clean up on aisle life

My Second Bachelor's

2008-06-04T07:08:00.006-04:00

We're coming up here on my four year anniversary of living in New York. I'm going to submit to a little cliche here: the girl who moved here with two suitcases and a box seems completely unrecognizable to me today. In the past four years I taught five different grades and six different subjects to over 200 children. I traveled to Maine, Joshua Tree Desert, Colorado, North Carolina, and a few spots within a 2-hour radius of the city. I completed a masters degree. I moved to five different apartments in two boros. I learned how to be a better roommate, unfortunately through making quite a few rookie mistakes with my near and dear friend Keri. I spent way too much time on bad or just mediocre dates. I fell head over heels in love, and have remained in that state for an obnoxiously long time. I got hooked on podcasts, bad tv, and one-story. I ran a half-marathon, which was not nearly as hard as running a 4-mile run in 2-degree weather a few months afterwards. I played beach soccer, indoor soccer, and pickup soccer as much as possible. I got a literary agent, then was dropped just two months later. I dealt with what I hope is the worst personal tragedy in my lifetime, and after a bit of therapy, came out of it in one piece. I did the flying trapeze with my mom. I hosted my 14-year-old cousin for her 2-week stay in the city. I welcomed a baby niece to the world, as well as quite a few new cousins and babies of friends. I broke my nose and my scaphoid, both in ridiculous ways. I made a fool of myself more times than I want to remember right now, but I made quite a few good decisions, though, too. I got a dog that I love and obsess over. I read a countless books and stories. All in all, I've had a lot of fun.

After four years of city life, I feel as if it is time for me to graduate. The biggest difference between this "graduation" and my undergraduate graduation, is that the first time around, five very long years ago, I left my college campus feeling pretty certain about everything: the way the world works, why things happen, what I wanted to do with my life, and how the next five years of my life would pan out. Now, and probably a bit more realistically, I haven't got a clue. I can't figure out why anything really happens anymore and I don't know what I'll be doing this time next year. And as someone who can get pretty obsessed with a plan, the best thing I have thought to do is to make a list of 30 things to do before I'm 30. So now I frequently daydream about my trip to the Moab Desert, or how I'll go crazy trying to submit my first novel to publishers.

Feeding my questions about my future is the fact that June 26th will be my last day working for the New York City Department of Education, something that still somehow shocks me. In many ways I feel that a part of my spirit, and maybe even my heart, has been broken by the mess of a system that is the DOE. And even as I leave, I feel that I am giving up. It's not a great feeling, although I am excited about much of what lies ahead. I have already started my new job as an ABA therapist working in the homes of students with autism. It's early intervention, one-on-one, and so far going extremely well. It's refreshing to be able to give truly individualized care and feel that I am working with a team that is actually producing results. But all of this transition has been much more difficult than I ever would've expected.

One thing I have learned in the past four years is that the dates that are set aside for celebration (graduation , birthdays, etc.) are frequently not as worthy as other days. For example, why don't teachers who have made it through the first year in tact get a huge party? In these four years, I have grappled with questions that are much bigger and more relevant than anything I ever did in college, simply because they have a real context. I'm no longer reading life from a textbook. So, as I said before, it's time to graduate. And just like I left Columbia, Missouri after my undergraduate career, I'm ready to leave something behind and start a new chapter. I won't be leaving New York, I still love it too much. But I will be leaving the blog. Over time, I've posted fewer and fewer entries, frequently causing my Uncle Jim to think I am dead. And I am finding that the time I do have for writing I want to spend on other projects, one of which you can check out here.

So this is it, the final good-bye. Thank you for checking in here on Aisle Life over the last 400 entries. I think it might just be time to throw myself a graduation party.

What?!

2008-04-30T08:17:00.003-04:00

This morning I was perusing the NY Times website and came across this article. As a constant toter of the 48oz. Nalgene bottle filled with water, I was more than a little surprised that the 8-cups-of-water-a-day rule is completely unsubstantiated. What are they going to say next, An apple a day doesn't keep the doctor away?

I Saw the Sign...Literally

2008-04-26T15:01:00.003-04:00

While I have been on vacation during the past week, I have let a lot of worry overcome me. I've been stressed about work-related issues and the dog, whose "little problem" is taking far more time and energy than we ever thought it would.

Today, after being lost in Little Rock (of all places) for a little over an hour, I finally found my way back to JFK Boulevard in North Little Rock. Happy to be back in a place I recognized, I stopped by the bank. As I was leaving, I looked up to see a sign in front of a church. It said, "Worry is the misuse of imagination."

I think it's time I get a bit more imaginative.

If I Could Change the World...

2008-04-21T06:14:00.000-04:00

...it would wake up when I did. I'm on vacation, but I've still been up since 5:30. Even the dog isn't ready to get up. You should have seen the look she gave me. It was as if she were saying "You can't be serious" before putting her head back down and closing her eyes.

I have a list of errands I need to run today, but nothing is open yet. Library books can't be returned. Checks can't be deposited at the bank. I can't even make a few crucial phone calls.

If it were up to me, whatever makes my eyes pop open between the hours of five and six every day, would make everyone's eyes pop open at the same time. Then at least I would have someone to talk to...or at least cook breakfast for.

If you're up, give me a call.

Changes

2008-04-20T13:46:00.002-04:00

So the dog has officially taken over our lives. I knew how much it really took to take care of a dog...okay, maybe I didn't. Somehow that time was underestimated. Everything gets a little more complicated and suddenly my roommate and I are e-mailing, texting, and talking constantly about whether or not she's caught the frisbee, behaved well at the dog park, or pooped. It's gotten to the point that the other day, when Mona had pooped three times in one day, my roommate proudly cheered over her "hat-trick."

We have both completely fallen in love with her and all her quirks. Such as how she prefers ice cubes as a treat or nips my roommates nose to greet him after I take her on her morning walk. We do too much research on whether or not she should play tug o' war and both take the time to learn how to get a pit bull to release it's grip from her neck if, for some reason, she is ever attacked by one. So yes, it is bordering on obsessive.

But after a week, things seem to be calming down a bit and we're settling into life with a dog. Now she's snoring next to me on the couch while I survey how much shed hair is on our carpet. Definitely time to vacuum.

Dog Days

2008-04-11T09:46:00.000-04:00

So after years of daydreaming about this day, it has finally arrived. Tonight I am picking up my new dog! She's a greyhound/pointer mix named Mona and I am already in love.

Things I have already discovered about owning a dog:

(1) It is much harder to coordinate travel plans.
(2) They are expensive.
(3) The Petco selection of leashes and collars is absurdly large, bringing out the worst of my inability to make a decision on small matters.
(4) My ability to worry is much bigger than I ever knew. I feel like an overprotective, first-time parent as I research dog foods, toys, and veterinarians.

Here she is:

That Time of Year Again

2008-04-02T15:37:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited that it's baseball season again. Last year I made it to a measley two games. This year will definitely be different seeing that I'm sans-thesis and not working during the summer! The Mets won the opening game, and I'm ready for more!!

No Sleep In Brooklyn

2008-03-31T20:26:00.003-04:00

This weekend in a nutshell:

awesome party with old friends, ended up playing Dance Dance Revolution till one in the morning
attempted to dye my hair dark brown, ended up dying it black, love it
got hooked on a marathon of America's Best Dance Crew, which turned me into a huge fan of the JabbaWockeeZ (should've listened to my friend Teresa several weeks ago when she told me to start recording it!)
not sleeping much lately, but trying to trick myself into sleeping through somewhat useless techniques...hopefully tonight will be different
writing a ton and in the process of applying for a couple of courses
avoiding practice tests for the GRE...no really, I don't even want to talk about it...
already ready for summer vacation, must slow down and enjoy work a bit more

Quite a Month

2008-03-25T07:00:00.002-04:00

I might as well change the name of this blog to Bullet Points. Here's a few events/thoughts from the past few busy weeks.

I went hiking in New Paltz with a couple of friends on Saturday. Three new loves: zipcar, the oldest street in America with the original housing, and Inquiring Minds Bookstore.
On February 15th I made the final payment on my $16,000 car. It feels amazing to have paid off that amount after five long years (I believe in one previous blog I called the car the bane of my financial assistance.) Over the past few months I have been debating on selling or donating the car. But I no longer have to make that decision. A junkyard is coming to pick it up tomorrow after someone totalled it in a hit and run while it was parked in front of my house. Now the debate is whether or not to have fun causing more damage to the car before it's towed away. (Josh is the big more-damage advocate.)
For the teachers out there, Google is having a great competition called Doodle 4 Google. It might just be one of my favorite assignments I have ever given my kids. We're all having a blast. But the math projects I assigned my students this year might just beat it by the end of the month. Listening as my students get excited about their topics (Math in Video Games, Evolution of the Calendar, or even Florence Nightingale, who used math to improve quality of needlesticks when taking blood) is quite possibly the most awesome experience of my year, especially after so much test prep.
Today I am going to the podiatrist yet again to solve another little debate I've been having with myself. Should I cut off my foot, or finally give in and get surgery. The both are equally scary to me, but after 14 months of shots and medicine and random pain, it might just be time to try something new. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
And still another debate, but this one much more fun. Alan and I are going to a wedding in two weeks and decided to have a blast dressing up. I bought two dresses after much, much shopping, and yesterday held a household vote for which one I should wear to the wedding. A strappy, purple number won 4-1. I can't wait to wear it!!
And something that's no debate at all - a book called Crashing Through that my friend Sharon recommended to me. It's about a man, blinded from the age of three, who has his sight restored and what transpires thereafter. Sometimes it feels a little like a book on speed because so much is told so fast, but there's also the great realizations in the descriptions of what he's going through. My favorite thus far, after opening his eyes to see for the first time, he is leaving the doctor's office. He walks through the waiting is room and is stopped short by the sight of the carpet. He says, "How could a person just sit there when such a carpet is happening?"

Blast from the Past

2008-03-06T18:27:00.002-05:00

Today I found a picture taken in my classroom during my second week of teaching. I could not stop staring at it. I look like a baby, innocent with this huge smile (probably induced a bit by trying to cover up my huge amount of shock.) I can't believe the picture is only four years old. It's not that I look old now, but that I look like an adult. In this picture I look like a college kid.

I don't think I've ever been so struck with a feeling of "This is me before...everything." This picture is before any real teaching experience, before my Masters degree, before what was (hopefully) the worst tragedy I will face in my life, before meeting Alan, before the birth of my niece, before so much. And there's something about the photo that I love, as if somehow as long as the picture exists so does the innocence I possessed at that time. But there's also something very strange because I feel like I've time-traveled and come face-to-face with myself, and realized it's not me at all.

Parent Teacher Conferences

2008-02-29T06:33:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I had some of the most productive parent teacher conferences I've ever had, but I also came to a conclusion about how the long line of parents standing outside my door can be managed a bit better. I think after the school's recommended six minutes of conference time with a parent, the Oscar music should start so the parents know that, unfortunately, it's time for them to exit stageright.

New Favorites

2008-02-27T20:26:00.002-05:00

So many new, good things! The short list:

Very Short List - a daily e-mail about something cool: books, movies, random websites. Subscribe immediately!
Cookbooks - Suddenly I own four, and now it's extended into my library-obsession. Today I checked out The Best American Recipes 2000. I've already looked through the entire book and marked my future meals with blue post-its. And on Friday, I will finally have time to grocery shop...it's going to be a food-filled weekend!
Stuff White People Like - a hilarious blog that Alan says I like because I'm white.
Tournament of Books - The Morning News is entering their third year of a March Madness type of competition for books. Check out the "brackets" here.
Following in the footsteps of Radiohead, the much talked-about novel Beautiful Children by Charles Bock is available here for free download until Friday at midnight. I just got mine.
David Archuleta on American Idol. Yes, I said American Idol.

Back and Other Things

2008-02-22T15:54:00.003-05:00

So I'm back from Colorado and beginning the brief mourning process I go through at the end of ever vacation. I'm also combatting that sadness by throwing a party at my house called The Big Bad Mama Jama Pajama Party. Me and six girlfriends are celebrating oldschool tonight...we have old chick flicks (think Cutting Edge) and plenty of food, but unfortunately I lost out on my ebay bid for the game GirlTalk. It ought to be a fun night!

As far as "other things" go, I found a very interesting website. It's called zipskinny. Type in your zipcode and you get all sorts of data about your town/neighborhood based on U.S. Census Bureau data. Definitely check it out!

