Mulderzkid's Classroom

Writer's Block: Grab and Go

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:58:19 GMT

Scenario: For exactly 1 minute, you get access to all the databases of all the intelligence agencies in the world (CIA, FBI, KGB, MI-5, etc). What do you want to find out before time is up and you're caught and jailed forever?

View 503 Answers

I'd love to know how much the President actually knows and what he doesn't. 1 minute isn't a whole lot of time to find that out in. :-)

I'm not sure if I should be happy about this. :-)

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:56:06 GMT

Micah Sanders

You scored 83 Idealism, 20 Nonconformity, 50 Nerdiness

Can we play Scrabble tonight?
Congratulations, you're Micah Sanders! You're good-natured, intelligent, perceptive, and naturally inclined toward technology. You're also quite innocent and loving. You've got a fondness for computers and Scrabble.

Your best quality: You're extremely perceptive
Your worst quality: You can be a little demanding at times

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on Idealism
You scored higher than 99% on Nonconformity
You scored higher than 99% on Nerdiness

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Sensory Detail Journal

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 21:38:44 GMT

My kids had to describe one of their teachers, not me, today in class. So I described one of them.

His eyes sparkled mischievously, as his giggles burst out of a hand-covered mouth like vomit. Hair sprayed in dark spikes, spires of a castle a top mocha colored skin that creased with his smile as the laughter escaped a wide drawn mouth. Axe Body Spray wafted around him in a heavy chemical cloud killing small animals and insects. His voice cracked as he said the word again, “Mukluk.”

"Mukluk" is my favorite word.

Ali

Interesting little bits

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 21:54:25 GMT

Okay, so first, my Friday was interesting. Took an afterschool class because I wasn't carpooling--Cool Carpool partner is on the AVID junior trip. And hey, 3 hours extra pay. You can't get much better. Also, got a ton of grading done. But then, a kid came back from the restroom 30 minutes late. Then asks if he could walk out to the car with me, this is not as unusual as you might think, but there it is. Then as we're walking he tells me that he got rushed in the bathroom. :::What?!?:::: How the heck am I suppose to do anything about it at 5:30 and the only way to get an administrator is to phone and now I'm walking out to my car and no phone. His buddies pick him up and I notice that Kids are rushing toward a specific spot....Not good. I head that way, but hello, loaded down with my purse and grading! When I get there, sure enough two big guys are beating up on another little guy. Not the kid from before. Don't know the students, don't know any of the kids in the crowd, but they hear me bellow and kids finally step in, and all of the fighters start running. Me? I'm still loaded down with my purse and grading. Not spending extra time trying to catch three fighters, certainly not going to lay hands on kids that were just swinging moments ago, so they run. What more can I do. I can spend the next 10 minutes filling out a witness report for the VP who was running towards the fight the minute that she heard. She's the only one on campus besides us ELO teachers and 2 custodians. It bites big time....and the worst part is....I was ten minutes late for Battlestar Galactica....The episode which culminates with the rescue from New Caprica. An absolutely brillant episode and I was ten minutes late.:::sigh::::

Second.....How could RM not kill off Dee.

Don't get me wrong, I like Dee, unlike the rest of Lee/Kara fandom, I don't think that Lee's entire purpose is to fall in love with Starbuck and lick her boots. And Dee is very good about speaking the truth, so while the fandom is right, they aren't the hot and heavy sexiness (Kara/Anders), or the blistering attraction(Lee/Kara), I do think that some marriages are mellow and loving. They are based on love, honesty, and that gentle happy flip-flop of the stomach. And IMHO, Lee would want someone who was a partner in life, but also some one who would be honest with him. Dee tells it like it is (gently) and he needs that to keep himself honest, to keep himself from locking up in his emotional pain like he's done before, and like his dad has done also.

Off the topic there for a minute, but I'm gonna leave it. Anyway, Why couldn't RM kill off Dee like I thought he was going to? Then I could keep the thrid piece of my story, which was still in beta. Now I can't because well darn it she lived! Maybe I go write a Lee/Dee piece.:::Sigh::::

Ali Ops

The Bitter Taste: 3rd part

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 05:40:52 GMT

This part needs work. I was trying to convey grief and a fuzziness that becomes like it's own little world, but I think it just might be confusing.

The Bitter Taste (Part 3)
By Ali

The hatch to the bathroom closes with clunk and Lee uses the spare bit of metal to dog it. He just needs 15 minutes to himself. Time to catch his breath, re-center himself. It hasn’t hurt this much since Zak died; hasn’t felt this bad since the call so long ago. 4 years. He really is getting old. The time is flying by faster than an FTL jump. Leaps and bounds. He thinks it was just a minute ago that he lost everything for a third time.

Lee thinks it’s a miracle that he’s made it past that minute. The Peggy was destroyed along with his wife 5 weeks ago; she is gone now and he is floating. Floating through each hour, each day, each duty. There are shifts he doesn’t remember, conversations that he knows he had, but can’t remember.

The past year he has spent creating memories that have nothing to do with the pain of Zak. He’s been trying to find a life that isn’t just pain, that isn’t good memories that tear at his heart and rip at his capacity to love. But now there is fresh pain along with the old.

It was Dee and her honesty that pulled him from the danger of letting himself fall. Deep wells of water, of pain, of suffocating tugs of the afterlife. She has never lied to him, has always been honest when it comes to his problems, and even though he thinks she got a rotten deal when she married him, he loves her. Loved her.

It is a quick jerk of his hand and the water sprays on his fully clothed body. He feels the need to wash away the fuzziness of grief. He can’t concentrate. Can’t bring himself into focus. He feels melted, as if the Gods poured his emotions, soul, ambition, clarity and focus onto the deck. For the last five weeks he has stared at that miasma of himself pooling on metal and has let it sit. Now it is time to gather it up, put it back in and move on. Learn to fight, learn to love, and learn to be Lee again.

He knows what this feels like, he thinks as he slides to the floor in the shower. Remembers vaguely the feeling of his shower as it poured down on him for a full day before Richter, his wingman, found him and yanked him out.

It was so hard last time, Lee muses as his eyes close. But they say practice makes perfect and this is his third time picking himself up.

He doesn’t hear the pounding on the hatch, doesn’t notice the time slipping like droplets of water down the drain.

Just a few moments to gather himself together. To move past this fuzziness. His eyes close, gentle fall of rain on his shoulders. It should always rain in space.

“Frak, Apollo.” In the hazy sunset in his mind, Lee smiles at Helo’s words. But he’s taking a minute and he knows the hatch is held securely.

An arm reaches around his chest and pulls him from the shower, Lee feels the metal floor beneath him, and he looks up hoping to see clouds, gentle clouds gracing him. But it is just Helo’s concerned face.

“I just needed a few minutes.” He says in a voice very close to a whine. He rolls on to his side and lays a hand on the floor, feeling the hum of Galactica. Why is it people feel the need to interrupt his time?

“You’ve had three hours.” Helo’s pulling him up, leaning him against a warm chest.

“Just a few minutes, need to get it together.” Lee’s mind drifts. Warm clouds, funny sounds, laughter, Zak, Dee, Gianne, his mother. Get it together, Lee.

“Clear out the halls, Racetrack. We need to get him back to the bunkroom.” Far away Helo’s voice was like a hum on the breeze.

“I can walk. Just give me a few minutes. I need to get it together.”

