And here we are at the end of another May. For a second year in a row I pulled off writing a post each day of the month. Some were more detailed and deeper and emotional, while others were more to the point or superficial, but I think they all at least had something to say.
I was talking with a co-worker just last night about blogging when she mentioned she was thinking about starting one. I’ve had this one going now for about a week more than five years. It’s difficult to remember a time when I didn’t have this outlet available. I started it as another way to keep the writing muscles in shape and I feel it’s helped in that regard, but I think it’s also revealed quite a bit about me, and probably more than I originally intended. If someone didn’t feel they knew me very well and wanted to get a clearer picture of who I am, they'd only need to run through the some of the archive listed off to the left of the browser window and read. I’m pretty sure that between the things I chose to write about and what I said and how I said it, they would get a good connect-the-dots idea. The twist to that is how I’ve been broadcasting the makings of that perception on the Internet for the world to see while I'm so closely guarded in real life. It's still surprising when someone in my daily life will reference a particular post they read. Sure, I’ll see comments and replies show up, on the Facebook links I post more than anywhere else, but even after five years I can’t reliably say who reads these posts regularly, who might click on them occasionally, and who doesn’t even know they exist. The writer side of me would be very interested in knowing that, but the introvert side of me has a tiny mental hitch every time I find out about someone new who has read any of this.
When I finished last May, I thought about the progress in terms of numbers: Likes, comments, retweets, favorites, hits. This year I followed that all with more curiosity than active interest. Not sure what the difference was between this year and last year, but pulling back on that made the whole process more enjoyable. Hopefully that was reflected in the posts for anyone who read them along the way.
I also remember being pretty burned out on posting by the time I reached the end of the month last year. Happily that isn’t the case this time. It might be a week or so until I get some new content up again, but I am making it a goal to post more actively as my actual summer vacation gets underway, as well as beyond that. This upcoming break has a unique to feel to it, and I’m interested to see where it goes. But of course that’s still two calendar weeks away and I have a lot to do between now and then, most of which involves closing down my eighteen years in fifth grade.
But once that’s taken care of, and I’m able to switch over to my second job being full-time instead of moonlighting, and when the school year kicks in again and all the consistency to which I’ve grown accustomed will be redefined? You can count on me having something to say about it.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
Day 30 - Track and Field
There are certain landmark days in every school year: the first day, the last day, the last day before extended breaks, the days with parties, the days based around special events. Today we had one of those at MB when Track and Field Day came up on the schedule.
I'd imagine a lot of adults had their own track and field experiences during childhood. I was just thinking about one of mine on the way into work this morning. For some reason a memory I hadn't thought about in probably thirty years came at me out of nowhere when I thought of the time I was ready to run the 50 yard dash, but was told I couldn't participate because I was wearing soccer cleats and those weren't allowed. This ticked me off since even at 10 years old I knew exactly what had happened: The public school teachers down the road from us who had sooo graciously (you should read that as dripping with sarcasm) invited the constantly-maligned St. Andrews kids from down the road to participate in "their" event hadn't said anything to our teachers about cleats not being allowed, and now they were pulling the rug out from under me. I know this because some of my friends got stuck in the same situation. This is why we would refer to the kids who went to the public elementary schools in town as "Parker Pigs" and Lincoln Stinkins." But enough of my damage.
I always enjoy the idea of track and field day as much as I usually enjoy the execution of it. I referenced this a few days ago in a different post, but it's worth mentioning again: Our Phy. Ed. teacher really sets it up as a major event, and he's got it running like the proverbial well-oiled machine. The only hang-up we usually experience is the dunk tank, which I'm usually co-running. When you have to give an entire grade level worth of girls or boys three turns to hit the target and some of them do (sometimes very often), it's logistically impossible to stay on schedule. The number of softballs I had to chase down and retrieve today alone will guarantee that my knees won't have their full range of motion return until Monday, at the earliest.
As sore as I am right now, I can still say we had a great day. This was especially since I had the foresight to coat my exposed skin in as much SPF 50 as it would hold. I'll spare you the description of how easily I burn and what happened the year I put sunscreen on everywhere except the one rectangular patch on my arm that somehow I missed....
I'd imagine a lot of adults had their own track and field experiences during childhood. I was just thinking about one of mine on the way into work this morning. For some reason a memory I hadn't thought about in probably thirty years came at me out of nowhere when I thought of the time I was ready to run the 50 yard dash, but was told I couldn't participate because I was wearing soccer cleats and those weren't allowed. This ticked me off since even at 10 years old I knew exactly what had happened: The public school teachers down the road from us who had sooo graciously (you should read that as dripping with sarcasm) invited the constantly-maligned St. Andrews kids from down the road to participate in "their" event hadn't said anything to our teachers about cleats not being allowed, and now they were pulling the rug out from under me. I know this because some of my friends got stuck in the same situation. This is why we would refer to the kids who went to the public elementary schools in town as "Parker Pigs" and Lincoln Stinkins." But enough of my damage.
I always enjoy the idea of track and field day as much as I usually enjoy the execution of it. I referenced this a few days ago in a different post, but it's worth mentioning again: Our Phy. Ed. teacher really sets it up as a major event, and he's got it running like the proverbial well-oiled machine. The only hang-up we usually experience is the dunk tank, which I'm usually co-running. When you have to give an entire grade level worth of girls or boys three turns to hit the target and some of them do (sometimes very often), it's logistically impossible to stay on schedule. The number of softballs I had to chase down and retrieve today alone will guarantee that my knees won't have their full range of motion return until Monday, at the earliest.
As sore as I am right now, I can still say we had a great day. This was especially since I had the foresight to coat my exposed skin in as much SPF 50 as it would hold. I'll spare you the description of how easily I burn and what happened the year I put sunscreen on everywhere except the one rectangular patch on my arm that somehow I missed....
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Day 29 - Big Block of Cheese Day: The Return
If you didn't watch "The West Wing," you probably don't know about Big Block of Cheese Day. If you've read any of my previous Big Block of Cheese Day posts, you already know my somewhat inaccurate reason for using this title when I write a post made of a collection of various topics instead of one consistent idea. Hopefully that intro will be enough to catch you up on what to expect today.
Outside the Comfort Zone
Tonight I went to a retirement party for a former colleague where I had the chance to see several other people I taught with earlier in my career. I enjoyed seeing many faces from my past and catching up with them, but by the time I left I felt the introversion kicking in and my energy draining from being around so many people after a day of teaching and then a party after school. The thing is, I've got a long day of Track and Field tomorrow, which means there will likely be at least three times as many people at school than there are on a typical day. And when that all ends, there's a post-Track and Field staff gathering going on right after school. I'm going, partly because it's been awhile since we've had any kind of off-campus staff thing going on and I really do enjoy those kinds of things (I know, kind of a shock), and partly because I told someone else I'd be there and I keep my word. But I'm already planning how important it will be for me to find the right place to sit to make sure my batteries aren't completely drained after half an hour of celebrating. And this is to say nothing of a big family weekend centered on my cousin's graduation open house, so all of this means I'm not going to get a lot of recharging time until Sunday afternoon. Anyone who spends time with me in the next 72 hours who notices I'm a little off? Now you'll know why.
Accidental Societal Engineering
I've observed in the past that the school year still following a schedule established during an agrarian economy has its upsides: Saying goodbye to the students you've worked with so much and bonded with over the past nine months can be an emotional time. Luckily, a lot of these kids start acting up in the last few weeks of the school year because they can sense summer is almost here. This makes saying goodbyes a little bit easier.
Binge
There is nothing interesting on TV these days since we're in the lull between spring shows having their season finales and summer shows not starting yet. I do plan on restarting Netflix as soon as I feel like I've capped off the school year once and for all, and I plan on doing some show binges this summer while the account is active. I've got season 2 of "House of Cards" on deck, and I have every episode (so far) of "Fargo" saved on the DVR, with plans to wait for the series to end and then go through it all at once like I did this spring with "True Detective." I'm very open to suggestions of other shows people would recommend. (And since this seems to be an issue for certain circles of mine, I'll just offer this: I have never seen a single episode of "Veronica Mars" and don't know enough about it to be convinced that's a bad thing.)
I Like Tacos
If you've been following some of the more wandering comment threads that appear on my Facebook timeline over the past year, you may have come across the prhase "I like tacos" coming out of nowhere once or twice, or many times. My cousin Paul started this as what I can only imagine was originally intended to be a randomly dropped cognitive weapon meant to disrupt any conversation that was becoming too serious, or too long, or too unfocused. Several other of my relatives followed suit and before long it became an online catch phrase for us, one that developed enough staying power that it led to me hosting two, count 'em, TWO family taco parties at my house in the past year. And these weren't necessarily small - between the two parties we had people residing in at least four different states attending. Neither of them had been my idea, but it turned out planting the suggestion was enough to get the taco rolling. For the record I think tacos are fine, but I can honestly say I haven't had one in at least six months. Not even the scary new breakfast variety.
What a Crock
Speaking of food, I got a brand new Crock Pot for my birthday. I decided using one of these was a skill worth mastering, and summer vacation is a great time for a project like this. (I'm partially inspired to this by one teacher I know who, years ago, declared her project for the summer was to discover the perfect strawberry margarita recipe.) Since I live 700 yards from the Takeout Capital of North America, cooking in the summer has never been a big thing for me. But this summer that will change. If anyone has any slow cooker recipes they think I absolutely have to try, send 'em my way.
My Second Job
This time of year at school the topic of most conversations usually winds up at "So what are your plans this summer?" Happily I can say this year I'll be writing. Sure, I was last summer too, and probably the one before that and the one before that and so on, but this year everything about the purpose is different. I've spent the past month and a half doing a lot of editing, some early revising, and ton of developing ideas I want to use for when it's time to let the dogs loose and go to town on the revisions for real. I have a ridiculous amount of notes and ideas stashed away in four different locations right now, and I can't wait to tear into them. It feels like a dam about to burst.
Late Night
Does anyone watch Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show or Seth Meyers' Late Night? I will if I'm up late enough, and I couldn't enjoy their shows more. I loved watching SNL when they were both in the cast, and I'll sometimes catch reruns from that era on VH1 Classic. When I see an old favorite sketch come up that featured one or both of them, I'll feel a strange kind of pride for them to think these two guys I enjoyed so much on the show back then have gone on to bigger things.
The Zen of 5th Grade Closing
I plan on putting in a lot of late evenings at school next week, inventorying all of my 5th grade supplies to get them sorted for the new 5th grade team, throwing out the things I won't need anymore as I move on to another grade, and organizing the few materials my non-hoarding self has managed to keep after so many classroom moves of the past. It's a pain of a job, but a part of me really enjoys doing it. There's good emotional closure in putting aside the things you won't need anymore and preparing for what's next. As ready as I am for summer to begin RIGHT NOW, I feel like the last couple of weeks are going to end well.
Outside the Comfort Zone
Tonight I went to a retirement party for a former colleague where I had the chance to see several other people I taught with earlier in my career. I enjoyed seeing many faces from my past and catching up with them, but by the time I left I felt the introversion kicking in and my energy draining from being around so many people after a day of teaching and then a party after school. The thing is, I've got a long day of Track and Field tomorrow, which means there will likely be at least three times as many people at school than there are on a typical day. And when that all ends, there's a post-Track and Field staff gathering going on right after school. I'm going, partly because it's been awhile since we've had any kind of off-campus staff thing going on and I really do enjoy those kinds of things (I know, kind of a shock), and partly because I told someone else I'd be there and I keep my word. But I'm already planning how important it will be for me to find the right place to sit to make sure my batteries aren't completely drained after half an hour of celebrating. And this is to say nothing of a big family weekend centered on my cousin's graduation open house, so all of this means I'm not going to get a lot of recharging time until Sunday afternoon. Anyone who spends time with me in the next 72 hours who notices I'm a little off? Now you'll know why.
Accidental Societal Engineering
I've observed in the past that the school year still following a schedule established during an agrarian economy has its upsides: Saying goodbye to the students you've worked with so much and bonded with over the past nine months can be an emotional time. Luckily, a lot of these kids start acting up in the last few weeks of the school year because they can sense summer is almost here. This makes saying goodbyes a little bit easier.
Binge
There is nothing interesting on TV these days since we're in the lull between spring shows having their season finales and summer shows not starting yet. I do plan on restarting Netflix as soon as I feel like I've capped off the school year once and for all, and I plan on doing some show binges this summer while the account is active. I've got season 2 of "House of Cards" on deck, and I have every episode (so far) of "Fargo" saved on the DVR, with plans to wait for the series to end and then go through it all at once like I did this spring with "True Detective." I'm very open to suggestions of other shows people would recommend. (And since this seems to be an issue for certain circles of mine, I'll just offer this: I have never seen a single episode of "Veronica Mars" and don't know enough about it to be convinced that's a bad thing.)
I Like Tacos
If you've been following some of the more wandering comment threads that appear on my Facebook timeline over the past year, you may have come across the prhase "I like tacos" coming out of nowhere once or twice, or many times. My cousin Paul started this as what I can only imagine was originally intended to be a randomly dropped cognitive weapon meant to disrupt any conversation that was becoming too serious, or too long, or too unfocused. Several other of my relatives followed suit and before long it became an online catch phrase for us, one that developed enough staying power that it led to me hosting two, count 'em, TWO family taco parties at my house in the past year. And these weren't necessarily small - between the two parties we had people residing in at least four different states attending. Neither of them had been my idea, but it turned out planting the suggestion was enough to get the taco rolling. For the record I think tacos are fine, but I can honestly say I haven't had one in at least six months. Not even the scary new breakfast variety.
What a Crock
Speaking of food, I got a brand new Crock Pot for my birthday. I decided using one of these was a skill worth mastering, and summer vacation is a great time for a project like this. (I'm partially inspired to this by one teacher I know who, years ago, declared her project for the summer was to discover the perfect strawberry margarita recipe.) Since I live 700 yards from the Takeout Capital of North America, cooking in the summer has never been a big thing for me. But this summer that will change. If anyone has any slow cooker recipes they think I absolutely have to try, send 'em my way.
My Second Job
This time of year at school the topic of most conversations usually winds up at "So what are your plans this summer?" Happily I can say this year I'll be writing. Sure, I was last summer too, and probably the one before that and the one before that and so on, but this year everything about the purpose is different. I've spent the past month and a half doing a lot of editing, some early revising, and ton of developing ideas I want to use for when it's time to let the dogs loose and go to town on the revisions for real. I have a ridiculous amount of notes and ideas stashed away in four different locations right now, and I can't wait to tear into them. It feels like a dam about to burst.
Late Night
Does anyone watch Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show or Seth Meyers' Late Night? I will if I'm up late enough, and I couldn't enjoy their shows more. I loved watching SNL when they were both in the cast, and I'll sometimes catch reruns from that era on VH1 Classic. When I see an old favorite sketch come up that featured one or both of them, I'll feel a strange kind of pride for them to think these two guys I enjoyed so much on the show back then have gone on to bigger things.
The Zen of 5th Grade Closing
I plan on putting in a lot of late evenings at school next week, inventorying all of my 5th grade supplies to get them sorted for the new 5th grade team, throwing out the things I won't need anymore as I move on to another grade, and organizing the few materials my non-hoarding self has managed to keep after so many classroom moves of the past. It's a pain of a job, but a part of me really enjoys doing it. There's good emotional closure in putting aside the things you won't need anymore and preparing for what's next. As ready as I am for summer to begin RIGHT NOW, I feel like the last couple of weeks are going to end well.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Day 28 - Behind the Kit
I’ve been a drummer for over thirty years. Once a week throughout fifth and sixth grade I would carry a snare drum that probably weighed as much as I did a good eight blocks to a different school for lessons. In high school I worked my way up to being the section leader in my senior year (after all the really good drummers had graduated). I did well in a couple of solo/ensemble competitions, I played in an honor band or two, and I played in the high school jazz band. Then I stopped for a couple of decades, with my only drumming outlet being the hyperactive way I’d tap my fingers and bounce my feet at school, until either a student would comment on it or one of my teacher friends would gently reach over and hold my hand to keep it still when they couldn’t stand it anymore.
A few years ago I traded my treadmill away to my sister for my nephew’s electronic drum set, since he didn’t use it much anymore. (For the record, I didn’t need the treadmill anymore because I was getting use out of my Y membership, and I still am.) There was a slight learning curve in coming back to playing, but after I set up the drums in my office I’m now back to where I can at least keep a reasonably steady beat and occasionally toss in a rudimentary fill when I play along with iTunes or jam with my cousins a couple of times each year. Playing along with iTunes is easy to do: I’ve arranged my office so the drums are a 90-degree spin to the right from my computer work station.
