Phone: Ring...Ring (it's a phone, what else was it supposed to do?)
Me: Good afternoon, this is Lee Bennett, III, how may I help you? (I'm at work, what do you expect me to do?)
Caller: Hey, this is [*****}. You know, if the class is too slow for you and you don't want to show up tomorrow, we won't hold you accountable.
Me: What, are you kicking me out of the class?
Caller: No, but some people were a bit bothered by your...
     *coversation was shortened...I'm sure ya'll get the picture...

Wow.
Admittedly, I behaved a bit of an ass, although unintentionally…for the most part. The deal? Weeeeelll, okay, here goes. I enrolled in an on-site Dreamweaver MX course, hoping to perhaps glean a few nuggets of information on something I didn’t know in the program. For those who don’t know, Dreamweaver is the HTML tool for building websites…in a nutshell. Consequently, it’s also what I used to design this website, and add my adjustments to this particular template for that matter. Anyways, when I got to the class, I realized that the text was very basic, and I was obligated to sit through it for two days, three hours a piece for two days, to be more accurate. So, in the beginning, I may have been a bit snide because I had the instructor before, and she found it amusing to throw her sarcasm my way. Now in all fairness, in the previous class, it was playful on both ends…but I hate crawling when I know how to walk. So, today, I retorted to her dry humor with some of my trademark sarcasm…nothing to sharp, just the “back off” type of sarcasm I can throw out when I’m not in the mood. In all fairness (how many times have I said that already…), I have been in a very awkward place emotionally lately, so my temper has been very short at points. Not my character to be short tempered, but it has been happening a bit lately. Not that I lost my temper, but I just wasn’t in the mood to be bothered…and I hadn’t eaten. That can be a danger sign for me, because that’s the main cause of me being moody…that and being extremely tired.
So…we have our scenario. The short end of the story is basically that if she said something that needed qualifying in my eyes, I would interject. Now, some of it is my compulsive nature, and some of it is because I used to teach myself, but right is right. If you say put a picture in your web page, but don’t mention what type, I feel I need to say something. Not to be a smart ass, but so people know.

Me: Oh teacher, what type of format do you use for pictures on the web?
Teacher: Now should I even answer that, because he’s being sarcastic…
Random Student…we’ll call him Mayor West from The Family Guy: No…don’t answer him.
Now, I wasn’t being sarcastic, but I said it in such a fashion in an honest attempt to not be disruptive or disrespectful. In hindsight, that shit was a bit extra, but, this is the diary of the socially retarded…as you may have noticed above…

Thing about teaching is not just teaching what people don’t know, it’s anticipating what they don’t know to ask and accommodating that as well (hey, I like that...I'll keep that). That’s all I was trying to do…for the most part. The teacher seemed to get a bit snippy towards the end. I think she took it as me trying to show her up, or I didn’t like her…which one, shouldn’t matter, and two, is not the case. She seems cool; in fact, she reminds me a great deal of a good friend of mine by the name of Vanja. But, in all fairness (yes I said it again, damnit), don’t be Vance smarty pants and define something I know the definition to, be wrong, and then put me out there on some “Am I right, Lee” business.
You know people complained about me…because I knew the answers. They looked at it like, “This guy is a know- it- all, he thinks he’s the man.” Naw mufu, I know I’m the man, but besides that, you’re wrong. Coming from a place where I’ve seen people not know what they’re doing, not give you everything they can/should, or are off base, sorry if I say something. I’ve seen it in high school, college, and when I taught. Shit, I’ve corrected people with doctorates! If you ever met my mom’s, that how she does, so I get that from her. If you come out wrong, I’m speakin on it. Shit, my mom’s still corrects my grammar, even when she knows I’m playing around. She corrects grown folk… And don’t get me wrong, for teaching the material given, shorty has done her thing for the most part; but I also know that people by nature tend to hold reverence for a teacher similar to that of God, as if the teacher is infallible. Shit…I’ve said some wrong shit to my students…and if they called me on it, I have to check myself. But, if something is said in a field you are unfamiliar with, you tend to adopt that thought until you create your own. So, if something is said that’s off…shit, I can’t say I disagree? I ain’t even get into details most of the time:
Teacher: Frontpage is good for beginners…
Me: No, frontpage is terrible…
It might be a bit unsettling, but many folks who use HTML editor’s, most of them hate frontpage because it adds its own html code to whatevr you do. So, if I had said nothing, somebody may have been inclined to buy Frontpage and then wonder why their work arbitrarily comes up funny. But whatever, man…
I played my part…and I can admit I was wrong in the manner in which I did it. So, I’ll be going to the class tomorrow because I have a right to be there like everybody else. I’ll sit down, and if I don’t get any funny commentary from anybody, I’ll most likely apologize to the instructor and the class. After which, I’ll say little to nothing. So, in case folks piss me off tomorrow, and principle and pride skew things…let me offer my sincerest apologies right now to any and all who were disturbed, bothered, agitated, or offended by my actions.
Peace.