Think. Think. Concentrate. How had he pulled it together last time? He remembers the drugged ride with his CAG out to the crash site to see Zak’s plane, crushed and burned. Wonders if he can take another space walk to find his wife amidst the debris of his ship and crew.

I love you, Dee.

“Apollo, have you taken anything? How much have you had to drink?” Again it’s Helo. Helo’s in the present, in a world where there is hurt, but he is living. He’s not living here in his head; he is just poured out on the deck. So he focuses on the arm around his chest like a band, the voice by his ear.

“Nothing.” Lee’s voice is shaky. Hell, Lee is shaky. Shaky and cold and he notices the water is pooling off his body. “Helo?”

“Let’s get you back to officer country.” A huff of exasperation, ill concealed disgust. That’s right; Helo hates Lee as much as all of Galactica’s crew does. Hell all of his crew hated him too, up until they died. But Lee couldn’t handle losing them. Knew he wouldn’t survive if his father died in the attempt to save the people of New Caprica. So he had argued bitterly to the end to save what was left of his heart, his dad, his wife, his crew, and his ship.

“I thought I dogged the hatch.” Lee feels the metal of Galactica beneath his palms as he leans away from Helo to push himself up. Standing. He needs to be standing. Needs to be moving. Moving on. Moving forward. Moving past the pain. The heart gushing pain of losing himself. Get up. He can see Helo now that he is standing. Standing in a puddle of water, soaked to the skin in his sleepwear.

“You forgot the secondary hatch, sir.” Helo’s face is blank, but there is a twitch in the corner of his jaw and his eyes, usually so friendly, are cold and narrowed.

“Right.” Lee concentrates, hard, swallows and heads for the door

“Sir, let me walk you back…”

Lee’s legs are carrying him along the halls. He needs to get moving. It’s better to move. It’ll be better when he’s up in the stars. He needs to fly again. Needs to feel the pressure of launch, the dance of high G’s along his skin. The music of stabilizers tapping out a rhythm. And the control, he needs the control to center himself as if he is a loose and spinning viper.

After Zak’s funeral he spent 3 days hiding from the world and another one sitting in his shower before his wingman and his CAG had pulled him out. They had driven him in a happy drugged state to view the crashed Viper and had poured him back into himself before they left for the Atlantia.

They aren’t around anymore, their vipers turned off and left to float in space as missiles hailed down on them, it is a sob that catches him now, and Lee stumbles a little down the corridor. He needs to get moving, get back into space, and try not to remember Dee’s hand as it slipped around his waist every night. His throat is raw and clogged. Get up. Do it because he’s pretty sure that no one’s interested in picking Lee Frakin’ Adama up.

He can’t see. Open your eyes, he thinks to himself. Stop it. Everyone’s lost someone. Focus.

On the first step, his wet and barefoot starts to slide out from under him, and Lee knows he’s going down, and then there is an arm. A tight safety line around his chest, blue banded arm. It’s pulling him back, pulling him away from the stairs. “The bunkroom is this way, sir.” It’s Helo again. Lee looks at him and feels his mind start to haze around the edges.

“I need to get into the air,” Lee’s voice is soft. “Before I lose myself.” He needs Helo to understand. Needs to push away the grief with fighting, with flying, with all the things that have nothing to do with Zak and Dee. He doesn’t want love and understanding. He wants to start. Start to be a new Lee without pain again.

He wants the pressure on his chest to be the push of fighting to live, not the pressure of emotions he can’t handle.

“As soon as you get some sleep, sir.”

“What?” When had the conversation moved on without him? Who was Helo talking to? Lee looked right and left, seeing no one, he concentrates on what just went on, what came out of his mouth, out of Helo’s.

“Oh. Okay. Sleep. Right.” By the time he has finished the sentence, he is in the bunkroom. What should he do? He looks blankly at the room. Sleep, that’s right. He goes to crawl in his bed when a hand stops him, and there is a towel. A towel? He looks at it blankly.

“You’re wet, sir.” Lee looks down at himself. He’s wet. He shouldn’t sit in the rain.

He ignores the towel, and shucks his clothing on the floor and crawls into the cocoon of the sheets, ignoring the damp feel.

“Just a few minutes, Helo. I just need a few minutes to pull myself together.” As he drifts to sleep, he feels as if his insides have melted, a molten miasma of emotion pooling in his belly. “I loved her.” It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. Dee never heard him say it. There is a quick squeeze of a hand on his shoulder, and then the curtain is drawn.

Get it together, Lee. It’s all just pain to him. He can’t face the memories. Dee, Zak. They all hurt so much.

Pain, memories, Zak Adama, Anastasia Dualla Adama.

It’s all the same thing…

Okay, I also found this on my hard drive and I think it might be mine.

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 00:16:28 GMT

Lord Apollo
By Ali
Spoilers: 1x03 Bastille Day
Summary: I met a God today, a true Lord of Kobal in the eyes of a mortal.

I met a God today, a true Lord of Kobal in the eyes of a mortal. Apollo. God of the hunt, God of Healing and though not widely remembered, God of Truth, of Prophecy.

I didn’t recognize Him. I saw only a weak being, a pawn, useless and undeserving. But intelligence in humans is amusing to twist, so I spoke to Him. I gave Him power because He was the son of a powerful man. But I had forgotten my history. The scriptures. Apollo is more than a Lord, he is a son.

Zeus’s exiled son. God of the Hunt.

I saw the quiet mannered man take down four prisoners while being held by two others before succumbing to overwhelming odds. I knew he personified the God of the Hunt. But mortals cannot overcome the obstacles that Gods can and I believed that he did not possess the gift of healing. I was so sure. I was willing to stake my grand death on it. But I was wrong. I was so wrong. The Gods in their righteousness have shown me true greatness. They showed me the ability to heal, to hurt, and the blazing fire of truth.

I have felt the weight of decision hanging on me as He asks me to make a choice. The first should have been easy, an innocent girl’s life or my friend’s somewhat twisted version of revenge.

But as with most mortals, I could not make the right choice and so I laid it on the Gods. On Society. On Him. “You reap what you sow.” But Mason was a creation of mine. My choices, my plans, my problems, my friend. And I could not make the choice so He made it for me.

Mason was killed by the God of the Hunt, but the bow did not stop there. It swung to me and I was to be judged for my indecision. And as I bowed to the pressure of his wrath, his glare of divine truth, I was humbled. And again he offered me a choice. Die or live with the consequences of these moments. My words are offered to me. “You reap what you sow.”

There is no choice to make. There is only the Lords of Kobol and their destiny for me. I give in and accept this life they have laid before me. As Pythia prophesized 3 thousand years ago, so too have I seen my life in a shaking voice and steady hand. In quiet words spoken to my heart.

I breathe out the last of my fear as bullets sheer away the cage. And He is there. He touches her, touches the bruise and bleeding child in the cell. Her hand reaches out to Him. “Okay, Cally. You’re going to be okay.”

Soft touches. A Sob. And then He is there, yanking me from the spark of death. The spit of heat flicks along my neck.

“Cease fire.” Gun held up, as he circles in the cage. I am not in control of the men then. It is Him, the Lord Apollo.

“I need a medic.” And just like that the lord is gone and he is just a man. He takes the girl into his arms and whispers sweet words her, but they cannot heal her. He is just a man.

While He was here he healed me. Reminded me of my destiny. I’m here in this universe to lead. To bring truth to the people. But he was just a man.