Still Awake

2008-02-13T22:51:00.002-05:00

I am wide awake long past the time I'm usually nodding off. I have another case of busybrain. First and foremost, I'm going over and over my packing list for my trip to Denver. The suitcase is mostly packed, and I must say that I have to win for most creative way of packing snowshoes ever!! Second, I'm reading blogs, trying to get caught up on all the ones I like to visit before my personal five-day boycott of the internet. This one was particularly interesting to me, though I'm not really big on Valentine's Day. I'm also thinking about a meeting I have tomorrow. I'm not going to go into details because I have this wierd jinxy feeling that is quite unlike me, but if you read this before 4:00 on Thursday, send positive vibes my way! Finally, the thing that is really helping distract me from nervous feelings about tomorrow afternoon is a cd mix I'm making for myself called, "Come on, get happy...at work." It includes twenty upbeat songs ranging from Juanes to the Fratellis and from Ben Lee to James Brown. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will work after a particularly rough week at work. Maybe, just maybe, the cd will be the key to my sanity...or at least my message to myself to just get over it and have some fun.

Sick and Awake

2008-02-07T15:40:00.000-05:00

So, after a healthy fifteen hours of sleep, I am feeling a bit better and spending some quality time with the television. Recently I haven't been watching as much tv. I'm shocked at how quickly I've forgotten what kind of trash is on there. The only thing in my DVR was Project Runway, so after enjoying that little morsel of TV goodness...well, here's the list of other shows I watched:

What Not to Wear
10 Years Younger
Millionaire Matchmaker

I won't get into why each of the shows are horrendous, despite being the best option for their timeslots. And I just took a look at what Oprah's episode is about today to find this blurb: "Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?"

I think I'm about to give up. Which means I will have to actually get off of the couch and peruse the DVD selections. TV...you're making me sad.

Flu? Tonsilitis? Who Cares Anymore?

2008-02-06T19:45:00.000-05:00

Back from the doctor today, and the news is that I still cannot go back to work. I've been couch/bedbound since Sunday...mostly sleeping and staring into space. Today I've been well enough to multitask a bit...meaning watching tv and encouraging my new addictions of facebook and Travel IQ Challenge. I'm surprised by how much I am just ready to go back to work. Hopefully with a more medicine and sleeping/staring, I'll be ready for Friday. Till then...back to Travel IQ Challenge.

A Look at My Inbox

2008-02-03T16:32:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm going to admit something slightly ridiculous: I e-mail myself several times daily. The subject lines typically read one of the following:
Remember this...
Read this...
Eat here...
Buy this cd...
Blog about this...
Etc, etc, etc.

I was cleaning out my e-mail account when suddenly I realized that the only e-mails I had left in my inbox were from me! All the others had been sent to my gmail Archives, but I deemed myself better than that. It's almost as if I have signed up for my own listserv, complete with recommendations for what restaurants to try, what authors to see in the city, or what music to check out on itunes. I'm definitely glad I'm a subscriber...

While I Was Working...

2008-02-01T15:13:00.000-05:00

When Alan picked me up from work today, he was very excited to tell me what he'd been doing all afternoon. A college friend had introduced him to abandonware, a type of software that contains all sorts of old games that are no longer produced. So today he started with Oregon Trail. He told me he named a character after me. Our conversation:

Alan: You died, and it made me sad.
Me: Please don't tell me it was from dysentery.
Alan: It was! (followed by melodramatic hug.)
Me: Did you marry someone else after I died.
Alan: Yes. But the oxen lived.

Next he showed me Life and Death, a game where you pretend to be a doctor. He showed me how to do the basic patient check-up and how to look for kidney stones on an x-ray, then finally admitted that he had killed several patients because he did not know how to perform an appendectomy. But not to worry, he has already found a website explaining how to make the McBurney's incision, which included cross-references!!

Later he proudly informed me that he had indeed found Carmen Sandiego. While I am tempted to just make fun of him, I am actually more tempted to join in the fun.

Interesting...

2008-01-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

Tonight I went to a bar that one of Alan's friends works at. Besides having a great time with people I haven't seen for a while, I also met a woman who started talking to me about the upcoming presidential election. She introduced to me to glassbooth. You answer a small number of questions about where you stand on different political issues; it then matches you with the top three presidential candidates that have the same beliefs as you do. My highest match was Mike Gravel, a candidate I've never even heard of...which makes me feel like an astoundingly uneducated voter. It also gives you more in depth information about how certain candidates match your beliefs, such as voting records, etc. Definitely worth checking out...And now, to bed. When a friend works at the bar, you always end up drinking too much...

Math Teacher Doing Math

2008-01-25T12:21:00.000-05:00

While on my lunch break today I started discussing the amount of practice testing we have been doing at the school lately. I tracked back to two weeks before the Holiday Break and started counting the days used for taking practice state math exams, practice state literacy exams, the actual state literacy exam, and the Acuity math exam. Out of 27 potential school days, 15 days were devoted to testing or practice testing. That leaves only 12 days to actually teach the kids what they're going to be tested on. I don't think I really need to say anything else.

Wind Burn, But No Broken Bones

2008-01-20T19:28:00.000-05:00

I have a new love: Skiing. My groin muscles and my glutes are ridiculously sore, but skiing is definitely at the top of the list for me when it comes to the outdoors. For some reason, I have always been a bit afraid of skiing. This doesn't make sense, because I can't think of any other sport I'm afraid of...well, except for diving. (It doesn't matter if I see the diver clear the board, I always imagine them hitting their head...I don't know what's wrong with me.)

Anyway, after a couple of runs down the bunny slopes with Alan as my teacher, I tried my first green circle, where I spent more time on my ass than on the skis. It was probably the longest thirty minutes of my life, especially since the snowmaker-thingies were blowing full blast the whole time. I was ready to take a break, but Alan encouraged me to go up one more time. My next run I fell only once, and from there I was ecstatic, in the way I always get when doing some athletic activity I love (i.e., wearing my cleats around the house before my first soccer practice a few years ago.)

All together, we were skiing for about seven hours. I made it up to blue square and am excited for my next ski trip at the beginning of February. This is definitely something I want to do more regularly. The rest of the weekend was filled with eating a ton with a bunch of friends, playing absurd amounts of Guitar Hero, and kicking ass at Trivial Pursuit and Cranium. It has been a perfect weekend, and tomorrow I have the day off!

Just a thought or two

2008-01-14T20:00:00.000-05:00

So file this under "What Will They Think of Next?" 826NYC, the same company that brings us the Superhero Supply Store in Brooklyn, is hosting a "Scrabble for Cheaters" charitable tournament on January 19. You can buy different forms of cheating, depending on how much you donate to the cause: trading out a letter for $25, inventing a word for $500, or my personal favorite: rejecting any of your opponents words for $450. With a slogan like "The more you raise, the more you can cheat," how can I not want to participate!?

Unfortunately, I can't. Let's look over the fact that I don't really have enough donation money to reach my full, cheating potential, but I also have other plans. With a three day weekend ahead of me, I am preparing to go skiing for the very first time. My mood ranges from overly-excited to completely-petrified. All in all, though, I'm looking forward to it. Especially, because I'm sure that when I'm not skiing I will have the opportunity to read a bit.

Last year I started off 2007 reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I loved that book, and thought I couldn't go wrong starting off 2008 with Ishiguro again. I finished The Remains of the Day over the weekend. It was a completely different setting, main character, and type of story all together, but still absolutely amazing. I think Ishiguro is becoming one of my favorite authors by far. Who else could tell such completely different stories so masterfully? Well...maybe the second author I'm reading this year. I've read Geraldine Brooks before. Not only is she probably one of the most intelligent writers out there, she is also one of those authors whose stories (both fiction and nonfiction) cover a wide scope of characters and landscapes. People of the Book is fantastic. If my 2008 reading continues to be this good, I will be the happiest woman on the earth.

Speaking of happy, if you've talked to me in the past two weeks you know strange things are afoot with my eating habits. For example, in the last week and a half, my entire chocolate consumption has consisted of half a 3-Musketeers bar. I've been eating a ton of fruits and vegetables, and have been shocked by how much more energy I have during the day. Also, with recent gifts of new pots and pans and a couple of cookbooks, I have started trying out some different recipes. I am having fun in the kitchen! This is new! And my favorite thing so far is a recipe from my Real Simple cookbook. I don't know what they refer to it as, but I call it Happy Salad because somehow, with it's combination of peaches, almonds, spinach, bleu cheese, and vinaigrette, I am absurdly giddy for about an hour, then just minorly giddy for a few more hours after that. It's possible that the only thing better than eating Happy Salad is eating it while watching American Gladiators. I'm shockingly unashamed to admit that I love this show. A know a lot of fans are blaming it on the writer's strike, but that's really just bull. I also secretly wish that they would let people just try the course (sans-Gladiators of course.) I would love to give it a go.

Whew! It looks like I've accidentally covered almost all the things I meant to blog about in the past two weeks but haven't gotten to. Can't wait to see what the next two weeks bring!

My Favorite

2007-12-31T11:51:00.000-05:00

So I've been thinking about all the reading I've done this year, and decided that I should choose a favorite for 2007. There were many great candidates, such as the book I've been keeping secret so my mom wouldn't buy it herself before opening her Christmas presents, A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg. Other contenders were Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin, This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Grief by Andrew Holleran, and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.

In the end, though, there was one book with a story that is never far from my thoughts. It's a short, but great book by Ben Rice called Pobby and Dingan. A girl's father takes her two imaginary friends to work and somehow manages not to bring them back. The family and most of the town searches for the two imaginary creatures. Ben Rice tells the story beautifully, illuminating the characters of the family as well as the town. If you are the kind of person to make resolutions for the New Year, then one of them should definitely be to pick this book up.

List of Lists

2007-12-30T11:43:00.001-05:00

As a person who loves, loves, LOVES lists, the end of the year is a particularly fantastic time. Lists abound in magazines, blogs, and tv shows. I could not be happier. So here I compile my favorite lists thus far. It makes me a little sad to know that in just a few days the list-craze will be over for a while.

Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks of 2007: And if this isn't enough, they also have individual lists of top 100 tracks from contributors, a Top 50 Albums of 2007, and individual top 50 albums!

A Year in Reading 2007: This is actually my favorite of all the lists presented here, mostly because it revealed itself slowly over the entire month of December. Just click on the author, and you'll see their favorite books they've read during the year. Another great thing about this list is that it's not just limited to books published in 2007.

A Year of Books Worth Curling Up With: Yes, another list of books, but it's only fitting for my list of lists! This one, from the New York Times, is limited to books published in 2007. And if this list isn't enough for you, the sidebar on the left side of the screen offers two more lists.

Top 50 Websites of 2007: While I'm not a regular reader of Time magazine, I always look up their top 50 websites because I always find a thing or two that I hadn't heard of before. I still posted it since I look forward to reading it, but this year's was fairly disappointing, with each entry falling into one of two categories: I-Knew-About-This-Already or I'm-Not-Interested-At-All. Hopefully, 2008's will bring better results.

Best Blogs of 2007 That You (Maybe) Aren't Reading: I particularly like this list because it purposely searches for lesser known blogs. There's definitely something for everyone on the list.

Who, What, How: Here Google compiled the top ten searches that began with who, what, and how. This is the most interesting list I have stumbled across in all my list-hunting. It feels a bit like super-cyber stalking the general public. What questions are we asking when we think no one else is looking?

Enjoy!

The Trip So Far

2007-12-26T07:55:00.001-05:00

It's been a great few days. Alan and I left New York on Friday with our rented Chevy Aveo. The road trip was great: listening to podcasts, eating food his parents had packed in an ice chest for us, and learning that Alan can do a hysterical impersonation of Mariah Carey.

We got to Arkansas on Saturday night. We've hung out with tons of my family, watched Christmas movies (including Scrooge, the musical starring Albert Finney, which is my absolute favorite,) and opened presents. I felt way too much like an adult with my over-excitement upon opening a new set of pots and pans, AND a set of stainless steel mixing bowls! I alos learned that Alan can do a hysterical impersonation of Hugh Grant. (Who knows who he'll impersonate today?)

I've also been cleaning out the closet in my mom's guest bedroom. I have found many entertaining things among the old photos and certificates. And what my mom thought would never happen has finally occurred: I have completely moved out. There are no more boxes and bags hidden away in closets in her house.

There are a few more events packed into the next two days and then we'll be hitting the road again. Right now I'm up early, having gotten up to talk to my mom before she headed out to work. It's so nice to relax for a few days. And in the spirit of relaxation, I'm going to finish reading the New Yorker.

Merry Belated Christmas!!

Something Different

2007-12-16T20:46:00.000-05:00

Something that happened at school on Friday has stuck in my mind all weekend. Here, in my fourth year of teaching, I finally attended an IEP meeting that was exactly like IEP meetings are supposed to be...well, almost exactly. The parent did not attend. However, there were three teachers, a parent advocate, an advocate from the region, a speech therapist, and the school psychologist.

There has been the rare well-attended IEP meeting from time to time, but even those have been just people showing up, signing page 2 of the IEP before reading it, a brief discussion, then goodbyes.

