Funny work stuff

Or, Why the Chinese and Japanese are totally winning in the education-of-children battle.

Melissa voted for having more funny work stories in my blog. Now, seeing as how I work with juvenile delinquents in a region populated by a lot of illegal immigrants and other fun people, humor is always just around the corner if I know where to look. I haven't been to work for three weeks, so I have no new stories, but I do have the transcript of a real, genuine note that I found on the ground outside my classroom and haven't found time yet to post. I am not making this up; I am actually reproducing the hand-penned (pink) note exactly as written, aside from disguising the name and the fact that I can't reproduce the hearts and smileys dotted here and there.

To: My Babe
4rm: Me

My bad 4 write n pink. When he see you play football, I didn't no u waz dat good. I though football waz over. I waz gona buy yo holiday gram 2 day, datz y I waz on da stage. How can I forget to call you, nobody can forget about Kxxxxxx oh yea nigga I herd dat u threw som den at yo teacher head, if anything I need to get dat class wit U. Ya'll niggaz is hella crazy
ANYWAYZ
Im a get ma cell phone in January, den I'm give u dat #, I'll talk 2 you 2nite so answer yo phone Yadidi

Kxxxxxx Babe

I know, I know! I can handle slang and abbreviations (kids have been using 4 in place of "for" and 2 in place of "to" or "too" for decades), but the grammar and punctuation are so spotty as to be frightening. And I thought the point of writing things like abbreviations was to abbreviate. Writing "was" as "waz" accomplishes nothing. The offering of antecedents for pronouns is spurious at best (Who is the "he" referenced in the first line? Never made clear.). Even the penmanship was lacking (though you wouldn't know that, as I typed it up). Obviously, the youth of today have created their own method of communication, safe from comprehension by adults, but thank God that their lack of organizational or cooperational skills prevents them from going further and actually taking over the world... The use of the hitherto questionable word "nigga" is something I will allow as culturally appropriate affectionate slang within this particular context, but still: At this point, I make the impassioned plea to disallow students from listening to gangsta rap and hip-hop until they graduate from high school with competency in the English language.