He came to me and I have been chosen to live.

Captain Lee Adama of the soft voice and words of freedom. A mortal.

~~My political rhetoric is narcissism sheathed in the glove of truth. But I have born witness to a religious experience. I know. I have seen. ~~ Tom Zarek

The Bitter Taste (take 2)

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 00:03:53 GMT

So this happy new monitor and the desk type thing mom lent me helped me finish the next portion of this fic. So slight changes made to this. Could you beta, please?

The Bitter Taste
By Ali Cherry
K+ (For later)
Spoilers: Ummm…not really.

~~BSG~~
Lee doesn’t remember a time before the pain. A searing physical ache haunts his every memory. He knows it’s just an illusion his mind has conjured, but it doesn’t make it any less real. It niggles his right elbow as he walks down the corridor with the Old Man. It causes the spasming muscles in his left hip that he tries to sooth when someone tells an old joke.

Little places he didn’t know could hurt will break his concentration. Did the loss of all he knows, make these physical pains that much more intense, that much more frequent? Is the loss of his mother mingling with that other, more distant, pain? He can’t tell for sure because he doesn’t remember a time before this agony.

Before his world ended.

Before Zak died.

Sometimes when someone is reminiscing about their family, Lee shuts his eyes because the pain is so intense. A burning sensation, like battery acid, runs down his throat as his heart screams out: My brother was the same way! But the acid in his throat and locked legs hold him silently in his seat. Lee’s pilots assume he doesn’t speak about his life before the attacks because he thinks he’s better than them. It’s not that. Tigh and his father assume it is his control, that unwillingness to give in to anything. It’s not that.

It is hurt, stinging and stunning as it whiplashes across his heart. Sometimes it’s a cutting feeling on his back where Zak clawed at him while learning how to swim. Sometimes it’s a tingle in his right fingers where his small hand gripped them to cross the street. It’s the desperate urge Lee must repress when he wants to brag about his kid brother like he used to with his friends. It’s the corny joke Zak told after he pummeled Lee on the pyramid court, Lee’s left hip rashed red by the asphalt. He was the only one who made Lee truly laugh.

And Lee thinks Kara might have inkling about this pain, but she only knew Zak for two years. For her there is a time before Zak, a memory where he doesn’t intrude, where the pain of loosing him doesn’t follow.

Lee doesn’t have that luxury.

His first clear memory is of watching the Old Man rock baby Zak while he is banished to the floor to look at the pictures in a book. Lee can’t remember the book clearly; sometimes he thinks it has animals, sometimes trains, or planes, or cars, or Cylons, or Gods. He thinks this means that this one memory is several, which means that his father, who wasn’t around to hold him until he was two, spent time rocking Zak-- a lot. Instead of resenting that, which Lee expects to do considering all the bitterness he carries for the universe, it makes him feel grateful.

Lee wonders how he can feel gratitude for being left on the floor, but at least this memory, this feeling of gratitude, waxes over the shattering pain settled in other memories. It doesn’t quite cause the heart numbing and hollow feeling of all the others.

Pain. Memory. Zak.

Lee can’t seem to live without these three things.

Pain. Memory. Zak.
Lee William Adama.

It’s all the same thing…

2nd portion

It’s a rocking chair. It’s all he can think; taking in his father’s smiling face. A rocking chair for Cally and Tyrol. His father rubs the chair again with sandpaper in the uncomfortable silence as Lee stares at the offending piece of furniture.

“Have a seat.” His father is ushering him to the chair. “Try it out.” But Lee remembers where his place is, feels the quivering muscles in his thighs and he drops instantaneously onto the floor in front of the rocking chair. Blue eyes closed, he takes a deep breath, tries to block out the pain and thoughts, but the husky scent of William Adama exists in his memory as well as in his nose, and he can’t get out of the memory, can’t stop the gentle gasp of air out of his teeth.

Tension pervades the air. Can’t his father tell how much this one thing hurts? It is like a decompression of his heart, everything is sucked out, leaving him in pain, in emptiness.

A large hurt, weak at this particular point, this rocking chair, because he can still, even now, hear the gentle creak of the chair back home, in their room. Zak and his. He can see his father’s face bent adoringly over Zak’s as the antique rocker chirped with his movements.

“This seems familiar.” It is the husky overused voice of the Admiral, but it might as well have been the Commander twenty-five years before. Lee opens and focuses his eyes on his father’s boots, watching the creasing of the leather as his father rocks the chair.

“You use to meet me at the front door when I got home in the evenings. You’d take my hand and lead me upstairs and make me sit in that old rocker. Damn thing squeaked all the time.”

Lee doesn’t remember that. Has no recollection of his father’s hand in his. Can’t remember the heavy step following him down the hall. When he was younger, just after his father had left, Lee would have killed for that memory. For the remembrance of his father’s presence, but all he could find in his mind was silent emptiness, the kind he lives in now.

In Lee’s childhood, it had been his own steps that had been heavy, his own steps that followed little feet down the hall, his hand that had clasped a smaller hand. For most of his memory, Lee had been the father figure, but never the little one. Never so small and trusting to lead his father to the rocking chair. The chair that hurts because he had never been rocked in it-- or at least not that he could remember.

“You’d point to Zak and say, ‘up.’” A gentle smile creases the Admiral’s face. “You were a demanding kid. Very quiet unless you wanted something, then it was all ‘do that now’.”

“I don’t remember.” It’s the truth to Lee. It’s a truth he has lived with. He remembers very little of his father. Glimpses and splashes of viper wings, commander insignias, navy blue, olive green, husky scent, deep voice, and a back walking out the door. The Commander was always walking out the door.

“You’d demand I’d rock Zak and you’d sit on the floor, looking at books.”

“I remember you rocking him.” Lee’s voice snaps and his legs still haven’t stopped quivering. He pushes his palms down his thighs trying to prevent the shaking. “I remember you rocking him…” Lee’s voice fades to a hiss of emotion “…and never rocking me.”

The Admiral continues his story, and Lee knows that he hasn’t heard. Perhaps neither of them wants the words heard. “You never wanted me to rock you. It was always, ‘Zak, up.’” The feet of the Admiral flatten and Lee feels the shadow of his father sneak over him. A heavy hand falls on Lee’s shoulder, and it is what it always is…heavy. Heavy with weight, responsibilities, and expectations. To Lee, it never just is.

The calloused hand slides up his neck, sending goose bumps dancing along his skin, until the thumb hooks his chin and forces him to look up. “You always wanted more for him than you wanted for yourself.”

“I am… I was his big brother.” The crack in his voice embarrasses Lee, reminding him of years when disappointment from his father and mother had shaken his world.

“But you were…you are my son.” The Admiral slides to the floor in front of Lee and gathers him to his chest, rocking him side to side. “It’s only twenty-five years later than I wanted it to be.” The faint vibrations underneath Lee’s ear rumble in time to the quivering in his legs, the weakness in his thigh muscles from knowing his place. His place was watching out for Zak. But Zak is gone now; has been gone for four years now. The bitter taste of grief washes down his tongue as he holds in the grief because his father is holding him, when he should be holding Zak. Loving Zak. Lee closes his eyes and thinks about Zak, feels the pain, knows they are just memories.

Zak, Pain, Memories
Lee William Adama
William Joseph Adama

It’s all the same…

So what do you think? Second piece work well?

