Because Sometimes It's Too Hard to Stay Awake

The Dandy Warhols - Sleep

Melancholy, Day 5

I spent today waiting for the inevitable: Monday.

Yeah. I know how crazy that sounds. It was a Friday off. And all I can do is think about the week ending and going back to work.

I did clean the oven. So please note the line in today's song about having one's head in the oven, because mine was there.

I've also been reading Ethics for the New Millenium by His Holiness The Dalai Lama. His ideas about reality remind me of the description of right-brain world that Jill Bolte-Taylor experienced when she had a stroke that knocked out the left side of her brain off and on over a broad stretch of time. A mass recognition of such a reality would surely change the way we treat each other: if we are who we are because we are in relation to everything else, and we would cease to identify the boundaries between ourselves and others as such a hard line, we might feel more empathy toward each other and find ourselves less able to defraud each other in the little ways that happen every day.

I was discussing with my dad my disenchantment with the idea of the free market system as something righteous and moral. All things being equal, I'm sure it would be a nifty system. The problem is, all things are never equal and have not been from the beginning. The free market system has no mechanism in place to say that if an employer buys a person's full-time employment, that person must be paid enough to live on. And yet in an ethical system, I don't know how that observation could be overlooked. If you buy the labor of someone's life, they should be able to live off of selling that to you. I am tired of seeing poverty entrenched in families and so unwilling to let go. I am tired of seeing the champions of capitalism buy influence and use it only to shore up their own position.

I am not trying to say that free markets should be replaced with some other system. I just think we need to recognize that it is not an ethical system and that in recognition of our common humanity, we must put safeguards in place to abolish exploitation.

Time to put my head back in the oven.

The National - Conversation 16

Elsewhere. Day 4

There are things that make me remember my best friend growing up. She passed several years ago, but so many things bring her back, and sometimes very urgently. Today it was changing the sheets on the bed. I remember that when we were quite young she showed me how her dad had taught her to make nice corners with the sheet, which was something he had learned in the military. I remember being a bit incredulous that her dad would care what the corners looked like, especially since they were hidden under the bedspread. Of course, now I corner my sheets, but I don't do it ever without thinking about her.

I am getting the feeling of panic again - scratching at the mechanism that keeps time rolling forward. I haven't accomplished nearly enough this week. About the only thing I have accomplished has been giving my mind a couple of days of rest. I guess that's something.

On another note. I was talking with a couple of my students last week about music - and about how consistent the 80's 1-2 1-2 beat was, and how it lasted a whole decade, and how I did like it then, but I'm not thrilled to see it coming back en force. Why not have more bands like The National? With talented, inventive drummers? What? The world is short on talent?

Then pardon me while I enjoy the drumming here.

The National - Runaway

Inspired - Day 3

Here is something good. I will resist my urge to pontificate about how this good thing came out of a time before too much standardized testing and I will just point out my awe that it is surviving, especially when 4th graders have a lot of testing on their plates.

John Hunter, Public School Teacher, on the World Peace Game

Lost in Thought...Day 2

Off to teach. A quick admission, though: I didn't get through half of that to-do list yesterday. I got caught up by a book...surprise surprise. Roots by Alex Haley.

Here's a gift for you!

Basia Bulat - If It Rains

Happiness Day 1

It is wonderful to look at a day from its beginning and find several tasks to be done but nothing scheduled - no rush to get here or there, just the leisure to complete things as I will. It's even more buttery to feel like this on a Monday.

Here are the things I need to do today:

• go to the school to pick up the jump drive I left there last week
• go to Trader Joe's for some groceries
• run some mail to the post office
• cook some pork chops for the freezer
• correct some projects for the college class that I couldn't work on over the weekend because they are on the jump drive I left at the school
• work on a unit planner that is seriously overdue, but that also requires that troublesome little jump drive
• go outside for some air before the weather turns so humid I won't want to
• clean a room of the house.

That last one is a daily goal for the break. Let's see how it goes. Honestly, if I can clean 3 or 4 I'll be happy.

Things I have already accomplished:

• reading comic strips for the day
• turning on some music

I guess I'll go get a shower.

Barenaked Ladies - Pinch Me

and I should have posted this as soon as I saw it...

Short note

I just want you to know that I am very proud of my awesome students. Here's to them.

Glazing

So I haven't been posting much this month. I guess I had so much bottled up in me a few weeks ago and when I got that out, I didn't have much more to say. These weeks have been. Simply that.

I went back to pottery class this last Monday, and I have to say that got me through the week. I still have a couple of pieces that I'm not sure what to do with as far as glazing goes. Especially a piece that I threw on the wheel that was off centered but I think its imperfection is interesting if not beautiful. Its form is so rough that I don't know whether I want to glaze it at all, or just keep it terra cotta. The mask I did is like that, too - I'm afraid that if I glaze the face it will look strangely garish like a Greek marble with paint still on it. (Not to compare my efforts with anything from ancient Greece!) So there are some decisions to be made, and I don't want to inexpertly ruin what at this stage looks pretty good. At any rate, one or two things are done, so hopefully they will be fired soon and I can post pictures.

