John Connolly: The Book of Lost Things
Read the entire thing in one night - fantastic story and a great follow-up to the Rushdie novel I just finished.
Jeanette Winterson: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
I blame this for the July 1st insomnia fest.
Mark Kurlansky: Salt: A World History
An interesting take on history - though not as good as _Cod_.
« June 2007 | Main | August 2007 »
Week 4
Say goodbye to Ms. Photographer and hello to Ms. Average.
Sitting at the New Orleans International Airport getting ready to return home after the hardest, most rewarding five weeks of my life. Yesterday I said goodbye to my Houston kids and as much as I would like to employ the cliché adjectival coverall bittersweet, I feel as if I would be doing my children, both past and future, a disservice by not describing in detail the full range of emotions I experienced as they walked out my door for the last time. My first reaction was pride – I’m so proud of them, all eight, for everything they have accomplished in just four short weeks. They began employing skills that I had a difficult time mastering even in graduate school, and while I wish I could take credit for this miraculous shift in their writing ability, the credit rests solely on their awkward little shoulders. Though the content came from me, the employment of said contact and ability to do it well was entirely their own doing. The heading to this entry comes straight from the final draft of V., my class showboat whose future goal is to become a professional photographer, a goal I am 100% certain she will reach…
The above paragraph was written nearly two weeks ago, the sole documentation (outside of my personal written journal) of my last week in Houston. To say that my outlook on life has changed would be a huge understatement – I feel as if it has dissolved, completely. The deconstruction of the morphology of my life philosophy could easily take up an entire rant heavy volume, and so I turn to the genius of Nietzsche to sum up what I feel is at the core of my superficial understanding of the world.
Where you see ideals I see what is human, all too human.
All too human, indeed. If I had to pick one piece of essential learning that I have pulled from all of this absurdity and hoopla is that, no matter what a given situation requires, we are only organic material that happens to walk and talk and breathe and so will act according to our most primitive, quasi-animalistic impulses. The severity with which we employ these impulses is in direct correlation to the severity of the situation - hungry? Eat a Snickers. Really hungry? Eat a meal. Stranded in the woods for 45 days without food or water and on the brink of starvation? Chew off your own arm.
In regards to the rigorous run through the gauntlet of the ridiculous that is this training program – I have learned that we are all too human and that we all have breaking points. Just a scant few weeks ago my fellow corp. member, who we’ll call Happy McSunshine, took it upon herself to memorize the first names of all 130 members of our team. It was ambitious, but she recited them all out loud in under 5 minutes with the nauseating gusto that sets us apart from the rest of the world. She was enthusiastic, dedicated, and completely out of her gourd. Just yesterday, during yet another poorly run session, she finally reached her breaker and snapped about being let out late for lunch yet again. The fact that her idea of snapping and my idea of snapping and the differences in degree or necessary prompting aside, her frustration was palpable and very disconcerting – but also incredibly validating. Because if the girl who shits rainbow bunnies can cop an attitude, it totally means that I, the girl that wants to fling shit at people on a daily basis, can feel free to carry on at will with my usual degree of caustic snark-i-tude.
Posted at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Almost two weeks since my last post - have been so busy that I can barely see straight anymore.
Back in NOLA - more on this later.
Posted at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm currently watching my students take their final exam, part of which is to write a five-paragraph essay from the prompt: Where do you see yourself in five years? How will you get there?
Looking up from my own busy work/journal writing, I noticed that my struggling student not only has a few pages already written, but he also has a perfect header written just like the following:
Student Name
Class Name
Teacher Name
Date
...and a centered essay title. He did this without prompting. I think my heart might actually burst with pride.
Posted at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As part of my very scintillating and thorough training for Weeta, I am brutally coerced required to attend various planning and execution sessions in order to maximize my effectiveness as an instructor. In order to illustrate the usefulness of these sessions, please refer to the following list that I have compiled of the activities my fellow trainees are participating in:
1. Filing nails.
2. Grading student papers.
3. Sleeping.
4. G-chatting (x3).
5. Holding temples and squinting to stay awake.
6. Pretending to listen.
7. Picking cheerios out of a styrofoam cup and flinging them at their neighbor.
8. Uselessly formatting a document.
9. Staring vacantly at the wall.
10. Blogging.
In conclusion: TWBAT (trainees will be able to...) appear as if they care while participating in a variety of non-weeta related activities. Check, check!
Posted at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
For the most part I am fairly friendly with most of my fellow Weeters - especially those who are going to the NOLA with me. It's an interesting group of type-a, psychotically driven, chronic alcoholics with whom I share every waking moment and I'm happy to say that, thus far, I haven't quite made it to my usual homicidal level induced by group activity.
That is, until today. During one of the many stultifying sessions through which we're forced to suffer, we were asked to contemplate how we would grade a particular math problem based on student effort/pre-work completed. Since I am mathematically incapable and haven't taken a math class since high school, I muttered to myself that it was unfair to give us something like this because there was no way I could even solve it. I'll admit that I have weaknesses (occasionally) - and math is certainly one of them. Back in the day I made my math teacher throw chalk in frustration upon several occasions (though she didn't throw it AT me I have a sneaking suspicion that she would have liked to). I just shrugged it off and figured it was a free three minutes with my thumb up my ass.