So this procrastination thing really is my gig.

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 03:29:50 GMT

It's Sunday. It's Sunday and I still haven't done the things I needed to get done this weekend. Things like grading their journals, things like starting the class webpage, things like writing the fic I've already started and the second one I've mapped out in my head when I should have been sleeping. Things like the Journal and grammar that I have to have ready tomorrow.

Yeah, but here I am posting to my livejournal that no one reads.

So, yeah, this procrastination thing really is my gig.

Ali
There is a cricket trying to find a home in my apartment.

Yeah so September's almost over...

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 02:58:02 GMT

So, I was suppose to have a second piece of a new fic I was writing done by the end of the weekend, and instead it is Wednesday, I'm sleep deprived, the fic is half done and I've drug home a boatload of grading.

On the upswing of things, new dining room table came on Saturday (computer still on the floor, bad). Also good, Back to School Night is over. Parents, you have no idea how hard that night is for us teachers. You complain about having to go....we have no choice, and there is always the smart ass parents that belong to smart ass kids who ask you questions...things like, since we're doing so well now, does that mean the school sucked before?

Ummm....no. The school didn't have power standards, or collaboration in the departments and among the departments and we weren't prepping our kids, not to mention motivating them to even show up to take the test.

One asked, when I said I answer any and all questions whether or not if one sechronized swimmer drowns, they all have to drowned....That was the last class of the night. I was just happy I wasn't jibbering like an idiot. Okay, maybe I was a little.

Other good things....School restaurant open! WHOO HOO! No more having to take lunch, the kids can feed me. Thank God for Mom D. (Teacher)

Carpooling with my cool co-worker. He usually doesn't say anything about the volume of the radio and we pass the time talking about the kids or what we did the night before and what not, but this morning as Kevin and Bean were on talking with this girl who had apparently engaged in a threesome with a busty, beautiful Asian woman and a Veteran of the Iraq war, he asked if he could turn it up louder. I tried not to snicker the rest of the way to work. :-)

Journaling with my students. Some days I go ahead and write a journal on the board while the write it on the paper. I really enjoy it. The other day I Free Wrote about the saying, "So Say We All."

Monday's topic, What metaphor from nature best describes you?
I wrote a beautiful response and the kids were all..."That's writing?"

Yes!

So I'm gonna, you know, like, go.

Ali

Seriously?! It's September?

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 04:26:46 GMT

I can't believe that it is already September. I keep telling myself that I'm gonna post here, but I put it off and now I've got six million things here.

1st. I moved!!!! Yeah! I'm finally out of my parents' house and in a very nice aparment. Swimming every chance I get, and even better a great mall to walk to across the way. In fact, sipping a Starbuck's as I type. Nice neighbor, I just met yesterday, everyone else is quiet.

I just spent the last of my Summer School money paying off IKEA, which I used to furnish my apartment. Unfortunately, I don't have a desk yet, so I'm having to type on the floor of my apartment. Not the most comfortable.

Classes- I have 4 US History classes and 1 Eng 10 this year. Have yet to have any grading that I couldn't pass off to my TA's. Friday I was so bored I spent my prep spinning in the office chairs in department office. Bob the Rover thought I was nuts.

Upside, I'm carpooling with a cool co-worker, nice meandering drive (okay when he's driving).

New Car (Scout) is going in for repairs tomorrow. Mean illegal immigrant couldn't park and so She has a little boo-boo. Okay the poor woman wasn't mean, she looked scared, but still. 3 Days with a rent-a-car.

One week until BSG comes out on DVD!

Can't wait.

The Youth of the Nation

Wed, 17 May 2006 23:29:58 GMT

So I have happy little sophmores for World History, and they are sophmores so they tend not to care about their grades because, "Hey, we've got 2 more years to do this over if we want to!" But I can't believe that I have 24 "F"s in my 6th period! How can 24 kids not do the work?

I told them a month ago that they had "f" and 2 kids did enough work to bring their grades up to a "D." I don't assign that much work! We spent 2 days mapping World War 2 together. They had 20 minutes in class to color in Europe (It's small!) and Japanese expansion in Asia. They only had to answer 3 Questions.

Do you know how many I got back? 10! That's right, 10 out of 36.

There is something mentally deficient in the way these kids process instructions. Do they think that an "F" is passing? They have 4 weeks left to get their grades up, and have any of them asked if they could come in and do make-up work? NO! And I can just hear the phone calls now. Why is my sweetheart failing? Well, he's been failing since Feburary and every time I send home A grade check it has said F, possibly the reason he/she is failing is cause "you" haven't paid attention, and by the way, no since school ended today and I have to have grades turned in tomorrow, he can't do anything to bring up his grade.

Sheesh.

These are the conversations that I'm going to be having over the next 4 weeks. Please, Lord! Save me!

I was thinking about a Vespa in order to keep costs down, but I think I'll move out instead!

Spring Break!!!

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:30:47 GMT

Thank God! I made it to spring break. I almost strangled a few of the kids, but my TAs held me back! I left my grading, read 1 of the 30 books that I want to read, but haven't yet. I've even gotten most of my chorish type items done. Still have to make my car payment, but taxes are done, people are paid, and I've even done the girly shopping thing.

Only 6 more days left...Okay, what am I suppose to do now?

:::Shrug::::

Maybe I'll write. There is a plot bunny or two lurking in my brain.

Useless Trivia: There is not a single HUD home in Southern California. That's just pathetic.
A condo that was sold just a month again is up on the market for $4k more than they paid for it. Escrow has barely closed on that puppy.:-(

YEAH!!!!!!

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 05:52:25 GMT

I'm so happy! I've got one more day of ELO class left! The Pain, the humiliation, the lack of sleep and life will soon be over. And I'm celebrating with a mental health day. I'm gonna sleep in and leave my students to the tender mercies of a Substitute, one who isn't my father. ::::Evil laugh:::::

Seriously though, (actually I was completly serious before, but what the heck) as stressful as last week was (Career Day, grades due, English classes starting the final stretch of big-do-it-or-fail-the-entire-course- paper, Final observation, meeting for final observation and benchmarks(I hate testing) oh...even better, grandma visiting) means that I can relax this week...kind of. Regardless, I have just this week until Spring Break. Can't get much better than that.

I invited (bribed) my friend mckennitt to give a spiel on her job as a geologist. She totally rocked and even though I had to pimp her presentation with extra credit and the words, "She gets to play in the dirt all day" (worked surprisingly well) my students were actually fascinated with her job. That's what really rocks about our school. The kids may start out cynical and snarky, but they come through for you in the end. :-)

Have I mentioned how much I love the end for BSG 2003? You got to love that Ron Moore has balls. As long as he doesn't hit the galactic reset button, I'll happily follow him through the hell he creates.

Why?! Oh Why?!