All of this is to say that when it comes to listening to music, I tend to notice the drumming probably more than other people do, and I’ve developed a list of favorite drummers over the years. Tonight I’m presenting the ones who would currently make my top 10. To clarify, these aren’t necessarily the most skilled drummers out there and I’m sure there are many out there I’m not aware of who would blow my mind if I knew their work, but for the time being these are the ones I enjoy listening to. In no particular order:
Butch Vig of Garbage - He might be better known as a producer and arguably so, and since Garbage can be heavily dependent on an electronic sound it’s difficult to say exactly how much actual drumming factors into the music. But I really like how Garbage plays with so many varied rhythms and percussive sounds, and I have to believe the drummer would play a big part in creating that.
Sonny Emory of Bruce Hornsby’s band, The Noisemakers - I’ve seen him play live a few times. It astonishes me how he can play with such mastery and make it seem effortless. Just a plug: If only know Bruce Hornsby’s work through his handful of late 80s/early 90s hits, you are really missing out on an incredible live band playing with throwaway virtuosity.
Nick D’Virgilio, formerly of Spock’s Beard - A very tight and reliably in-the-pocket player, he was chosen to drum for Genesis once Phil Collins quit the band for good. Nick also makes the list for his pivotal role in completing one of my favorite albums, “The Shaming of the True” by Kevin Gilbert, after Gilbert’s premature death.
Patrick Carney of The Black Keys - He has a stead workmanlike approach to his playing, and the band’s music doesn’t ask for much more. He’s on my list for two reasons: The deep, meaty tone he plays with, and his tendency to play at the back end of the beat as if he’s just a fraction of a second away from dragging but never does.
Roger Taylor of Queen - He really makes the list because he’s Roger Taylor of Queen.
Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters - A very solid player, and I love watching the hyperactive way he just attacks his drums. He’s a funny and engaging guy in interviews, and know for a fact if he had been one of my students back in his elementary school days, he would have driven me completely up the wall.
Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree - Because of the truly progressive and almost jazz-like nature of the band’s music, very little of his drumming is just straightforward rock playing. He was actually featured on The Late Show with David Letterman a few years ago as one of the guests during Drum Solo Week. I’m sure when he was introduced there were a lot of people who thought, “What was the band name? Porcupine Tree?!” And then they saw him play.
Mike Portnoy formerly of Dream Theater and currently of Transatlantic, Flying Colors, The Winery Dogs, and probably eight or nine other bands - For the longest time Mike was my top player, but the way he left Dream Theater didn’t happen well and added some unnecessary degrees of turbulence to one of my favorite bands. He’s doubtlessly one of the best drummers out there and by a wide, wide, wide margin, but I’d still like him more if his exit had gone differently.
Mike Mangini of Dream Theater - I would have thought Portnoy was irreplaceable, but not the case at all. Mike M. came into Dream Theater as a respected journeyman drummer who’d played with several other bands and musicians. He had held the world speed record for drumming (I’ve seen him play an extended drum roll one-handed, which I can’t even fathom), and he was a professor at the Berklee College of Music before joining Dream Theater. I watched a short instructional video he put together a few months ago to explain what he was doing on a song from the most recent album, and he spoke about playing in two different time signatures on opposite sides of his body like it was an afterthought. He doesn’t just think about building a foundation for the rest of the song but plays in ways that will compliment the other musicians. It’s really quite something.
Neil Peart of Rush - You know the name or you don’t. If you don’t, it’d be hard to explain his place in drumming without the proper context, outside of the standard “widely considered to be the best drummer in popular music” cliché. But just because it’s a cliché doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.
A few years ago I traded my treadmill away to my sister for my nephew’s electronic drum set, since he didn’t use it much anymore. (For the record, I didn’t need the treadmill anymore because I was getting use out of my Y membership, and I still am.) There was a slight learning curve in coming back to playing, but after I set up the drums in my office I’m now back to where I can at least keep a reasonably steady beat and occasionally toss in a rudimentary fill when I play along with iTunes or jam with my cousins a couple of times each year. Playing along with iTunes is easy to do: I’ve arranged my office so the drums are a 90-degree spin to the right from my computer work station.
All of this is to say that when it comes to listening to music, I tend to notice the drumming probably more than other people do, and I’ve developed a list of favorite drummers over the years. Tonight I’m presenting the ones who would currently make my top 10. To clarify, these aren’t necessarily the most skilled drummers out there and I’m sure there are many out there I’m not aware of who would blow my mind if I knew their work, but for the time being these are the ones I enjoy listening to. In no particular order:
Butch Vig of Garbage - He might be better known as a producer and arguably so, and since Garbage can be heavily dependent on an electronic sound it’s difficult to say exactly how much actual drumming factors into the music. But I really like how Garbage plays with so many varied rhythms and percussive sounds, and I have to believe the drummer would play a big part in creating that.
Sonny Emory of Bruce Hornsby’s band, The Noisemakers - I’ve seen him play live a few times. It astonishes me how he can play with such mastery and make it seem effortless. Just a plug: If only know Bruce Hornsby’s work through his handful of late 80s/early 90s hits, you are really missing out on an incredible live band playing with throwaway virtuosity.
Nick D’Virgilio, formerly of Spock’s Beard - A very tight and reliably in-the-pocket player, he was chosen to drum for Genesis once Phil Collins quit the band for good. Nick also makes the list for his pivotal role in completing one of my favorite albums, “The Shaming of the True” by Kevin Gilbert, after Gilbert’s premature death.
Patrick Carney of The Black Keys - He has a stead workmanlike approach to his playing, and the band’s music doesn’t ask for much more. He’s on my list for two reasons: The deep, meaty tone he plays with, and his tendency to play at the back end of the beat as if he’s just a fraction of a second away from dragging but never does.
Roger Taylor of Queen - He really makes the list because he’s Roger Taylor of Queen.
Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters - A very solid player, and I love watching the hyperactive way he just attacks his drums. He’s a funny and engaging guy in interviews, and know for a fact if he had been one of my students back in his elementary school days, he would have driven me completely up the wall.
Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree - Because of the truly progressive and almost jazz-like nature of the band’s music, very little of his drumming is just straightforward rock playing. He was actually featured on The Late Show with David Letterman a few years ago as one of the guests during Drum Solo Week. I’m sure when he was introduced there were a lot of people who thought, “What was the band name? Porcupine Tree?!” And then they saw him play.
Mike Portnoy formerly of Dream Theater and currently of Transatlantic, Flying Colors, The Winery Dogs, and probably eight or nine other bands - For the longest time Mike was my top player, but the way he left Dream Theater didn’t happen well and added some unnecessary degrees of turbulence to one of my favorite bands. He’s doubtlessly one of the best drummers out there and by a wide, wide, wide margin, but I’d still like him more if his exit had gone differently.
Mike Mangini of Dream Theater - I would have thought Portnoy was irreplaceable, but not the case at all. Mike M. came into Dream Theater as a respected journeyman drummer who’d played with several other bands and musicians. He had held the world speed record for drumming (I’ve seen him play an extended drum roll one-handed, which I can’t even fathom), and he was a professor at the Berklee College of Music before joining Dream Theater. I watched a short instructional video he put together a few months ago to explain what he was doing on a song from the most recent album, and he spoke about playing in two different time signatures on opposite sides of his body like it was an afterthought. He doesn’t just think about building a foundation for the rest of the song but plays in ways that will compliment the other musicians. It’s really quite something.
Neil Peart of Rush - You know the name or you don’t. If you don’t, it’d be hard to explain his place in drumming without the proper context, outside of the standard “widely considered to be the best drummer in popular music” cliché. But just because it’s a cliché doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Day 27 - The Young Author's Conference
Today I had the opportunity to be one of the chaperones my school sent to the Young Author’s Conference. The students who go participate in a number of short seminar-like sessions presented by writers from every imaginable discipline: authors, poets, songwriters, screenwriters, journalists, musicians -- you name it, they’ve got it. Sixteen fourth and fifth graders from my school attended, each chosen by their teachers because of their writing ability and interest. It’s exactly the kind of thing I would have loved to have done as a kid that age, and as far as academic field trips go I can’t think of any others I’d rather chaperone. I’ve done it twice before, and really wanted to this year since I’ll be switching to 3rd grade soon and this would really be my last chance to go. Stephanie, one of our fourth grade teachers, co-chaperoned with me, which worked out perfectly since the group we were taking was pretty evenly split between our two grades.
The Young Authors Conference has been held for 24 years now, so the organizers and volunteers in charge of it all had everything running smoothly. Once we were off the bus we were directed into one of the nearby buildings and then into a theater where the keynote speaker, Young Adult author Geoff Herbach, would be kicking off the conference. As we found our seats, the group that I can only assume is the official Young Authors Conference house band (because they’ve performed every year I’ve attended), Cyril Paul and the Calypso Monarchs, was onstage playing their way through the sunniest moments of the Bob Marley catalog, which inevitably led to a conga line of at least sixty middle schoolers bouncing up and down the aisles. I got a look at the face of the girl leading the line as it passed our row, and she looked completely overwhelmed by the position she’d found herself in.
Geoff Herbach had a great keynote speech. I’d bought one of his books, STUPID FAST, a few years ago when it had first come out and enjoyed it a lot, so I was excited to hear from him when I connected his name back to that title. He had a crowd of over one thousand kids to engage, and kept them with him the whole time. He told us about the formative events of his early life, how he found his way to his writing origins, and described some of the ways he came up with characters, which perfectly tied into the overall conference theme.
One of the beautiful things about the YAC is that for the most part, chaperones can more or less go where we want when it comes to the sessions. The students need tickets, but chaperones can pretty much just sidle into the room and crash. I saw Herbach was offering sessions throughout the day, and since his topic of developing characters based around specific details is something I’m working with in my own revisions right now, that seemed like a good place to start. The session was just as engaging as the keynote speech and more entertaining for me, since I got to see how he made the process fun for the kids and got them thinking. Listening to the questions they asked and the ideas they offered, it was easy to see the kids in the session were all amazingly intelligent and creative. While I tried to disappear into my observer role I felt as if I had an asterisk floating over my head, waiting for one of the adults in the room to ask me what I taught and thinking that if I answered “math,” I’d get reactions ranging from “Huh. How’d you end up at a writing conference?” all the way to “What?! Math! You’re one of THOSE?! You don’t belong here! Get the hell out!!!” At which point I’d defensively sputter my way through an explanation: “No... but... really, it’s okay... I’ve taught writing... and I’m... you know... I write... myself... so... it’s okay... I can connect... I’ve written... books... no, not published, but... look... here, see, this is... you know, Twitter... I have an agent and everything... it’s really okay, just let me stay... I promise I’ll be quiet!” Or something along those lines. Luckily for everyone involved it never reached that point.
Being a creative writing professor as well as an author, Herbach had a lot of ideas about developing character, so I frantically typed away on my iPhone to get down as many as I could. The kids in the session were as entertaining as he was, although by the end their ideas devolved into being less about developing solid characters and instead trying to out-ridiculous each other, which is how we wound up hearing descriptions of Satan-worshiping co-op workers, zombie apocalypse survivors, and Josh, the pantsless, non-food-eating wonder who had a wide variety of video-game specific weaponry stashed away in his underpants. You could tell Herbach had spent time in the classroom, because he managed to fight uphill past the goofy and still got his points across.
After that first session, I stopped in the room next door to say a quick hello to a different author I know who was presenting, David LaRochelle. David taught at my school long ago, way back before I was there, but has been around as a guest author and artist in residence many times. He was someone I had occasionally checked in with for advice when my play being produced, and we’ve always been able to talk writing when our paths crossed. He asked if I had anything going on with writing or any news to share. I was very happy that I did, and that we had a couple minutes to talk about it.
Our lunch session was next. By the time I found the gym, Stephanie had already collected most of our group. The bleachers were filled with kids carrying field trip specific lunches full of way more food than they could possibly eat in their allotted twenty minutes. The Calypso Monarchs were set up to enhance our field house dining experience, and a lot of the kids bounced and swayed in place as they ate and shared food with their friends. Of course since we were at a young authors conference, there was also no small number of kids who had brought books to read during their idle moments.
When we finished eating we took our turn at a sizable book fair set up on the other side of the field house, courtesy of The Red Balloon, a well-known children’s book store in St. Paul. I picked up Herbach’s new book FAT BOY VS. THE CHEERLEADERS as well as a couple others that looked interesting. One was from a local author, Jane St. Anthony. I planned on attending her session next, and thought it would be a rare opportunity to know I was going read her book but listen to her talk about her process before I did.
Her group was smaller, younger, and far more sedate. She gave the kids some good general advice and walked them through her character development strategies a step at a time: “It’s so easy to write lazy; Don’t write longer, write deeper; The goal of artist is to reach somebody, so how will you connect?” She gave the kids plenty of chances to share their ideas, and since so many of the attendees were doubtlessly the some of the best and the brightest their respective schools had to offer, they were all more than happy to share. It was fascinating to sit in on a discussion with kids ranging from 4th grade to 8th: The younger kids were more unfiltered in their ideas, enthusiastic to share and sometimes awkwardly searching for words they couldn’t quite reach but knew would be perfect to express what they were thinking. The older kids were more thoughtful and articulate and self-aware, with traces of ‘little kid’ still showing around their edges. I overheard one girl read through her writing assignment after the kids broke into small groups to share. Even though I didn’t know her I felt a lot of teacher pride as she tried so hard to incorporate some ambitious vocabulary and figurative language into her work, even if it was just beyond her capability but still so much more than I would have expected from someone her age.
I ducked out a few minutes early to avoid what was going to be a very crowded post-session hallway and spent some time wandering, taking in the academic atmosphere of the college: so many posters and signs, bulletin boards, the sound of copy machines around every corner, quiet nooks with big comfortable chairs that seemed so randomly placed and would have been filled with students studying or having conversations had school been in session. It made me flash back a moment and remember how much I had loved college.
I did attend a third session about character development but didn’t stay very long since I wanted to make sure the students we’d brought would be able to find me as our group reassembled at the end of the day. Stephanie arrived at the meet-up only a few minutes after I had, and well before the students. We talked a little about some of the sessions we attended, which were really more for our own interest than anything else because, as it happens, Stephanie is also a math teacher. Which spirals back to a question that I seem to get several times each year: Why don’t I teach writing?
The easy answer is that I’m assigned to a teaching position, so I do what I’m told. And to be frank, I’ve got some game when it comes to teaching math, so I get the job done. But I have to admit that occasionally I wonder what it would be like to work with kids who share a passion for writing, even if those kids would be so very few of students I’d have. For now though, it will have to be enough for me that I could have one more day at the Young Authors Conference, and enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by so many people who share my interest in something that's usually so solitary.
I have to say though: More than once during the day, the thought popped up in the back of my mind that maybe, just maybe someday, it would be really cool to go back there again and present....
The Young Authors Conference has been held for 24 years now, so the organizers and volunteers in charge of it all had everything running smoothly. Once we were off the bus we were directed into one of the nearby buildings and then into a theater where the keynote speaker, Young Adult author Geoff Herbach, would be kicking off the conference. As we found our seats, the group that I can only assume is the official Young Authors Conference house band (because they’ve performed every year I’ve attended), Cyril Paul and the Calypso Monarchs, was onstage playing their way through the sunniest moments of the Bob Marley catalog, which inevitably led to a conga line of at least sixty middle schoolers bouncing up and down the aisles. I got a look at the face of the girl leading the line as it passed our row, and she looked completely overwhelmed by the position she’d found herself in.
Geoff Herbach had a great keynote speech. I’d bought one of his books, STUPID FAST, a few years ago when it had first come out and enjoyed it a lot, so I was excited to hear from him when I connected his name back to that title. He had a crowd of over one thousand kids to engage, and kept them with him the whole time. He told us about the formative events of his early life, how he found his way to his writing origins, and described some of the ways he came up with characters, which perfectly tied into the overall conference theme.
One of the beautiful things about the YAC is that for the most part, chaperones can more or less go where we want when it comes to the sessions. The students need tickets, but chaperones can pretty much just sidle into the room and crash. I saw Herbach was offering sessions throughout the day, and since his topic of developing characters based around specific details is something I’m working with in my own revisions right now, that seemed like a good place to start. The session was just as engaging as the keynote speech and more entertaining for me, since I got to see how he made the process fun for the kids and got them thinking. Listening to the questions they asked and the ideas they offered, it was easy to see the kids in the session were all amazingly intelligent and creative. While I tried to disappear into my observer role I felt as if I had an asterisk floating over my head, waiting for one of the adults in the room to ask me what I taught and thinking that if I answered “math,” I’d get reactions ranging from “Huh. How’d you end up at a writing conference?” all the way to “What?! Math! You’re one of THOSE?! You don’t belong here! Get the hell out!!!” At which point I’d defensively sputter my way through an explanation: “No... but... really, it’s okay... I’ve taught writing... and I’m... you know... I write... myself... so... it’s okay... I can connect... I’ve written... books... no, not published, but... look... here, see, this is... you know, Twitter... I have an agent and everything... it’s really okay, just let me stay... I promise I’ll be quiet!” Or something along those lines. Luckily for everyone involved it never reached that point.