This one was different in that it was true collaboration. I have a student who has serious issues that we are not able to fully handle with our staff limitations and our general environment. However, one thing makes me very hesitant to move him to a more restrictive environment: my experience working in that environment. I expressed my concern about him becoming "lost in the system" and the fear that he would learn even worse behaviors without attaining any real help.

The seven of us discussed possible solutions for over an hour. Everyone had read all the anecdotals, focused on the child's needs and behaviors and successes, and was expressing opinions and ideas in a productive manner. It was textbook in its beauty, and I feel that we reached the best possible decision for this particular student, as well as exhausting many, many other options.

This IEP meeting has been one of the best experiences I have had as a teacher. I don't know why it's so difficult to make this happen more frequently. In fact, I am one of those teachers who has started to come to the conclusion that the IEP process is frequently a useless document, especially since it is in no way based in reality once the bureacratic rules of the NYC school system have gotten involved. Friday's experience proved to me that the IEP can indeed be an "individualized education program," rather than wasted words on wasted paper.

Study Opening Lines

2007-12-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

One of my Christmas presents from Josh is called "The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers." It contains a deck of cards with writing assignments. I promised Josh that every weekend I would pull a card and do the assignment to help me with creating my portolio to apply for grad school.

I won't be posting these assignments here, I just happened to find this one particularly interesting. It said, "Study opening lines." I stared at it for a moment before getting up and going to the bookshelves in our living room where I keep most of my favorite books. Unfortunately for this assignment, Josh has taken many of them with him to Denver to read.

I can't remember any of these books' opening lines. There are pieces I recall, but, unlike Alan who has the whole first page of his favorite book The Great Gatsby stored in memory, I just don't hold on to information like that.

So I found some others that I have loved. They are below, in order from most recently read.

(1) "This was the time when all we could talk about was sentences, sentences—nothing else stirred us." short story The King of Sentences by Jonathan Lethem.

(2) "I have no reason not to answer the door so I answer the door." What Is The What by Dave Eggers.

(3) "There used to be many families like the Ziskinds, families where each person always knew that his life was more than his alone." The World to Come by Dara Horn.

(4) "I loved a girl once. Every story starts that way, right?" short story Gabriella, My Heart by Cristina Henriquez

(5) "The Salinas Valley is in Northern California." East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

(6) "The American wife sits on the floor in front of a fireplace." My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki.

(7) "I was young (I am young: I'm twenty-five--it was just last October, October of 1988) and I was down in Washington, District of Columbia, visiting an old high-school friend." The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton by Yann Martel.

(8) "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975." The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

(9) "Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened." The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

(10) "This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper. The toadstool motel you once thought a mere folk tale, a corny, obsolete, rural invention." Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins.

(11) "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Reading over these sentences I find myself surprised by how plain many of them are. East of Eden, one of my all time favorite books, just states the setting. But I still couldn't put it down. And #7, with the title almost as long as the opening line, is a favorite story of mine, but the opening line is so convoluted that just in typing it I was ready to toss the book aside.

It's got me to thinking about what makes us read, what pulls us into a story and makes us not want to put it down. Which lead me back to a memory with Josh several years ago. We sat down one day to watch a movie, but couldn't decide what we wanted to watch. So we watched all of the trailers to all the movies he owned, then ranked our favorites. In many ways, looking at the lonely senteneces above, I feet as if they were trailers, more so even than the blurbs on the back of each book. They express a tone if nothing else. Each is indicative of how that writer writes, but none tells a story or even fully introduces it.

In the end, I realize that opening lines are typically something I'm quite good at. I feel as if I could put my opening lines right up there in the list and they would fit. But unlike the authors listed above, I haven't been able to keep it up for the full length of a book. I'm left wondering: Where's the assignment on how to do that?

Did This Really Just Happen?

2007-12-07T20:07:00.000-05:00

Did I just decide that Martha Stewart's website is one of my new favorites? I linked to it accidentally from one of my favorite blogs, and before I knew it I was looking at printable wrapping paper and recipes for holiday appetizers and "cozy crafts" for kids...

Did I mention it's updated daily?

It's Beginning to Look A LOT Like Christmas

2007-12-04T07:04:00.000-05:00

Last night my soon-to-be roommate and I went out to get a Christmas tree. We had just parked on Manhattan Avenue and were taking our first glance at all the trees when a passerby suggested to us that we get a Frasier Fir. He made a strong argument for that particular type of tree, and Russ and I followed his advice. The man selling the trees came up to us towards the end of our conversation. He realized he knew our Christmas tree advisor. They gave each other hugs and said Merry Christmas, then the first man walked away. At that moment, standing there in the cold with all the people walking by and the signs of Christmas all around, I felt like I was in that opening village scene of A Christmas Carol.

We bought our tree, (a 7 foot Frasier Fir,) and a Christmas tree stand. I jokingly told Russ that I would carry the tree stand while he carried the tree. And he agreed! I followed Russ as he started walking down the street, and was admittedly a little too close when he made a quick 90 degree turn and almost took me out with our beautiful tree. Thankfully I ducked in time, a move that made two other passersby start laughing.

A few minutes later we were trying to get the tree into Russ's Jeep. He was pushing it in from the back, and I was by the passenger side door unsuccessfully trying to pull the tree in. Suddenly, Russ gave it a final strong shove, causing the tree to hit me square in the face. We both started cracking up, and again provided entertainment for people passing on the sidewalk.

We took the tree home and adjusted it several times to make sure it was straight, while Josh sat on the couch and took pictures of himself acting like Scrooge. (Even though I told him to take pictures of the process of getting the tree up.) The tree was up for about five minutes before the three of us decided we couldn't wait another day to get tree decorations.

So, one argument about what "trimming the tree" really meant, two stores, three hours, and four rounds of my Christmas cd mix later, we finally have a fantastic tree in our living room. Of course, the star we got for the tree wasn't quite to our liking, so it now sits atop a bottle of unopened wine on our dining room table, while Josh improvised a little with our angel. (Pictures soon to come...)

Books, Books, Books

2007-11-30T16:47:00.000-05:00

I am to embark on what I have entitled "The Weekend of Extreme Nerdiness." Tonight I am going to see Dave Eggers speak at the Strand about his book What is the What. If you have not picked it up, you must. I have been looking forward to this all week.

The rest of the weekend is filled with events from the Independent and Small Press Bookfair. I have printed out a schedule of the two day event. I have starred the time for the reading of one author (the one who wrote the book I was so happy about in my last entry but can't reveal because I don't want my mom to buy it.)I'm excited to see the likes of Tama Janowitz and Katha Pollitt in person. And the crowning event is the "Literary Trivia Quiz Smackdown."

The only thing that's kind of getting me down is that I don't have quite enough nerdy events to call the weekend epic. If only...

Two Lists

2007-11-27T18:41:00.000-05:00

ONE: Things I almost blogged about since my last entry.
(A) A report by Time magazine that showed Special Ed teachers to have one of the highest ratings for reporting themselves as "very happy" at work. Special Ed teachers beat both Elementary and High School teachers.
(B) Listening to "Reunion," an amazing story by John Cheever, as read by Richard Ford on the New Yorker's Fiction podcast.
(C) My overwhelming excitement about Christmas. I am almost done with all my shopping (just two more gifts to buy) and have started decorating the house. It's the first time in so long that I haven't been focused on finals or getting to sleep as soon as possible.
(D) A new book that I just got. It is one of the most unique things I have read in ages, elevating the novel to art. Unfortunately, I can't say what it is here because it's one of the things I got for my mom and I don't want her to buy it before I see her. I promise to reveal the secret later.

TWO: Things that make me happy.
(A) Seeing this on the roadside on the way back from a little trip with Alan. He turned the car around and drove back so I could take pictures.

(B) Feeling like I have finally hit my groove as a math teacher. It has been a surprisingly difficult adjustment, but something has shifted and I am loving teaching again. I've barely written about teaching because this year has been rough, to say the least. Hopefully the funk is finished.
(C) Christmas songs. I am working diligently on the perfect Christmas mix. And a Christmas party is in the works. Did I mention before that I'm really excited about the holidays this year?
(D) My new SmartWool socks that my mom bought me. Alan calls them the wondersocks because you can step in a puddle and not feel water on your feet. I call them warm.
(E) Amazon's new amazing little piece of technology Kindle. What makes me even happier is thinking about the Kindle two or three generations from now, the one I will probably actually by. But it's not too shabby now with the ability to hold up to 200 books and get subscriptions from your favorite newspapers.
(F) A night to myself. I have had alone time all afternoon. Being alone can be fantastic. I am reading What is the What by Dave Eggers, and I'm going to see him speak about the book on Friday night. It's just me, my book, my socks, and my comfy couch. So much goodness...

The Best You Tube Video Ever

2007-11-18T09:12:00.000-05:00

Do you think he does parties?

Things That I Learned In the Past Two Days

2007-11-17T18:53:00.000-05:00

1) My boyfriend can morph into a child, which I learned from watching him play Guitar Hero 3 with his friend Luke. It was extremely entertaining to watch their pure joy at playing Black Magic Woman by Santana.

2) After going to a Graduate Expo for the New School I realized how much I really want to get my MFA in writing. I also realized how much work I have to do before I even think of applying.

3) I love teaching but I am getting incredibly sick of all the bureacracy and politics. Without getting into the ridiculous details, I have spent way too much time in the past two days dealing with a dispute over post-its...and this dispute is not with children, but a colleague.

4) My new camera has a wide angle option. I have taken about 50 photos at a wide angle on accident. Alan showed me how to change the angle, but I might just stick to the wide lens.

5) My roommate and I have reached a new level of comfort. A few weeks back we discovered we have a mice problem (a convenient side effect of living next door to deli.) The mice problem has been taken care of, but they left mites, which bite us. We thought they were gone, but now they're back, which Josh proved by walking in the apartment, turning around, and showing my the inflamed bite on his ass.

6) I really love my apartment, because even despite mice and mites, I'm happy to be there. But hopefully the mites will be gone by the end of tomorrow.

Warm Weather Blues

2007-11-15T06:57:00.000-05:00

At first, I was happy that the mid-November weather here is in the 60s because I can comfortably walk to work. I was completely prepared with sneakers, a light jacket, and my ipod with episodes of This American Life and Radio Lab ready to go. I walked out the door and flipped to the podcasts section of my little nano and was excited to find that one episode I had missed of This American Life was called In Dog We Trust.

There are few things I like to do more than wallow in my desire to have a dog, especially after a conversation with Alan last night that went a little something like this:

Alan: I know what I'm going to get you for Christmas. A dog!
Me: (Speechless and overly excited, even while knowing I can't get a dog right now.)
Alan: A Wii dog!
Me: A what?
Alan: It's a dog for the Wii. You can pet it. (Pantomimes moving Wii controller to pet the dog.) And if you throw the controller it comes right back to you.
Me: (laughing) No.

So, fastforward to this morning. I automatically turn on the podcast, anticipating happy stories of dogs and doglovers. The walk to work was the perfect length of time for me to hear the saddest story ever about a man, his brother, and their pet armadillo. I cried twice between stopping at the bagel store and arriving at my classroom.

Then, just to top things off, I heard something I have never heard before on This American Life: Ira Glass' voice saying "This is a work of fiction." While I was glad to hear that no armadillos had been hurt in the making of the story, I also felt tricked. I love the podcast, but going through such an unexpectedly emotional story believing every bit of it is true, then finding it to be fiction was little too James Frey for me. I'm not going to get all Oprah on Ira Glass, but in the future can't he just warn me ahead of time?

Twenty-Six

2007-11-08T17:35:00.000-05:00

This past Tuesday I had one of the best birthdays ever. It was a Staff Development Day, which not only meant that there were no children at school, but also meant that I didn't have to be at work until 8:22. That's nearly two hours later than I usually get there!

That night I had a little birthday party at my house. Alan and I made great food, (I managed to shock many guests with a crescent roll concoction and Alan's stuffed mushrooms were awesome), and we had several good rounds of competitive Wii bowling and tennis going between the 15 people who came. I think I hold the record for the most gifts received from Barnes and Noble, and the record for the happiest Barnes and Noble gift reciever. I drank too much Riesling, laughed a ton, and had a great time just hanging out with friends.

My mom has been here for the past week and joined in on the festivities as well. She is also a Wii-lover now. We were bummed that we didn't get to use our Daily Show tickets due to the writer's strike, but we ate at some of my favorite places, did a little bit of wandering, and shopped for several hours at Macy's. Today we barely noticed the cold in our new winter coats.

I stole a birthday tradition from my dear former roommate Keri. Her birthday question is always: What have you learned this year? I love discussing the answer, and I also added a question of my own about what goals I have for the upcoming year. The goal was pretty easy, I want to travel outside of the country. Right now I'm checking out the potential of going to Scotland in June. I will definitely post when things fall into place.