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:29:42 GMT

It's 6 o'clock on a Thursday, and I'm trying to figure out why I'm still at school! I know why, but it doesn't make me feel any better. I should be grading, I should be making parent phone calls; instead, I'm on the internet. This is bad. I need to go home. I need to get sleep. I need to stop thinking about how depressed Longfellow (the poet) makes me. We read in my afterschool class, "Psalm of Life." I was talking about doing something more than slacker things, being inspirational and stuff. And I realize, that I live an uninspirational life. Longfellow advocates stepping away from the stable and the secure to find what makes us happy, but I'm doing stable and secure and I still can't afford to move out of my parents' house. Longfellow obviously didn't live in Southern California during a housing shortage. :-)

Happiness kinda abounds. I went the the William S. Paley Festival and saw both the Battlestar Galactica and the House seminars, which was interesting and fun, kinda like a podcast with the whole cast. The Battlestar people were very upfront. When asked how they came to be on the show (by the dorky moderator), most of the stories started out with the phrase, "Well I sat down to read the script with a big bottle of wine..." Jamie Bamber responded, (paraphrased) "Well, I had just gotten my then girlfriend--now wife-- pregnant and decided I needed something to pay the medical bills." Okay, not really, but close. :-) But I think that I agree with my friend mckennitt that the only thing I was uncomfortable about being at the festival... was being a fan. For Battlestar it wasn't so bad, most of the audience questions were about creation and production and really just...intelligent questions that you wish you could ask, but don't.

Cool Factor: Kevin Smith (from Dogma, Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Chasing Amy) sat two seats in front of us, which is cool, 'cause, hey, someone who does write such sophisicated and brillant dialogue likes BSG! (I mean all dialog besides "Jay's" lines)

The House cast was hilarious. They were amusing and energetic, and incrediably tired. They had just come from shooting the show, which means they were late and they didn't pause for the pictures out front like BSG people did, and I felt kinda guilty that I had paid to make them come talk about the show. Especially when the "Trekkie" type fans got the microphone handed to them. Like the cast is suppose to know what to say to a person with Vasculitis that wants to thank them for bring awareness to the disease. (I watch the show pretty religiously and I couldn't tell you what Vasulitous is.) So anyway, I enjoyed myself immensely, as long as I didn't have to hear the fans speak. (Way too much stuff like seen on bad internet chat groups.) Things like "I'd love to see more of Hugh Laurie's biceps please." Things that make me cringe when reading Livejournals. :-P

In this case, Sci-fi fans ruled in behavior and intelligence. I should have known....afterall, House is on Fox.

Ali- headed home now from RHS.

Dear Mr. Ron Moore

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 04:53:26 GMT

Dear Mr. Ron Moore,

I would like to take this opportunity to tell you what a great addition you are in television. I was a "Trekkie" once upon a time, but now that I've gotten over that little disease, I quickly picked up the new disease of Battlestar Galactica. When I was little I use to watch the old series, and I was so young, I didn't even think Boxey was cute. But I can say that you have revived my belief in the genre of Sci-Fi.

You made a wonderful show full of flawed characters who try to do right even as they choose the wrong path. It is human and dark and starkly beautiful.

I have tried to inflict this disease on a few others, and I have suceeded in some cases, failed in others, but it is the thought that counts. :-)

But the real reason I'm writing is to congratulate you on your talent in utilizing "the snark." Having wrestled away the podcast equipment from David Eick (He took it away so you wouldn't say any more bad things about the show, didn't he? Come on you can tell me the truth.) you then procede to snark the naysayers on the board who can't deal with a little background noise. The use of your wife (please tell me you didn't make a pass on her script? It needed work.) was especially amusing.

No, I'm not mocking you. In fact, I salute you. ::Salute:: Your humor in dealing with the perpetual whining of fans about the overloud beeps when you take time out of your home life to give us a piece of your mind, was an inspired use of "the snark." Please continue. It made me laugh, people at Auto Club thought I was on drugs.

Thank you again, and I hope to see more episodes like "Captain's Hand" and "Scar."

Ali Cherry

P.S. Please don't die of Lung Cancer. With the amount of times I heard the zippo lighter in the background, I worry for your health.

Meatloaf

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 04:32:54 GMT

I don't know why, but I was determined to make a meatloaf today. I don't cook. It's not 'cause I'm bad at it. Most of my food is edible, but I just don't...So here I was today determined to make a meatloaf. Of course once I had the meatloaf in the oven, my mother asked me to make mash potatoes and carrots (not together). I made some pretty good food. Then I looked at the finished product and didn't want meatloaf anymore. So there is that. Course I had to watch my father sprinkle pepper on the cinnamon carrots, but whatever. He has no tastebuds.

The Great Meatloaf quest. I still don't get it. I didn't even want to eat it when I was done, but I couldn't stop myself. My mother is just proud that I didn't burn down the kitchen, I'm so infrequently in there. Of course this could be a new diet for me. If I make all the meals, I'll never eat! Yeah!

I have a letter to write. And since no one else reads this livejournal, but me, it's been interesting, Ali.

Night, Ali.
Night, Ali.

FIC: Apollo and The Beast

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 06:20:39 GMT

Instead of grading my students' essays on whether or not Gatsby is a stalker or a romantic, I had to write this little piece of funness.

FIC: Apollo and the Beast
Ali Cherry mulderzkid
Rating: K (G)
Genre: General
Summary: Lee’s first order of business aboard The Beast is to not move out of the XO’s quarters.

Lee’s first order of business aboard The Beast is to not move out of the XO’s quarters. He smiles blandly at Hoshi as the man helps him to the Commander’s rooms.

“I’ll be staying in the XO’s quarters.”

Hoshi stares at him blankly, “But they’re smaller, sir.”

“Nevertheless, I’ll be staying in the XO quarters.” Lee has seen the floor and furniture sprayed with Fisk’s blood, seen the stain underneath the carpet from Cain’s death, and he refuses to enter the mouth of the beast submissively. If it’s going to kill him, he’s going to go down fighting.

(BSG)

Lee sets up a bulletin board next to door, labels it in his head, “The Deadly Sins of The Beast.” He pins up Cain, and a picture of a gun. He pins up Fisk and a cubit. He pins up Garner and the watch.

He hates that the watch has to be on the board. It meant a lot to Garner. It means a lot to Lee. But this board is to help him keep perspective and he knows he’s going to frak up royally at some point. He’d just rather not make the same mistakes as the people before him. He relabels it in his head “The Deadly Sins of Command.”

Whenever he finds himself heading in the wrong direction he pins something else on the board. “Arrogance” because he remembers Cain, Adama, Roslin, Adar, Nagala, Tigh, Fisk, even Garner had this flaw; everyone he has ever met in command has had this flaw. And he knows it’s one of his own flaws.

“Trust” goes up next. He doesn’t trust The Beast’s crew, and they don’t trust him. They have lost 3 commanders and Lee is just the Admiral’s son to them. He was not well liked by their first or second commander. He tries not to think about what the mutiny says about him in their eyes. Lee knows he’s become the by-the-book-bastard he was in the first few days on Galactica. He prefers to be called “Commander Tightass” rather than “Commander Tightpants.”

He misses being Captain Apollo.

“Olympic Carrier” on faded paper is tacked up next because Lee thinks of this board as his desk drawer. He remembers the death of the ship vividly. He won’t forget what it signifies to him.

He tacks up a picture of Starbuck. It makes him laugh; she is one of the hardships of command. Wild, free, uninhibited, out of the box, and when she isn’t frakking up at full speed, then she’s right… dead to rights. He likes to know there is a friendly face when he’s contemplating all the things that can go wrong in his job. “You are the worst CAG in the history of CAGs.” It helps him keep perspective.