Being a creative writing professor as well as an author, Herbach had a lot of ideas about developing character, so I frantically typed away on my iPhone to get down as many as I could. The kids in the session were as entertaining as he was, although by the end their ideas devolved into being less about developing solid characters and instead trying to out-ridiculous each other, which is how we wound up hearing descriptions of Satan-worshiping co-op workers, zombie apocalypse survivors, and Josh, the pantsless, non-food-eating wonder who had a wide variety of video-game specific weaponry stashed away in his underpants. You could tell Herbach had spent time in the classroom, because he managed to fight uphill past the goofy and still got his points across.
After that first session, I stopped in the room next door to say a quick hello to a different author I know who was presenting, David LaRochelle. David taught at my school long ago, way back before I was there, but has been around as a guest author and artist in residence many times. He was someone I had occasionally checked in with for advice when my play being produced, and we’ve always been able to talk writing when our paths crossed. He asked if I had anything going on with writing or any news to share. I was very happy that I did, and that we had a couple minutes to talk about it.
Our lunch session was next. By the time I found the gym, Stephanie had already collected most of our group. The bleachers were filled with kids carrying field trip specific lunches full of way more food than they could possibly eat in their allotted twenty minutes. The Calypso Monarchs were set up to enhance our field house dining experience, and a lot of the kids bounced and swayed in place as they ate and shared food with their friends. Of course since we were at a young authors conference, there was also no small number of kids who had brought books to read during their idle moments.
When we finished eating we took our turn at a sizable book fair set up on the other side of the field house, courtesy of The Red Balloon, a well-known children’s book store in St. Paul. I picked up Herbach’s new book FAT BOY VS. THE CHEERLEADERS as well as a couple others that looked interesting. One was from a local author, Jane St. Anthony. I planned on attending her session next, and thought it would be a rare opportunity to know I was going read her book but listen to her talk about her process before I did.
Her group was smaller, younger, and far more sedate. She gave the kids some good general advice and walked them through her character development strategies a step at a time: “It’s so easy to write lazy; Don’t write longer, write deeper; The goal of artist is to reach somebody, so how will you connect?” She gave the kids plenty of chances to share their ideas, and since so many of the attendees were doubtlessly the some of the best and the brightest their respective schools had to offer, they were all more than happy to share. It was fascinating to sit in on a discussion with kids ranging from 4th grade to 8th: The younger kids were more unfiltered in their ideas, enthusiastic to share and sometimes awkwardly searching for words they couldn’t quite reach but knew would be perfect to express what they were thinking. The older kids were more thoughtful and articulate and self-aware, with traces of ‘little kid’ still showing around their edges. I overheard one girl read through her writing assignment after the kids broke into small groups to share. Even though I didn’t know her I felt a lot of teacher pride as she tried so hard to incorporate some ambitious vocabulary and figurative language into her work, even if it was just beyond her capability but still so much more than I would have expected from someone her age.
I ducked out a few minutes early to avoid what was going to be a very crowded post-session hallway and spent some time wandering, taking in the academic atmosphere of the college: so many posters and signs, bulletin boards, the sound of copy machines around every corner, quiet nooks with big comfortable chairs that seemed so randomly placed and would have been filled with students studying or having conversations had school been in session. It made me flash back a moment and remember how much I had loved college.
I did attend a third session about character development but didn’t stay very long since I wanted to make sure the students we’d brought would be able to find me as our group reassembled at the end of the day. Stephanie arrived at the meet-up only a few minutes after I had, and well before the students. We talked a little about some of the sessions we attended, which were really more for our own interest than anything else because, as it happens, Stephanie is also a math teacher. Which spirals back to a question that I seem to get several times each year: Why don’t I teach writing?
The easy answer is that I’m assigned to a teaching position, so I do what I’m told. And to be frank, I’ve got some game when it comes to teaching math, so I get the job done. But I have to admit that occasionally I wonder what it would be like to work with kids who share a passion for writing, even if those kids would be so very few of students I’d have. For now though, it will have to be enough for me that I could have one more day at the Young Authors Conference, and enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by so many people who share my interest in something that's usually so solitary.
I have to say though: More than once during the day, the thought popped up in the back of my mind that maybe, just maybe someday, it would be really cool to go back there again and present....
Monday, May 26, 2014
Day 26 - Memorial
My uncle Dave was a force of nature. He looked like a 1960s Sean Connery would have if he’d possessed the sunnier temperament of Jimmy Stewart playing George Bailey. He was a colonel in the Air Force stationed in Germany back when his young family was just beginning, and there was always an American flag proudly displayed somewhere in his front yard when his days in the service were over. He was a high school teacher in a small Wisconsin town who possessed the kind of social genius that could make each of twenty different people feel like the most important person in the room at the same time. If Dave was going to be around during holidays or family events, the times were always happier. He had a clear, resonating laugh that could cut through any crowded room, and it was always a prize to be the one who brought that out of him.
For my part, I always saw him as my uncle second and my godfather first. When I was much younger he’d greet me the same way each time I saw him, calling me George and messing up my hair. The times he took me out on my own were special moments, whether it was just getting together with his friends from the Lions Club for coffee or breakfast at the diner in town, or walking me down to the lake near his house where I caught my first sunfish at about five years old. Once he took me up to the Air Base in Duluth to see a C-5 -- one of the largest airplanes in the world -- that had briefly landed there. I thought it was so cool when the guards at the entrance saluted him as we entered.
So many Memorial Day weekends of my childhood were spent with our families at a campground just a short drive from his house. There was swimming in the lake, hiking through the woods, uncomfortably navigating the outhouses, and staring into the campfire late into the nights. There were also many golf games on those weekends. I was too young to play much less swing a club effectively, but I always caddied for my uncle, earning ten cents for each hole and a can of pop that my mother probably wouldn’t have approved of back in the clubhouse.
We lost him far too early. His funeral was one of the first my family had faced. Starting on that day as well as so many times since, I’ve been struck by how much of him I see in my cousins when they work a room, especially back in their hometown when they encounter the people from earlier in their lives. His funeral service had been on a perfect autumn day. I remember my father saying as the two of us drove back to the Cities afterward, “Leave it to Dave to have his funeral on a day like this. He was always a class act.”
Years after he passed there was a pavilion constructed on the same county fairgrounds where he had spent so much time in his work with the Lions Club. It was named Ritsche Pavilion in his memory. If you were to ever see it, you’d see one corner with a sketched portrait of him, there to let people know about the man for whom the structure was named. I’m sure there are a lot of people who pass through that building now who have no idea who he was. But I know there are still a lot of others who remember.
For my part, I always saw him as my uncle second and my godfather first. When I was much younger he’d greet me the same way each time I saw him, calling me George and messing up my hair. The times he took me out on my own were special moments, whether it was just getting together with his friends from the Lions Club for coffee or breakfast at the diner in town, or walking me down to the lake near his house where I caught my first sunfish at about five years old. Once he took me up to the Air Base in Duluth to see a C-5 -- one of the largest airplanes in the world -- that had briefly landed there. I thought it was so cool when the guards at the entrance saluted him as we entered.
So many Memorial Day weekends of my childhood were spent with our families at a campground just a short drive from his house. There was swimming in the lake, hiking through the woods, uncomfortably navigating the outhouses, and staring into the campfire late into the nights. There were also many golf games on those weekends. I was too young to play much less swing a club effectively, but I always caddied for my uncle, earning ten cents for each hole and a can of pop that my mother probably wouldn’t have approved of back in the clubhouse.
We lost him far too early. His funeral was one of the first my family had faced. Starting on that day as well as so many times since, I’ve been struck by how much of him I see in my cousins when they work a room, especially back in their hometown when they encounter the people from earlier in their lives. His funeral service had been on a perfect autumn day. I remember my father saying as the two of us drove back to the Cities afterward, “Leave it to Dave to have his funeral on a day like this. He was always a class act.”
Years after he passed there was a pavilion constructed on the same county fairgrounds where he had spent so much time in his work with the Lions Club. It was named Ritsche Pavilion in his memory. If you were to ever see it, you’d see one corner with a sketched portrait of him, there to let people know about the man for whom the structure was named. I’m sure there are a lot of people who pass through that building now who have no idea who he was. But I know there are still a lot of others who remember.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Day 25 - Another Guest Writer!!
When I decided to do the daily posting for May again, one of my first ideas was to find someone to be a guest writer. Since my friend Betsy writes a blog, she was a natural first choice. If you’re a teacher who does anything related to language arts and you haven’t read her blog, you’re missing out. Betsy is one of the apex predators of the Language Arts teacher world, and if you read her blog you might understand why this is true: Even with the wealth of background knowledge and experience she brings into the classroom, she’s always trying to find ways to do things better. She started her blog “Literary Pathways” because she felt that as someone who teaches writing, she should be more of an active writer herself. Which isn’t to say she’s brand new to writing: She’s a fellow veteran of National Novel Writing Month and has hit the 50,000-word mark each of the three times she chose to participate. (But good luck getting her to let you read anything she wrote -- I haven’t been able to crack through that wall yet.)
I’ve known Betsy for some twenty years. She was one of the people who’d take care of my dog for me if I was out of town, and I was her son’s fifth grade teacher. I’ve had lunch with her at least three times a week for the past eight months. She is one of my personal and professional sounding boards. In exchange for writing a guest post for me, I agreed to write a guest post for her on Literary Pathways, which you can find through a link at the end of her post. Enjoy, and try to learn something -- you might get some Quist points out of it.
*****
I started my blog last summer, and it was really because of one word: Twitter.
I had signed up for a Twitter account a summer or two ago because we were getting some iPads at school, and I wanted some ideas about how to use them. Somewhere I had read that there were lots of good ideas about technology and schools floating around on Twitter, so I signed up and started following tech folks, which then led to following other people in education.
Last summer I started noticing that many of the Tweets I was reading urged teachers to blog about what they were doing in the classroom as a way of reflecting on their practice. I ignored it for a while, but as the summer went by and I started feeling like I needed something new to invigorate my twenty-one years of teaching, I came back to the idea of writing a blog. I wanted it to be practical things another teacher could use, since that’s what I generally find the most useful.
So I emailed my friend Tom, a fellow teacher who had been blogging for a while, and told him what I wanted to do. He had loads of good suggestions, and was very encouraging, and with his help I launched my blog, Literary Pathways. (He was so helpful that he even provided the name when I was stumped).
Has it helped me reflect? I think it has; I know I find myself trying new things in my classroom and wondering how I can tie them into a blog post. I’ve enjoyed getting feedback from other teachers, and sometimes even friends from high school, who read my blog via Facebook, will comment. I’m always tickled that people not in education would take the time to read it.
As I continue the blog, I’d love to have more people commenting and sharing what they do in their classrooms. I’m looping up to my first new grade level in thirteen years next year, moving from fourth grade to fifth with my same group of students, and I know there will be many opportunities to try new strategies out with them, as well as new curriculum for me. I’m hoping to incorporate a lot more technology into their independent work time, and if others have done that, I’d love to hear about it. I’m excited for more blogging opportunities – I started out with one per week, but after our winter break, and then our numerous days off due to cold this winter, I think I’ve reduced my output to about one blog post per month. A new grade level should be just what I need to get back in the weekly blogging habit.
If blogging is something you’ve rolled around but never tried, maybe this is the summer to do it!
Literary Pathways
I’ve known Betsy for some twenty years. She was one of the people who’d take care of my dog for me if I was out of town, and I was her son’s fifth grade teacher. I’ve had lunch with her at least three times a week for the past eight months. She is one of my personal and professional sounding boards. In exchange for writing a guest post for me, I agreed to write a guest post for her on Literary Pathways, which you can find through a link at the end of her post. Enjoy, and try to learn something -- you might get some Quist points out of it.
*****
I started my blog last summer, and it was really because of one word: Twitter.
I had signed up for a Twitter account a summer or two ago because we were getting some iPads at school, and I wanted some ideas about how to use them. Somewhere I had read that there were lots of good ideas about technology and schools floating around on Twitter, so I signed up and started following tech folks, which then led to following other people in education.
Last summer I started noticing that many of the Tweets I was reading urged teachers to blog about what they were doing in the classroom as a way of reflecting on their practice. I ignored it for a while, but as the summer went by and I started feeling like I needed something new to invigorate my twenty-one years of teaching, I came back to the idea of writing a blog. I wanted it to be practical things another teacher could use, since that’s what I generally find the most useful.
So I emailed my friend Tom, a fellow teacher who had been blogging for a while, and told him what I wanted to do. He had loads of good suggestions, and was very encouraging, and with his help I launched my blog, Literary Pathways. (He was so helpful that he even provided the name when I was stumped).
Has it helped me reflect? I think it has; I know I find myself trying new things in my classroom and wondering how I can tie them into a blog post. I’ve enjoyed getting feedback from other teachers, and sometimes even friends from high school, who read my blog via Facebook, will comment. I’m always tickled that people not in education would take the time to read it.
As I continue the blog, I’d love to have more people commenting and sharing what they do in their classrooms. I’m looping up to my first new grade level in thirteen years next year, moving from fourth grade to fifth with my same group of students, and I know there will be many opportunities to try new strategies out with them, as well as new curriculum for me. I’m hoping to incorporate a lot more technology into their independent work time, and if others have done that, I’d love to hear about it. I’m excited for more blogging opportunities – I started out with one per week, but after our winter break, and then our numerous days off due to cold this winter, I think I’ve reduced my output to about one blog post per month. A new grade level should be just what I need to get back in the weekly blogging habit.
If blogging is something you’ve rolled around but never tried, maybe this is the summer to do it!
Literary Pathways
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Day 24 - Q & A, Round Two
My biggest goal on the last day of school is to help the students feel a sense of closure about the year. One of the activities I’ll usually do is a question and answer session with them, when they get to ask me whatever questions they’d like with the promise that all of my answers will be honest. I always reserve the right to pass on some questions if they bring up things I’d rather not discuss, but that only happens once or twice a year, and most of their questions range from “What’s your favorite color?” all the way to “What’s your favorite cereal?” anyway. In that spirit I did a Q&A here last May, mostly as a filler when I needed a post idea. It was kind of fun to do so I thought I’d give it another shot this year. Last May I had about ten questions. Things are going to be different this time.
What was your first job? Was teaching your first choice for a profession? My first job was a community education summer T-ball coach. Teaching was the only profession I ever seriously considered. I’ve been surrounded by education my whole life; I didn’t grow up in a teaching family as much as a teaching dynasty. I’ve said it before, and it’s true: If you took all of the teachers just on my mother’s side of the family we would have enough people to staff a K-12 private school, including the arts, the administration, and all the athletic coaches. When I started college I planned on being a band director and then an English teacher before realizing I was meant for elementary.
Would you ever adopt two cats? Never. I’d need to adopt two eyeballs to go with the ones I’d eventually scratch out of my head.
Since I got my new router, my remote printer doesn’t work. Can you help me? Yes, Grandpa. I will try my best. For now, just directly plug your laptop into the computer when you need to print something until I have time to get out there.
If you could choose one super power, what would it be? Choose one? Would this mean I’d have to forsake my others?
What do you like best about teaching? All of the apple-themed coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, greeting cards, and stationary I’m gifted with on the last day of school.
Worst day in life? I’ll do you one better and pinpoint the worst four minutes: The first time I tried watching “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” the year my sister died and the soul-shredding emotional breakdown that followed.
Worst day of school? Best? I really thought about this but I couldn’t isolate any worst or best day. Any bad days are defined by failings, or challenges that get the better of me. Any good days are when I live up to my own standards and lead people into the successes I know I should be doing consistently anyway. But that day I sprained my ankle during recess duty kind of sucked.
If you could change anything in the world? I’d create a system that would guarantee I’d never again have to sit beside an extrovert on an airplane.
Any regrets? Yep.
If you could change one thing in history? I don’t know if I would. Chaos theory and all. How do I know any change I’d make would result in an overall improvement?
Change in your history? There would be one. But I will never tell anyone about it so don’t bother asking, not even if you think you have any “Oh, but you can just tell me” pull.
Aliens real? Ghosts real? Psychics real? Angels real? I’m assuming this series of questions is asking my opinion, since I’m not expert on the validity of any of these topics. Aliens: The scope of the universe and the laws of probability would dictate it’s almost a certainty; watch some "Cosmos" and you'll see what I mean. Ghosts: Spooky haunting Halloween ghosts? I doubt it. But there are certainly more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. Psychics: Well, they’re actual people. So there’s that. Angels: I believe in angels every time I see you walking down the hall, Sara. (I’ll admit that was cheap, but you kind of teed me up.)
