Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Butt out!

Whenever possible, to make some extra money, I volunteer to cover classes for absent teachers. And whenever possible, to gather fodder for this blog, I volunteer to monitor the in-house suspension room. This bit of conversation between two high school sophomores (both female) is from my most recent visit. I am usually fairly confident in my ability to respond quickly and with some kind of wit, but this caught me by such surprise that I quite literally had nothing to say:

R: "Yo, I be lovin' Aeropotale jeans! Ima get my Christmas money and just buy mad jeans from Aeropostale."

K: "You tight, son! I don't know why you love them jeans so much. You look like you got white butt when you wear them! I need them fat booty jeans! I don't need no white butt. No offense mista, but it be all flat and sh*t. Give me them fat booty jeans!"

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

...for a white guy?

For those readers have ever been in/taught beginning band...

N: "Yo! Let's play 'You Fly'!"

B: "That's not the title, it's actually..."

N: "My fault, my fault. Let's play 'So Fly!'"

B: "It's actually 'Shoo Fly'."

N:
"Na, na, na...it's 'So Fly' cuz I'm soooo fly!"

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

This just in

Apparently, though widely used, "Mad Brick" is not the preferred term to describe cold weather. Instead, use the term "Brick City".

An Example:

"Yo, it be BRICK CITY up in here."

Monday, December 8, 2008

Two for One

Since these two entries are related by subject matter, I present here a double feature:

Not too many weeks ago, during the heart of the fall semester, I received a text message from a good friend of mine, Mr. S. Mr. S teaches music to entitled suburban kids. The text message is as follows:

"Just heard 'you beastin'!' in the hall"

As some readers may or may not recall, my students were using this slang almost exactly a year ago; entry dated 12/10/07.

Because my students are the innovators and early adopters of urban slang, I have access to the kind of colloquialisms suburban kids can only dream of. Here are this year's biggest hits (with translations provided):

"Yo, I'm NICE wid' it, son!" (That is something at which I demonstrate proficiency)

"It be MAD BRICK out!" (It is very cold outside)

This next one I have heard as a verb and an adjective:

"You B.P.in', mista" or "You mad B.P. mista!" (Mister, you present symptoms of being bi polar)

"Yo, I'm DEAD ASS, son!" (I am serious, son!)

Monday, December 1, 2008

Special K

The technology teacher at my school has developed an easy yet brilliant system of assigning his classwork: at the beginning of each class, students have an email in their inbox waiting for them. This email details the days assignment, and work is expected to be emailed back to the teacher, with the time stamp reading no later than the end of class. One assignment was to watch two short videos on the the internet (relevant to the current unit of study, compose a 300 word response, and email it back to the teacher. For K, an eighth grade girl, this assignment was apparently too much to handle. Her composition, in its entirety, is provided here:

"i cant do no 300 words!!!11! mybe 200 or sumthin but not 300 thas to many!!!!!"

Surprisingly enough, this email was timestamped late.