Oh Tennessee

So most people who know me will tell you I am rather conflicted about back where I come from. I will be the first to make fun of the area but you do it - and watch out for the furry of my vengeance.

But today I found out about a rather disturbing incident at my old High School. Massively disturbing. Yes, our educational system in vastly underfunded [ third worst in the country, take that Arkansas and Mississippi], but I always felt that I ended up getting a decent education. High School was just a way to waste time before you were judged ready to attend college and really start learning. And the place where you made friends [yes, i mean the two of you]. But, if this kinda shit went down while I was there - I might have had to re-examine my relationship with the school.

So in honor of my old High School, I give you a story. I was a senior and wasting time before I got the hell out of dodge. I decided to go back to my freshman year English teacher [a class I really enjoyed] and be a peer tutor. Now this teacher always started class with a vocabulary word - a concept I fully endorsed. Things went along well until one day we started with the word infinitesimal, but it was pronounced infant-TEASE-mal. Like another incident in graduate school [sure Erasmus wrote Utopia, WRONG] my mouth moved faster than my self-control impulse could react and I shouted out, "NO, its [insert correct pronunciation here - hey i am not a linguist]." To the teacher's credit, he [who was also a football coach and very young - see they are not all jerks!] did not a) fail me, b) send me to the office or yell at me for insubordination, or c) become defensive. He took the input and adjusted his pronunciation. Now let me just say, glad he didn't have a temper like the coach and teacher in THE INCIDENT. But its horrible how a few bad apples spoil a school.