He has a picture of Ellen Tigh on the board, one he confiscated from the Pilot ready room with graffiti scrawled all over it. “Super Slut,” “Lushy Lady,” “Queen Bitch,” “Power Broker.” He finds excuses not to attend command dinners on the Galactica now. Instead he invites his father to dine with him in the unused Commander’s quarters, which still show no sign of inhabitance. The Old Man merely raises an eyebrow when Lee goes back to his room for a report he needs.

Lee doesn’t know when, but Hoshi and Thornton hang another board in his cabin, at the end of his rack. When he’s on duty, they hang good things about command on it.

A picture of a marine’s sharp salute to him. He smiles because it is very gratifying that the same marine who forced him out of CIC that day on Garner’s orders smiles at him as he passes every morning.

There is a picture of him with a group of sweaty command officers who try to keep up with him every morning as he runs the length of the ship and back. Usually they’re trying to catch him to sign off on this report or that.

There is Lee tossing a helmet in a ceremony for a 1000 landing. The keep-away game is bitter-sweet because he will always remember Flattop’s tragedy.

They add words like “Trust” to the board because they trust him to get the job done.

They pin up the horrible towel picture which someone released to the fleet, but someone on The Beast has drawn clothes on him and added the words, “That’s our Commander you’re ogling.” He’s pretty sure the picture was supposed to be a joke in the pilot quarters, but it’s the thought that counts.

It is Captain Case who hands him the picture of his father and himself leaning on the planning table on the Galactica, staring at the board in front of him. Tigh is shadowed in the background, but someone has written in the words, “Father and Son, Protectors of the Fleet.”

He laughs at the handkerchief one of them has put on the board because it’s for wiping off the drool. Whenever Hoshi or Thornton wake him off duty to hand him papers they find him just pulling his head out of a pool of drool on the paperwork on his desk. He forgot when he took this position that The Beast is home to the Viper Factory, the Combat Training Program, it runs three quarters of the supply runs, half of the CAPs, as well as being twice the size of Galactica with three times the crew.

Lee tacks up “meetings” to the sins of command board because he’s always meeting with this department or that head, and he is generally grateful that he doesn’t have Cottle or Starbuck on his staff because he could not handle the extra grief they would give him, or the disciplinary meetings he would have to attend because of them.

Lee pins up a picture of a coffee cup to his happy board as he thinks of it. The coffee is so much better on The Beast; Fisk’s contacts obviously still provide the good stuff to the Pegasus. No one tells him that the good stuff comes from the leaders of the Black Market to keep Lee happy. Everyone is well aware of the cautious blind eye that watches the Prometheus like a hawk.

Lee likes to impress his father with the stash of booze that sits generally unopened in the Commander’s quarters. He likes to offer cigars even though he knows that they were bought with Shavon’s child, and his own neck, and Fisk’s blood. But it is a small comfort and a secret pride to hand these tokens out to good pilots, marines, snipes, deck gang, and command crew when he can.

He doesn’t think about how much he lives for those dinners with his father, or Starbuck coming over for a courier run, or Gaeta sneaking over for a Triad game, but Lee feels suddenly that the crews of the two battlestars become a more nature piece of the whole. He likes The Beast, trusts its crew, and likes having the distance to run in the morning.

But he still won’t move into Commander’s quarters. He refuses to submissively allow The Beast to eat him.

The end

FIC : The Question

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 02:40:14 GMT

I'm not one for excusing my work, but a warning for you adverturous few, this piece is hugely introspective. I actually don't like to read/write introspective fiction, it usually just hashes over ground already covered in nine different stories, but I tried to bring up a different view of Bill and Lee's relationship.

The Question
Ali Cherry (Mulderzkid)
Rating: (K+)PG
Spoilers: Anything up to "Captain's Hand" (2.17)
Characters: Lee and Bill Adama
A character study in Lee Adama’s words

I was eight when I realized that there was a question to ask, but I was too young to know what the question was. I just knew that there was something wrong with me and my dad. Other children, Zak included, weren’t afraid…no, that’s not the right word…other children weren’t apprehensive about climbing into bed with their parents after a nightmare. But my most vibrant memory is sitting beside my dad’s side of the bed, staring at his fingers hanging off the side of the mattress, and counting the deep breaths in the dark. I lost count before the dawn, but the consistent sighs above my head, the warm musk of my father’s aftershave kept the monsters from crawling from the shadows.

I knew the question by ten, but I waited a year before I whispered it to someone else. My best friend’s older brother asked me when he was home from college. He said later that he was saddened by my solemn, watchful eyes. I don’t remember being solemn, I thought I was loud and boisterous. Mischievous, out of control, that’s what my grandfather called me. Too much boy. But Jerry’s brother saw something and he was the first one to ask, so I answered.

“Is my dad a Commander, or is the Commander my father?” I had leaned close to him as we watched Jerry’s dad pin wheeling his arms in a mime for a game. Before he could say anything more, I opened my mouth again. “It’s not same thing, you know.”

I had known the answer then, in my head. I felt relief that Zak didn’t have to ask the same question. With him, Dad was just dad. He was just a son. With me it was different. I couldn’t decide if I was a son or a legacy. Why else wouldn’t he hug me? Why else wouldn’t he smile at me? Why else did he choose a seat that was not next to me on the sofa? Why else did he not want to have special time with me?

By twelve, I was ready to admit the answer.

That was the year that I had nightmares, horrible dreams, with dry winds sweeping across grassy fields, deadening them. Watching the grass curl and shrivel; the light changing to a sickly yellowy-orange. People melded with metal, and the horrible stench of death. I could taste decay on my breath and feel the slashing sting of the rain on my arms, but in my dreams when I looked up, I saw not gray low clouds to wash the land fresh, I saw the rain of glass from the buildings above me, until the glass shredded my eyes. I’d wake up with a shout, gasping for breath, and beside me Zak would start to cry. While he ran to my parents’ bed, and they allowed him under the covers; I sat down outside of their bedroom door, leaning against wall, watching the three of them sleep, smelling the musk of my father’s cologne and the deep even breaths of the three of them. And I counted until I saw the inky darkness dissolve into the foggy gray pre-morning light.

I had believed the answer was an inescapable truth. I was a legacy for my father, not a son. I was not the beloved one in the family, I was the one who never seemed good enough, and I had enough honesty to own up to my faults; I was and still am a great disappointment for my father.

When I was a child, I thought my defect was that I wasn’t good enough, now I realize my failure was that I was too insecure to reach out to my father and he didn’t know how to reach out to his quiet son. I never voiced my nightmares, my fears, my sorrows and he didn’t know how to look for them.

Zak was an open book, when he hurt, he could tell my dad, but I couldn’t. During college, with my degree in psychology, I knew where my childhood went wrong, but I couldn’t admit it to myself, let alone anyone else because the problem lay in the only parent who hadn’t let me down.

Now at the end of days, or the beginning of our voyage to Earth, I can finally say what disappointed my father so much about me is the same thing that disappointed me about my father. We can’t just love each other because we’ve always had an XO between us. It was not the sting of my father’s dissatisfaction, it was my mother. My mother wanted to give her husband a legacy. It was my bright and smiling mother who pulled me aside and told me I couldn’t climb into their bed anymore because I needed to grow up and the Commander had said how childish I was. Then she had whispered; “Besides you don’t want to disturb your father when he’s sleeping. A Commander needs his sleep.”

It was always my mother. I use to think of her as my father’s XO in the house. She handed down the punishments; she let me know when I had disappointed the Commander. She did it in such a way that I never doubted the expression came from him.