Are you religious? Yes. I don’t wear it on my sleeve, but I am. And let’s face it: Exactly how much of anything do I wear on my sleeve?
Thoughts on death penalty? I’ve come to believe that life is so rare and precious that I can’t even bring myself to watch “Game of Thrones.” But I’ll admit there are situations when I hear about some of the atrocious things people can do to each other, and my lesser nature might reflexively and momentarily think differently.
Democrat or Republican? Democrat. But I think anyone who approaches political ideology from a perspective that refuses to acknowledge the necessity of fair compromise isn’t just part of the problem, but the entire problem.
Happy with the President? I think Julie has shown our union admirable leadership these past several years. Or did you mean someone else?
That enough? Apparently not. More people kept asking.
Why does Target put little sale tags over an item on the shelf that says “on sale for (ex) $23.99” and when you lift the tag, the price on the shelf is really $23.99? Because they want you to think there's a difference between being “for sale” and “on sale,” when either term could be interpreted as grammatically appropriate for an item sold in a retail store. But congratulations on finding your way behind that curtain.
Should we have a team banner this year? Probably.
When are you getting another dog? I’ve seriously thought about it a few times, but whenever I do the scars just rip wide open again and all the pain is refreshed. I loved my little guy more than most of the people I know, and I had to endure the nightmare of watching him die a slow and awful death. I honestly don’t know if I could put myself in the position of even possibly doing that again.
Why is it so damn busy at work when there is a full moon? Because you WORK IN A HOSPITAL.
Are you hapipy? I’m not familiar with that word, but... sure?
Are you coming to Serum’s with us next Friday? That’s the plan, unless someone gives me a reason not to.
Do you like tacos too? Tacos are fine. But I feel I’ve become far too defined by them in the past year, and in a way that was never warranted.
What is the point of pink pens? Two ways to answer this: (1) The point is the end of it where you touch it to the paper, or (2) to write things that will be pink.
What’s happening at Serum’s next Friday? An as of yet undetermined number of people from our staff will be getting together after school to enjoy some appetizers, beverages, and each other’s company. Also at some point I’ll become overwhelmed by the number of people in the group and my introverted amygdala will activate my fight-or-flight response, directing me to seek out someone I can have a prolonged and thoughtful conversation with to avoid all possible small talk, and preferably at the edge of the group so I won’t have anyone to my back. I’ll keep that up until I find a subtle and socially acceptable moment to escape so I can hurry home and recharge.
What is your favorite childhood memory? The first thing that comes to mind would be a week I spent at my grandmother’s during a high school summer when many of my cousins were also there.
What is your favorite meal to cook? Favorite? I could answer this if the question had been phrased, “Since you generally see cooking as more of a necessity than anything else, what routine of meal preparation are you least inconvenienced by?”
Well, how about some light to medium sarcasm? Yeah, how about some?
Besides writing, what’s your favorite thing to do ever? Listen to my cousin Jean sing. Of course.
What would your best day be like? You know, it wasn’t so long ago I had a day that could have set that standard: I made the phone call that settled the deal when I became a client of the woman who is now my literary agent while I was in Seattle visiting one of my best friends and his wife. Later that night we drove into the city and saw our favorite band perform. Plus it was sunny and 70 degrees in Seattle that day, while it was something like 42 degrees and stupid back home.
What do you value most? Loyalty. Once people have earned it from me (which can happen surprisingly quickly since I am fairly guarded) I belong to them. But if that trust is ever broken, it’s not an easy repair.
What’s your favorite day of the week? I love a Sunday when I know there isn't anything about the coming week I need to scramble around to prepare for.
If you could be anyone who would that be? I wouldn’t want to be a different person, but there are probably a few aspects of who I am that could stand to be tweaked a little. But that wasn’t the question....
Who is your hero? I have some "favorites" I admire, and some role models I respect. But I think hero is a pretty charged word to throw around.
How much do you miss my smiling face? Now, who are you again?
Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone, and what did you discuss? My mother called me at school one morning to clarify some plans our family has coming together for the summer. It kind of freaked me out because she never calls me at school in the morning, and I’ve become conditioned to believing that phone calls coming at highly unexpected moments commonly mean really bad news.
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? I don’t think this can be answered outside of a rough estimate. It would depend on the size of the individual’s tongue, the amount of Tootsie Pop surface area that was affected by each lick, and how much saliva was being produced.
Does anyone really know what time it is? No. Time is a human construct, and therefore too open to interpretation.
What is the sound of one JWavy hitting himself? Only one person can answer that, and we haven’t heard from him in quite some time.
With your eyes closed, explain step by step how to tie your shoes. That’s not a question, and you’re not the boss of me.
Thanks for the questions, folks. If you have any follow-ups, maybe there will be a round three in a year or so....
What was your first job? Was teaching your first choice for a profession? My first job was a community education summer T-ball coach. Teaching was the only profession I ever seriously considered. I’ve been surrounded by education my whole life; I didn’t grow up in a teaching family as much as a teaching dynasty. I’ve said it before, and it’s true: If you took all of the teachers just on my mother’s side of the family we would have enough people to staff a K-12 private school, including the arts, the administration, and all the athletic coaches. When I started college I planned on being a band director and then an English teacher before realizing I was meant for elementary.
Would you ever adopt two cats? Never. I’d need to adopt two eyeballs to go with the ones I’d eventually scratch out of my head.
Since I got my new router, my remote printer doesn’t work. Can you help me? Yes, Grandpa. I will try my best. For now, just directly plug your laptop into the computer when you need to print something until I have time to get out there.
If you could choose one super power, what would it be? Choose one? Would this mean I’d have to forsake my others?
What do you like best about teaching? All of the apple-themed coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, greeting cards, and stationary I’m gifted with on the last day of school.
Worst day in life? I’ll do you one better and pinpoint the worst four minutes: The first time I tried watching “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” the year my sister died and the soul-shredding emotional breakdown that followed.
Worst day of school? Best? I really thought about this but I couldn’t isolate any worst or best day. Any bad days are defined by failings, or challenges that get the better of me. Any good days are when I live up to my own standards and lead people into the successes I know I should be doing consistently anyway. But that day I sprained my ankle during recess duty kind of sucked.
If you could change anything in the world? I’d create a system that would guarantee I’d never again have to sit beside an extrovert on an airplane.
Any regrets? Yep.
If you could change one thing in history? I don’t know if I would. Chaos theory and all. How do I know any change I’d make would result in an overall improvement?
Change in your history? There would be one. But I will never tell anyone about it so don’t bother asking, not even if you think you have any “Oh, but you can just tell me” pull.
Aliens real? Ghosts real? Psychics real? Angels real? I’m assuming this series of questions is asking my opinion, since I’m not expert on the validity of any of these topics. Aliens: The scope of the universe and the laws of probability would dictate it’s almost a certainty; watch some "Cosmos" and you'll see what I mean. Ghosts: Spooky haunting Halloween ghosts? I doubt it. But there are certainly more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. Psychics: Well, they’re actual people. So there’s that. Angels: I believe in angels every time I see you walking down the hall, Sara. (I’ll admit that was cheap, but you kind of teed me up.)
Are you religious? Yes. I don’t wear it on my sleeve, but I am. And let’s face it: Exactly how much of anything do I wear on my sleeve?
Thoughts on death penalty? I’ve come to believe that life is so rare and precious that I can’t even bring myself to watch “Game of Thrones.” But I’ll admit there are situations when I hear about some of the atrocious things people can do to each other, and my lesser nature might reflexively and momentarily think differently.
Democrat or Republican? Democrat. But I think anyone who approaches political ideology from a perspective that refuses to acknowledge the necessity of fair compromise isn’t just part of the problem, but the entire problem.
Happy with the President? I think Julie has shown our union admirable leadership these past several years. Or did you mean someone else?
That enough? Apparently not. More people kept asking.
Why does Target put little sale tags over an item on the shelf that says “on sale for (ex) $23.99” and when you lift the tag, the price on the shelf is really $23.99? Because they want you to think there's a difference between being “for sale” and “on sale,” when either term could be interpreted as grammatically appropriate for an item sold in a retail store. But congratulations on finding your way behind that curtain.
Should we have a team banner this year? Probably.
When are you getting another dog? I’ve seriously thought about it a few times, but whenever I do the scars just rip wide open again and all the pain is refreshed. I loved my little guy more than most of the people I know, and I had to endure the nightmare of watching him die a slow and awful death. I honestly don’t know if I could put myself in the position of even possibly doing that again.
Why is it so damn busy at work when there is a full moon? Because you WORK IN A HOSPITAL.
Are you hapipy? I’m not familiar with that word, but... sure?
Are you coming to Serum’s with us next Friday? That’s the plan, unless someone gives me a reason not to.
Do you like tacos too? Tacos are fine. But I feel I’ve become far too defined by them in the past year, and in a way that was never warranted.
What is the point of pink pens? Two ways to answer this: (1) The point is the end of it where you touch it to the paper, or (2) to write things that will be pink.
What’s happening at Serum’s next Friday? An as of yet undetermined number of people from our staff will be getting together after school to enjoy some appetizers, beverages, and each other’s company. Also at some point I’ll become overwhelmed by the number of people in the group and my introverted amygdala will activate my fight-or-flight response, directing me to seek out someone I can have a prolonged and thoughtful conversation with to avoid all possible small talk, and preferably at the edge of the group so I won’t have anyone to my back. I’ll keep that up until I find a subtle and socially acceptable moment to escape so I can hurry home and recharge.
What is your favorite childhood memory? The first thing that comes to mind would be a week I spent at my grandmother’s during a high school summer when many of my cousins were also there.
What is your favorite meal to cook? Favorite? I could answer this if the question had been phrased, “Since you generally see cooking as more of a necessity than anything else, what routine of meal preparation are you least inconvenienced by?”
Well, how about some light to medium sarcasm? Yeah, how about some?
Besides writing, what’s your favorite thing to do ever? Listen to my cousin Jean sing. Of course.
What would your best day be like? You know, it wasn’t so long ago I had a day that could have set that standard: I made the phone call that settled the deal when I became a client of the woman who is now my literary agent while I was in Seattle visiting one of my best friends and his wife. Later that night we drove into the city and saw our favorite band perform. Plus it was sunny and 70 degrees in Seattle that day, while it was something like 42 degrees and stupid back home.
What do you value most? Loyalty. Once people have earned it from me (which can happen surprisingly quickly since I am fairly guarded) I belong to them. But if that trust is ever broken, it’s not an easy repair.
What’s your favorite day of the week? I love a Sunday when I know there isn't anything about the coming week I need to scramble around to prepare for.
If you could be anyone who would that be? I wouldn’t want to be a different person, but there are probably a few aspects of who I am that could stand to be tweaked a little. But that wasn’t the question....
Who is your hero? I have some "favorites" I admire, and some role models I respect. But I think hero is a pretty charged word to throw around.
How much do you miss my smiling face? Now, who are you again?
Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone, and what did you discuss? My mother called me at school one morning to clarify some plans our family has coming together for the summer. It kind of freaked me out because she never calls me at school in the morning, and I’ve become conditioned to believing that phone calls coming at highly unexpected moments commonly mean really bad news.
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? I don’t think this can be answered outside of a rough estimate. It would depend on the size of the individual’s tongue, the amount of Tootsie Pop surface area that was affected by each lick, and how much saliva was being produced.
Does anyone really know what time it is? No. Time is a human construct, and therefore too open to interpretation.
What is the sound of one JWavy hitting himself? Only one person can answer that, and we haven’t heard from him in quite some time.
With your eyes closed, explain step by step how to tie your shoes. That’s not a question, and you’re not the boss of me.
Thanks for the questions, folks. If you have any follow-ups, maybe there will be a round three in a year or so....
Friday, May 23, 2014
Day 23 - Rites of Spring / A Change of Seasons
Today was the last day of school before the long Memorial Day weekend. Our principal made an announcement at the start of the day to remind the students they wouldn't have school on Monday. Predictably, many of them raised their hands and cheered. A small number of bold ones even looked in my direction with a hint of challenge in their eyes as they cheered, as if I were their jailer and they had somehow just gotten the best of me. It always occurs to me in these moments how they don't make the connection that I’m getting the time off as well.
Being an extra day long, Memorial Day weekend does feel like a teaser for the oncoming summer, regardless of the weather (and our weekend is supposed to be great this year, so yay for that). As the school year closes, there are a lot of similar benchmark events that signal things are about to change. Here are ten of my favorites, from the past and the present. As always, in no particular order:
1 - End of the Year School Patrol Celebrations at the American Legion. I was the patrol advisor at my school for fifteen years and was recruited back to share it under a one year contract later on, much like Bud Grant coming out of retirement when the Vikings needed his guidance. The patrols were usually a good bunch of kids, so getting to hang out with them for some after school pizza party chaos at the Legion hall a few blocks from school was always good for a few laughs. Since several other schools from the city also attended, I'd usually run into some other teacher friends and community people I'd gotten to know over the years but didn't get to see very often.
2 - The Young Author's Conference. This is a big deal field trip for a select number of students, all of whom have demonstrated some interest and ability in writing. I've chaperoned this twice and get to again this year, so you can count on a more detailed description of the day showing up here very soon.
3 - Yearbooks. The students love their yearbooks, and ours have evolved into something really nice over the past couple of decades. I've bought one from every year I've taught and do my best to get every student I worked with to sign it before the year ends. I never get them all, but I usually get close. I think the collection will be nice to have when my career eventually ends.
4 - My sleeping patterns are off. This isn't great since it leads to some tired mornings, but I like the reminder of how it won't be much longer until it doesn't matter if I stay up late, or sleep in, or get up early, or set my alarm ever, or take as many naps as I want.
5 - "June," by Spock's Beard. It's become my own tradition to play this song first thing in the morning when I wake up on June 1st. I realize most people who read this will not have heard the song before and won't know the band (sorry, your loss), but it's a beautiful song and has an appropriate feel for some quiet acknowledgement that a big chunk of life is about to wrap up.
6 - Track and Field Day / Post-Track and Field Collaboration. Our Phy. Ed. teacher really goes out of his way to make Track and Field Day an event at our school: The DJ, the frozen treats, the 5th grade all-stars competition, the dunk tank, mapping out the events and planning a well-organized rotation, and probably as many family members coming to spend the day at school as there are students. Since it takes up the entire school day, there's never any time left for the staff to have any of the terribly important collaboration sessions that we usually thrive on, so we'll get together and take care of that at some off-campus establishment after the school day has ended.
7 - Locker Clean Out Day. I love the feeling when this is over. All of the stuff that never went home is cleared out. The emptied lockers echo a little louder in the hallway, giving us a subconscious cue that we're almost at the end of the year.
8 - The Shoreview Field Trip. Fifth grade takes an end of the year celebration field trip to a community center with a massive pool in a nearby suburb each year in the final week. I've done this field trip eighteen times, and this year will be my last one. As far as field trips go it's about as low-impact as they get. I've always liked the visual of seeing the entire grade level together as one group, having a good time in the pool and enjoying each other for one of the last times they'll be THAT group before they move on and become diluted by so many other kids at the middle school.
9 - The Appreciation Letters. Many years ago I started a project in which I had the fifth graders reflect on their time at our school and think about who on the staff had really made a difference for them, and then writing that person (or those people, because several kids do this more than once) a letter to express their appreciation. a few kids blow this off and hand in letters that are little more than obligatory afterthoughts, but almost everyone thinks up at least one person they want to thank, and it's always fascinating to see some of the specific reasons and memories they mention when they do. I know from comments I've received over the years that the project means a lot to the people on the staff who get these letters, but I think it means even more to the kids, and helps them get some closure in their final days of elementary school.
10 - The final drive home. Not so much a rite of spring as a beginning of summer, but it's still a big moment when that last day of school for the teachers, the work day when the students aren't around, finally comes to an end. The year is done, the grading is finished, the files are filed, the boxes are packed, the goodbyes are said. People share summer plans, say last goodbyes to any retirees, stuff their belongings and last-day-of-school gifts in the cars and drive off to enjoy their break. The drive home always starts off a with a touch of immediate and melancholy loneliness for me since I'm leaving my school friends behind for a few months, and I know my life isn't going to intersect much with most of them during that time. But by the time I reach home, my perspective has switched. It's sunk in that summer vacation as arrived, and I start to feel the whole world open up in front of me: I've got some 70+ days off from work, and I know I've done the best I could have in the school year I just walked away from. Those two things feel pretty good.
