Everything bad about the internet is completely true and I am convinced of that now. You would never believe the stuff kids put about themselves on the www, dudes.

I heard a bunch of my students talking about their "mySpace." I had no idea what that was, but I found out it's this MSN thing kind of like a journal but not really. People put up their profile and stuff about themselves, pictures, whatever. Lots of teens do it, evidently. Then they leave each other comments and stuff.

So since I'm super-nosy, I went on the site out of curiosity just to see how hard it would be to find my students. The idiots (girls, 8th grade) have their real names, towns, zip codes, and school names on there, plus alot of other stuff about where they hang out, etc. Of course they have screen names but when you search by region they pop up. Yer supposed to be 18 to do it but they just fake it.

First I should mention how everloving in shock I was over the language they were using and the pictures of themselves they have on there. I mean, obviously I'm in the school every day so I know how they are, but goodness gracious, even I, who have seen and done just about anything, was muy muy surprised at the stuff they have written. I would never have guessed it from having them in class each day.

But more importantly, there are freakin pervs out there stalking teenybopper girls like this and here they are giving out their personal data to the whole world. I thought they were smarter than this, seriously. I don't want to go into super detail but let's just say my eyes were bugging out of my head, ok?

If you have kids, get a filter, then sit beside them the whole time they're on the computer, is all I can say. And/or go behind them and check and see what they did when you weren't there.

I'm going back to work on the Monkeydome Project, in which I will shield my children from evil and teach them to grow bulgur and sprouts. Off to work on the blueprints.

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