What I learned turned out to be a little trickier than usual. Last year I summed up what I had learned in one sentence, which is always difficult to do. I could joke and say that what I learned this year is that dropping off your laundry for someone else to do is amazing, especially when they fold your undies into those tiny, little squares. But I've been thinking all day about how to narrow down a more serious lesson. And here it is: Being dependent on another person does not make you weak, but in fact can you make you stronger. It may sound trite, but it was a tough lesson for me to learn, and still hard for me to quite believe with my previous insistence on independence at any cost.

Writing, Not Running

2007-11-04T07:07:00.000-05:00

I've been up since 5:30 (thank you Daylight Savings time) and have been trying to force-write. It's so hard when the motivation is not there, but I signed on for nanowrimo this year and I am determined to finish it.

As I am forcing words onto the page (word count as of now is a measly 2,017...just 47,983 to go) I am learning all sorts of new things about my characters and their pasts. Even with the frustration of lacking freeflowing words right now, I still love the process. Hopefully it will all come together as a coherent piece.

It also serves as a good way to keep my mind of the marathon that is starting in mere hours. It seems that this is not the year for either my mom or me to run. My podiatrist put his foot down (pun intended) and said no due to the never-ending neuroma in my foot. So I have more steroid shots in my future and next week get fitted for my ultra-cool orthotic...yea! And my mom is laying in bed in my room. She is sick with something that was going around her workplace in the past couple of weeks, and half-heartedly trying to convince herself that she got dinghy fever while in Costa Rica two weeks ago.

Okay, I have now posted 228 words to this blog. Time to push ahead with my as of yet Untitled work of fiction.

Stephen Colbert in a Differnt Sort of Campaign

2007-11-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to figure out a way to get track uniforms for my students, so one of the first places I looked was donorschoose. This fantastic website allows educators to write proposals explaining their classroom needs. Anyone can then log on to the website and find proposals they are interested in donating towards.

While it looks like my track uniforms might not quite fit the requirements for the site, I did stumble across a fantastic item sponsored by Stephen Colbert. I'm not sure if he started it or donorschoose came up with the idea, but all the presidential candidates have chosen proposals they are interested in and are trying to give those projects the extra push they need to be fully funded. You can "vote" for the presidential candidate of your choice for a fee of $10, which goes directly to one of that candidate's chosen proposals.

Definitely check it out and post your vote. And after you do that, contact me with any ideas you have for how I can get $6,000 for complete track uniforms and windsuits.

A Trip and an E-mail

2007-11-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

This morning I boarded a bus with twenty students from the track team and headed to Central Park. I soon found out, though, that it was the bus driver's first week on the job in New York City and he expected me to give him directions. I did not perform as well as I could have, and an hour and a half later (partially due to traffic, but admittedly also due to my continued guesses leading us to one way streets going south when we were trying to go north) we finally reached the track event.

The New York Road Runners puts together fantastic events for the kids who participate in the track program they sponsor. The kids had a great time running, got free lunch and a free t-shirt, watched dancers and danced along, then listened to Olympic athletes and marathon champions describe running and training.

The event finished up about a half hour before the bus was supposed to meet us, so I let the kids play in a grassy area while we waited. By the time we were getting ready to leave, the place had cleared out except for a few NYRR staff members. Suddenly, one of them ran up to us with two older men in tow. "Please tell us you're from Queens!" One of them said. "No, Brooklyn," I responded. One of the men said, "Good enough," then went on to introduce himself as a councilman in Queens. He got a picture of himself with children for the newspapers, my students got the opportunity to see their pictures in the paper, and we all left happy.

As we were leaving, one of my students came up and asked me about my name. I had given my shortened name to the reporter with the councilman, and he was confused about it since he had previously heard my full name. I explained it to him, then he said, "That's why I couldn't find you." I looked at him and said, "What?" He said, "When I googled you." I just stared in shock at the nonchalance with which he spoke, then tried to push it out of my mind.

We got on the bus, and I quickly realized that the bus driver had absolutely no idea how to get us back. This time, I did much better with the directions and we were back to the school in no time.

After I send the kids on their way, I checked my e-mail and found something from one of my favorite author's, Tom Robbins, in my in-box. Sure, it's just his pep talk for all the people out there who are starting National Novel Writing Month, but it was still the most exciting e-mail I've ever received (except that one that said I had been accepted into the Teaching Fellows.)

All in all, not a bad day...

Good Reading

2007-10-29T18:04:00.000-04:00

I'm reading The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis. It's a fantastic (and looooong) story in the form of the found journals of traveler and explorer Maqroll. At one point, he states in his journal the following:

"I realize suddenly that another life has been flowing next to mine. Another life right beside me and I didn't know it. It's there, it goes on, it's composed of all the times I rejected a bend in the road or refused another way out, and the sum total of these moments has formed the blind current of another destiny that could have been mine, and in a sense still is mine, there on the opposite bank that I've never visited although it runs parallel to my ordinary life. Alien it may be, yet is carries all the dreams, illusions, plans, decisions, that are as much mine as this uneasiness I feel, that might have shaped the events of a history taking place now in the limbo of contingency. A history perhaps identical to the one I've lived, yet full of everything that didn't happen here but exists there, taking shape, flowing beside me like ghostly blood that calls my name yet knows nothing of me. The same insofar as I would have been the protagonist and colored it with my usual clumsy foundering, yet completely different in its events and characters."

This part of the fictional Maqroll's journal caught my eye, perhaps because it's a different way of expressing the feelings that have been building in me for the past two or three months. I find myself in a great situation: working in a stable environment with much potential for a long career, living in a city I love and don't want to leave, surrounded by friends, in a serious and wonderful relationship with a person who figures into my future in a big way. And part of me is ecstatic about where I have found myself. But there's another part of me that glances toward that "parallel river" and wonders.

Funniest Thing I've Read in a While

2007-10-28T20:13:00.000-04:00

This is one of my favorite blogs (as you can see to the right here) and this is one of the best things I've read in a long time. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Strange Way to Spend a Saturday (for me at least)

2007-10-27T16:53:00.000-04:00

I got up this morning and insisted on making and eating zeppolis for breakfast. Then Alan and I proceeded to play WiiSports for longer than I care to admit. Now we're rather unsuccessfully doing some last-minute brainstorming (or braindrizzling as Alan says) for costume ideas for a party we're going to tonight. We're coming up with some great ideas that take a little more time than we actually have to put together. Alan actually just said to me, "Can we stay together at least until next year so we can use this costume idea?" After a few more minutes, he laid claim to the following year, as well. As for tonight, wish us luck...

what's been going on

2007-10-21T09:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first track meet for the kids I've been coaching at the school. It was a lot of fun, (we had two 1st place winner, two 2nd place winners, and one 3rd place winner,) but I also realized that spending 10 hours with 20 over-excited teenagers is exhausted. I slept till 9:00 this morning.

In other news, I recently read Cormac McCarthy's book The Road, winner of the Pulitzer prize and the latest American production of apocalyptic art. It got me started on researching our fascination with the Apocalypse, which has made me appreciate the book a little more than I originally did. However, I still don't get the worldwide obsession with the end of the world. My next book was The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. I love a good satire, even if it is from 1918.

Other than reading, I have also been writing again. I have found a new writer's group that meets twice a month. So far I am really enjoying it. Writing on a regular basis is a severely underrated thing in my life.

Last but not least, my mom has been in Costa Rica for the past 8 days. Today she is finally coming home. Eight days without talking to her is just bizarre and wrong. I can't wait for tonight, even though I fully expect that the trip was so great and had so many details that she won't actually know where to begin. Describing great travel to friends and family is so difficult right upon your return.

Anyhow, there have been many times that I wanted to sit and blog recently, but haven't gotten to it. Lately I have been wondering if it might be time to put the blog to rest. I'm not sure if I will ever actually do that, but I have been considering what that would mean. I think that there may just be better ways for me to write and put my ideas out. I guess time will tell...

I Just Can't Decide

2007-10-14T16:51:00.000-04:00

The National Design Awards are going to be held Thursday night in New York City and you can vote for the People's Design Award here. I love love love design. I am amazed by the creativity and ingenuity of so many people, and looking at these nominations makes that amazement even larger.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to introduce my Graphic Design students to the nominees and have them vote. As for now, I think my vote is for the LifeStraw. But there's so many things here that I might change my mind 100 more times before placing my vote along with my students tomorrow.

Two Conversations from Today

2007-10-09T18:30:00.001-04:00

Today I helped out with the BMX club after school to log hours so I can build my own bike. The bike teacher and I were talking with the students as we fitted helmets. One of the students was explaining that he knew the music from "our generation." Then he started singing MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This." He was about two words in when the rest of the class joined him and sang more lyrics than I remembered the song containing. I wonder why this is the song from my childhood that has survived the test of time.

And my favorite conversation happended during PM homeroom with two students:

Student 1: Ms. Armstrong, did you ever get in trouble when you were a kid.

Me: Sometimes.

Student 1: For disrespecting the teacher?

Me: No.

Student 2: Don't tell me, you pulled out a girl's weave.

Illusions in the City

2007-10-06T18:52:00.000-04:00

The other day I was walking the four blocks home from the bus after work. At one point, I walk under the BQE overpass. From about a block away you can see all the cars and trucks driving on the expressway. While the cars are barely visible, the trucks are completely visible except for the tires, which makes them look as if they are boats floating on a river.

Today I was standing on the subway platform with Alan when a train stopped on the other track. There was a little kid, maybe about three years old, holding onto the subway pole. But since you couldn't see the lower portion of his body standing on the seat, he looked like he was about five feet tall.

There were at least two more things that I wanted to mention that weren't quite as they seemed, but they have slipped my mind now. I love seeing these little pieces of the city, though.

Crotchety in the Dark

2007-10-03T21:33:00.000-04:00

So I've been in a pretty good funk lately. Between a never-ending cough that seems to have grabbed hold of most of the teachers at my school, issues with a nerve in my foot, and feeling as though I'm in a bit of a rut at work...well, the funk has just stuck around.

I feel like the crotchety old man in me is coming out full force, especially when I am leaving for work. This is the part of the year when the days are getting shorter and Daylight Savings hasn't kicked in yet, so I am leaving the house before the sun has come up.

I'm hoping that I can put all my silly little gripes here, and leave them. The funk ends here! Maybe...

Rereading

2007-09-29T08:49:00.001-04:00

This year I have done a lot of rereading. It started with Anne of Green Gables. Then I reread The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. And just recently I reread A Wrinkle In Time. Prior to this, I had never been big on rereading because I always feel that there are so many good books out there that I have yet to get my hands on. But since these three rereading experiences were good, I decided to pick up East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

I first read this about four years ago and loved it. Now, on the second time around, I am stunned by how fantastic it is. What is most interesting is that I distinctly remember reading the other three books the first time. What I remember most is that while reading A Wrinkle in Time, I felt somehow as though I were an adult reader. I can't explain it well, but upon rereading I could see some clear ways in which the book is different from other children's literature.

East of Eden, however, I remember the dedication more than the story. It made me view the book in an entirely different light, which I have carried with me since I last put it down. After a couple of pages, I was fully engrossed in the story once more. I keep asking myself, how does a writer do this? And will I be able to one day?

On the Train

2007-09-27T19:34:00.000-04:00

Today I was on the six headed uptown to a doctor's appointment. Sitting across from me was a woman reading a book called Personality Puzzle. She was studiously highlighting the text in the cramped spot allowed her in the crowded train. Next to me was a young man reading The Constitution of the United States. I looked over his shoulder to reread the preamble, which I had to memorize at some point in high school. It might be the strangest thing I've ever seen someone read on the train.

When I got off the train I was spit out onto an overly-crowded street. For a moment, I got stuck in front of the Bloomingdale's next to a woman pushing a stroller with a toddler in it. The toddler looked at me, then offered me a Cheerio with a smile. I didn't take the Cheerio, but I appreciated the little city-sightings nonetheless.

Lists

2007-09-23T16:37:00.000-04:00

On CBS Sunday Morning they featured a story on lists: how we're obsessed with them, why we make them all the time, and how they always sell more magazines when teased on the cover. As a serious list-lover, I automatically hit the fast forward button on the remote to get through the commercials and to the actual story.

I am more than a little obsessed with list making. I keep a list of all the books I have read because I got so upset two years ago when i couldn't remember the title or the author for a book I had recently enjoyed. (Both names still evade me.)

I also do not make New Year's Resolutions. Instead, at the beginning of the year I make a list of things I want to do in the coming 12 months, such as going to three new museums, finally getting my wisdom teeth removed, or applying for a passport: all of which are items I've checked off my 2007 list.

And, of course, I also have a constant to-do list. I'll write a quick list of songs I want to download, chores I want to complete before Ghost Hunters comes on, or people I need to call during the week. There is something strangely satisfying to me about seeing information organized in such a way. After watching the segment, I realized that I am not, by far, the only one who feels such satisfaction. Also from the segment, I found that I will probably be adding one more thing to a list in the future: buy The Book of Lists.

