school actually organizes LAN parties! It will be cool to finally be with kids who are as knowledgeable or more knowledgeable about computers than I am…not to be arrogant or anything. So academic-wise, school will definitely be better than it is here. There aren’t as many AP courses (because of the small number of students), but I might be able to take those online or independently so that I can still get extra credit and stuff. If they’re anything like CSHS, they’ll be somewhat flexible, I hope.
Friends
I haven’t even told them yet. Only if they read this will they know….
My friends will be gone, to say the least. Sure, they could come and visit, but that never ends up happening. So I pretty much have to start from scratch. But if kids at MCHS are as geeky as the pictures on their websites make them look, I doubt I’ll have trouble fitting in.
Clients
As far as clients for my web design business go, the move should have little or no effect. I haven’t done much work lately anyway.
Church
My church right now is…experiencing some changes. After getting a new pastor over the summer, we’ve changed locations, been chartered as a United Methodist Church, and started a youth group (which I am a reluctant member of). However…I’m trying not to be too mean here, but I’m not a huge fan of our new pastor. It kind of seems like she’s trying to get rid of all the last vestiges of Doug (our old pastor) by removing duties from people and ensnaring new ones to do her bidding. A good example is the church bulletin (that gets handed out each Sunday) and the website, which I maintain. When Doug was here, the bulletin looked professional and dignified, having been designed by some kind of professional graphic artist way back when. Anyway, the bottom line is that it looked good. The website, on the other hand, was rarely updated both due to laziness on my part and a lack of cooperation from the rest of the congregation. So I just sort of let it fall a few months out of date, updating it whenever I was asked to but not really voluntarily.
When the new pastor came, eveything changed. Suddenly, every single thing in the bulletin has to be on the website. And I don’t mind that. As long as I’m given content to post, I’m perfectly happy. But the new pastor is one of the many, many people who are too ignorant about technology to realize that they know nothing about it. I posted a Yahoo! map on the site so that people could find the new location, along with directions I wrote myself (which I thought were pretty good, since I’m good with geography and stuff like that). The map looked great, and the directions were fine. But then I got an email asking that I PLEASE update the map with one of the ones she (the new pastor) had provided as well as replace my directions with hers. Okay, I thought. That’s not a problem. I replaced the directions. However, when I got ready to change the map, I found that the maps that she had sent were done in Word! What? That’s not even a graphics-editing program! And even worse, they looked really cheesy. And even worser, why in the world would you make your own map when there’s Yahoo! or MapQuest? Why? So my map stayed, and if she asks me about it, I’ll bite.
And the bulletins…they were probably the nicest ones I’ve ever seen from a church. They were yellow with brownish lettering with the church logo on the front and a neato-cool perforated registration form on the back so that you could simply write your name, tear it off, and drop it in the offering basket to register your attendance. But no, that’s too unconventional, too sensible. Now we have registration pads on every pew. Is it just me, or would it not be harder to collect and record information from thirty different registration pads than it would be to go through a stack of registration forms? Not only did this change, but the format of the bulletin changed as well. Gone is the pretty gold and brown design; it has been replaced by an ugliness fraught with design no-no’s, like five different fonts and colors on each page, little dinky graphics and icons, and those horrible-looking Word textbox borders. Why? It just doesn’t make sense! Sure, everyone does things differently, but how can it not be obvious to her that these changes are for the worse? I know I’m not the only one who has noticed.
The final thing that has sort of turned me off on church lately is the youth group. At first, I tried to be optimistic. I thought that if I gave it a chance, it might work out. But after two meetings, I already dread going every Sunday night. The first meeting was informational, and we talked about what we might like to do. Not much got done. The second, however, was the one that changed my opinion. We had to prepare to help with a children’s Sunday in which we had to pretend to be the animals/monsters in the children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are. Now, I understand that you sometimes have to do things that you don’t want to, and sometimes you just have to take one for the team and do them. So I went along with it. I practiced the little-kiddy songs, I did the hand motions and the dancing and such. And I performed it in front of the church with the rest of the youth group the following Sunday. And it wasn’t that bad, though I did almost knock over a lit candle in the course of singing one of the songs. But there was something nagging at me the entire time, something that I didn’t realize until afterward: I was being used.
The whole thing was not for my enjoyment, nor was it for the enjoyment of the younger kids who participated as well. We were being paraded in front of the adults. It felt like a stunt, something done solely to attract more visitors and spark participation in the church. Some of the youth group kids, especially the girls, loved it. But only because they enjoyed scaring the younger children, who all played the book’s protagonist, Max. Others, namely myself, my younger brother (somewhat), and the oldest kid in the group (16), just went along with it.
The other problem with the youth group is that the person leading it is none other than the pastor, who treats all kids like they’re five and don’t know anything. Including me. Which explains the stupid performance. And furthermore, I was never even asked if I wanted to be in the youth group; it was just assumed that I would be all for it. Or maybe I didn’t have a choice and my parents didn’t want to make it seem like I did. Except I did. I could have resisted. I could have not gone. But now that I have…to leave would only mean questions, calls home, etc.