What made me change my mind? For so long, I held on to the memory of my mother because she hadn’t deserted me even when I wasn’t good enough.

But I have my father now, and even though he chooses a seat other than next to me on the sofa in his quarters, I do feel love. Even when he asks for Starbuck and not me, I understand he loves me.

I think this understanding might have started in those few frantic moments when Starbuck was missing, “If it were you, we’d never leave.” It is a pretty lie, and one I needed to hear; one that started the healing.

Now that he is an Admiral and I am a major, it is possible for me to sit on his couch in silence and not be ashamed to need to hear my father’s deep breaths, or smell his warm musky aftershave. I can grimace in pain or even shed a few tears waiting for the pain medication to kick in, and I know he still loves me.

Somewhere between harsh words and harsher realities he became my dad who was an Admiral, not the Admiral who was my father; and I became the son he never thought he had.

The End

Good Night, and Good Luck

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 04:52:56 GMT

I know, I'm late coming to the party, but I finally got to see "Good Night, and Good Luck" tonight. (Found the one theater around playing it and hopped on the freeway). I cried. This movie is so stoic, and intellectual, and it makes a valid point about the choice our media has chosen to take in their professions.

The movie is prefaced with a speech Murrow gives on the evils of mixing TV news with corporations, and he is absolutely correct. The movie does not dumb down his comments, indeed if it had, it would have defeated the point of the movie. I swear I'm going to make my Juniors watch it when it comes out on Video, and they'll have to deconstruct his speech.

Man, this movie rocks!

Fic: Pain

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 06:14:04 GMT

Fic: Pain
Author: Mulderzkid (Ali Cherry)
Rating: PG (Graphic kinda sickness)
Spoilers: Sacrifice (2.16)
Genre: Angst/ Hurt (but no comfort)
Summary: "She is there beside him before she can stop herself, and she see her fingers reach out to him. But not to soothe, no, not for him."
Disclaimer: I guess if the TPTB took everything I own, I wouldn't have to worry about shoveling it out come spring break.

Beta'd Version

She pauses on the way from the mor... from Billy and looks in at the infirmary. He is the only one in the room. And her eyes glare at him. He lived. She is there beside him before she can stop herself, and she sees her fingers reach out to him. But not to soothe, no, not for him.

She presses hard against his shoulder and under her fingers she sees the brush strokes of red painted deeper and deeper crimson like too much oil paint on a white canvas. Mouth curled in sour distaste, she pushes her fingers deeper, feeling the seam on his skin pop under her fingers. His eyes are blue and blank, there is no pain, no guilt, nothing and if she didn’t know his father she’d think he was a cylon.

Betrayer! She screams in bitterness. You should be dead. He grabs her fist and places it against his chin, curls her fingers for her, his hand warm and callous. “You’ll hurt me the most here.” As he taps his chin with her fist, she sees the nebula of blue and purple swirl on his chin.

With her left hand she feels his muscles contracting around her index finger.

He expected you to protect him, us, and you didn’t. You lived and my boy died. She is breathing hard and there is the flush of blood rushing to her cheeks and nose; she will not cry.

“Use your nails, Madam President, rake them down my arm.” He is holding out his left forearm and as she stares a tattoo of red swollen lines cross it. Razor slices on strong muscles.

It isn’t enough. It’ll never be enough. You have to hurt. You need this pain, this indescribable sucking feeling around your heart, where your heart should be.

She feels his fingers curl over hers on his chest. “Feel my heart. You can stop it. Dig in. Take it out.”

But she can’t. She lowers her head chin to clavicle, and her hair falls forward and he is warm and strong and granite. Rock, stone, unfeeling. Sun-warmed-granite of a man with no feelings and how could she have ever thought he was worth anything.

My son was better than you. Your father is better than you. You’re just….hard. You’re just a…

“Disappointment, Ma’am.” He looks at her, calmly. “I always disappoint everyone eventually.” He smiles wryly and before she might have tried to change his mind. Before she might have argued. But he has been a disappointment for a while now, since he refused her; since he refused to put her before his father, when he became “Son,” not “Advisor.” Then he had tried to die instead of backing up Lt. Thrace as she went to kill Cain. And the ultimate sign of his change, he had let the black-market go with just a single death. He had let that hateful ship flourish instead of ridding the fleet of all of the dealers there.

He had betrayed her son. He had gotten him killed. Her baby was gone because of him.

She finds herself outside the infirmary looking at he-who-she-used-to-trust, who had done so much for her and she found hate. She imagines his blood on her fingers, and just as easily as hate is found, she purposely misplaces it.

An emotion creeps into her heart, pity, for she realizes that the dead have more visitors than he. Cold- wintry shell of a man, even his father forsakes him for a dead corpse in the morgue. Someone not of his own blood.

She refuses to see the grimace of pain or the sparkle of a tear trail, or get close enough to feel the warmth of the visitor’s chair. She is too busy imagining nebulas of bruises on granite skin, tattoos of red stripes on rock, and the pulsing beat of muscle and heart of the betrayer.

TGIF: And a 3 day weekend no less

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:31:09 GMT

So the students left, and for some reason I'm sitting here listening to a fellow teacher, K, bellow out the name of another teacher, M, like a dying Wookie. And I can't bring myself to leave my chair that I collapsed in an hour ago to write someone a letter of recommendation. It's cold here, and I really should pack up all of my stuff to take home and look at over the weekend, but not touch.

Some of my students were planning to hook me up on E- Harmony. I can't even imagine what kind of people I would get if they filled out that survey.

Name: Hmmm.....only know her last name and first initial
Age: Umm....She's old right? I mean she graduated 10 years ago.
Likes: Coffee, reading, torturing young'ens, and this cute guy from some SciFi Show.
Dislikes: Talking without raising your hand, getting out of your seat oh...Yeah..Mr. B!

I'd be soo screwed.

Guess I'm going to spend some more money on the little buggers.

Ali

Fic W/ Challenge: Unsung Hero

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 03:23:01 GMT

Title: Unsung Hero
Character-Hot Dog
Rating-PG
Spoilers-Up to 2.15 Scar
Disclaimer: If they were mine...but no, I like the way Ron Moore's mind works
Summary: Hot Dog writes an entry into a fleet wide competition about his hero.

Fic Challenge is submitted for your plot bunnies at the end of the story...

For submission:

Lt. Brendan "Hot Dog" Constanza

Battlestar Galactica

Colonial Fleet

Colony: Caprica

Unsung Hero

I don't often sit down to write an essay. I thought those things had been left behind when I finished with school. But when the Captain announced the competition at the flight briefing, I decided that maybe I should enter.

We're suppose to talk about a hero in the fleet and many people are probably writing all kinds of things about their Captains and their moms and dads and some are even writing about us, the viper pilots of Galactica, or even writing about Commander Adama or President Roslin; we really are heroes. Not to, ya know, blow my own horn, but we do protect the fleet. It's just…my mom always told me that the real heroes are the ones that are overlooked. The ones that provide the glue for the cracks so the rest of us can do the crazy jobs, and Captain Lee "Apollo" Adama does this, he provides the glue for us Viper pilots, which is why he is a hero to me.

