beating a dead horse?

I promised a lot of people that I would blog about learning to teach, and sadly I have let all of them down.  Until today.

The fact of the matter is, I haven't done so yet because I talk about teaching all. the. time. now, and when I sit down to the computer at the end of the day, it's usually to lesson plan OR (better) to do something completely unrelated that doesn't require my brain to be on at all.  Yesterday I was introduced to Phineas and Ferb and watched several episodes before finally going to sleep at :yawn: 10 PM.

10 PM is my new bedtime, and 11 PM is my new "why am I still awake"-time, mostly because 5:30 is my new wake-up time.  Also because (I don't know if you have heard this yet) teaching is exhausting.  I was teaching a lesson in summer school today about multiplying complex fractions.

Obviously the kids were not so into it, especially because their previous teacher has been known to say things like "they can't learn fractions. It's like beating a dead horse. So I just let them use calculators on the tests because they don't need to know how to multiply or add fractions for algebra. So why waste your time?"   My first response-thought to this was "my kids WILL learn fractions. and they will LOVE them."  So I poured my heart, soul and body into my lesson today and got very little in the way of enthusiasm back. Their teacher (who had been observing) said to me after "you put in waaaay more work into that lesson than the kids did. Don't do that. Make them work."   And as much as I may disagree with their teacher's view of their potential for learning, I think this advice is pretty good.

I learn lessons like this every day. Some are real lessons, with lectures and worksheets, and some are learned the hard way.  When asked to describe how I am feeling today with a color, my response was "dishwater" and it's true. I feel thin, translucent, grey, and, for lack of a better word, whooshy. But there is one thing that is keeping me from collapsing into a puddle, and it's my students.  Today, my kids took a lesson they had been told they'd never learn (or need to learn, but honestly, where does that assumption come from?) and tackled it. Even though they weren't jumping out of their seats, even though they may have been chatty, even though I wore myself out doing it, they went from 0% of the class mastering the skill to 83%.  

And that is what will keep me up till midnight tonight writing lesson plans.

NYC

30 Rock is filmed in Brooklyn. Sad face.

I just got back from New York!  For the first time in my whole life. Until this weekend, all I knew about New York came from movies and TV.  And in the case of a few of those (like How I Met Your Mother, Friends, Will & Grace, and Seinfeld) they aren't even filmed in New York. Or even on the East Coast.
So all I knew came from

• Jungle 2 Jungle
• Home Alone 2
• Big
• Kate and Leopold
• Someone Like You
• You've Got Mail
• Hitch
• ...I don't need to list these. Just think of pretty much every movie ever made. Except the ones by John Hughes.

Overall, this did not give me a very good idea of what the city is actually like and gave me a weird set of expectations going into this trip.  Mostly that the city of New York exists to be filmed: with wet streets to reflect lights at night and the streets perpetually bustling around a single person as he or she walks slowly, obliviously through them with a look that betrays the fact that their thoughts are far, far away.  Thinking about him. Or her. Or how to keep their superhero costume from bunching under their day clothes.

But surprise(to me)! New York is a real place. That exists. It exists when the cameras aren't there. It exists when the Glee kids aren't dancing around all over the place and the Gossip Girls aren't...gossiping.  So if I learned anything from this trip it's that New York is real and real people really live there.

There are lots of opportunities to take pictures of people taking pictures.

I also learned all those apartments in shows like Friends don't exist. Unless you have a trust fund. Or you're in Brooklyn.


My goals for this trip:

Eat real New York Pizza.

check.

Eat a real New York bagel. 
- Russ and Daughters - check.


Find Bret and Jemaine's apartment.

check.

See a famous person.
- BAM! Saw Brian Williams walking around NBC Studios wearing hipster glasses. - check.

Overall, a COMPLETELY successful trip that surpassed all my expectations and thoroughly exhausted me.

THANKS MALLORY!

hiberknitting

and update on my existence so far this break:

I have been knitting. And watching television.
The end.

Of course there have been some family tussles, some exam stress (not mine this time!) and I did see Harry Potter again. Of course I did. Because the Groupon tickets were expiring.  And because it's Harry Potter. I mean, come on.

We're still not sure where we will be for Christmas. Here or New Orleans, New Orleans or here... There is still work to be done at my grandmother's house, so we will be back. But it is the day before the day before Christmas Eve, and we are still flip-flopping.

So MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope I see you.

shenanigans

It's my last day in A-town. So I should be packing right now, but I can't bring myself to do it somehow. Don't worry, I will. Eventually.

The other day, I woke up like usual for work. My alarm went off, ruined my dream, and I fumbled around, sleep-drunk, for the off button. I coaxed my head off the pillow and stumbled through the mountains of "packing" in my room and headed towards the bathroom.

For those of you who know me well enough to have been upstairs in my house (or just those of you who may have creeped up there, or even those of you who I've already told this to) you know we keep our hamster in the bathroom. This sounds weird, I know. But it's best for everyone; if a hamster is gonna be smelly somewhere, it might as well be where it's already smelly. And with three boys using that room, trust me, it's rancid. OK, maybe it's not that bad. It does smell like showers sometimes, which is good. Especially if they use my mango and pomegranate soap and think I don't know about it. ANYWAY. The hamster is in the bathroom. Between the two sinks on the counter.

Also- about the hamster: Daniel bought her. He saved money and begged and begged for one. Mom said if he had enough to buy the hamster and its food, he could get it. We had had hamsters before; a little brown one named Pepper and a black and white we named Oreo for obvious reasons. Oreo was a bitch. Anyway. They both died of the same mysterious eye-popping-out disease at completely different times in our family history. They also both escaped a few times. Don't ask me how. I just know one ended up chewing up the carpet in my closet. It was the bitchy one. So when we tried to catch her she ran all around and gnawed at our hands with what I remember to be venomous eye teeth.

So my mom had one condition when Daniel left with my dad one evening to buy his hamster: "That thing better not have a tail. If it gets out, and it will, I am NOT picking up anything that has a nasty rat tail without whuppah-ing that thing. NO. TAILS." (a note to those outside the family: whuppah is the noise a whip makes. SO there you go.) Daniel, restless with excitement, agrees vehemently, crossing his heart and hoping to die and all that.

Well, a bit later they come home with a little cardboard carrier (which is dumb Petsmart, hamsters eat cardboard. Use your brain) and I'm sure you can guess what Daniel brought home:
In my mom's defense: it is a tail. But Daniel protested that is it a Chinese dwarf hamster, and the tail is really small.

Daniel named her Aphrodite. Eventually, Mom grew to like her.

So that morning, I noticed her food dish was empty and her water was almost gone. I filled them both, with a mental note to give Daniel a verbal lashing for shirking responsibilities, etc.

When I came home from work, my mom called from the living room "Guess what So-and-So said on Facebook: 'you should put the hamster in a plastic bag and keep it in the car' hahaha!" (for those of you who haven't heard The Dead Dog Story, remind me to tell you. The shorthand is this means the hamster is dead.) I paused, trying to understand. "What?!" "Oh. Aphrodite died."

SO. Never feeding a hamster again. But at least she kept her eyeballs. And her dignity. Unless Ethel (cat) dug her up in the back yard...

things that go bump

update: still effing hot.

here's a scene from last night, around 12:14-

It is 93 degrees in this house. Probably hotter upstairs, here in my room. I read for a bit and turn out the light. The fan is whirring loudly at the window, but is largely ineffectual. I twist, and one leg is under the sheet while the rest of my body waits, uncovered, for cool relief.

I force my eyes to adjust to the new world of my pitch dark bedroom. Then, the thought:

With the fan so loud, I won't be able to hear them.

Only I could scare myself so thoroughly and for no apparent reason. Who's "them?" Aliens? Robbers? The family of Cat People who moved into my closet while we were gone? Who knows.

I hesitantly pull my exposed leg under the sheet, for safety.

This is gonna be a hot one.

fallen leaves down a creek

So far, my summer vacation (this past week) has consisted mostly of hours upon hours of television, even more hours of sleep, and a few interludes with a friend or two. I can not believe I have been home for less than ten days. It feels like years. In a good way. Or maybe not...

I know that if this were all I had to look forward to, the remnants of my sanity would begin to drift away from me like fallen leaves down a creek. Or dandelion seeds in the wind. Or helium balloons into the abyss. I know because even now, after living through one thirteenth of my vacation, I can feel it starting.

The GOOD NEWS IS that I start my job tomorrow. Or today, rather. I take on the exciting position of splash park supervisor/ concessions stand cashier. Huzzah.

I know that after a week or so of that, I'm gonna start to lose it again. And that, my friends, is when I pick up my quilt!