Right now, in my effort to deal with a difficult teaching day, I am listening to the soundtrack from The Life Aquatic. It was gifted to me this morning. The French Bowie is perfection. The swimmy songs send me to a zen like state. Iggy and the Stooges feel my angst. Team Zissou seems to know exactly what a person needs when the day is much too big. Good gift.
I spent time outside this weekend and it was good.
Here is the highlight reel (in verbal form):
*Seeing a couple walking on their toes and realizing they were adults wearing the sneaker-skate banned in my elementary school...Heelys. I was a little confused by the fact that they were walking. They should have been Go-go Gadgeting it home. But, they just didn't seem to understand the goodness. Or, maybe they were embarrassed...like they should have been.
*Eating some mushroom pizza at Cronkite in the Lower East Side. It was tasty, tasty thin crust.
*A man, who was decked out in some fancy sequence shirt rode is bike around, honking his squeaky horn, saying, "Look at me. Hi girls, look at me."
*I walked and walked and walked. I clocked about 7 or 8 miles this weekend. I love the walking.
*I also remembered that I like to fun. Very good.
PS
Happy Earth Day!
Today, my friend is turning 30--she leaves one decade for another. To celebrate, I've created a list of 30 memories I have of her (I've attempted to order them chronologically):
1. Drawing in the hallway of Terrace 6, asking her if she wanted to join me, and becoming friends.
2. Using the outlets in our respective dorm rooms like two tin cans and a string.
3. Trying to figure out how to be roommates--who knew we'd start a long tradition?
4. Sending postcards from New Zealand and Switzerland.
5. Finding sanity in one another while living in a house with a chore wheel.
6. Finding one another in DC!
7. Sleep overs after nights out in Adams Morgan.
8. The wall of pillows.
9. Becoming roommates again.
10. Trying out the Sealy Posturepedic mattress as everyone came off the metro.
11. Watching your interpretive dance on New Years Eve 1999...and the Willenium.
12. Attempting to do that exercise thing with you in Rock Creek Park.
13. Watching too much TV on Saturday mornings.
14. Decorating the basement with streamers for parties.
15. Organizing each other's birthday gifts from the group so that you got what I wanted and I got what you wanted.
16. Going to California/Oregon and laughing at the Bread Show.
17. Swimming in the pool of my first DC apartment (this one should be a bit earlier on the list; but then I'd have to renumber).
18. Going to your parent's house and marching in the 4th of July parade.
19. Swinging from the ropes in Lake George.
20. Drinking a bottle of wine (each) on our tour around NYC when I first moved.
21. Going to the conference in Denver together and watching you make the whole room laugh (again, this should be earlier).
22. Taking a walk over an old bridge in Vermont.
23. Knowing that your perspective will always bring new insights.
24. Sharing a book of poetry with me and finding out that I could actually enjoy poems.
25. Listening to one another talk and having years of recall to interject into the conversation.
26. Talking and talking and talking when we find ourselves in the same spot.
27. Comments on one anothers blogs.
28. Watching each of our worlds change as we get older.
29. Knowing that there is a friend who will always want the best for me (and I for her)
30. The connection we will always share.
Happy Birthday! I hope 30 brings wonderful new things to your world...and a few visits from me!
Today, I've decided to break a (personal) blog rule. I'm using other people's material. Two other people...two friends so it's probably ok.
Reused item number 1:
Yesterday, I noticed that the Ellen DeGeneres Show had found itself on the Faux-Vo. Knowing that I did not put it there, I looked over at my roommate. In her effort to convince me that this was a great thing, she excitedly told me, "You're just like Ellen." When I gave her a look of slight confusion she said, "You both dance everyday."
Reused item number 2:
My good friend VT Girl found this page and then, because she thought it was cool, proclaimed her place in the geekdom. Well, I'll take my place right besides her. When I scrolled down past Jack Kerouac's route across the US of A, I found this other cool map that shows what the world would look like if the population of a country had a direct relationship on the boundaries. Oh I like this stuff.
