Some Random Rambling

I've been thinking lately and it's just random thinking which is kind of weird. So these are just a few things that I've been thinking about.

1. Merit pay for teachers
   Can someone tell me why this could be a good idea at all? Basing teachers' pay off of the performance of students is ridiculous. If these aptitude tests only count for seeing how much a teacher gets paid, and most of the students who have the teacher don't like him/her they could all fail it just so the teacher could get fired. And how is that going to help? A fully competent teacher could get fired just for not being liked by his/her students. Also, certain kids are expected to be at different levels. If this could have any chance of working, there would have to be about 600 different tests made; all for different schools. Teachers can't work miracles. And kids have to want to help themselves for them to be able to keep up with the work and be successful. The whole thing is just absurd to me.

2. Buying those "limited edition" coins
    Why would you do that? I saw an ad in the newspaper the other day with a great offer in it: buy a "limited edition" $2 coin for $399. To me that's basically going up to the company and saying "Hey can I get change for this $100 bill?" and they say "What do you want to exchange for" then you say "A $1 bill". That's just completely unrealistic. I understand the whole wanting to collect the coins because they did look pretty cool but why pay that much money for a pretty looking coin (about quarter-sized) when you can buy a perfectly shiny PS3 that you can actually play with?

3. Using a girl voice actor for a guy in cartoons
    Seriously? Why would they even do that? I've been watching an anime called Soul Eater and one of the characters named Black Star is voiced by a really obnoxious girl. And yes, Black Star is a boy. And Ash in Pokemon is voiced by a girl too. I'd been watching Soul Eater for a couple of hours but then I had to stop because Black Star was making me annoyed. Part of that is probably the actual character but the fact that a person that looks like a guy but talks like a girl is obnoxious too. I literally skip past any scene with Black Star in it because I just can't stand the voice.

4. Those awkward movie scenes
     I can't be the only one who wonders what happens after those awkward conversations in movies where the people end up just sitting there looking at each other. Do they just get up and leave at the same time or just sit there for a while until one of them awkwardly decides to get up? Or do they possibly just start up some small talk? This keeps bothering me because I know scenes in real life don't just fade out and be over.