Many people think I'm talking about the heroic things he does in combat. Don't get me wrong he is a spectacular flyer. Not just anyone can fly straight down a conveyer belt tunnel, not just anyone can match Starbuck in one of her reckless moods. Only the Captain can set down on a cubit, front landing strut perfectly positioned. But it is not his flying abilities that make him special, that make him a hero, it is the little things: his strength, his compassion, his stability, and his ability to take the things the squadron doles out, the things we say and imply, and keep smiling.

The life of a Viper pilot is hard. The hours suck, the pay is crap, don't even let me tell you about the food. And a little secret…we're all just a little unstable and insane. You have to be to fly the missions that we do. We go out every single day and expect to die. The expectation of death wears on a person; it grates them down bit by bit. Even before the war, the life expectancy of a Viper pilot wasn't more than 10 years. Even if you love flying, which we all do, the stress on the body, on the mind, it takes its toll. Apollo is a touchstone for us, a rock. Sure we tease him, call him "Captain Tightass," but we respect him.

When the rest of the CAP, Combat Air Patrol, collapses in the bunk after 15 hour shifts, Captain Apollo can usually be found working on paperwork in his closet, uhh… office, or updating the rooster board, or working on Vipers with the deck gang, or pulling a shift in CIC, and yet every Thursday when we get together to play Triad, there he is pulling up a seat, plunking down his money. As hard as we work, he puts in ten times more than any of us. He wouldn't be a hero, not in my head, if he didn't care about us that much as well. Because he doesn't come to the Triad games for the crappy booze or the lame jokes. He comes to talk to us, to make sure we're alright. To let us win if we've had a crappy week; to take us down a notch when we've gotten a bit arrogant. He is a good CAG.

All of us in the fleet have had our share of grief and loss. Some more than others. I was on vacation with my family when the worlds were destroyed, and so I have loved ones to write home to, but there is a need to talk about my best friends, my dog, and my girlfriend. Some days are worse than others, but I know if I sit at the CAG's table at lunch, he'll listen to me. He may not say much, but that's alright, knowing that he'll remember with me, for me, when I forget. Sometimes I'll see a look of pain in his eyes, but for all his compassion, he has never dumped his grief on any of his pilots, or anyone else for that matter. I gathered he was based on the Atlantia, and was well liked, and they were gone… are gone, had the switches to their Vipers pulled and then left to watch as their death aimed for them, and the Captain was flying in a decommissioning exercise and has no pictures of them to place on the wall, no way to remember them. But he doesn't break with his grief as the "stronger" members of our squadron have done. Even this is not what makes him a hero to me. No, I find, for me, what makes Apollo a hero is his nightly ritual.

Apollo is young, capable, controlled. He teaches self-defense classes, he teaches precision maneuvers with Vipers, he is responsible for the refueling of the fleet, and he was the President's military advisor. But his solid stability, his reliability makes him a hero. Every night, after enforced darkness snakes through the ship, Apollo makes his rounds. He strides through the pilot quarters and pulls curtains here, resettles blankets there, turns off lights, and if you're having a bad night, missing people you've lost, or even just missing yourself, your-old-self, he'll lay his hand on yours as he checks on your bunkmate and you know you're not alone. If you need a word, he'll have it.

Some of you may remember that one of the pilots got herself hyped up on stims while Ms. Biers was recording on Galactica. That pilot, "Cat", is my bunkmate. We went through basic flight together, dealt with Starbuck at her deadliest, made our kills, talked, bullshitted, we are friends, close friends, because in the end the people who have lived your life with you are the closest to you here on Galactica. After Cat crashed her Viper, I was lost because I've always thought that she was so much stronger than me, but she had broken, cracked under the stress and grief. What the hell was I going to do? The Captain came through on his rounds and pulled shut Tweeker's curtains. Set Frosty's alarm for him, turned off Racetrack's light and pulled up her covers, and then he leaned down to pull my curtains shut, and I reached out and stopped him. He read the questions in my eyes and squeezed my hand.

"She'll be fine. She'll be stronger because of this. She'll be a better pilot." His voice was quiet, soft, soothing. The CAG has one of the softest voices I know. He doesn't have to shout his commands, he merely states them. He doesn't have to raise his voice to get people to listen, they just do. And his voice is comforting.

"She is so much stronger." I had whispered plaintively. Okay, I was whining, expecting him to make me feel better. If I hadn't been truly rattled by Cat's accident he would have slapped me down, but I was and he can read that in our faces, and so he sighed and looked across the room for a minute, searching for words.

"Everyone gets their strength from someplace different. You aren't Cat, you won't fall apart, you'll hold." And he means it.

"I don't know how you and Starbuck keep it together."

My comment was greeted with a snarky spat of laughter and a wry grin. "Starbuck and I are more frakked up than the rest of you guys put together. We're just better at hiding it." He smiled again, dry and sarcastic, and then it gentled to something real and he patted my hand. "She'll hold. You'll hold. You are both great pilots. You'll survive." He said the last softly, pain twinging his mouth. So many of us haven't returned. So many of us have died, and Apollo carries them all around with him. He carries the Atlantia, all of his buddies from flight school, he carries the memories of his brother and mother, he carries the grief for us, carries the names of the dead, the faces, so that we don't have to.

Recently, restlessness has taken hold in his eyes, in his movements, and he seems less at peace with that grief, or maybe he's more accepting of it, since he nearly died. I don't know, but I saw his face after the explosion of the Dara Maru. He was angry, that we humans could choose death for our fellow human beings. Because whatever else the Captain is, he is a fighter.

These days as I watch as Starbuck disintegrates in grief and bitterness, I know that the Captain will save her. He won't have to push her ship back onto Galactica, as she did his, but he will raise up his glass, and stop the pain from leaking from her heart. He will hold her shattered remains as she puts them back together. And when all is said and done, he will sit down at the Thursday Triad table and listen to us complain about the rotation schedule, and will take the braggart comments that Starbuck throws his way, and he will never mention his own pain, his own problems, or the way he has saved her ass time and again. Because he is the CAG and he is my hero.

Lt. Brendan Constanza, Viper Pilot

Hot Dog looked at his writing in front of him and sighed. It wasn't very good and didn't capture half of the things he noticed about the CAG. Like how, hurting and anxious to look for a missing Starbuck, the CAG had kept his strong hand on Hot Dog's shoulder and then had pinned his own wings on the barf splattered tanks. How Apollo had held Hot Dog's gaze as he had told him,"Constanza, when Galactica says 'shoot,' you shoot. I knew what I was doing; I knew they might order you to shoot me and the President down. You did your job, Hot Dog, and you did it well." The CAG had been proud of him. "Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do." The gaze had been steady, solid, so very "Apollo" and Constanza had felt better.

"What have ya got there, Hot Dog?" Cat leaned down over his shoulder and skimmed the first few lines. "The CAG, huh?" She nodded perfunctorily at him. "Yeah, I can see that. I mean after we saw him fly into the Conveyor Tunnel. Well, very little has been that frakking cool since. Maybe I'll write my own entry. See if I can't win a little R&R on Cloud 9." She grinned at him, and Hot Dog smiled back.

"Oooo. I'm sweating in my flight suit. You can barely string two words together, nugget." Constanza hastily shoved his essay into his locker as Cat punched him in the arm.

"Better than you and don't even think about calling me, nugget. I'm so far past you; you eat my wingman's vapor trail." Cat pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen, "Now leave me alone so I can win me some sweet time in the sun." She grinned back at him and tuned him out.

Challenge…Someone else write Cat's essay or any other character's response to... "My Hero in the Fleet."