Ok. That's it. My completely recycled blog here for you to enjoy.
After a few hours on a plane, an accidental whole day at my family's, and one killer nap, I've made it back to my apartment. I'm enjoying having my things and talking with my roommate. But, I miss vacation time already. And, I miss the person I went to see...I miss him terribly.
But, now that April vacation is over, the end of the school year is fast approaching. I'll be a flurry of thesis, teaching, and life having. Then, summer will appear and I will be California bound.
The following things have made me happy today:
*Realizing that it was my 7th day wearing flip-flops as my only footwear
*Getting buzzed by a helicopter that sent us a message (it was to smile - so I did)
*Big white birds hanging out on the side of the road as I walked to the beach; I tried to take a picture but they flew away as soon as the camera was pointed at them
*$52 off on a thing I wanted to buy
*Being told that it has snowed at home for three mornings in a row as I sat on the balcony in my tanktop
*Getting out to walk after several days of quarentine from the sickness I got on the airplane
*A little street-sweeper like thing that cleans the rugs in the hallway of the hotel
*A sea turtle took a dive right below the window
*A beautiful sunset that is calling me outside right now.
I know I'm a few days off with the April Fools...but, those wacky folks at google made a joke. And, I wanted to share.
More about the whole visiting Hawaii thing soon.
Last night, after a day of knocking around the city, my friend and I saw Air Guitar Nation was playing at the Angelika. When we went to buy the tickets, we saw the director, producers and subjects (they're not actors because it's a documentary, right) would be doing a Q & A after the 8 o'clock showing. Perfect.
Everything I had hoped for was true. I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie. I also cannot remember the last time people clapped in the middle of the movie. But, really, what else can you do when someone does a sick air guitar throw in perfect time to the music--it's the epitome of airness.
Now, I just have to figure out a way to get my hands on tickets to the regional championships.
P.S. a master at work:
Tonight was a late night of PTC (parent teacher conferences, for those of you who are not a P or a T). I had just two parents show up during my 2.5 hours but both meetings were amazing. I like the chance to talk with parents about their children, like to help them figure out ways to push them to the next level, am interested in what their concerns are and try to use their insights to help make me a better teacher.
One mother said that she is so happy because she sees her daughter learning so much. Much like her daughter, the mother is a giggler. I told her that her daughter has moved from saying, "Me happy" to "I am happy." Then I said I would fall on the floor because of happiness if her daughter said, "I am very happy" and received perfectly matched giggles from them both. At that moment, I knew it was a good night.
Tonight, I have found myself filled with words. It's as if I cannot stop talking. If something can be expressed in 10 words, I'll use 20. I don't know what is making me so verbose. I worry that it is not going to stop and I will talk myself into circles.
I talked to my sister (who was supposed to be in bed) and could not finish the conversation; I had one more thing to say - more than once. I talked with my professor about a student who I am worried about. I only painted with broad strokes and ended up missing some essential bits of information. My answer to this issue was to email her clarification. The answer to too many words was more words.
I think I've dipped into the obsessive part of myself...or I am experiencing some type of post-Parent Teacher Conference reaction. I hope that it changes for tomorrow. Or, I could be in trouble.
I lived it up city style yesterday and actually went to the parade. For more than an hour, I was loving it--the lines and lines of people in the same outfit, the amazingly steady rotation of firemen to cops to bag-pipers to HS marching band, the fact that the slush I was standing in may be my last round of slush for a long time, and being by Central Park--my official favorite place in the city.
*****
My photo retrospective:
She just told me about this movie. Seeing this is now a plan. Not the competition, the movie...but, maybe that will change after we see the documentary.
Today, on my way to work, the snow and wind made the 60 degree day of earlier in the week a distant memory. After struggling up the avenue, a woman's umbrella dome ripped from the umbrella rod. It flew into the air, flipping over itself, flying 15 feet into the air. The woman was concerned that it would come crashing down onto my head (causing a horrid umbrella injury, I'm sure). I was not concerned...I was enthralled. I had the overwhelming desire to point and say, "Balloon, balloon."
