college/ passive- aggressive/ unpredictable

Apr. 15 College: I was on the 16&P thread on twop.com and they were talking about a guy giving up his scholarship on the show.

Person 1: Several of my former students play either football, baseball, or basketball at that level in the NCAA (some at Florida), and they are given tutors who actually attend the classes for them and then re-teach the subject to the athlete. Plus, it's not like everyone who gets a football scholarship graduates with a degree. Lots of the boys are funneled into easy classes which keep them eligible to play, but don't add up to a degree in four or five years. Sad, but true.

At UF, only 68% of the football team graduates with a degree. The national average is 67%. I don't think he needed to worry about working too hard academically.

Me: If that's true, I find that interesting.

16 and Pregnant: Comments about teen pregnancy:

Person 2: That said, if she was so worried, she would have impressed upon him the importance of using condoms so that he could make that dream happen.

Person 3: This right here. That's why I was so irritated with her. And with them. Oh you have dreams? You have goals? Condoms are cheap, babies are not. What the hell?!

Me: I like that: "Condoms are cheap, babies are not."

Soap operas: I read in the news that ABC is cancelling their soap operas All my Children and One Life to Live. This was front page news on The National Post. A lot of soap operas are getting canceled because it's cheaper and easier to produce reality shows. More women are working or going to school in the daytime, and don't watch these shows that are aimed at them.

Apr. 16 Passive- aggressive: I realized something. When I don't like someone, I act passive- aggressive towards them. I'm sure we all do that sometimes. Sometimes, I don't even realize I'm being passive- aggressive until someone points it out to me. Here are a few instances.

1. Back when I was 10/11 yrs old I used to be friends with this girl Grace. Then she started annoying me by ringing my doorbell everyday. After awhile, it was to the point she was friends with my friends like Leslie, Heather, and Christina. Then they're not friends anymore. G was starting to not respect me and I started not respecting her either. I was her only friend. It was a small school of 300 people. G may be friends with Tanya.

I guess I stayed friends with her because she owed me $5. You know the friendship is bad when you're only staying to get your money back. I started distancing myself from her by saying things: "I can't hang out with you today because I have a lot of homework/ I'm watching TV, etc."

I was making excuses and turning her down. One time in the summer, I up and left to go to Calgary without telling her on purpose. When I got back, I expected her to get angry at me and ask: "Why didn't you tell me you were going to Calgary?" She didn't. When I told this to Heather in 2007, H told me I was passive- aggressive because I wanted to hurt G. I was passive as in going away. Aggressive because I wanted to hurt G by abandoning her and making her feel lonely. I wanted to teach G a lesson that: "Tracy is not always going to be here for you. Sometimes you have to be alone."

2. When I was 23, I had a boyfriend and he was starting to annoy me. We were on the phone.

Me: I checked my email, you sent me 300 emails.
J: Now you know why we got to stick together.
Me: Because I put so much money in you?
There is a pause.
Me: Just kidding.
J: Yeah, well that's not funny. You might as well be saying: "Ha, ha I gave you AIDS."

I told this to Angela and she says: "That was passive- aggressive." I guess that was. I resented that I lent him money and he didn't pay me back, until this year when I wrote a letter to get it back.

3. The above two are about how money can affect your friendship and relationship. Here's one about family. However, there was no money involved with my argument with my sister. It was when I was 13 and she was 15. She was giving me directions on how to find a cd, and I was looking at her with my eyes drooping. It was to the point that, my eyes were barely open.

She threatened to beat me up if I kept looking at here like that. I will say I was passive- aggressive on hindsight. I was trying to get her angry because I was angry at her. I stayed cool, but she didn't because she threatened to beat me up. I was happy that I got her angry. I didn't say anything, that's passive. But it was aggressive because I acted like I wasn't paying attention to her.

4. Yesterday my little brother's friend called. He's the friend who calls almost everyday and they get to see each other like once a week which is often. He called in the morning. I didn't pick up because my brother was asleep and I'm not going to wake him up. The answering machine got it, and then his friend calls right after the machine. I guess he thought someone was running to pick up the phone and missed the call.

I didn't pick up. At night, he calls and does the same thing by calling twice in a row without leaving a message. I didn't pick up because P was sleeping again. Passive as not picking up. Aggressive because I kind of wanted to annoy his friend by not picking up.

Apr. 17 Writing: Marty Chan read more of my Rain script. The first time he read the first 20 pages of it, he said he liked one joke. He mainly criticized it, but gave me good tips. This time he reads the next 20 pages to it, and he said he like my action descriptions, and criticized it again.

Here's part of the email exchange:

Marty: "...is too simple a plan."
Me: It was supposed to be a simple plan. I watched the TV show Dollhouse and there was a line "You can't always predict or control the consequences." I asked if he was able to predict this plot point after the simple plan goes into unexpected territory.
Marty: Yes...generally, audiences know that if characters put together a plan, something is bound to go wrong.

I'm kind of annoyed that what I thought was going to be really good writing in that plot point, was predictable to him.

Unpredictable: I then asked my little brother a question.

Me: Do you remember the episode of The Sausage Factory where Zack and Gilby got jobs at a video store? And then Gilby was letting teenage boys rent out porn tapes. Did you predict that one of the teenage boy's dad was going to come in and beat them up for letting his son rent out porn tapes?
P: No.
I didn't predict that ending at all.

Me: The entire time you were watching that episode, did you think of doing what Gilby did? Get a job at a video store and let teenage boys rent out porn tapes so you can get extra money?
P: No.

I find this storyline to be very original and funny. I have never seen or heard of a guy working at a video store and letting teenage boys rent out porn tapes on any other TV show or real life.

Apr. 19 Law of Attraction: I had writer's block last night and I was: "Think of a hot guy and write about him, but who?" My brother had gotten off the computer so I went on it. My sister was watching How I Met your Mother and I see Michael Trucco on it. I've seen him on a Law and Order: SVU ep and he was good in it.