Home

2007-09-22T11:02:00.000-04:00

It seems that lately I don't want to do anything but be at home. I have not filled my days with dozens of activities, and last Sunday I actually forgot about the Brooklyn Book Festival once I got home from my soccer game.

One of my friends was telling me that this is not a bad thing, that I should enjoy how happy I am in my new apartment. But last night I actually left home to go to a birthday party with the boyfriend and suddenly I remembered that I love being around people. Of course, there are always lots of people at home right now, but I loved being out of the house.

However, I don't think it's changed much as far as my new behavior is concerned. I promised my roommates that I would go to brunch with them, which I know will be fun, but I'm most excited about coming back home to read a book. And tonight my plans are to stay in and watch a movie. What is going on with me?

Winning

2007-09-16T21:38:00.000-04:00

Today I played in one of the most fun soccer games of my life. I play on a team filled with people that I love, but last year we did not win a single game. This afternoon we played in our first game of the season and won 2-1 against a team that killed us in our first game last year.

Victory is very sweet for many reasons, but the game was great in other ways, too. There was a little boy who watched almost our entire game from behind the fence. Every now and then he would ask the score or smile shyly at one of the players. Another bystander was an older Asian woman who stopped to listen to a peptalk our coach gave. There were two men (I believe to be Ukrainian) who sat on a bench and commented on the game throughout. And at the end of the game there were a group of men who had barbecued steak for their team, and gave us leftovers for free.

Alan always compares our team to the Bad News Bears (and the similarities are astounding: losing streak, terrible field with divets and broken glass, etc.) and today was like the film-victory we always wanted: a tie game for all but the last five minutes, random bystanders following the game, and wild jumping and cheering when the final whistle sounded. I think winning could be one of my new favorite things.

Waiting for a Prescription

2007-09-13T09:35:00.000-04:00

This morning I went to the RiteAid to get a prescription refilled. While waiting the fifteen minutes it took to refill it, I wandered around the store. The magazine selection wasn't worth looking at, the office supply section had been picked clean by back-to-school shoppers, and I wasn't really hungry so the junk food aisle wasn't a good option.

I ended up in a section of the store I didn't even know existed: the As Seen On TV section. Had the precription refill taken even one minute less time, I would have spent an exorbitant amount on impulse buys. When you look at this stuff, it seems impossible that you have been living life without it.

My favorite was the wireless light switch. You plug any lamp in your house into this special outlet attachment, which sends a wireless signal to the light switch. You can put the light switch wherever you want! I thought to myself, I can turn off my lamp at night without getting out of bed. I NEED this!!

My next near-purchase was the Infinity Razor, which promised I would never have to buy another razor. It almost sold me with its ergonomically designed handle and its carbon injected steel fused with tungsten carbide. But then I thought, wouldn't a razor that lasts a lifetime cost more than $10?

In the end, I made it out of the store with just my prescription in hand. I'm still proud of making it out of that aisle empty-handed. But I can't make any promises for the future...

A Thank You

2007-09-10T18:04:00.001-04:00

Fundraising for the marathon over the past few days has gone very well. In just three days, friends, family, and a couple of strangers have donated a total of $605. Every dime is hugely appreciated! The mid-point deadline has passed now, and we're in the final stretch with training as well as fundraising. So if you want to help put physical education programs in schools around New York City, just look at the info in the box to the right.

Thanks again to everyone who has donated!

100 more!!

2007-09-08T13:43:00.000-04:00

My first deadline for mararthon fundraising is this Monday and I am still $100 short. I am running for Team For Kids, a charity that helps put physical education programs into public schools. Please help me reach my goal by clicking here. You can make a donation online by typing in my last name (Armstrong) and my entry number, 102930.

If you have already donated, I would like to thank you again. Every little bit is much appreciated!

New TV Addiction

2007-09-05T20:19:00.000-04:00

A couple months ago, my roommate's girlfriend introduced me to a show on the SciFi Channel called Ghost Hunters. I have quickly become addicted, looking forward to the three hours of back-to-back episodes that play every Wednesday night.

Tonight, I'm trying to lesson plan, but I can't help but get caught up in the investigations of the Atlantic Paranormal Society. Who else would have a poster on the wall of their office that says "Ghosts were people, too"?

The only problem with the show is that sometimes it freaks me out so much that I can't sleep at night, like the time I remained wide awake for at least an hour because I was sure a ghost (who actually resides in Massachusetts) was going to pull the blankets off my feet.

I'm not a big believer in ghosts in the first place. I prefer to stay in rhelm of reason. But the show just might change my perspective...at least on Wednesday nights.

First Day Back and Anxiety Free

2007-09-04T23:25:00.000-04:00

Today was the first day of school, and last night was the first time I ever slept soundly the night before the first day of school. I can't believe how little anxiety I have about this school year. I'm still shocked by the amount of work that is to be done, but I feel completely capable of handling it. And it only took three years!!

Of course, I might have been able to sleep so well because Alan and I didn't get back from a little trip to the Poconos until after midnight last night. I think I need to get out into nature a bit more often. It was fantastic to spend some time around tons of trees and the lake and just be lazy. We spent our travel time discussing the questions from The Book of Questions and sharing music from our iPods (which made me feel a bit like I was in high school, but in a good way.)

Now it's back to the real world though. It's 11:30 and I need to be at work in seven hours, so blogging is probably not the thing I should be doing at this very moment. Until next time...

OCD (Open Cabinet Disorder)

2007-08-30T17:42:00.000-04:00

When you have roommates, you often learn things about yourself that you never would have imagined to be true. For me, it is a strange obsessive compulsion to have all cabinets completely closed. I don't know why, but it bothers me a lot when a cabinet is open even an inch.

Today, when I got home I arrived to find that Josh and Russ had opened all cabinets, closets, or doors of any kind (toaster trays, coffee pots, cd players, etc.) I just stared while the two of them continued watching tv as though nothing were amiss. We laughed about it, and I must say they were quite proud of their little trick, then I closed everything up.

Thirty minutes later, when I went out to my car to get something, I should have realized that they would do it again. I cracked up when I walked back in to find everything open again. I love this spirit of harmless pranks, but am shocked that I dislike open cabinets so much. Is this really something I need to know about myself?

Conquering Math

2007-08-29T06:47:00.000-04:00

This summer I had to take a College Algebra course because it was an undergraduate deficiency I required before I could earn my Masters degree. After spending the past three years in Masters level Education courses with people my age and older, it was somewhat of a shock to the system to take a math class (my first in 12 years) with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds. (Really, how many times can you have conversations with your fellow students that start with the dumbfounded question "You're a teacher, like a real teacher?")

Today I found out that I earned an A in the class. I'm teaching math almost exclusively this school year and have spent many hours in recent weeks creating elaborate lesson plans. This, though, is the big boost of confidence that I needed. I wish I felt more like a master of mathematics, but at least I feel one step closer.

The very best part, however, is that the professor I had for the course was one of the best teachers I have ever had. I learned just as much about teaching math as I did about math itself. And in less than a week, I'll be put to a whole new test. Hopefully it will be my students earning the As this time.

Vacation Time

2007-08-28T11:42:00.001-04:00

Last summer I was extremely proud of having mastered the art of summer vacation. This time around, I am not doing nearly as well. First off, I worked the crazy job for most of the summer. Afterward, I had a fantastic visit home, followed by a visit here from my close friend Lisa. Now with just two days left of vacation time, I'm feeling sluggish and strangely ready to just get back to work.

I'm trying to pep talk myself into making the most of these remaining free hours. My roommate and I are going to go eat lunch then throw a frisbee around in the park (something I've been asking him to do almost weekly since we moved in,) but really all I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep sleep sleep. It seems like such a waste though...

Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow fully prepared for my final vacation day experience. We'll see how it goes.

Just finished round 2 of Arkansas-style Chinese food;)

2007-08-20T17:49:00.000-04:00

My Arkansas trip is nearing an end. I've seen almost everyone in my family, read the final Harry Potter book, and visited with my best friend from high school. And I've managed all of this without the use of a car, since my mom's Jeep went into the shop on Friday afternoon.

However, the crowning achievement of the trip might just be getting my mom hooked on Speed-Scrabble. That's right, you have just one minute to lay down a word after the last player has put down their tiles. Our first game lasted just over fifteen minutes.

So what have I learned on this trip? (1) You should always plan to have a broken down car when you visit home (or plan to lie about it at least) because then everyone comes to you. Suddenly the whirlwind visit I'm accustomed to became an easy, relaxed vacation with lots of visitors and plenty of food. (2) I must work to spread Speed-Scrabble love. It might just be my calling.

The Bobbsey Twins

2007-08-17T12:07:00.000-04:00

On this trip home I have been told more than ever before how much my mom and I look alike. It was an immediate joke amongst her work friends whom I met for lunch on my first day here. Later in the day, a woman told us we looked like twins. Today, while we were going for a walk, a woman compared us to the Bobbsey Twins.

When my mom told one of her friends about this, saying that she didn't see it at all, her friend said that we needed to go stand side by side in a mirror and then we'd see it. So today, after the Bobbsey Twin comment, we did. And what we saw? Two completely different mouth shapes, two entirely different noses, and eyes that slanted in different directions.

Our current theory is that it's because we carry ourselves the same way. We walk the same, stand the same, and more than once have caught ourselves in the middle of conversation with identical body language. But Bobbsey Twins? I think not.

Traveling Back in Time

2007-08-16T15:02:00.000-04:00

When I first moved to New York I stored a couple of large boxes filled with old journals, high school yearbooks, and photographs in the guest bedroom closet at my mom's house. Each time I come home I try to take some of it back to New York with me.

Today, while going through it to pick things to take back, I stumbled across a journal I kept from January to April 2004. This was during the time that I was reliant on a relationship that was not working at all, dealing with the dissipation of that relationship, working unhappily at an insurance agency in Memphis, and getting ready to move to New York.

Reading it was stranger than reading anything else I've come across in the dozens of notebooks filled with my writing. I forgot how much I struggled with some of the decisions I made at that time, because in retrospect they are but a blip on the screen of my life thus far. I am also stunned, though, by how realistic I was about those decisions at the same time.

I think when looking back at that time and the year preceding it, it is incredibly easy to see my mistakes and berrate myself for them. Now, though, I am feeling a bit of pride for the choices I made. Suddenly I see that I didn't just end up where I am on accident (which it often feels like) but put a lot of thought into it.

It's strange to have your view shifted by your very own words.

Eighty five percent

2007-08-15T20:07:00.000-04:00

I am in Arkansas, my feet propped up on the new coffee table I just helped my mom put together and my belly full of Arkansas-style Chinese food. I am very, very happy.

I have only been home for a few hours, but in many ways it seems like I haven't left because my mom and I fall into such a pattern when I visit. Of course, I have been making fun of her today, so that may not last for long. My mom has been mock-irritated because I joked that she is an 85% redecorator. She gasped and said, "Eighty five percent?! What would make you say that?"

Well, just for the record...
Exhibit A: Sometime in 2004 my mom ripped out the bar that was attached to one wall of the kitchen. She still has not patched the wall. She says you don't notice it because she put a desk over there. Then she breaks out into loud laughter (which I love) and says, "Actually, you don't notice it because all you can see is that the kitchen chairs don't match the new table!"

Exhibit B: The kitchen chairs don't match the new table.

Exhibit C: I am partially to blame for this one. In 2005 I helped my mom choose new colors for the guest room. We chose a cream color and a brownish color, which unfortunately caused the room to be nicknamed the Burrito room. We decided to repaint the brown, and make the entire room cream-colored. However, while I was repainting it, friends came by. I never finished it, and neither did my mom.

Exhibit D: This year my mom knocked out part of the wall separating the living room and dining room. I was against this idea from the beginning, but it turned out to be brilliant. The house is open, very warm and welcoming. However, my mom has still not sanded and patched the damaged parts of the wall around the new large doorway.

Exhibit E: When my mom first moved into the house, she painted her living room and got some of the paint on the windowsill. She has never fixed it. I told her today, "Let's just go pay two bucks for the tester paint and fix that up." Her response was to claim that the error was intentional. (Now she says that this is not true.)

Maybe she'll clean up that big slash of paint on the windowsill sometime, but for now she's focused how the new navy carpet in the living room shows all of her dog Charlie's hairs. I'm typing this post when she says to me, "I'll just have to dye Charlie's hair blue so it won't show up on the rug." Yet another redecorating project...

On the Blog Again (Like A Band of Gypsies?)

2007-08-11T15:39:00.000-04:00

There have been several things on my mind since I last wrote. In no particular order:

(1) The Delivery Men's Uprising This article absolutely floored me. I surprise myself sometimes with how naive I can be. So many of the things I love about living in the city are based on the hard work of people doing jobs that no one else wants to do. It's shocking how poorly these people are often treated. And what's more shocking is the reasons people give for the bad treatment. I could write a ten page rant about this topic, but I'm going to stop myself. Just be sure to read the article!