I have had a difficult day. My plans for inclined plane experiments were somewhat thrown off track by dangerous situations (more about this later). I've attempted to wash this day right out of my hair by watching movies. Then, I found this little tool to help me make the hard decisions...WWUD?
*****
Title-Can a simple machine make it easier to move a heavy object?
Prediction-I will see if a wheel and axial will help make it easier to move heavy object. I think it will be easier with a simple machine.
Description-My students will attempt to drag a heavy object across the rug using their own force and then using a simple machine they will attempt to do the same thing. They will see which took more "muscle."
Materials-Chair with rolling wheels and teacher acting as the heavy object.
Prediction-The students will not be able to move their teacher across the rug without the aid of a simple machine.
Observation-Most of the students could not move me across the rug without using the rolling chair. One boy, however, was able to drag me from one side to the other without a whole lot of effort.
At this moment, if you were looking in my window, it's possible you would think that I am deeply engaged in the dog Whisperer and enjoying a pretzel snack rather than doing my field notes for my thesis. It's probably because field notes are taking about 20% of my attention, the TV 30% and the snack 50%.
All of the homework that I have this year is making me more sympathetic to my students. But, not enough to take away their whole HW thing.
I was watching TV, the remote was not letting me fast forward past the commercials, and I saw the strangest thing. The Brooklyn Academy of Music has a new little something playing. Edward Scissorhands--the musical. How does this happen? It's craziness.
I have a fear of squirrels. Specifically, I fear them falling into my hair and then going ape. The noise I imagine is horrible.
It seems someone in Santa Monica also shares the fear. They've decided to put the squirrels on the pill. I think that's brilliant!
It's amazing what my students want to know about me. I talk about very little with them because it is not what they should focus on...but sometimes something slips out.
This morning, one of my students told me she was hungry because she only had the muffin from the school's breakfast. I told her that I only had toast and we'd have to wait for lunch. A few moments later, she said, "Do you have one of those toasters with two things and something you push down?" I said that I did.
From the other side of the room I heard someone stage whisper, "She has a toaster!"
I love these kids.
P.S.
A few minutes after the first exchange, the girl who had eaten a muffin told me that I could get a toaster with four spots at the 99 cent store. I told her that was good to know.
So, right now I am making a dinner I've never made before. It's a part of my branching out to new, tastier foods, and enjoying vacation by doing things I really like to do but have no time for in my normal life.
In an effort to avoid trichinosis, I went to the w.w.w. to look up some information about cooking time for pork.
What I found instead was a chart that made me stop for a moment.
It's a chart of a breakdown of daily caloric intake of pork, per person, by country.
1 Austria 352.8
2 Switzerland 349.6
3 Finland 343.2
4 China 331.8
5 France 301.6
6 Spain 296.3
7 Denmark 293.5
8 Poland 267.7
9 FR Yugoslavia 264.3
10 Germany 247.1
That's a lot of pork!
As I drove to work this morning, having just hacked very thin but
amazingly tough layer of ice off of all the windows of my car, I
thought about cold weather gear--specifically snow pants. One of my
friends wore snow pants to school for the entire winter of our senior
year of college. It was Ithaca. So snow pants were a little stroke of
genius.
After my day at work, I came home and procrastinated a little too
much. I had to do a small (yet essential) load of laundry for my trip
on Friday. My strong hate for the whole process of hiking my junk to
the laundromat 3 blocks away was kicking in and the snow was not
helping the fact. When my roommate returned from her walk in the snow
that lasted for a few hours, she offered up her company on the walk as
a bribe. I took it.
But, before we left, I decided that my snow pants were the right gear
for the walk. This was a little influenced by the fact that the whole
point of the snowstorm-laundry trip was to wash the jeans I was
wearing and a few favorite shirts.
So, we made the walk there and back three times, dug our cars out for
the morning, and generally enjoyed the snow. I think the enjoyment was
partially due to the pants.