Being an extra day long, Memorial Day weekend does feel like a teaser for the oncoming summer, regardless of the weather (and our weekend is supposed to be great this year, so yay for that). As the school year closes, there are a lot of similar benchmark events that signal things are about to change. Here are ten of my favorites, from the past and the present. As always, in no particular order:
1 - End of the Year School Patrol Celebrations at the American Legion. I was the patrol advisor at my school for fifteen years and was recruited back to share it under a one year contract later on, much like Bud Grant coming out of retirement when the Vikings needed his guidance. The patrols were usually a good bunch of kids, so getting to hang out with them for some after school pizza party chaos at the Legion hall a few blocks from school was always good for a few laughs. Since several other schools from the city also attended, I'd usually run into some other teacher friends and community people I'd gotten to know over the years but didn't get to see very often.
2 - The Young Author's Conference. This is a big deal field trip for a select number of students, all of whom have demonstrated some interest and ability in writing. I've chaperoned this twice and get to again this year, so you can count on a more detailed description of the day showing up here very soon.
3 - Yearbooks. The students love their yearbooks, and ours have evolved into something really nice over the past couple of decades. I've bought one from every year I've taught and do my best to get every student I worked with to sign it before the year ends. I never get them all, but I usually get close. I think the collection will be nice to have when my career eventually ends.
4 - My sleeping patterns are off. This isn't great since it leads to some tired mornings, but I like the reminder of how it won't be much longer until it doesn't matter if I stay up late, or sleep in, or get up early, or set my alarm ever, or take as many naps as I want.
5 - "June," by Spock's Beard. It's become my own tradition to play this song first thing in the morning when I wake up on June 1st. I realize most people who read this will not have heard the song before and won't know the band (sorry, your loss), but it's a beautiful song and has an appropriate feel for some quiet acknowledgement that a big chunk of life is about to wrap up.
6 - Track and Field Day / Post-Track and Field Collaboration. Our Phy. Ed. teacher really goes out of his way to make Track and Field Day an event at our school: The DJ, the frozen treats, the 5th grade all-stars competition, the dunk tank, mapping out the events and planning a well-organized rotation, and probably as many family members coming to spend the day at school as there are students. Since it takes up the entire school day, there's never any time left for the staff to have any of the terribly important collaboration sessions that we usually thrive on, so we'll get together and take care of that at some off-campus establishment after the school day has ended.
7 - Locker Clean Out Day. I love the feeling when this is over. All of the stuff that never went home is cleared out. The emptied lockers echo a little louder in the hallway, giving us a subconscious cue that we're almost at the end of the year.
8 - The Shoreview Field Trip. Fifth grade takes an end of the year celebration field trip to a community center with a massive pool in a nearby suburb each year in the final week. I've done this field trip eighteen times, and this year will be my last one. As far as field trips go it's about as low-impact as they get. I've always liked the visual of seeing the entire grade level together as one group, having a good time in the pool and enjoying each other for one of the last times they'll be THAT group before they move on and become diluted by so many other kids at the middle school.
9 - The Appreciation Letters. Many years ago I started a project in which I had the fifth graders reflect on their time at our school and think about who on the staff had really made a difference for them, and then writing that person (or those people, because several kids do this more than once) a letter to express their appreciation. a few kids blow this off and hand in letters that are little more than obligatory afterthoughts, but almost everyone thinks up at least one person they want to thank, and it's always fascinating to see some of the specific reasons and memories they mention when they do. I know from comments I've received over the years that the project means a lot to the people on the staff who get these letters, but I think it means even more to the kids, and helps them get some closure in their final days of elementary school.
10 - The final drive home. Not so much a rite of spring as a beginning of summer, but it's still a big moment when that last day of school for the teachers, the work day when the students aren't around, finally comes to an end. The year is done, the grading is finished, the files are filed, the boxes are packed, the goodbyes are said. People share summer plans, say last goodbyes to any retirees, stuff their belongings and last-day-of-school gifts in the cars and drive off to enjoy their break. The drive home always starts off a with a touch of immediate and melancholy loneliness for me since I'm leaving my school friends behind for a few months, and I know my life isn't going to intersect much with most of them during that time. But by the time I reach home, my perspective has switched. It's sunk in that summer vacation as arrived, and I start to feel the whole world open up in front of me: I've got some 70+ days off from work, and I know I've done the best I could have in the school year I just walked away from. Those two things feel pretty good.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Day 22 - Finally
I may have mentioned once or twice here that I don't really like January very much. This year January was obscene, and followed by a February that was practically indistinguishable from January, and a March that was no ride around the lake either.
April almost reached the point where we were going to get the warmer and more comfortable days we really had earned by then, but then Mother Nature rolled over in her bed or something and squashed the pause button on her remote control for a few more weeks.
As of this week, I think I can safely say we've crossed the threshold. We've had two gloriously sunny days, the kinds that demand sunglasses for when you get behind the wheel. We've felt warm breezes that don't even hint at the idea of wind chill. We've even had a few rainy days that have amped themselves up into some good old-fashioned thunderstorms. When I got home from school today I noticed right away how the house was slightly stuffy, and for the first time since maybe October I opened a few windows to let the more comfortable air wash in. Our temperatures have only reached as high as the 70s so far, but that's been enough of a tease to start anticipating the promise of warmer days. Sure, there aren't guarantees. I can remember a few years ago when some friends of mine were passing through on their way from Florida, and were unpleasantly surprised by how cool Minnesota could still be in early June.
On one hand, I can't complain much about the cool summer. After all, I spend at least half of my sunlit hours in a concrete room that is not air conditioned but is filled with some thirty or so eleven-year-olds. From that perspective, hot weather can be the enemy.
But on the other hand? After having the kind of brutal winter that saw schools statewide having to close down due to the ridiculous cold so many times, I'm just fine with the warmer days finally arriving. I'd even welcome a few 100-degree days this year, just to balance out the averages.
Let's just hope I'm not jinxing things by writing this and we'll see 40 degrees and rain in the forecast for Memorial Day weekend.
April almost reached the point where we were going to get the warmer and more comfortable days we really had earned by then, but then Mother Nature rolled over in her bed or something and squashed the pause button on her remote control for a few more weeks.
As of this week, I think I can safely say we've crossed the threshold. We've had two gloriously sunny days, the kinds that demand sunglasses for when you get behind the wheel. We've felt warm breezes that don't even hint at the idea of wind chill. We've even had a few rainy days that have amped themselves up into some good old-fashioned thunderstorms. When I got home from school today I noticed right away how the house was slightly stuffy, and for the first time since maybe October I opened a few windows to let the more comfortable air wash in. Our temperatures have only reached as high as the 70s so far, but that's been enough of a tease to start anticipating the promise of warmer days. Sure, there aren't guarantees. I can remember a few years ago when some friends of mine were passing through on their way from Florida, and were unpleasantly surprised by how cool Minnesota could still be in early June.
On one hand, I can't complain much about the cool summer. After all, I spend at least half of my sunlit hours in a concrete room that is not air conditioned but is filled with some thirty or so eleven-year-olds. From that perspective, hot weather can be the enemy.
But on the other hand? After having the kind of brutal winter that saw schools statewide having to close down due to the ridiculous cold so many times, I'm just fine with the warmer days finally arriving. I'd even welcome a few 100-degree days this year, just to balance out the averages.
Let's just hope I'm not jinxing things by writing this and we'll see 40 degrees and rain in the forecast for Memorial Day weekend.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Day 21 - My Birthday, and a Glimpse at the Year to Come
Last year I ate lunch with someone on my grade level team every day. On some days, if the daily newspaper kept in the staff lounge survived that late in the afternoon, I'd read through our horoscopes. We'd joke about what they said and try to wedge the predictions into the circumstances of our real lives. If you don't get a newspaper or don't frequent the horoscope department, you might not know they publish a special, detailed version each day for anyone with a birthday on that particular date. Since today is my birthday, I looked to see what foresight and wisdom was being offered on the same page as the Cryptoquip and "The Family Circus," because where else are you going to go for reliable information? My 2014 birthday horoscope (with annotations) reads as follows:
"You are highly intuitive now, reading the thought bubbles above people's heads. (Nobody who knows me would deny such an overwhelming truth as this.) June gives you a stage for your talent. (Have I mentioned enough how badly I want the school year to end so I can live the life of a full-time writer for a few months?) You have intense powers of focus and group support in July, so your ideas will take off like wildfire. (I'm assuming this means that whatever I come up with regarding this year's Relay for Life event in early August will be wildly successful, and hundreds, if not thousands of people will join my family to help us make this the celebratory event we'd like it to be. You can bet there will be more information coming about that.) September brings an important sale and the start of a lifestyle improvement. (Obviously this has to mean I'll have my revisions done by the end of the summer at the latest, and my agent -- let's say that part again, just for kicks, and let it sink in nice and slowly: ...my agent... will sell the manuscript early this fall and score me a nine-figure gold-plated advance that will have me buying new cars for everyone I know, unless they want boats or motorcycles or trucks; after all, why not share the lifestyle improvement far and wide?) Scorpio and Libra people adore you. (Hey there, all you Scorpios and Libras. What's up.... *wink*)
Looks like I've got quite a year ahead of me, doesn't it?
"You are highly intuitive now, reading the thought bubbles above people's heads. (Nobody who knows me would deny such an overwhelming truth as this.) June gives you a stage for your talent. (Have I mentioned enough how badly I want the school year to end so I can live the life of a full-time writer for a few months?) You have intense powers of focus and group support in July, so your ideas will take off like wildfire. (I'm assuming this means that whatever I come up with regarding this year's Relay for Life event in early August will be wildly successful, and hundreds, if not thousands of people will join my family to help us make this the celebratory event we'd like it to be. You can bet there will be more information coming about that.) September brings an important sale and the start of a lifestyle improvement. (Obviously this has to mean I'll have my revisions done by the end of the summer at the latest, and my agent -- let's say that part again, just for kicks, and let it sink in nice and slowly: ...my agent... will sell the manuscript early this fall and score me a nine-figure gold-plated advance that will have me buying new cars for everyone I know, unless they want boats or motorcycles or trucks; after all, why not share the lifestyle improvement far and wide?) Scorpio and Libra people adore you. (Hey there, all you Scorpios and Libras. What's up.... *wink*)
Looks like I've got quite a year ahead of me, doesn't it?
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Day 20 - Character Education Reflections
Today I sat in on a character education lesson in which the students were challenged to write a letter to their 8th grade selves, listing predictions of what they believed their futures held. They were given a handful of prompts to guide their writing, so I decided for tonight’s post I’d answer them myself. Since the kids only had to write their responses and seal them away instead of posting them on the Internet, you can be sure I’ll be holding back on some specifics. But sticking with the theme of what I think will happen in the next three years, here's how I'd answer:
What are your hopes and dreams?
My hopes and dreams are fairly modest. I hope things will go as well as possible for my family and friends, as well as anyone else who may enter that circle in the coming years. As for dreams? It's already been a pretty big year in that respect. If things continue on that path as I hope they will, I'd love to see that list of family and friends come together at release party to celebrate my book being published. And once that moment comes and goes, I'd hope for the dream to come true when I can walk into a bookstore and see something I've written on the shelves.
What are your current interests? Will they be the same?
My interests, in the way I believe the question intended: Music. Books. Science. Movies. Games. At least those are the first and most obvious that come to mind. Will they be the same? I believe they'll continue to be interests, but I hope I some new ones are discovered along the way.
What do you think the world will be like?
This is a tough one to answer, so I'll say I think the world will be significantly different than it is now, and not necessarily all in ways that are good. But hopefully humanity will wake up and start addressing the problems we collectively face before it's too late to do anything about them.
What new technologies will be invented?
My teenage self would have thought something as commonplace as my iPhone is today would have been pure science fiction, and with the geometric rate that the entirety of human knowledge progresses, it’s impossible to predict. I think the biggest advances won’t be limited to something regarding circuitry, but will be medical or something else with broad societal impact. If we've reached a time where it's possible to create artificial DNA, I think it's both exciting and intimidating to consider what will come next.
What places might you visit?
Wherever the circumstances dictate.
One positive about this school year:
Right now my quickest response would be that it’s almost over, and I’d only be half-kidding. A more serious answer would have to do with seeing students overcome any number of personal difficulties they may have faced, and knowing that I had played some small part in helping them find their way to a better outcome.
One thing you are excited about for the next school year:
Top of the list, without hesitation: My new partner.
One thing about the next school year you're worried about:
Worried is really overstating it, but that's the prompt that was given. My concern (a more appropriate word) is that a lot of changes are coming to my school next year. Hopefully we'll all be ready to do what's expected of us in whatever roles we have.
Who will be able to help you with that concern:
The cheap and obvious answer would be to say some rah-rah platitude about collaboration and teamwork, but in real life it's not always that easy. I'd say the people best able to help me with whatever help I might need will be the ones most willing to be honest. And conversely, I can only hope I'll be able to provide that same kind of help for others when it's needed.
Any other questions?
What are your hopes and dreams?
My hopes and dreams are fairly modest. I hope things will go as well as possible for my family and friends, as well as anyone else who may enter that circle in the coming years. As for dreams? It's already been a pretty big year in that respect. If things continue on that path as I hope they will, I'd love to see that list of family and friends come together at release party to celebrate my book being published. And once that moment comes and goes, I'd hope for the dream to come true when I can walk into a bookstore and see something I've written on the shelves.
What are your current interests? Will they be the same?
My interests, in the way I believe the question intended: Music. Books. Science. Movies. Games. At least those are the first and most obvious that come to mind. Will they be the same? I believe they'll continue to be interests, but I hope I some new ones are discovered along the way.
What do you think the world will be like?
This is a tough one to answer, so I'll say I think the world will be significantly different than it is now, and not necessarily all in ways that are good. But hopefully humanity will wake up and start addressing the problems we collectively face before it's too late to do anything about them.
What new technologies will be invented?
My teenage self would have thought something as commonplace as my iPhone is today would have been pure science fiction, and with the geometric rate that the entirety of human knowledge progresses, it’s impossible to predict. I think the biggest advances won’t be limited to something regarding circuitry, but will be medical or something else with broad societal impact. If we've reached a time where it's possible to create artificial DNA, I think it's both exciting and intimidating to consider what will come next.
What places might you visit?
Wherever the circumstances dictate.
One positive about this school year:
Right now my quickest response would be that it’s almost over, and I’d only be half-kidding. A more serious answer would have to do with seeing students overcome any number of personal difficulties they may have faced, and knowing that I had played some small part in helping them find their way to a better outcome.
One thing you are excited about for the next school year:
Top of the list, without hesitation: My new partner.
One thing about the next school year you're worried about:
Worried is really overstating it, but that's the prompt that was given. My concern (a more appropriate word) is that a lot of changes are coming to my school next year. Hopefully we'll all be ready to do what's expected of us in whatever roles we have.
Who will be able to help you with that concern:
The cheap and obvious answer would be to say some rah-rah platitude about collaboration and teamwork, but in real life it's not always that easy. I'd say the people best able to help me with whatever help I might need will be the ones most willing to be honest. And conversely, I can only hope I'll be able to provide that same kind of help for others when it's needed.
Any other questions?
Monday, May 19, 2014
Day 19 - That One Time I Got Tear Gassed
Today I heard about someone accidentally pepper-spraying themselves because they didn’t anticipate the combination of an aerosol and wind. It reminded me of a similar experience from back in my college days....
It was Homecoming weekend of my junior year, and unseasonably warm for mid-October. I was one of those college kids who couldn’t possibly care less about our football team, but to be fair that would characterize almost everyone else on campus who didn’t actually play football. Homecoming didn’t mean a whole lot to me, and since I lived in an apartment complex tucked away in an older neighborhood about eight or nine blocks off campus, I was oblivious to what would prove to be historic partying taking place that Friday night. Warm weather on a big weekend, plus tons of people from out of town added up to some remarkably irresponsible, though not atypical, student behavior... at least not atypical for my school, which had a bit of a reputation and was about to double down on it. Long story short, the police were called in to chase the drunks off the streets and were none too pleased about having to do this. I didn’t see the local news the following morning, but apparently one frustrated officer called the student population “guests in our town” and allegedly said that if things got out of hand a second night in a row, “this time we’ll be ready.”
Well. As much of a cliché as it’s become now, “Fight for Your Right” by the Beastie Boys had been a big hit only a handful of years earlier, and there were still way too many people in my peer group that didn’t pick up on the irony of it. All some of these chuckleheads needed was a veiled threat to what they felt were their God-given partying rights before they would feel compelled to take a stand.
I still didn’t know anything about anything until later that Saturday afternoon. I called my friend Dean since we had plans to walk downtown to the buck-fifty second-run movie house that night, and he filled me in on everything that had gone on. I honestly didn’t think people would be stupid enough to push their luck into a second night of chaos, but wow, was I wrong. Our movie got out at about nine and we hurried back to campus to see if anything was starting up. All was quiet and calm until we were a block away. The streets bordering the section of campus that was predominantly student housing were lined with people eight deep, almost as if they were watching a parade. Dean and I got close enough to the edge to see what all the commotion was and saw police shoving some skinny guy’s face into the pavement while the audience either cheered them on or protested. Someone in a nearby dorm about three floors up had aimed their enormous speakers out the window to provide a soundtrack for the scene below. I remember thinking how “Welcome to the Jungle” was an appropriate choice and wondered if it had been intentional.