(2) Granta's Best of Young American Novelists 2 This book of short stories contains some of the best work I have ever read. I'm a big supporter of contemporary writers, but this selection contained only two names that were recognizable to me. Pick it up and enjoy!

(3) Product Design I'm always clipping articles about design out of the paper to show the sixth graders who take my graphic design class. This one is especially interesting. With the advent of cheaper and smaller computer chips, advertisers will be able to put a computer chip into product packaging, so when you pick up, say, a box of Count Chocula cereal, it might just tell you "I go great with Highland milk." I suddenly want to grocery shop much less.

(4) Vacation After spending several weeks teaching new teachers who were starting an alternate certification program, I am set to enjoy three weeks of time off. So what am I doing? Lesson planning. I have found that teaching teachers everything I know about teaching (which was a great deal more than I realized,) that I have learned a ton. I am approaching my work in a much different way now, and loving it. During my work today, I stumbled across this amazing website for any of you fellow math teachers out there.

(5) Last, but not least, Tetris for Grown Ups I'm still in the throes of my youtube love, but the boyfriend actually found this one. Can you imagine how much time and coordination this took?

Life with no internet...

2007-07-18T13:53:00.000-04:00

I am an internet addict. I like to blog, read articles, google things, find funny videos on youtube, solve roommate arguments by looking stuff up on wikipedia or imdb, check the weather, listen to music, e-mail incessantly, and then blog a little bit more.

I have not had internet access at home for nearly three weeks now. Not only that, but a so-called "part-time" job I took has completely taken over my life. So blogging has taken a back seat in a big way.

Now that I am finally able to sit down at a computer, I actually have nothing to say. I should have internet at home on Friday, so hopefully I'll be back to my old wordy self soon.

Pet Peeves

2007-07-10T10:27:00.000-04:00

I used to have a friend who said her pet peeve was pet peeves. She hated when people talked about them, thought it was a stupid discussion, and a stupid thing to even think about. I can practically hear her voice in my head as I seem to be able to focus on nothing but pet peeves at the moment.

I am in a very bad mood this morning for reasons I won't get into, and this bad mood seems to be making all those pet peeves into giant issues. Like the fact that my math teacher erases the board with the side of her hand, and, (right when I didn't think it could get any worse) she doesn't erase the board completely. Or the fact that I'm in the library and the staffroom is right next to where I am trying to work. The staffroom door has the loudest creaking sound I have ever heard. Can't all the money I gave them pay for some WD-40?

I know why they're called "pet" peeves. It's literally as if I am scratching each peeve behind it's ear, or rubbing its belly, or throwing it a tennis ball. And the peeve just keeps coming back for more, and being more insistent for my attention. So I cut it off here. Down, boy! Go lay down!

Just Say No

2007-07-05T11:00:00.000-04:00

I have been absurdly stressed during this week. It seems that there is not enough time in the day to get everything done, which is ridiculous because it's summer and I'm a teacher. But it seems that I have agreed to do too many things (yet again.) I look at the list of responsibilities for this month: training new teachers 20+ hours a week, taking a math class, recruiting for my soccer team, going to soccer practice, training for the marathon, and getting my apartment in order...no wonder I feel like the days are jam-packed.

Some people would say, figure out which one of these things you can drop, then move on to a less-stressed summer. But not me...I only realized that I had said yes to so much yesterday. I got up today ready to get organized. With my to-do list by my side and an early start to the day, I've even found time to blog. A little more organization (and a lot more unpacking) and I think my summer will be right back on track!

Feeling Frosh

2007-07-02T14:02:00.000-04:00

Today I came back to good ole Queens College to start a math class I have to take to fill an undergraduate deficiency. I couldn't remember where the class was being held, so I logged on to my school account to get the information. Because of this math class, Queens College has labeled me a "Beginning Freshman."

I automatically felt like I was regressing. And I didn't feel much better during the first twenty minutes of class when we reviewed concepts I teach to my middle school students. Suddenly, though, things changed. The last hour of class was a blur of graphing, finding intercepts, identifying functions, and finding domains. All of this came under the heading of REVIEW. I can only wonder what tomorrow will be like. Turns out, being a freshman isn't so easy after all.

When Is Enough Enough?

2007-06-30T17:34:00.000-04:00

Three years ago everything I owned fit in the trunk of my car. Now...well, let's just say my level of consumerism is shameful. I thought it was mostly the books, the one area of my life where I have almost no self-control. But when I went back to the old apartment for some final cleaning, all the books had been removed. Yet I completely filled my car with stuff: a vase, kitchen utensils, a photo album, a potted plant, pots and pans, a chair, and more and more and more until the entire interior of my car was piled high with stuff.

Now, you might say some of this is good to keep, like the plant. But that plant's life is always in danger in my hands. Then you might say, but you need pots and pans. But I don't cook!! And half of those kitchen utensils, I don't use. Many of them have been residing in the back of a cabinet for the past two years. But move them, I did.

In the end, my friends who helped me move claimed this was the easiest move ever. But they've never moved with me before, so I don't think they really understand the standard that has been set. I think while I am unpacking I might try to minimalize a little bit. Of course, I do have more space now, so I'll probably just end up filling it.

GoodBye Astoria

2007-06-29T05:51:00.000-04:00

Today is the official moving day. In about three hours I will be picking up a moving truck and loading up all my belongings. I'm a bit stunned that the day is actually here. Although I've known about this move for months, it still seems sudden.

I have lived with my roommate for over two years. We are used to each other's patterns, we understand each other's nonverbal communication to an extreme level, we've become addicted to tv together...In short, we get along very well. It's strange to think of her living way over on that other coast.

So, me being me, here's a little nostalgic look down memory lane. Remember when:

you convinced me your friend Pheobe's house burned down from leaving the toaster plugged in.

we danced for hours at the P.S. 1 dance party.

we battled a sea of dog hair daily just to get up the stairs to our old, tiny apartment.

we went for walks during the 15 minute break during our first crazy summer of training.

you explained that the best way to dance to Rufus Wainwright's "Instant Pleasure" was the Greek way...then demonstrated for me.

you calmly talked me down into action when I called you in a panic after seeing a cockroach.

you showed me how you once captured tumbleweed...on the sidewalk in our neighborhood.

your sister officially adopted me into your family.

we went on the rock scramble in Mohonk.

you introduced me to IKEA.

we talked on the phone so much every day during our long commutes back home that I had to increase my monthly minutes.

I identified your "I.B." (I'm so freakin' clairvoyant!)

you realized how much I talk.

And, on that note, I'm going to stop. I'll just say it's been a great few years, and I expect there are many more wonderful things coming for both of us.

Goodbye Astoria:(

Who Needs Sleep?

2007-06-27T02:58:00.000-04:00

I am suffering from what I call BusyBrain. It is 2:45 in the morning, and I am wide awake. I was asleep, for a little over four hours, but now I feel there is no hope. I cannot stop my brain from thinking. Between moving and the marathon and the last day of school and my summer job and the heat...well, the thoughts just keep coming.

My boyfriend recently suggested that I try a little bit of warm milk. But alas, I have no milk. When I was a kid, my mom would tell me to imagine my brain like a river, and to mentally send all those thoughts down the river until it was just running water and I could sleep. But it doesn't seem to be working tonight.

So I decided to check out the Sleep Research Centre. There are many great suggestions on the website, such as "There is no harm in a little alcohol if it is relaxing and enjoyable, but it must not be taken with sleeping pills." Unfortunately, the only alcohol in our nearly-empty apartment right now is a bottle of plum wine, a gift from a mutual friend that has been in our kitchen for nearly two years.

Another tip is to focus on something like a jigsaw puzzle. At the moment, I do not have a puzzle...or a table in which to work a puzzle. I do, however, enjoy the humor of the Sleep Research Center with tips number seven and eight:

7. If, having returned to bed, sleep still does not come, then back to the jigsaw, or the like!

8. Don’t worry if it is 6:00 am, you are still awake doing that ridiculous jigsaw and have to get up at 7:00 am for work.

Ahh, that ridiculous jigsaw! I hear these tips read in a British accent, which somehow makes it funnier, but it may just be this ridiculous insomnia.

Finding no solutions, I check one other website. After reading about the solutions of sleeping facing north, imagining it's time to wake up, smoking myself to sleep (are you serious!!), sleeping facing south, and visualizing animals in the wrong colors (think, green cows, blue cats), I am feeling a little hopeless.

Sleep, who needs it?

A Fair Trade...Or a Dowry?

2007-06-25T17:04:00.000-04:00

Conversation in class today after a student let me borrow his watch to time a minute-multiplication quiz:

Student 1: That'll be one dollar, Miss.

Me: No deal.

Student 1: Okay, you'll get me later. I won't forget.

Me: Not a chance.

Student 2: Man, you don't even know how to bargain.

Me: Well, what would you have said if you were him.

Student 2: I'd say, If you want this watch you gotta give me a pig and two chickens.

Feeling Excessive

2007-06-24T15:23:00.000-04:00

I just got back from a little trip (actually a big trip due to a festival in my neighborhood) to the GoodWill. This is where I dropped off a few bags of clothes and a ridiculously large bag of shoes. It was a huge black garbage bag so filled with shoes that I couldn't even begin to close it. Now my shoe count is way down: to 16. No wait, 17.

The worst part is that I wouldn't even be getting rid of any of them if these shoes weren't going against all of my podiatrist's recommendations. My shoe love may have gotten out of control.

Oh, Hair stylist, Where Art Thou?

2007-06-21T20:11:00.001-04:00

So it's not a disaster of the proportions found in the Odyssey, but it's sad nonetheless. My hair stylist moved to Nevada. It took me soooo long to find someone I really loved, I even got my roommate hooked on her, and now she's leaving me. I know I probably shouldn't take it so personally, but I do. Maybe I didn't go often enough, or maybe she noticed I'm not the kind of girl who really brushes her hair too often, but she didn't have to leave.

Who else will tolerate me cutting my hair by myself three or four times between visits? And who else will actually be excited when I sit in the chair and say: "Do whatever you want, as long as it's out of my eyes and takes less than five minutes to fix."

She didn't even say good-bye...

Wide Awake

2007-06-19T23:10:00.000-04:00

The past few nights I have had a lot of trouble sleeping. Tonight is no different. I've been up since five a.m. and right now I am nowhere near sleepy. So what did I do? I looked up insomnia online. Do you know if you go to www.insomnia.com it is a website selling products such as organic sleeping bags, sound conditioners, and mountain crystal lamps. I ask, is this really what I need? If I were in charge of insomnia.com I would make sure that the site was filled with entertaining stories, funny jokes, or maybe something that actually induced sleep. I could work on improving the content when I couldn't sleep. It would be perfect...

Man Vs. Machine

2007-06-18T23:04:00.001-04:00

I went to pick up my laundry from the laundromat a little after 10:30 tonight. This is extremely late for me on a school night, so I just wanted to get in and get out. So, even though there were still four minutes left on my dryer time, I decided to just open up the dryer, throw my clothes in the cart, and get back home.

Usually once you open the dryer door about five inches it stops spinning and you can pull your clothes out. But not this time. The dryer continued to spin. Somehow I took this as a challenge. I began to pull out my clothes and throw them in my cart. At first it looked as though I would easily beat the four minutes remaining on the dryer clock, but as the amount of clothing diminished, the task became more difficult. There was still two minutes left and many socks, pairs of underwear, and tank tops spinning just out of my grasp. With one minute left I was grasping at any item I could reach still clinging to the dryer walls. I pulled out the last sock about ten seconds before the buzzer rang and triumpantly threw it in my cart.

I shut the dryer door, then turned to find the three other laundromat patrons staring at me. They were probably wondering why I hadn't just waited, why I had chosen to risk life and limb for the sake of four minutes. I left quickly, but now I wish I had done a victory lap around the laundromat. Afterall, I'm moving in a week and a half and will probably never see these people again. What better time to make a fool of myself?

Little League vs. Professional Baseball

2007-06-17T16:04:00.000-04:00

The only baseball games I have been to in years have all been professional. Today, a friend from work and I went to a baseball game for a 14 and under league in Brooklyn to watch one of our students play. There were a few minor differences, and I'm still not sure whether I enjoy professional ball or little league better.