(There is one piece - a box - that is just ugly. I don't know what I will do with it when it's finished, as it's not anything to which I feel attachment.... live and learn, I guess.)

Here's a pretty good song I heard this morning.

Radical Face - Glory

Dear Monday,

I HATE you. Will you just...not?

To the Detractors

Dear talking heads and political posturers,

I have had it with your assault on teachers and public schools. I want you to know that I am thankful for my public school teachers who instructed and inspired me, and that I go to work every day with the goal of instructing and inspiring my students.

I am tired of being slandered and maligned. I am not a thug out to game the system. I have a master's degree, and I got straight A's in grad school. My workday stretches far beyond my contracted hours. I prepare lessons for six different classes at the high school where I teach. I have built a website of study tools for my students because I don't teach commonly taught subjects and appropriate quality tools can be hard to find.

Your laws mandating testing have glorified mediocrity, encouraged cheating, and moved money from the classrooms to the companies that make the tests. Your push to pay teachers based on their students' performance (à la Race to the Top) will only drive the best teachers out of the low-income areas (like the district where I work) where they are desperately needed.

I love teaching, but the stress from the politicking is a nightmare. I have news for you: I am not just a babysitter; I didn't get into teaching for the cushy pay; I take work home every night and weekend, and I teach at a local university year round (read: I WORK SUMMERS). It started off as something to do purely for enjoyment, but with a freeze in pay for four years, it has also become a way to make ends meet.

I want you to know the truth: I work with many great teachers, including a number who have been mentors, heroes, and sounding boards for me as I have learned my craft. We don't deserve to be painted with broad strokes as the foundational problem with society or with the economy. We rightfully take pride in the successes we achieve. Many of these successes are difficult to quantify and difficult to attribute to one pinpointed cause. But aren't we all made up of layers of experience? Shouldn't we work to educate the whole child: not just to improve skills in mathematics and reading, but also to encourage ingenuity, ethical behavior, civic involvement, cross-cultural understanding, and curiosity?

And please, don't call me a snively whiner for standing up for myself and my profession. I do a good job, and I'm not going to pretend that I don't. Don't tell me that I should shut up and be thankful for my job. I am thankful for my job. I feel incredibly blessed to have such rewarding work. I also worked very hard to qualify to be where I am. And one of the greatest difficulties in my job, especially in light of the push toward mediocrity brought on by misguided reforms like No Child Left Behind, is teaching my students that such hard work really is irreplaceable in the end. So I'm not going to shut up and let you make my job even harder.

Tomorrow I will go to work and I will teach, not to impress you, but because I know my students are deserving of my best efforts on their behalf. If you're at all interested in improving the future, you'll stand behind us. If not, you'd better get out of our way.

Wow. I fell asleep.

So much for Oscars 2011 - I was happy to get a couple of phone calls and to watch on mute for a while, and when my dad called and woke me after The King's Speech won top honors, I just turned it off before the 5th graders could get started.

At least Anne Hathaway wore her best dress at the beginning so I didn't miss that. Here are the best pictures I have been able to scrounge off the Internet. Because she's busy hosting and the pictures aren't taken from the TV camera's angle (WHY NOT?), there really isn't a picture where she does justice to the glamor of the dress, but it really was beautiful.

By the way, it's Givenchy, as is the Cate Blanchett one I posted previously.

Top Three Dresses from the Red Carpet

Pictures stolen from NYTimes.

#1 - Nicole Kidman

#2 - Amy Adams - the picture doesn't do the beautiful sapphire color justice.

#3 - Cate Blanchett

And as I have been posting this, Anne Hathaway has come out to present in the most beautiful beaded gown - I'll post a picture when I find one.

Princess dreams are still alive!

Hanging In There...

I was just rewarded for continuing to watch the show. Just as the cut to commercial became imminent, we got a glimpse of Nicole Kidman and her dress - jaw-dropping Dior. She is always among the best dressed, but this has some sparkle that is just incredible.

(BTW, the beadwork on Cate Blanchett's dress earlier was also gorgeous.)

Oscars 2011 - Red Carpet Now Underway

The pre-game show (red carpet) has been on for just over half an hour and I am considering turning off the TV.

You see, when the Academy Awards are on, I want the best of Hollywood glamor and glitz. I want to gape at America's de facto royalty. Movie stars. Maybe a couple of rock stars. And I do not care about:

• Facebook-submitted questions from other schmucks like me who are not Hollywood types;
• Seeing the green room;
• Interviews with nominees' mothers;

and Most Of All:

• A hoard of 5th graders in brightly colored T-shirts.

Yeah. I said it. When it comes to turning the Academy Awards into the People's Choice Awards, I'm not amused. We'll see if I have the stomach to see it through, but right now, it's a big thumbs down.

(P.S., though - Marky Mark was just on the red carpet and he is such a class act. Compliments unbounded to him.)