As we took in the scene, some shirtless dude came stumbling up the block carrying one of those ratty old chairs that only a college student would ever own. He looked at us wild-eyed and excitedly shouted something about the fire. Dean looked up the street and saw smoke rising. We decided the best thing for us to do was hightail it up to his dorm room before we got caught up in the middle of something we had no desire to be caught in the middle of. It was then we did the only stupid thing we did all night: Because the sidewalks were so packed and there was no clear path across the street, we just bolted straight across and dove back into the crowd on the campus side. It didn’t occur to us later that the police had probably cleared the street long ago and didn’t want any geniuses like us running across it.
We made it up to Dean’s dorm room. His roommates weren’t home and his room was on the opposite side of the building from all the action, so we went down to see some girls he knew who lived on the side with the better view. They were home watching the World Series and let us in. (Incidentally, the game they had on was the one in which Kirk Gibson hit his game-winning home run; the fact that I can remember this detail and couldn’t care less about the Dodgers should demonstrate how deeply imprinted this night is on my memory.) One of the girls in the room was an RA, so she was in full-on crisis mode. The dorm had been locked down from extra visitors about ten minutes after we made it back, and every member of campus security had been called out. With everything going on, people were coming and going in and out of the room the whole time. Someone even suggested ordering a pizza, just to see if we'd still get it free since there was no way it would arrive in less than thirty minutes.
At one point everyone was off running around or checking in with friends except for me (since I was now stranded in the dorm for the foreseeable future) and a girl named Jenna who lived there. We kept flipping channels between the game and the network news affiliates from the Cities, who had broken into regular programming (except for the World Series) to cover what was now being called a riot. We flipped between the different stations, kind of blown away to think that breaking news was happening at our school. Something outside caught Jenna’s attention and she called me over to the sliding glass door the led to their patio. We saw dozens of people running across campus in the opposite direction of the riot as if they were being pursued. Curious, we stepped outside to see what was going on.
Even though we couldn’t have been a hundred yards from the worst part of the riot, it didn’t take more than a few seconds before the tear gas reached us. It felt like my sinuses were dissolving and there was no way I could get it to stop. I tried blowing my nose into my hands, but that only made it worse. I was sure that awful sensation was just going to continue until it ate through bone and my eyeballs would reverse roll dangle back into this newly opened cavity in my head. By the time I figured out what was happening, Jenna had collapsed on the patio and was clawing at her eyes. I picked her up around the waist and we fell back inside through the door, which luckily we had left open.
If any of the tear gas made it into the room it hadn’t been enough to matter. It took us long enough to clear our heads that Dean and a few others had returned to the room before we could see straight. Jenna repeatedly told everyone what had happened, always ending the story with how I had pulled her back inside. Dean didn’t seem too happy about that -- I found out later he’d been trying to work up the courage to ask her out, and didn’t like that I’d been the one to help her instead of him.
The following morning I walked down to the grocery store to pick up a Sunday paper and saw a photo of a bonfire right in the middle of the street I ran across. The fire was primarily made of an upended dumpster and two couches. Off to the side was another picture, of two police officers escorting a handcuffed student who very obviously had a broken nose. In the weeks after that night, everyone traded stories about where they were and what they saw happen. Campus security became much more of a presence, especially on the weekends. Ridiculous handmade flyers started popping up around campus calling for revolution and supposedly demonstrating ways to brew homemade weaponry. One of the DJs from the student radio station organized a fund raiser to help out a student who’d had her car flipped over and destroyed. I did my part and bought one of the t-shirts he was selling.
To this day, whenever I hear someone mention pepper spray or tear gas my first thought goes back to everything that took place that night. And my second thought: No thanks. I’ve had my fill.
It was Homecoming weekend of my junior year, and unseasonably warm for mid-October. I was one of those college kids who couldn’t possibly care less about our football team, but to be fair that would characterize almost everyone else on campus who didn’t actually play football. Homecoming didn’t mean a whole lot to me, and since I lived in an apartment complex tucked away in an older neighborhood about eight or nine blocks off campus, I was oblivious to what would prove to be historic partying taking place that Friday night. Warm weather on a big weekend, plus tons of people from out of town added up to some remarkably irresponsible, though not atypical, student behavior... at least not atypical for my school, which had a bit of a reputation and was about to double down on it. Long story short, the police were called in to chase the drunks off the streets and were none too pleased about having to do this. I didn’t see the local news the following morning, but apparently one frustrated officer called the student population “guests in our town” and allegedly said that if things got out of hand a second night in a row, “this time we’ll be ready.”
Well. As much of a cliché as it’s become now, “Fight for Your Right” by the Beastie Boys had been a big hit only a handful of years earlier, and there were still way too many people in my peer group that didn’t pick up on the irony of it. All some of these chuckleheads needed was a veiled threat to what they felt were their God-given partying rights before they would feel compelled to take a stand.
I still didn’t know anything about anything until later that Saturday afternoon. I called my friend Dean since we had plans to walk downtown to the buck-fifty second-run movie house that night, and he filled me in on everything that had gone on. I honestly didn’t think people would be stupid enough to push their luck into a second night of chaos, but wow, was I wrong. Our movie got out at about nine and we hurried back to campus to see if anything was starting up. All was quiet and calm until we were a block away. The streets bordering the section of campus that was predominantly student housing were lined with people eight deep, almost as if they were watching a parade. Dean and I got close enough to the edge to see what all the commotion was and saw police shoving some skinny guy’s face into the pavement while the audience either cheered them on or protested. Someone in a nearby dorm about three floors up had aimed their enormous speakers out the window to provide a soundtrack for the scene below. I remember thinking how “Welcome to the Jungle” was an appropriate choice and wondered if it had been intentional.
As we took in the scene, some shirtless dude came stumbling up the block carrying one of those ratty old chairs that only a college student would ever own. He looked at us wild-eyed and excitedly shouted something about the fire. Dean looked up the street and saw smoke rising. We decided the best thing for us to do was hightail it up to his dorm room before we got caught up in the middle of something we had no desire to be caught in the middle of. It was then we did the only stupid thing we did all night: Because the sidewalks were so packed and there was no clear path across the street, we just bolted straight across and dove back into the crowd on the campus side. It didn’t occur to us later that the police had probably cleared the street long ago and didn’t want any geniuses like us running across it.
We made it up to Dean’s dorm room. His roommates weren’t home and his room was on the opposite side of the building from all the action, so we went down to see some girls he knew who lived on the side with the better view. They were home watching the World Series and let us in. (Incidentally, the game they had on was the one in which Kirk Gibson hit his game-winning home run; the fact that I can remember this detail and couldn’t care less about the Dodgers should demonstrate how deeply imprinted this night is on my memory.) One of the girls in the room was an RA, so she was in full-on crisis mode. The dorm had been locked down from extra visitors about ten minutes after we made it back, and every member of campus security had been called out. With everything going on, people were coming and going in and out of the room the whole time. Someone even suggested ordering a pizza, just to see if we'd still get it free since there was no way it would arrive in less than thirty minutes.
At one point everyone was off running around or checking in with friends except for me (since I was now stranded in the dorm for the foreseeable future) and a girl named Jenna who lived there. We kept flipping channels between the game and the network news affiliates from the Cities, who had broken into regular programming (except for the World Series) to cover what was now being called a riot. We flipped between the different stations, kind of blown away to think that breaking news was happening at our school. Something outside caught Jenna’s attention and she called me over to the sliding glass door the led to their patio. We saw dozens of people running across campus in the opposite direction of the riot as if they were being pursued. Curious, we stepped outside to see what was going on.
Even though we couldn’t have been a hundred yards from the worst part of the riot, it didn’t take more than a few seconds before the tear gas reached us. It felt like my sinuses were dissolving and there was no way I could get it to stop. I tried blowing my nose into my hands, but that only made it worse. I was sure that awful sensation was just going to continue until it ate through bone and my eyeballs would reverse roll dangle back into this newly opened cavity in my head. By the time I figured out what was happening, Jenna had collapsed on the patio and was clawing at her eyes. I picked her up around the waist and we fell back inside through the door, which luckily we had left open.
If any of the tear gas made it into the room it hadn’t been enough to matter. It took us long enough to clear our heads that Dean and a few others had returned to the room before we could see straight. Jenna repeatedly told everyone what had happened, always ending the story with how I had pulled her back inside. Dean didn’t seem too happy about that -- I found out later he’d been trying to work up the courage to ask her out, and didn’t like that I’d been the one to help her instead of him.
The following morning I walked down to the grocery store to pick up a Sunday paper and saw a photo of a bonfire right in the middle of the street I ran across. The fire was primarily made of an upended dumpster and two couches. Off to the side was another picture, of two police officers escorting a handcuffed student who very obviously had a broken nose. In the weeks after that night, everyone traded stories about where they were and what they saw happen. Campus security became much more of a presence, especially on the weekends. Ridiculous handmade flyers started popping up around campus calling for revolution and supposedly demonstrating ways to brew homemade weaponry. One of the DJs from the student radio station organized a fund raiser to help out a student who’d had her car flipped over and destroyed. I did my part and bought one of the t-shirts he was selling.
To this day, whenever I hear someone mention pepper spray or tear gas my first thought goes back to everything that took place that night. And my second thought: No thanks. I’ve had my fill.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Day 18 - The Case for Games
A few years ago I came across a book called “Everything Bad is Good for You.” The hypothesis behind it is how all of the forms of media that have developed reputations for being empty-headed time vacuums -- watching television, playing video games, etc. -- has evolved into entertainment so much more complex and challenging than it was decades ago it can now present legitimate intellectual stimulation.
Take television, for instance. Sure, there are shows out there that are still as mindless and lowest-common-denominator as ever, but there are other shows with many layers and nuances and concurrent story lines that viewers need to monitor closely to full appreciate what’s going on. Stories aren’t always wrapped up in single episodes, but commonly develop over multi-episode arcs, or sometimes even over the course of many seasons: The Wire. The West Wing. The Sopranos. Breaking Bad. House of Cards. True Detective. A lot of the best TV out there now is more like reading a novel, and is produced at a level that’s often superior to what we’re being given in theatrical films. (I’m still feeling a little burned by the new “Godzilla” movie today.)
I’m bringing this up because it’s my birthday in a few days. Birthdays aren’t that big of a deal for me anymore, but I’m looking forward to this one because I’m really hoping to get one gift in particular: The Skyrim Legendary Standard Edition Official Game Guide. I highlighted it on my wish list, and I can only hope someone in the family will come through.
Yes, I’m a proud video game nerd. (And before anyone starts mentally calling me out on gaming, I have a few words for you: Candy Crush. Bejeweled. Words with Friends. Texas Holdem. Angry Birds. Flappy Bird. Farmville, for crying out loud.) I’ll be one of the first to say there are a lot of games I’d never consider spending time on because I find the content just offensively ridiculous. But I’m also ready to argue with anyone who tries to tell me a game like Skyrim is just mindless swordfighting dragon-magic trash. It’s impossible to make my case with people unless they have a proper context, but I will say I’ve been playing video games for well over thirty years now, and I can’t think of another one that takes place inside of a world as immersive and completely realized as Skyrim.
The best evidence I can offer without going over the top in my argument is this: The reason I want this guide book so badly is because I plan on playing the Legendary Edition of the game this summer. The Legendary Edition has new content that wasn’t included in the original version, so you bet I went and paid another $60 just to see how that new content would be worked into the original game. And the guide book that I’m planning on using to get the best experience from the game as I can? It’s over 1,100 pages long, with print so tiny I have to take off my progressive lenses and hold the book inches from my face to even read it. Because the guide is that detailed, and the world is that fully realized. And the game is just that awesome.
So fingers crossed for the birthday this year. But you know, even if that doesn’t work out? I still have a couple of weeks before summer to fire up the Amazon app and buy it on my own. And you can bet if it comes to that, I will.
Take television, for instance. Sure, there are shows out there that are still as mindless and lowest-common-denominator as ever, but there are other shows with many layers and nuances and concurrent story lines that viewers need to monitor closely to full appreciate what’s going on. Stories aren’t always wrapped up in single episodes, but commonly develop over multi-episode arcs, or sometimes even over the course of many seasons: The Wire. The West Wing. The Sopranos. Breaking Bad. House of Cards. True Detective. A lot of the best TV out there now is more like reading a novel, and is produced at a level that’s often superior to what we’re being given in theatrical films. (I’m still feeling a little burned by the new “Godzilla” movie today.)
I’m bringing this up because it’s my birthday in a few days. Birthdays aren’t that big of a deal for me anymore, but I’m looking forward to this one because I’m really hoping to get one gift in particular: The Skyrim Legendary Standard Edition Official Game Guide. I highlighted it on my wish list, and I can only hope someone in the family will come through.
Yes, I’m a proud video game nerd. (And before anyone starts mentally calling me out on gaming, I have a few words for you: Candy Crush. Bejeweled. Words with Friends. Texas Holdem. Angry Birds. Flappy Bird. Farmville, for crying out loud.) I’ll be one of the first to say there are a lot of games I’d never consider spending time on because I find the content just offensively ridiculous. But I’m also ready to argue with anyone who tries to tell me a game like Skyrim is just mindless swordfighting dragon-magic trash. It’s impossible to make my case with people unless they have a proper context, but I will say I’ve been playing video games for well over thirty years now, and I can’t think of another one that takes place inside of a world as immersive and completely realized as Skyrim.
The best evidence I can offer without going over the top in my argument is this: The reason I want this guide book so badly is because I plan on playing the Legendary Edition of the game this summer. The Legendary Edition has new content that wasn’t included in the original version, so you bet I went and paid another $60 just to see how that new content would be worked into the original game. And the guide book that I’m planning on using to get the best experience from the game as I can? It’s over 1,100 pages long, with print so tiny I have to take off my progressive lenses and hold the book inches from my face to even read it. Because the guide is that detailed, and the world is that fully realized. And the game is just that awesome.
So fingers crossed for the birthday this year. But you know, even if that doesn’t work out? I still have a couple of weeks before summer to fire up the Amazon app and buy it on my own. And you can bet if it comes to that, I will.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Day 17 - At the Movies Revisited
Last year during my May blog sprint I wrote a post about the big upcoming movies of the summer. Tonight feels like a good time to do that, and maybe in doing so I’ll be able to get myself excited about seeing another movie ever again, after sitting through the completely non-engaging “Godzilla” today. If what I, as a movie fan, am being force-fed by the media these days, these are the summer movies of 2014 I should be the most excited about:
X-Men: Days of Future Past: Yes. This one looks really good, and even if it only looked okay I’d still be all over it because it’s a Marvel movie.
Transformers: Age of Extinction: I’m a little bitter about this one, if only because I’m only two movies into my list and it’s already the second time I’ve had to use colons in closer proximity than I’d like. I might see this, if only to find out why Mark Wahlberg has anything to do with a two-hour toy commercial, outside of being paid what I’m sure was a yachtful of money.
Edge of Tomorrow: Say what you want about Tom Cruise, he usually makes good action movies for the theaters. And I have to qualify that with “for the theaters” because for some reason a lot of his big movies get diluted from repeat viewings on cable over the subsequent years. Hardly his fault, though.
22 Jump Street: I’d like to have high expectations here, but I’m afraid this one might go down the path of not being able to live up to the surprise of how entertaining the first one was. I think it will try too hard and might not pull it off. I hope I’m wrong, though.
Jupiter Ascending: I’m looking forward to this one a lot, if only because the trailers make it look like one of the more original science fiction movies to come along in a long time. I'd really love to not be disappointed here.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The previous one in this series was much better than I expected, mostly because of the motion capture work Andy Serkis did as Caesar. I’m interested to see what happens next.
Guardians of the Galaxy: I don’t care how weird it looks. It's a Marvel space movie. Sign me up.
The Giver: Okay, I’ve serious got issues with this and I’m not going to get into them here. It was one of my favorite books, and it should never, never, never have been made into a movie. The little I’ve seen and know about it make me want to boycott any theater that shows it.
The Expendables 3: There’s an old Saturday Night Live fake commercial from the late 80s or early 90s that showed the trailer for a movie starring (and I think I’m getting this right) Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, and Van Damme. The commercial was nothing but beat-up shirtless tough guy torsos emptying machine guns at the camera, advertising the invented movie “Die Foreigner, Die.” I can't help but wonder if that bit of satire inspired this series in some way. And YES, I'll be seeing it the day it comes out.