ONE - Errors abounded. In two hours only four innings were played. I know when I played ball at this age there must have been just as many errors, but I just don't remember it like that. (Point: Professional)

TWO - There was no back fence, so the ump called each hit as a single, double, or homerun. He also had to stop play whenever someone wandered off the walking path and into the outfield. It added a little element of danger, wondering if a pop up was going to hit a person or a car or a window of a nearby buildling. (Point: Little league)

THREE - The batters never talk to me at professional games. At today's game, my student yelled to me while he was on deck "Hey, if I get a homerun can I have no homework for the rest of the year?" I agreed, afterall, there's only a few days left. (Point: Little league)

FOUR - Many students from my school were playing in the game and the game immediately following it. It's always entertaining to see how students respond to seeing you outside of school. There was a lot of: "What are you doing here?" It was nice to just relax with students and cheer for the team. (Point: Little league)

FIVE - There were no homeruns. (Point: Professional)

SIX - There was a whole new lever of excitement with regard to double plays. When my student jumped up in the air to snag a ball in Right Field, then threw out the player trying to sprint back to first base. It was the highlight of my weekend. (Point: Little league.)

SEVEN - Everyone knew each other at the baseball field. The teams have been playing each other for years, the ump and scorekeeper have been the same for even longer, and the parents were great to talk to. Once they found out what school we taught at, one that many of them attended, the questions abounded. There is something to be said for anonymity. (Point: Tie)

In just a few weeks the league will have it's championship series. And I already told another student I would be there. Looks like I'm a whole new kind of baseball fan...

Yard Sales

2007-06-16T16:55:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid my mom would occasionally take my brother and I to yard sales. We would get up early on a Saturday morning and drive all over North Little Rock checking out the cheap loot spread across tables on lawns and in garages. Somehow, I expected the yard sale my roommate and I had today to be similar.

Yard sales in Arkansas are actually quite different from yard sales in my little corner of Queens. The yard sales back home typically have a steady stream of people searching for deals and surprising finds. Here, with little foot traffic going by our house and most of the cars being of the Mercedes or Cadillac variety, we weren't really hitting our niche market. We had about ten people peruse our selection in the five hours we were sitting outside.

One of these women accounted for nearly half of our earnings. She went around picking up items, stating that she didn't need them, then setting them aside for purchase. She told us all about her collection of Disney tchotchkes, which is so large it fills her living room and kitchen. I am fairly minimalist (aside from books, that is) so I actually began to feel guilty for contributing to this madness. She left our sale to go visit a few others, then came back to pick up the large cd tower she bought.

Our second best customer was probably me. As I'm preparing to move out, I see that there are many things that I haven't owned since my last yard sale three years ago when I was living in Memphis. Fortunately, my roommate had them at our sale. So, instead of the yard sale purchases of faded little boy t-shirts that I used to wear with my flared jeans in high school, I bought a cheese grater and wine glasses.

At the end of the sale, we packed my roommate's car with the leftover goods to give to a thrift store. Next to the front gate of our apartment, we left a cart of books with a sign that said, "Free." About two hours later, (after yard sale exhaustion had fully set in) my roommate was dead-asleep in her bedroom and I was half-asleep in the living room trying to have a coherent conversation with my mom. Suddenly I realized that the sound I was hearing in the background was thunder. I ran out the door, yelling to wake up my roommate so we could save the books we had rejected, the books that no one else had bothered to pick up--A somewhat ironic ending to a day of yard-saling.

It's Official!

2007-06-15T16:47:00.001-04:00

I just received confirmation that I will be running the NYC marathon with my mom this November. My mom got in through the lottery, but I was not so lucky. However, I am looking forward to running for Team for Kids, a charity that helps fund youth fitness programs. This also means that if I know I will probably be asking you for a donation soon. Actually, I might be asking even if I don't know you.

So now I am filled with a mix of excitement and terror. The excitement is mostly in relation to imagining myself actually crossing that finish line, the terror every time I think of the number 546...as in miles I will be running between next Monday and the day before the marathon. What have I gotten myself into?

Peter Pan Wisdom

2007-06-14T21:23:00.001-04:00

To close out the school year I have been doing a vocational unit with my class. Today one of my students made the comment that being an adult "sounds really hard." In response to this, one of my quietest, most well-mannered students raised his hand and said, "Actually, I would just like to be a kid forever."

I had the students do a quick show of hands to see just how many of them shared this sentiment. Every single hand shot into the air immediately. And aside from one student who wanted to be 21 so he could "go to all the clubs, but still be young," all of them wanted to be 12 or younger. (My students range in age from 12-14.) One student actually said he would prefer to be four months old, because then he wouldn't have to do anything.

We discussed the ways in which being a child or a teenager can be hard, but not one of them budged from their original position. In my head, I can just hear Peter Pan: Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things.

On My Mind

2007-06-11T17:52:00.000-04:00

Recently I've come across a couple of statements that have stuck with me. One of my high school friends used to call this "letting it marinate in your mind." Well, my brain is soaked through and through, but I still have come to no steadfast conclusions. So, I'm sharing. I invite conversation...

(1) Last week I was talking to a friend about the expansion of the universe. (This is yet another thing I cannot wrap my mind around.) He started talking about the speed of light. He made this statement: The speed of light is the fastest measureable thing in the universe. Speed of thought might be faster, but that is not measureable. I am fascinated by this concept of the speed of thought. When I tried to discuss with another friend later, it was much trickier than I would have expected.

We stagnated at the definition. She was recognizing thought in a form of complete words, while I was focusing on the thoughts we don't even realize we're having. I imagine these thoughts to look like brightly colored speeding cars blurred in photographs. I decided to check the ever-trusty wikipedia, but for the first time it's definition didn't help me much. "Thought or thinking is a mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends, and desires." All in all, the page on thought was pretty bare, and didn't mention anything about speed.

(2) I've been reading Suite Francaise, a graduation gift from my dear friend Paddy. It's an incredible book and is quickly filling up with underlined sentences that I want to read and reread. One of these sentences was: There is nothing more consistent in people than their way of expressing anger. This sentence caught me offgaurd, mostly because I am in a career in which I am trying daily to get students with emotional behavioral disorders to change their way of expressing anger.

Now I realize that this one sentence in Irene Nemirovsky's book is not the utter truth, but it still got me wondering. Much of what I do is teaching kids how to cope with frustration and anger, how to calm themselves down, think before acting, etc. However, when they do get angry, when all those strategies have failed them, they express it in the same way. This gets me going on my typical circle of thought about whether or not people ever actually change. My general conclusion is no, but in the end I guess it depends on the day you ask me. Or the minute, for that matter.

Teacheritis?

2007-06-10T21:22:00.000-04:00

My fellow New York City teachers, have you noticed how the school year never ends? The days until June 27th stretch before me endlessly. I had a perfect Sunday, and I do not want it to end. I want it to extend into Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday...until September. Is that too much to ask?

I'm thinking about how to keep my students engaged for these last school days when I can't even manage to keep myself engaged. I read a great tip in a weekly-mail that I get about doing real world lessons at the end of the year: lessons on how to make it in high school, apply to colleges, get jobs, etc. It's a fantastic idea, but instead of working I read every article I could on the A.V. Club website, did a crossword puzzle, then pulled a little copycat and played Blokus online after seeing my roommate do it.

And now I can't even finish my blog because my roommate has somehow pulled me into Family Jewels...yes, that's right, the reality tv show about Gene Simmons.

Spare Time

2007-06-09T08:03:00.000-04:00

Every day this week I have had something I wanted to blog about and somehow not made it to my computer. Life without grad school is fantastic. I'm reading a ton, going to musuems, visiting friends, and today I'm going to the beach. Who cares if it's overcast today?

A few things I didn't get to blog about:

(1) Playing the guitar. This week my friend Jim gave me my first lesson on guitar. I loved it. I learned how to hold the guitar and how to play the A, D, and G chords. It's been a long time since I felt so awkward trying something new, but I'm looking forward to learning more. Getting a guitar is now at the top of my list of things to do.

(2) Richard Serra. His exhibit at the MoMA is amazing. It's minimalist to be sure, but it's also unique to view art that somehow dwarfs you. There was one piece in which you are actually surrounded by his metal structures in a maze-like way. If you're in New York, you definitely need to see it.

(3) Field Day. Yesterday was Field Day at my school. It was extremely well-organized, and I had the opportunity to just relax and have fun with my students. I played soccer for an hour and a half and basketball for another hour and a half. I beat one of my students in a three-point shoot-out and feel just as proud as if I was a middle school student. (He had it coming, by the way, after he told me girls can't shoot.) Thankfully, the other part of the day was watching a movie, or I would be more sore from yesterday's activities than I am now.

(4) Numbers. For some reason I had trouble with numbers this week. I am moving at the end of the month, so I sent out a mass e-mail with my new contact information. Somehow, I miss-typed my phone number three times. Then I had to give my landlord the numbers for the paint colors we wanted in each room. I accidentally inverted two numbers, so instead of requesting Blue Danube for one wall in my room (2062-30) I requested 2026-30, or Snow Cone Lime. My landlord is very funny, and tried to convince me that he had already painted the wall and thought the color was an odd choice. Haha. And my last number is 300, as in this is my 300th post here on Aisle Life. Unbelievable.

Family Visit

2007-06-02T06:47:00.001-04:00

I'm laying in bed right now. I've been up since 6:00 (on a Saturday) because my mom and my aunt can't sleep in the early eastern sunlight. They're sitting in the bed with me, talking about airports. And I love it. I am getting a little sentimental now that they're leaving.

I was not going to walk at my graduation ceremony, but my mom basically made me. Now I'm so glad that I did. It has been wonderful to have family here, do a little sight-seeing, and a lot of eating. The best part was a dinner on Thursday night with my friends and family to celebrate my graduation. With my family living so far away, I don't get to see my friends and family interact that often. We had a blast, and I've definitely decided that I should have celebrations of myself a little more often. (Watch out on my next birthday!)

It has been a great week.

Vacation Addiction

2007-05-28T20:57:00.000-04:00

After a mere three days of vacation time in the Poconos with the boyfriend, I am finding that I have quickly figured out what to do when you're done with the grad school and not sure what to do with your extra time. I am addicted to vacation. And after such a short one, (and a little bit of research)I find I'm focusing more on the root word: vacate. As in, leave the U.S. and start working in France or Italy or one of these other countries where law requires much more vacation time.

Now I know what you're thinking: I'm a teacher. I already get a ton of vacation time. And you're right, but I signed on for another job this summer. And while I'm still excited about everything I will learn and be able to teach during those seven weeks, I'm also thinking about moving to Brazil, where I could sell back some of those days to my employer and have 30 consecutive (!!) days of vacation.

Besides, even with my great vacation time, my friends and family don't have those benefits. I do enjoy taking trips on my own, but it's also great to have some company. I think it's time the U.S. caught up a little bit. And since we Americans love to brag about how great we are, I think we should one-up everyone. Send a request to your local representatives: Forty-five consecutive days of vacation for everyone!

Another Day Deserving of Two Entries

2007-05-24T21:38:00.000-04:00

As I said a few hours ago, tonight we had our final presentations for grad school. It was wonderful to see all the people I've had classes with for the past three years. We didn't share our research as much as we shared news about what's been going on in our classrooms and in our lives. The crowning moment of the night was when my roommate won an award for her research! I'm so proud of you!!

Life After Grad School

2007-05-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my roommate and I were both pretty tired from the day, but decided to go ahead with a previously planned cleaning night. Once we got started, we didn't stop...for three hours. We washed clothes and swiffered and scrubbed and vacuumed to our hearts' content, the whole time asking each other if this is what we were capable of when we didn't have grad school to worry about on top of teaching every day.

Tonight is the poster presentation session for our college. There will be food and more posters detailing studies than I ever wanted to see. And at 8:00, we will be done. As in no more syllabi, no more meetings with professors, no more papers. Just looking at what we accomplished last night, I feel like we'll be much more productive citizens.

Now What?

2007-05-21T19:25:00.000-04:00

Since I've finished all my grad school work (mere hours ago,) I have found that I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. Until I get a set plan for how to spend all these extra hours, I've been entertaining myself with bedroom fantasies.

That's right, I can't stop thinking about my bedroom in my new apartment. I am obsessing over what color I should paint it. I want to buy new furniture, so I'm wondering if I should even bother moving the furniture I have. I want to go back and look at the apartment right now to take measurements, get ideas about furniture placement, and take a second look at the closet space. And what I want most is for my new and improved room to look like something from a design magazine. But taking a glance at my current room snaps me back to reality quickly.

I'm still a little stuck in the college phase decorating-wise, which is a bit sad considering I've been out for four years now. I have a hodge podge of furniture ranging in price from $10-$50, and ranging in quality from ugly plastic to sagging fiberboard. Okay, maybe I'm being a little hard on the furniture, but it's definitely time for a new start. Hopefully I'll soon be blogging while sitting at this desk. Or maybe I'll be sleeping in this bed. Or, just maybe, I'll be too comfy reading in my new chair to bother with blogging or sleeping.

Yes, Two Posts in One Day...

2007-05-20T14:31:00.001-04:00

...but it's so worth it.