However, the moment was shattered when the girl next to me, a pretentious twit we'll call...Pretentious Twit, turned to me and said, aghast, "Um...this is like, fifth grade math." I just blinked several times and stared at her, appalled that she would even waste her breath to deliver this cutting blow. Seriously!? I mean, really, what is she planning on doing when she gets to her 10th grade classroom and realizes that they are all reading at a 6th grade level, or worse? Call them all morons and hop the next flight back to whatever land of extreme twittery she hailed from? Of course, not to be outdone, I smiled sweetly and replied in my most sachrine voice "I know, it's really hard being stupid" - and left it at that.
Honestly, I wish I could have smacked her a good one, for, as a result of her rudeness, I am officially in a vile mood.
Posted at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm in Austin visiting my bestfriend from Kindergarten, A. She just rushed into the room with a horrified look on her face:
A. Bad idea, dry shaving your bikini line. I was all like, I should put on moisturizer, I should put on moisturizer...and then I was all like, AHHH! It stings, it stings, it stings!!!
Posted at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
So today instead of doing something useful with my free time like grade papers and be a good little teacher in training, I decided to regress back to my college days and spend 2 full hours reading my ex-girlfriend's livejournal (HILARITY) and some archives of my own (smaller case hilarity). They made me sad for two reasons:
1. I miss Boston. Everytime I read about my former Boston life I get all "puke on my shoes."
and
2. I miss being funny. It seems that lately all I've been writing is "I teach kids, BARF!" and "I work real hard and hate WEETA, BARF!" and then I barf. I wish I were still funny but I guess now that I'm out to save the world I must approach every situation with the appropriate degree of "relentlessness" and "urgency." That's WEETA speak for, WORK, WORK, WORK, then DIE; BIATCH! Note that semi colon in there, that's right, I'm an englush teacher.
Barf.
End scene.
Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
My kids are amazing. That’s right, it’s only been three weeks and I’m already referring to them as mine and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Unlike many of my fellow cult members, my experience in the classroom has been nothing short of incredible. Granted my experience with the larger organization that is sponsoring this pedagogical crash course has been less than savory, but that aside, things are pretty stellar. The kiddies have been learning about the components of a five-paragraph essay and at any given time I can call on one of them and they will be able rifle back scintillating statements such as “a thesis statement is made up of a main idea and three supporting details,” and “the difference between concrete fact and commentary is that one is a fact and the other an opinion.” For nearly two weeks I have drilled fact after fact about the structure of a five paragraph essay into their spongy little brains and now, with just six days left, comes the difficult part – actually using these components in a fully written essay.
Today they were supposed to turn in a completed second draft of their five-paragraph essay, for which they’ve already written a rough draft in class, and only 2 out of the 8 of them actually had it finished. While I wasn’t exactly surprised about the complete degeneration of our usual high homework doing rate, given the length of the assignment and the 4th of July holiday, I was surprised to find that the student who is struggling the most (and one of my secret favorites) not only did his homework, but did seven full pages of writing. That’s right, seven pages! I nearly pissed myself with glee to see his little face light up when I called him a “veritable writing machine;” the pride with which he enters my class is almost too much to handle and every time I consider throwing myself in front of a school bus I think of his quiet little voice asking me for help with finding a supporting detail and my heart just melts.
In response to the nearly complete lack of homework I pulled an impromptu “you’re all toast” session and put on my best teacher face, telling them to take out some blank paper and write me a completed five paragraph essay about what they did on the 4th of July. I was careful to stress that not only did they have to write the in class essay, but they also had to bring me the homework tomorrow and they would still suffer the minus ten points consequence as a result of their negligence. Surprisingly there was no protest. Instead, they diligently (and a tad sheepishly) went to work and I was able to spend much of the class with the two students who did do their work – my struggling student and my shining star. Watching them read and critique each other’s essays was delightful – for once I actually got to sit and chat with them as they worked and it was just incredible. I learned that my shining star is really into Shakespeare – her favorite play is “Much Ado About Nothing” – and that she has yet to read “The Winter’s Tale.” It was amazing to see them chattering away in Spanish so amicably about the work, occasionally pausing to point out something they liked or to take note of something that could use work.
At that moment, as I watched my class working away at their various tasks, I felt like a real teacher. I not only have control of my classroom, but my kids actually seem to like it and respond politely and eagerly to almost everything I throw their way. Last night, as I furiously stormed about pissing and moaning about what I was going to do if they didn’t complete their assignments, I never dreamed that it would go this smoothly. I had no doubt that my kids would respond accordingly, but I did doubt myself considerably. I doubted my ability to hold back my anger towards them for shirking their academic responsibility, but when it came right down to it the small bit of mild disapproval I showed was enough. Flipping through the in-class essays they wrote, I caught the tail end of my class clown’s piece in response to why he didn’t do his homework:
“I got home pretty late so I couldn’t. I’ll do it to night (sic) by hand for a punishment to myself for not doing your homework.”
This he handed to me with a sweet smile as he left for lunch and wished me a good day. While I know he’s not rushing home to self-flagellate or anything, I know that his comment was genuine and that tomorrow there will be an essay on his desk. We all make bad decisions from time to time, and, as my struggler said in his piece:
“We all humans we are not perfect and like my dad said ‘the people learn by the errors they make.’”
Posted at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Apologies for the complete lack of posting - between the g-bomb's emergency "save e.h. from autodefenestration" visit and the absurd amounts of WEETA slave labor - I've been a bit busy. As recompense I offer you another piece of madness from my sweet suite here in Tayhas.
Stay tuned for a better post - I'm actually sort of caught up for tonight so I may have time to post provided I haven't drown in a margarita glass.
Posted at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)