Lucy: I just saw a preview for this today at the aforementioned “Godzilla” misfire. Scarlett Johansson isn’t playing Black Widow here but she might as well be for all of the craziness going on. I’m in.
And once again, as the summer goes on watch my Facebook notes for the 10-Word Movie Reviews of these and so many others to see how my predictions pan out. Except for The Giver. Because there’s just no chance....
X-Men: Days of Future Past: Yes. This one looks really good, and even if it only looked okay I’d still be all over it because it’s a Marvel movie.
Transformers: Age of Extinction: I’m a little bitter about this one, if only because I’m only two movies into my list and it’s already the second time I’ve had to use colons in closer proximity than I’d like. I might see this, if only to find out why Mark Wahlberg has anything to do with a two-hour toy commercial, outside of being paid what I’m sure was a yachtful of money.
Edge of Tomorrow: Say what you want about Tom Cruise, he usually makes good action movies for the theaters. And I have to qualify that with “for the theaters” because for some reason a lot of his big movies get diluted from repeat viewings on cable over the subsequent years. Hardly his fault, though.
22 Jump Street: I’d like to have high expectations here, but I’m afraid this one might go down the path of not being able to live up to the surprise of how entertaining the first one was. I think it will try too hard and might not pull it off. I hope I’m wrong, though.
Jupiter Ascending: I’m looking forward to this one a lot, if only because the trailers make it look like one of the more original science fiction movies to come along in a long time. I'd really love to not be disappointed here.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The previous one in this series was much better than I expected, mostly because of the motion capture work Andy Serkis did as Caesar. I’m interested to see what happens next.
Guardians of the Galaxy: I don’t care how weird it looks. It's a Marvel space movie. Sign me up.
The Giver: Okay, I’ve serious got issues with this and I’m not going to get into them here. It was one of my favorite books, and it should never, never, never have been made into a movie. The little I’ve seen and know about it make me want to boycott any theater that shows it.
The Expendables 3: There’s an old Saturday Night Live fake commercial from the late 80s or early 90s that showed the trailer for a movie starring (and I think I’m getting this right) Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, and Van Damme. The commercial was nothing but beat-up shirtless tough guy torsos emptying machine guns at the camera, advertising the invented movie “Die Foreigner, Die.” I can't help but wonder if that bit of satire inspired this series in some way. And YES, I'll be seeing it the day it comes out.
Lucy: I just saw a preview for this today at the aforementioned “Godzilla” misfire. Scarlett Johansson isn’t playing Black Widow here but she might as well be for all of the craziness going on. I’m in.
And once again, as the summer goes on watch my Facebook notes for the 10-Word Movie Reviews of these and so many others to see how my predictions pan out. Except for The Giver. Because there’s just no chance....
Friday, May 16, 2014
Day 16 - The Archive
A few days ago a co-worker put up a Facebook post linking to an article in which an author described his writing process. He included a few images of notebook pages filled with seemingly random collections of notes, explaining how he would archive away leftover ideas at the end of a project that might someday work better in another one. Reading this article got me thinking about my own archives. My writing attempts from the past several years are almost exclusively digital, from note-taking to drafting to editing and revising. If you're in my daily life and you've ever seen me take out my phone and quickly tap a few keys, it's likely I just had an idea I wanted to save before it evaporated on me. Between my desktop computer, my external hard drive, my iPad, my phone, and what I believe are now four separate portable flash drives, I have so many digital writing files spread around over so many storage devices I sometimes will surprise myself by finding something I'd forgotten.
Incidentally, whoever was responsible for putting that simple Notes app on the iPhone has my undying gratitude. Taking notes on my phone is a lot more convenient than scrounging for bits of paper for scribbling down ideas, or carrying around small pocket-sized notebooks every waking moment like I did in college. Three cheers for the 21st century!
My non-digital archive has been with me a lot longer, dating back as far as high school. It's a big cardboard box stored in my office closet that contains most of the writing I did before getting my first computer. It was a good sturdy box to begin with, but I've had to reinforce it with great amounts of duct tape to keep it from bursting apart. I'll dig through it occasionally to see if there's anything in there I can reuse, or just to take in the memories of where I once was as a writer. Just to give you some perspective, here's what the contents of that box look like when unpacked:
I had to stand on my couch to get it all in the frame. It's hard to get the perspective with the bird's-eye view, but that pile is a good six inches deep in spots.
Most of this stuff will probably never do anything but take up closet space, but I'm glad I still have it. I think it's good to sometimes reflect on the things that led us to where we are now. As I was unpacking all of this, I caught glimpses of a few things that brought back memories of hopes and dreams and frustrations. It made me wish I could send messages back to earlier versions of me from those different points in time, to pass along the news that all of the effort would eventually pay off with the opportunity I was hoping for.
So now that I've got that picture, I'm going to have to repack the archive and return it to storage. I could get all of that paper stuffed back in the box in an easy ten minutes. However, I have a feeling this project is going to wind up taking me most of the night.
Incidentally, whoever was responsible for putting that simple Notes app on the iPhone has my undying gratitude. Taking notes on my phone is a lot more convenient than scrounging for bits of paper for scribbling down ideas, or carrying around small pocket-sized notebooks every waking moment like I did in college. Three cheers for the 21st century!
My non-digital archive has been with me a lot longer, dating back as far as high school. It's a big cardboard box stored in my office closet that contains most of the writing I did before getting my first computer. It was a good sturdy box to begin with, but I've had to reinforce it with great amounts of duct tape to keep it from bursting apart. I'll dig through it occasionally to see if there's anything in there I can reuse, or just to take in the memories of where I once was as a writer. Just to give you some perspective, here's what the contents of that box look like when unpacked:
I had to stand on my couch to get it all in the frame. It's hard to get the perspective with the bird's-eye view, but that pile is a good six inches deep in spots.
Most of this stuff will probably never do anything but take up closet space, but I'm glad I still have it. I think it's good to sometimes reflect on the things that led us to where we are now. As I was unpacking all of this, I caught glimpses of a few things that brought back memories of hopes and dreams and frustrations. It made me wish I could send messages back to earlier versions of me from those different points in time, to pass along the news that all of the effort would eventually pay off with the opportunity I was hoping for.
So now that I've got that picture, I'm going to have to repack the archive and return it to storage. I could get all of that paper stuffed back in the box in an easy ten minutes. However, I have a feeling this project is going to wind up taking me most of the night.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Day 15 - 3rd Grade Zen
I have kind of an announcement tonight: I found out about a month ago that after eighteen years of teaching fifth grade (I know!) I've been reassigned to teach third starting next year.
To address what must be the most obvious questions, because they are always the very first ones I'm asked: (1) No, this is not a change I requested, but (2) I'm fine with it. I had a l-o-o-o-n-g talk with my principal when she shared this news with me. We talked about her reasons for the move and how they factored in to what's best for the students, where my reassignment fit on the greater Chess board of several changes happening on our staff this year, and also what was best for me, which I am glad to say was something she considered because she certainly didn't have to. Going from 5th to 3rd isn't a demotion just because it's a lower grade level; I know everyone who works inside of education understands that, but there could be others outside of the profession who don't. So just to clear things up for all you non-teacher civilians -- my rank isn't being stripped.
In fact, this is a very positive move in a lot of ways. First and foremost -- and I say this with all sincerity and absolutely no Eddie Haskell butt-kissing -- I will be working with a teaching partner as ideal as I could hope for. We've been friends and colleagues for a long time; in fact we had 5th grade/2nd grade buddy classrooms back in olden times, so long ago that those same 2nd graders would now be old enough to attend college. I was caught off guard a little when my principal told me I was moving, and the first question I had was who I'd be partnered with. When she told me who it was I thought, "Oh. Okay then. This is good." And after she told me the rest of my new team things only got better. I found out I'll be working with one teacher I'd had a great partnership with several years ago, and another one I've been doing a lot of curriculum work in recent years. As far as grade level teams go, I think we'll be starting off pretty solid.
The closest thing to a downside about any of this is stepping out of a comfort zone and into somewhat unfamiliar territory. It's not totally unfamiliar because I have taught 3rd grade before, but that was back when the years on the checks I wrote all started with 19s, so it's been awhile. But leaving behind a comfort zone isn't always a negative. Sometimes growth you aren't looking for occurs in spite of itself, and doors open to possibilities that otherwise wouldn't have been available. And of course all of this is to say nothing of how working with a different age group could potentially impact my writing. Maybe there's a reason this is happening right at the same time whatever writing career I might someday develop is just beginning to launch. Time will tell.
As 2014 rolls along, I keep thinking back to the last day of school before winter break this past December. I was all fired up about the PitchWars manuscript contest, and many of my friends at school were graciously excited for me. A large group of us were walking in after the buses had arrived in the morning, everyone feeling good about break about to start and the promise of a new year about to begin. One person I walked in with said she thought I had a big year ahead of me.
I'm now starting to wonder if maybe she knew something I didn't.
To address what must be the most obvious questions, because they are always the very first ones I'm asked: (1) No, this is not a change I requested, but (2) I'm fine with it. I had a l-o-o-o-n-g talk with my principal when she shared this news with me. We talked about her reasons for the move and how they factored in to what's best for the students, where my reassignment fit on the greater Chess board of several changes happening on our staff this year, and also what was best for me, which I am glad to say was something she considered because she certainly didn't have to. Going from 5th to 3rd isn't a demotion just because it's a lower grade level; I know everyone who works inside of education understands that, but there could be others outside of the profession who don't. So just to clear things up for all you non-teacher civilians -- my rank isn't being stripped.
In fact, this is a very positive move in a lot of ways. First and foremost -- and I say this with all sincerity and absolutely no Eddie Haskell butt-kissing -- I will be working with a teaching partner as ideal as I could hope for. We've been friends and colleagues for a long time; in fact we had 5th grade/2nd grade buddy classrooms back in olden times, so long ago that those same 2nd graders would now be old enough to attend college. I was caught off guard a little when my principal told me I was moving, and the first question I had was who I'd be partnered with. When she told me who it was I thought, "Oh. Okay then. This is good." And after she told me the rest of my new team things only got better. I found out I'll be working with one teacher I'd had a great partnership with several years ago, and another one I've been doing a lot of curriculum work in recent years. As far as grade level teams go, I think we'll be starting off pretty solid.
The closest thing to a downside about any of this is stepping out of a comfort zone and into somewhat unfamiliar territory. It's not totally unfamiliar because I have taught 3rd grade before, but that was back when the years on the checks I wrote all started with 19s, so it's been awhile. But leaving behind a comfort zone isn't always a negative. Sometimes growth you aren't looking for occurs in spite of itself, and doors open to possibilities that otherwise wouldn't have been available. And of course all of this is to say nothing of how working with a different age group could potentially impact my writing. Maybe there's a reason this is happening right at the same time whatever writing career I might someday develop is just beginning to launch. Time will tell.
As 2014 rolls along, I keep thinking back to the last day of school before winter break this past December. I was all fired up about the PitchWars manuscript contest, and many of my friends at school were graciously excited for me. A large group of us were walking in after the buses had arrived in the morning, everyone feeling good about break about to start and the promise of a new year about to begin. One person I walked in with said she thought I had a big year ahead of me.
I'm now starting to wonder if maybe she knew something I didn't.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Day 14 - Happy Birthday
Today is my sister Erin's birthday. Her birthday appears a week ahead of mine on the calendar, but in actuality I was born two years and fifty-one weeks ahead of her. I've been thinking about her birthday recently, and during these reflections one particular visual kept coming back. It was an old photograph taken at one of her birthday parties from elementary school. List most kids that age will, she invited all of her very best friends to share in whatever kind of little girl birthday shenanigans would be taking place. In this picture she's posing by her cake with all of her party guests, four or five of whom were girls from her class at school. Each of her classmates is desperately trying to distinguish herself as the biggest ham in the group.
But there was one other little friend there, sitting just far enough away from the rest of the group to be noticed as separate. She was a longtime friend of Erin's, going back to their toddler days, so of course she was also invited to the party. The problem was she went to a completely different school than everyone else, so the only person at the party she knew was Erin, who was already the center of attention for the day and still too young to know enough to graciously help this little outsider feel less awkward. And it was comically obvious how awkward she felt: While all the other little girls had giant birthday party smiles smeared across their faces, this girl was trying to make herself appear as small as possible, with no trace of any kind of smile and eyes that were begging anyone on the other side of the camera to come and rescue her.
The reason I find this so funny now? Out of all the girls in that picture, that one little outsider might have been the only person at that party Erin stayed in touch with. On top of that, that girl grew to be so dominantly extroverted as an adult it's next to impossible for me to think she had ever been uncomfortable at any kind of party before. And if Childhood Erin would have had the same sensitivity as Adult Erin grew to possess, she would have gone out of her way to bring in that one lonely friend and make her feel more included.
So happy birthday, Erin. I'm sure whoever is with you at your party today is having a great time.
But there was one other little friend there, sitting just far enough away from the rest of the group to be noticed as separate. She was a longtime friend of Erin's, going back to their toddler days, so of course she was also invited to the party. The problem was she went to a completely different school than everyone else, so the only person at the party she knew was Erin, who was already the center of attention for the day and still too young to know enough to graciously help this little outsider feel less awkward. And it was comically obvious how awkward she felt: While all the other little girls had giant birthday party smiles smeared across their faces, this girl was trying to make herself appear as small as possible, with no trace of any kind of smile and eyes that were begging anyone on the other side of the camera to come and rescue her.
The reason I find this so funny now? Out of all the girls in that picture, that one little outsider might have been the only person at that party Erin stayed in touch with. On top of that, that girl grew to be so dominantly extroverted as an adult it's next to impossible for me to think she had ever been uncomfortable at any kind of party before. And if Childhood Erin would have had the same sensitivity as Adult Erin grew to possess, she would have gone out of her way to bring in that one lonely friend and make her feel more included.
So happy birthday, Erin. I'm sure whoever is with you at your party today is having a great time.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Day 13 - Black and Blue
Today The Black Keys released their newest album, “Turn Blue.” They’ve been around awhile, but I’ve only known them for the past five years or so and I like them quite a bit. I haven’t always been impressed with some of The Black Keys branding -- I think the intentional simplicity of their album artwork and merchandise design is maybe too overtly hip -- but the videos I’ve seen and articles I’ve read make them seem like they have a good sense of humor about what they do. The two-man band thing was a little gimmicky to me at first, but I saw them play without their backing musicians during one section of their concert, and they really pulled it off.
I downloaded the new album as soon as I saw it was available, and played through it as soon as I was home from school tonight. After one play (and currently on my second), I’m impressed so far. The overall tone is more dark and brooding than their previous album, “El Camino,” which had a couple of mainstream hits. This one seems to go in the opposite direction, not being concerned with whether or not they have big radio breakthroughs but instead putting together something that I can only imagine is much more personally expressive.
A lot of the songs start off quiet and gradually layer themselves into some painful sounding slow burns. Since the two guys are a guitarist and a drummer, both instruments are featured prominently throughout. I always pay more attention to the drumming than probably a lot of other people do, and even though there isn’t anything terribly complicated going on drum-wise here, it’s very effective. Rarely do they resort to a standard 4/4 time rock drum riff, but more often mix things up with some thick, head-bobbing rhythms to drive the songs instead. Putting a bluesy guitar on top of that adds up to the kind of music that I just don’t think there’s a lot of out there right now. The vocals trend into falsetto more often than they probably need to and there are passages of keyboards that sound mosquito obnoxious, but those are nit-picky things. It’s not mainstream work, and it might not be accessible for a lot of people, but it’s a strong, cohesive album. I can see this one getting a lot of plays from me in the coming months when I’m either in a very specifically introspective mood that this kind of music would augment, or if I need a good album to serve as the soundtrack to a long car ride after dark.
For the moment I’d still give the nod to “Brothers” as my favorite of their albums, but depending on how the summer goes, this one could give that a run.
I downloaded the new album as soon as I saw it was available, and played through it as soon as I was home from school tonight. After one play (and currently on my second), I’m impressed so far. The overall tone is more dark and brooding than their previous album, “El Camino,” which had a couple of mainstream hits. This one seems to go in the opposite direction, not being concerned with whether or not they have big radio breakthroughs but instead putting together something that I can only imagine is much more personally expressive.
A lot of the songs start off quiet and gradually layer themselves into some painful sounding slow burns. Since the two guys are a guitarist and a drummer, both instruments are featured prominently throughout. I always pay more attention to the drumming than probably a lot of other people do, and even though there isn’t anything terribly complicated going on drum-wise here, it’s very effective. Rarely do they resort to a standard 4/4 time rock drum riff, but more often mix things up with some thick, head-bobbing rhythms to drive the songs instead. Putting a bluesy guitar on top of that adds up to the kind of music that I just don’t think there’s a lot of out there right now. The vocals trend into falsetto more often than they probably need to and there are passages of keyboards that sound mosquito obnoxious, but those are nit-picky things. It’s not mainstream work, and it might not be accessible for a lot of people, but it’s a strong, cohesive album. I can see this one getting a lot of plays from me in the coming months when I’m either in a very specifically introspective mood that this kind of music would augment, or if I need a good album to serve as the soundtrack to a long car ride after dark.