I'm taking another break, listening to Elvis Costello, and looking at blogs I check out from time to time. I stumbled across a great list on Learn Me Good. Mister Teacher suggests that we earn money per occurence of events such as parent conferences, students being disrespectful, or getting a new student in the middle of the year. This may be the most brilliant idea I have heard all year. I did a few calculations based on his scale, and I realized I would have earned an additional $3,850 this week! And it was a relatively calm week!

A Few Thoughts

2007-05-20T11:53:00.000-04:00

ONE - An old college friend and I just signed the lease for a new apartment in Brooklyn. Fortunately, he did all the apartment research (since my research time has been completely taken up with grad school subjects) and we found an amazing place at a great price that's very close to work and to some of my favorite spots in Manhattan.

Over the course of the past year, I have been feeling more and more settled here, but suddenly it's hitting me with suprising force. I am a resident here in a way that I have never been a resident before. New York's not just a pitstop for me, and I'm not dreaming of the next place I want to move to. Instead, I'm carefully choosing what neighborhood I want to live in because I want to stay for a very long time. It's a great feeling.

TWO - People have been coming by to view my apartment since the roommate and I will be moving in an absurdly short amount of time. The rent the new tenants will be paying is $300 more per month than what we pay now. New York is ridiculous...but I forgive it.

THREE - I love this French Hyundia commercial. I can't imagine that this would ever be played in the States, so this just shows what a long way we have to go to being a fully accepting society. (And I apologize...I would usually just put the video right on the blog, but I couldn't get it to work today for some reason.)

FOUR - I've spent the morning alternating between putting the finishing touches on my research study and catching up on TV. I've watched the final episode of Grey's Anatomy (somewhat disappointing), gone through my bibliography with a fine toothed comb (not a tangle anywhere), seen Sarah Jessica Parker's new inexpensive line of clothing on Oprah (jury still out on this one), gone overboard on my section detailing recommendations for future research (still trying to reign myself in), and now I'm preparing to watch House (as usual, I saved the best for last.) Now I've almost completed the paper and my saved list on the DVR...which means I'll have a few free hours with nothing scheduled. Is this what life will be like after grad school?

FIVE - Realizing that I am going to have free time soon, I have gone crazy with the book reserve option on the Queens Library website. All I can think is Murakami and Fitzgerald and Wodehouse, oh my!

SIX - I thought I was done, but I almost forgot the most important bit!! The Mets have beat the Yankees twice in two days. Now I can read and make a few trips to Shea. Oh, life is too, too good.

Support from Surprising Sources

2007-05-15T10:58:00.000-04:00

As the previous entry states, I've been up since way-too-early this morning. Grad school is slowly taking over my subconscious and making it impossible for me to enjoy a full night's sleep.

By the time I got to school this morning I was feeling ready for a long nap. Instead, I decided to start a small poetry project with my students. In the poems, they were supposed to complete statements such as "I feel," "I fear," "I wish," and "I want to see." They brainstormed independently for about five minutes, then shared their ideas.

Two students had written "I want to see Ms. Armstrong graduate." This surprised me because I have only mentioned the fact that I'm graduating one time several weeks ago. I asked them what made them think of that. Several members of the class started talking about how I have been working on my classwork during lunch and right before and after school. My loudest student's voice rose above the others: "We always see you, Ms. Armstrong."

It's true. The kids are always watching. Often you're teaching without realizing it. And today, they gave me just enough kick with their well-wishing that the next few days of work seem like a piece of cake.

Final Project

2007-05-15T04:16:00.000-04:00

It is 4:15 in the morning. I have been up for about 45 minutes working on my final project for graduate school: the daunting paper about my research study. I did not set my alarm clock for this.

For me, any anxiety I have is bound to hit in the 3 o'clock hour when everyone around me is fast asleep. I wake up and have to act immediately. Even though the paper is close to finished and not due for another week, it's still waking me up in the wee hours of the morning.

Grad school needs to end. Now.

So Many Thoughts, So Little Time

2007-05-13T14:24:00.000-04:00

There was a period of my life, when I was taking Sociology classes related to education and recruiting for Teach for America, that "closing the achievement gap" between white students and minority students in high-needs areas was a part of my daily discourse. Since I began teaching, I have been almost wholly focused on the individuals of my classroom. I haven't completely forgotten the bigger picture, but the words "closing the achievement gap" haven't crossed my lips or my mind in the past three years.

In the past week I have been in training to learn how to best teach a new group of alternate-certification teachers coming in in June. Suddenly, I'm delving back into theory and sociology. We spent a large portion of the time discussing an article by Lisa Delpit called "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children."

Whenever someone begins to discuss race in relation to education, things get heated. I do believe that we need more diversity represented our teaching force. I don't only mean we should have more African American and Latino teachers, but also more male teachers. I strongly believe that students need role models that look like them. Some people get offended by this, because they view it as being synonymous with the idea that white teachers cannot teach minority children. It's not.

I'm thinking about what these new teachers will face in relation to how much I can give them and how much I still have to learn myself. I am a white teacher and while I try my best to meet the individual needs of each of my students, I worry about what they may face as minority students in America. I want them to succeed, and I find myself thinking beyond those individual needs and IEP goals to how to really teach them to move ahead within the "culture of power" that Delpit describes.

Last year one of my students asked why I was white and he was black. One of my friends had her students tell her that she was not white, because she was nice to them. My roommate and I have discussed how obsessed our students become over our blue eyes. They are very aware of the differences between themselves and their teachers, which means they must be aware of the lack of teachers that come from their own cultures.

I believe I am an effective teacher, mostly because I am passionate about what I do. I am dedicated to improving my students' academic achievement. But now that I have the opportunity to really look at the bigger picture again, I find myself filled with a desire to act. Right now I just don't know what action to take to tackle this huge issue. For the moment, I've just got to get my thoughts in order and organize what information I will share with this new group of teachers who have no idea what they're about to get in to.

Smile!

2007-05-09T20:42:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's another list. But at a point when wrapping up grad school is causing intense amount of stress, it's important to give myself a little reminder of some of the good things. So, here we go:

1) I have a new student with almost no formal education. I have been fortunate to be collaborating with an amazing group of teachers to give her intensive assistance with basic skills in order to help her catch up. Today she was so happy to recognize an addition pattern in math that every time she got an answer she giggled uncontrollably. I have never witnessed such joy in learning.

2) When I got home today I probably should have done a little bit of grad school work, but the couch was loudly calling my name. So I watched two shows saved by the trusty DVR. First was Ellen, where I laughed through an hour of fast-forwarded television. Second was Oprah, where I cried through an hour of stories about people we should "cheer" for. One of these people was a single mother of five who put herself through school, then became the first grandmother to graduate from Yale Medical School. So, in between work and school today, I experienced nearly every point along the happiness spectrum. It was great. I'd like to thank Ellen and Oprah!

3) After watching a bit of TV I read some of the poems my students wrote today about emotions. My absolute favorite came from an eleven-year old boy who must be in some kind of love. At one point, he stated that "Happiness looks like a girl dancing in flowers. Happiness is the love in my heart." How can you not smile when you read that?

4) Tonight I turned in my final assignment for one of the two classes I am in. That means that I am one powerpoint presentation, one poster presentation, and one enormous (but almost done) paper away from graduating. Woohoo!!

5) As I am closing my graduate school career, I found out today that another graduate school career will be beginning for someone near and dear to me. I have been so excited that it is almost as if I got into NYU myself. Carnival is definitely our new favorite word!

Wow!

2007-05-08T10:19:00.000-04:00

The items pictured here look like nothing special, until you find out that they were "printed" from a machine we may all have in our own homes soon. Yesterday's New York Times explained these amazing "printers" in their article "Beam It Down From the Web, Scotty."

I'm often astounded by the imaginations of others, especially in the technology sector. If it were left to people like me, we'd still be spending large portions of our days churning butter or (gasp!) writing letters by hand...then sending them through Pony Express. So I'm astonished because a machine like this would literally never occur to me.

In the article, they also mentioned implications for design. As I was reading this section, my friend asked if I wanted to make a bet on how long it would take before we had one of these printers in our school. His bet was five years, since by that time they will only cost about $1,000. I was still trying to wrap my mind around the printer itself.

I teach graphic design now. I'm wondering if I should start taking some classes so that five years down the line, I will be able to teach this 3-Dimensional design to my middle school students.

And maybe, if things keep going as they are, we will get to the point where we have the one type of technology I have dreamed of. I can see myself now, going to a contraption installed in my wall, ordering a cheeseburger or a banana split or chicken parmesan and having it available in mere seconds...

My Snobby Side

2007-05-06T16:40:00.000-04:00

In today's New York Times, Joe Queenan wrote an essay called "Why Not the Worst?" about why he loves reading bad books. During most of the time I was reading the essay, I was thinking, I usually love Joe Queenan, but this argument is idiotic.

After all, I am one of those snobby readers who would never sink so low as to pick up a copy of The DaVinci Code. And this week it took every ounce of strength I had to smile and thank a coworker who, after telling me she noticed that I always had a book, presented me with a gift of a Richard North Patterson thriller she loves. I spent a good hour feeling miserable that now I'm actually going to have to read this book because it is the polite thing to do. And it was only a few years ago that friends forced me to read The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Their punishment for doing this was having to reread the sections I had edited, recieving print-outs of what I deemed to be the worst sentence ever written, and listening to me rant every time I got the opportunity.

So, yes, I am one of those people Joe Queenan describes as reading only good books and thinking it makes me better than everyone else. (More of the former than the latter.) As I was reading, though, I realized that I'm slightly hypocritical in this area. Indeed, I have no shame admitting that I watch American Idol every week, enjoy People magazine, and have Ashlee Simpson music on my ipod.

By the end of Queenan's essay, I was willing to admit that he had a somewhat good point. And while I will probably always do everything in my power to avoid "bad" books, I will at least try not to scoff so much when I see someone else enjoying one.

Baseball

2007-04-29T20:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to Yankee Stadium with three friends to watch the Yankees play the Red Sox. I was slightly upset, because I haven't even been to a Mets game yet and they're the team I love. But how could I pass up tickets to a Yankees/Red Sox game?

Yankee Stadium is, indeed, amazing. And I was slightly nervous that the Baseball Neophyte that I am would turn out to love going to all baseball games, not just Mets ball games. In the end, it really is the Mets that I love. Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium literally have two completely separate auras, and the one at Shea is for me, (no matter what insults my friend Jim throws my way because of this.) Not only was Yankee Stadium missing the Cowbell-Man, the stepping-up-to-the-plate music for every player, and funnel cake; but it replaced these things with a crazy tension that at one point erupted into a brawl two rows ahead of my friends and me. Needless to say, this is not really my scene.

The next ball game I go to will definitely be at Shea.

Poetry and Confusion

2007-04-27T20:23:00.000-04:00

Today is NYC's 5th annual Poem in Your Pocket Day. All the students and teachers have poems in their pockets. I had so much fun today sharing my poem with students and other teachers, and reading their poems. Such a simple yet brilliant idea to get the students excited about poetry.

This week there were two major events in my classroom: a trip to the United Nations and a challenge to spend a whole day screen-free since it is TV-Turnoff Week. We left the fantastic trip to the United Nations with posters that shared statistics about TB. Throughout the week I have shared other statistics about the health risks involved with spending all day every day seated in front of a screen. One student was out sick all week until yesterday, which means he missed the trip to the U.N. and all statistics related to TB and TV.

So yesterday afternoon, when one student asked about TB statistics, then another student asked about TV statistics, he got very confused. He came in this morning and said, "I told my mom about how watching TV can make you get TB. She wouldn't let me watch anymore." The phone call home to that parent might have been the strangest one of my career thus far...

Today I...

2007-04-26T12:54:00.000-04:00

...ate an entire box of Samoas.

...found out I really do get to finally graduate from grad school in a mere six weeks.

...played outside with a class of students with Downs Syndrome, only to find out two students had found the basketball we were playing with in the trash can.

...washed my hands for about twenty minutes straight.

...collaborated with my school librarian on organizing a project for my students.

...realized my school librarian is an amazing, untapped resource that I didn't even think of previously due to spending two years in a school that had no library.

...asked my school administration to pay for my students to take a rather expensive field trip that I knew my students' parents could not afford, and received a check within fifteen minutes.

And to think, it's only 1:00.

Do you suffer from TV Head?

2007-04-25T17:49:00.000-04:00

If you haven't heard, we are in the middle of TV Turnoff Week. I have been encouraging my students to decrease their screen time (i.e. TV, computer, and games) and do some different things, like go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather we've been having. Now, I'm encouraging you to do the same.

Before you move away from this screen though, check out the link above and click on the "Facts and Figures" section. The connections between number of hours spent watching tv and reading scores are amazing. There also serious health implications regarding Attention Deficit Disorder, obesity, diabetes, migraines, and general pains. And, of course, there's TV Head, as illustrated below.

Okay, now you can move away from the screen...