Why I'd Rather Be in Italy

Here is the winner of this year's Sanremo song competition:

Roberto Vecchioni - Chiamami Ancora Amore

See, English can't do this. American culture can't do this. We are too fragmented. We look for 20-something idols, not for the paced wisdom and beauty of a poet-professor in his sixties. I know that Italy is not perfect, and that this song is based in many of today's urgent problems there - but hey. Let me wrap myself up in a culture that can produce such passion without withering, without looking behind its shoulder at those who would ridicule such a sentiment - let me wear my heart on my sleeve and face the winds that will come.

Enjoying a Day at Home

No, I haven't really accomplished anything today. I figured out the next month's round of bills. I did a little bit of junk room clean-out. And that's it. You just need do-nothing Saturday at home every once in a while to drop the stress levels and give your head a break from the game.

I was listening to Columbus radio - CD101 - today and this song came on. I can't believe all of the good music that you can't find on radio around here because we just don't have a good alternative station. Anyway. The song is from 2005, but it's new to me. Enjoy.

She Wants Revenge - Out of Control

A Little Traveling

Louis Armstrong - Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

I just got back from a weekend in New Orleans. What a fantastic place. My last visit there was pre-Katrina, and I've never been there in the winter before, but the city just wraps me up and makes me love it. I was there for work, so my adventuring happened before and after meetings.

My flight there was cancelled Thursday so I got in later than I would have liked. I was traveling with another teacher, and we went for some seafood that night, which was delectable. Then I went to bed pretty early since I had to register for my sessions first thing Friday morning. Meetings all day, then homework to prep for the Saturday sessions - I finally got out at about 7:30pm Friday night. Since lunch had been pretty heavy, I wound my way down to Café du Monde and got some beignets. They are really tasty. I remembered that they were tasty, but really, it was that first bite that reminded me of just how good New Orleans really is. It was also curious to note that I had ordered hot chocolate instead of milk - it was actually chilly - something I had definitely never experienced before there. Anyway, I had broken out something to read and I just relaxed over my tasty little dinner, then I went and wandered around the quarter for a moment. I must be older now, because I definitely preferred Rue Royale to Bourbon Street - art shops over bawdiness. Right behind the cathedral was the most awesome busker - this petite girl with the scratchy voice of a catfight and an accordion. I would have loved to have just hung out listening, but since I was on my own I judged it better to keep moving, although I did circle around several times to see what she was playing. I also enjoyed looking into the lit shops, especially the windows of glass. I found this jellyfish lamp:

kind of fun.

Saturday morning I got up early and went back to Café du Monde, then took my breakfast up to the promenade along the river and watched the water in the morning. There was actually frost on the wooden railroad ties I crossed! Anyway, I missed sunrise, but the morning was clear and lovely. On my way back to the hotel, I stopped in St. Louis Cathedral, listened to a few minutes of mass, and took in the inside of the cathedral from the back pew.

Saturday afternoon was a real treat. Thomas's mom came over from Mississippi with a friend who had grown up in New Orleans, so I got the chance to experience the city beyond the French Quarter and its immediate surroundings. We went to Metairie Cemetery to see some of the monuments, to the sculpture garden at City Park, drove around to see houses in the Garden district, and ate the most incredible dinner at a restaurant called Mandina's on Canal Street. If you are reading this, you have GOT to go to New Orleans and eat at Mandina's. The wait was at least 45 minutes, but the food was to die for - Italian influenced New Orleans. We ordered a bunch of food and shared it all - fried shrimp and Italian sausage for the appetizer, a cup of oyster and artichoke soup (killer amazing!), a roast beef sandwich, and their Saturday special Creole Eggplant - baked eggplant, shrimp, crabmeat, and ham - that was so out of this world.

Anyway, here is a cool sculpture from City Park:

Leandro Erlich, Window and Ladder - Too Late for Help, 2008. It had originally been installed in the Lower Ninth Ward. There were no strings attached - it leans like this anchored underground. Pretty cool.

It was late and the ladies had to get back home, so they dropped me at the hotel. My intention was to go wandering again, but stepping up onto the curb, my foot hit a slick spot of something and I went down into some kind of a painful splits-like fall. There were some very nice people who helped me up in spite of the fact that when someone falls in New Orleans the basic assumption is a diagnosis of over-imbibing. It's been two days and my leg is still in constant pain. I wobbled around to get souvenirs for the nephew and niece, then went back to the hotel and straight to bed. My attempt to get up the next morning and repeat the trip to Café du Monde was met with frustration - I was hobbling around like my leg was broken - and I admitted defeat within two blocks. I settled for breakfast at the convention center, which at least featured slices of King Cake. And that was it - one more session, and a flight home.

So hooray New Orleans. I'm ready for my next trip back.

Trouble, Set Me Free

So I was in the mood for this song:

Cat Stevens - Trouble

and I opened up my music program and searched the title and you wouldn't believe how many trouble songs there are! About 500 million or so.

Tonight was the Super Bowl and I am sending out many thanks to Great Britain for sending the Beatles and Doctor Who across the pond so I didn't even have to realize the Super Bowl was happening, aside from some status updates on Facebook. Which is a nice way for it to be. Next Big Event: the Oscars, which are much more fun.

Jedi Knight, Thank You Very Much

Via: Online Schools