For the moment I’d still give the nod to “Brothers” as my favorite of their albums, but depending on how the summer goes, this one could give that a run.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Day 12 - Something About the 80s
When I mentioned here that I planned on posting daily throughout May again this year, one of my cousins offered up the topic idea of writing "something about the 80s." Okay, it's not the most specific of possible topics, but I appreciated the flexibility it gave me. And right now I have the perfect opening to bring that out as a topic. Here you go, P....
This week is Spirit Week at my school, which amounts to a series of theme days when the kids, as well as some members of the staff, will dress up and have all kinds of good time shenanigans in the process. Now that the annual cavalcade of standardized testing has come and gone and many of us teachers are collectively struggling to keep our students engaged when they can smell summer coming from just a few rows down the calendar, a week-long dress up event seems appropriately timed. The inaugural members of our chapter of the National Elementary Honor Society (or whatever the real name of the organization is; it's new and I haven't quite learned it yet) got together for an after school meeting last week and came up with our Spirit Week themes. They are as such:
Monday - Pajama Day. This one always seems a slightly risky proposition to me, but kids like their pajamas and we survived it without any awkward threadbare flannel incidents, so all's well that ends well.
Tuesday - 80s Day. I'll cover this in a moment.
Wednesday - Mismatched Day. I'd argue wearing mismatched clothing isn't that far out of the norm for many students and that it's done completely intentionally.
Thursday - Historical Character Day. I'm the most anxious about this one, if only to see whether or not my theory pans out that someone will wear a leftover Jack Sparrow Halloween costume and claim to be someone referenced in Treasure Island.
Friday - Sports Jersey Day. Because it might be illegal for a school to arrange themes like this unless at least one day is devoted to sports.
So. 80s Day. Can I first just say that I'm a little bothered how the time period which defined my coming of age has now been reduced to a collection of clichés and caricatures? And if that wasn't bad enough, the kids these days? Ask them what the 80s were like and they'll tell you all you need to know about bell bottoms and disco. And don't get me started on how many people on our staff weren't even teenagers until the 90s hit.
I thought about putting together an iPod playlist to play over my classroom's sound system to celebrate 80s Day, but ultimately decided not to for a handful of reasons: (1) It would be too difficult to review the lyrics to every song and make sure they were 10-and-11-year-old appropriate, (2) it would take me too much time to make sure I was demonstrating for my students to what quality music from the 80s really sounded like, and (3) once I did that, it would only be inevitable for someone to snark off to me about playing "oldies" all day and ask if I had any One Direction or Skrillex. Which I do not.
So my poor students are going to miss out on a day of some honest musical education due to my cautious laziness. But maybe the Def Leppard tour shirt I plan on wearing tomorrow will at least make someone curious enough to do a little investigating on their own.
This week is Spirit Week at my school, which amounts to a series of theme days when the kids, as well as some members of the staff, will dress up and have all kinds of good time shenanigans in the process. Now that the annual cavalcade of standardized testing has come and gone and many of us teachers are collectively struggling to keep our students engaged when they can smell summer coming from just a few rows down the calendar, a week-long dress up event seems appropriately timed. The inaugural members of our chapter of the National Elementary Honor Society (or whatever the real name of the organization is; it's new and I haven't quite learned it yet) got together for an after school meeting last week and came up with our Spirit Week themes. They are as such:
Monday - Pajama Day. This one always seems a slightly risky proposition to me, but kids like their pajamas and we survived it without any awkward threadbare flannel incidents, so all's well that ends well.
Tuesday - 80s Day. I'll cover this in a moment.
Wednesday - Mismatched Day. I'd argue wearing mismatched clothing isn't that far out of the norm for many students and that it's done completely intentionally.
Thursday - Historical Character Day. I'm the most anxious about this one, if only to see whether or not my theory pans out that someone will wear a leftover Jack Sparrow Halloween costume and claim to be someone referenced in Treasure Island.
Friday - Sports Jersey Day. Because it might be illegal for a school to arrange themes like this unless at least one day is devoted to sports.
So. 80s Day. Can I first just say that I'm a little bothered how the time period which defined my coming of age has now been reduced to a collection of clichés and caricatures? And if that wasn't bad enough, the kids these days? Ask them what the 80s were like and they'll tell you all you need to know about bell bottoms and disco. And don't get me started on how many people on our staff weren't even teenagers until the 90s hit.
I thought about putting together an iPod playlist to play over my classroom's sound system to celebrate 80s Day, but ultimately decided not to for a handful of reasons: (1) It would be too difficult to review the lyrics to every song and make sure they were 10-and-11-year-old appropriate, (2) it would take me too much time to make sure I was demonstrating for my students to what quality music from the 80s really sounded like, and (3) once I did that, it would only be inevitable for someone to snark off to me about playing "oldies" all day and ask if I had any One Direction or Skrillex. Which I do not.
So my poor students are going to miss out on a day of some honest musical education due to my cautious laziness. But maybe the Def Leppard tour shirt I plan on wearing tomorrow will at least make someone curious enough to do a little investigating on their own.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Day 11 - Rock and Roll Grandmas
The first big-time rock show I saw was Styx in 1983, near the tail-end of their disastrous (according to "Behind the Music") Kilroy was Here tour. Even though it was a weird show in hindsight, I loved it. Styx was my favorite band back then, and to see them playing live, even from the nosebleed seats, was incredible. I went with my sister, my slightly older cousin, and my mother, who tagged along to be the token supervising adult and because she was also a fan, which is to say she bought "Paradise Theater" because she thought "that 'The Best of Times' song was so pretty."
My second show was little over a month later, when we saw Journey on the Frontiers tour, with Bryan Adams as the opening act. (Am I dating myself enough in this post?) I was a fan of both, so I was pumped. This time my sister and I brought some friends, and again our mother came along. She also brought a few of her teacher friends with, and the three of them probably rocked out harder than the rest of us did (if you can call the awkward chorus-line type dancing they did all night as "rocking out"). An ironic aside for you: One of these other teachers who went with us wound up teaching at the same school I'm at now, only to come and go long before I started there. And the first classroom I ever called my own had actually been hers several years earlier. Funny world, right?
And things were just getting started. Those two shows played no small part in developing a strong love of music in our household, which was the case with our extended family as well. So many concerts seen, so many record albums and singles and cassettes and compact discs and digital downloads and DVDs and Blu-Rays purchased. So many people singing so many show tunes around so many pianos. So many hours spent three generations of our family has spent singing and playing so many instruments in so many different basements. And so many concerts we've collectively seen.
One of my lifelong favorite musical acts is and always has been Queen. One of the greatest regrets of my life is that I never had the chance to see Freddie Mercury perform live, because he was the best singer contemporary music has ever known and if you disagree with that you should be embarrassed about how wrong you are. With so much Queen coming through the walls of my bedroom, my mom eventually became a fan as well, at least enough of a fan to know all of the greatest hits and to enjoy the deeper cuts from my library of Queen albums when she heard them.
This past spring the two surviving members of Queen who haven't retired from performing announced they were going to tour North America with Adam Lambert taking over the vocals (I won't say 'taking the place' or 'filling the shoes' of Freddie Mercury, because such a thing isn't possible), but the nearest tour stop was in Chicago. My mom is a Queen fan, my aunt is an Adam Lambert fan (and yes, they're both in their seventies), so it was a disappointment for them that the nearest tour stop was in Chicago.
Well, my cousins and I took care of this. For Mother's Day this year we let them know we were sending them to see Queen + Adam Lambert's show at the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas this coming July. Seeing their reaction as they found out was indeed priceless.
So Happy Mother's Day (and Godmother's) to my mom and my aunt. After all you've done to foster the love of music that became such a part of all of your kids, you deserve your own big rock show.
My second show was little over a month later, when we saw Journey on the Frontiers tour, with Bryan Adams as the opening act. (Am I dating myself enough in this post?) I was a fan of both, so I was pumped. This time my sister and I brought some friends, and again our mother came along. She also brought a few of her teacher friends with, and the three of them probably rocked out harder than the rest of us did (if you can call the awkward chorus-line type dancing they did all night as "rocking out"). An ironic aside for you: One of these other teachers who went with us wound up teaching at the same school I'm at now, only to come and go long before I started there. And the first classroom I ever called my own had actually been hers several years earlier. Funny world, right?
And things were just getting started. Those two shows played no small part in developing a strong love of music in our household, which was the case with our extended family as well. So many concerts seen, so many record albums and singles and cassettes and compact discs and digital downloads and DVDs and Blu-Rays purchased. So many people singing so many show tunes around so many pianos. So many hours spent three generations of our family has spent singing and playing so many instruments in so many different basements. And so many concerts we've collectively seen.
One of my lifelong favorite musical acts is and always has been Queen. One of the greatest regrets of my life is that I never had the chance to see Freddie Mercury perform live, because he was the best singer contemporary music has ever known and if you disagree with that you should be embarrassed about how wrong you are. With so much Queen coming through the walls of my bedroom, my mom eventually became a fan as well, at least enough of a fan to know all of the greatest hits and to enjoy the deeper cuts from my library of Queen albums when she heard them.
This past spring the two surviving members of Queen who haven't retired from performing announced they were going to tour North America with Adam Lambert taking over the vocals (I won't say 'taking the place' or 'filling the shoes' of Freddie Mercury, because such a thing isn't possible), but the nearest tour stop was in Chicago. My mom is a Queen fan, my aunt is an Adam Lambert fan (and yes, they're both in their seventies), so it was a disappointment for them that the nearest tour stop was in Chicago.
Well, my cousins and I took care of this. For Mother's Day this year we let them know we were sending them to see Queen + Adam Lambert's show at the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas this coming July. Seeing their reaction as they found out was indeed priceless.
So Happy Mother's Day (and Godmother's) to my mom and my aunt. After all you've done to foster the love of music that became such a part of all of your kids, you deserve your own big rock show.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Day 10 - On the Verge
Each May there's always a day that hints at the summer yet to come, and I think today may have been that day. I slept in and woke to a discombobulated sense of place and time that I can only attribute to an overlapping series of dreams I'd had the night before. Usually Saturday morning is solidly identifiable for me, but this morning, even though I had been teaching 24 hours earlier, I had to stop and think about what day it was, just as I do on 75% of the mornings during summer break. It was kind of a nice.
Early in the afternoon I drove a suburb or two over to the movie theater I frequent, largely because it's the closest one that can all but guarantee I won't run into anyone who would recognize me from school (such is the protected privacy of my introverted life). I rolled the window down on the way over and actually needed to wear my sunglasses for one of the first times in 2014. I passed a church parking lot that had a dozen Boy Scouts scurrying around to set up a plant sale. There were more people walking along the downtown sidewalks wearing shorts than there were wearing jackets, and none of them seemed at all bothered when a brief and gentle sun shower came up.
When I walked into the actual theater, the air held the slightly mechanically-tinged smell of air-conditioning. All of the previews I saw were for the kind of big, stupid comedies that are earmarked for summer releases, and in the moment I wanted nothing more than to see all of them. When the movie ended and I was driving home, I brought up the album "Celebration Rock" by Japandroids on the iPhone plugged into my car. I don't think I'd listened to it since last August, but something about playing it today seemed completely perfect, and it was.
I have twenty-two days with my students left this year. I know this well enough now that I don't have to pause and think about it; I can actually visualize the appropriately crossed off days on the calendar whenever someone asks how many days left. Officially I still have twenty-three, but I don't count that last one since its devoted to packing up my classroom and spending time with friends I won't see much of for a couple of months, and plugging my iPod into the classroom sound system to listen to an end of the year / beginning of the summer playlist I've already started compiling.
It's safe to say I've already started anticipating summer vacation.
Early in the afternoon I drove a suburb or two over to the movie theater I frequent, largely because it's the closest one that can all but guarantee I won't run into anyone who would recognize me from school (such is the protected privacy of my introverted life). I rolled the window down on the way over and actually needed to wear my sunglasses for one of the first times in 2014. I passed a church parking lot that had a dozen Boy Scouts scurrying around to set up a plant sale. There were more people walking along the downtown sidewalks wearing shorts than there were wearing jackets, and none of them seemed at all bothered when a brief and gentle sun shower came up.
When I walked into the actual theater, the air held the slightly mechanically-tinged smell of air-conditioning. All of the previews I saw were for the kind of big, stupid comedies that are earmarked for summer releases, and in the moment I wanted nothing more than to see all of them. When the movie ended and I was driving home, I brought up the album "Celebration Rock" by Japandroids on the iPhone plugged into my car. I don't think I'd listened to it since last August, but something about playing it today seemed completely perfect, and it was.
I have twenty-two days with my students left this year. I know this well enough now that I don't have to pause and think about it; I can actually visualize the appropriately crossed off days on the calendar whenever someone asks how many days left. Officially I still have twenty-three, but I don't count that last one since its devoted to packing up my classroom and spending time with friends I won't see much of for a couple of months, and plugging my iPod into the classroom sound system to listen to an end of the year / beginning of the summer playlist I've already started compiling.
It's safe to say I've already started anticipating summer vacation.
Friday, May 9, 2014
Day 9 - The Darkest Timeline
Dear NBC -
You've got issues.
You used to be my go-to network. You had several great shows a long, long, long time ago. You had "The West Wing." You had the morning show I woke up to every day. I was devoted to your local news affiliate, and if anything crazy or significant was taking place in the world, you were my default choice to find out what was going on. But today you screwed up.
Canceling "Community?" Seriously?!
I get that it's all about the ratings. And yes, the show has limped along throughout most of its run. But what did you think would happen when you kept one of the most intelligently written and nuanced comedies in recent memory in a time slot up against that lowest common denominator, cartoon-character populated collection of cheap one-liners called "The Big Bang Theory?"
How am I supposed to reimagine the idea of a Thursday night without the possibility of seeing Troy and Abed, or the Dreamatorium? Without Alison Brie to crush on? Without Starburns, or Vicki, or Todd, or Garrett? Who will be there to alert me when there's a crisis? What about Professor Professorson or the Dean or Leonard or MAGNITUDE for crying out loud?!! Is it impossible to think you might wise up and Chang your mind?
All you've got left now is "Parks and Recreation," which probably isn't long for this world either since it's actually a quality show and on your network, and those two things don't seem to mix. If you didn't have Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, or SNL left, I would literally have no reason to ever watch you again. There's nothing left to say here, other than to highlight the painfully obvious: You really Britta'd this one. Big time.
(Sara, if you read this: I'll be needing my Season 1 DVDs back immediately. I've got some existential holes to fill.)
You've got issues.
You used to be my go-to network. You had several great shows a long, long, long time ago. You had "The West Wing." You had the morning show I woke up to every day. I was devoted to your local news affiliate, and if anything crazy or significant was taking place in the world, you were my default choice to find out what was going on. But today you screwed up.
Canceling "Community?" Seriously?!
I get that it's all about the ratings. And yes, the show has limped along throughout most of its run. But what did you think would happen when you kept one of the most intelligently written and nuanced comedies in recent memory in a time slot up against that lowest common denominator, cartoon-character populated collection of cheap one-liners called "The Big Bang Theory?"
How am I supposed to reimagine the idea of a Thursday night without the possibility of seeing Troy and Abed, or the Dreamatorium? Without Alison Brie to crush on? Without Starburns, or Vicki, or Todd, or Garrett? Who will be there to alert me when there's a crisis? What about Professor Professorson or the Dean or Leonard or MAGNITUDE for crying out loud?!! Is it impossible to think you might wise up and Chang your mind?
All you've got left now is "Parks and Recreation," which probably isn't long for this world either since it's actually a quality show and on your network, and those two things don't seem to mix. If you didn't have Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, or SNL left, I would literally have no reason to ever watch you again. There's nothing left to say here, other than to highlight the painfully obvious: You really Britta'd this one. Big time.
(Sara, if you read this: I'll be needing my Season 1 DVDs back immediately. I've got some existential holes to fill.)
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Day 8 - DVD Film School
It's almost summer, which is the time of year I start thinking about renewing my Netflix subscription. I've had a love/hate relationship with Netflix over the years. I'd take a break from it then remember how nice things were and start up again, and it wouldn't be long before so many discs would be showing up in my mailbox scratched beyond recognition and physically unplayable. I thought streaming movies through my Blu-Ray player would be the answer, but that device turned out to be so frustratingly slow it reminded me of dial-up. I ended up watching most of the first season of "House of Cards" at my desktop computer, which wasn't really ideal. But now with this shiny iPad I'm currently typing away on? I have high hopes it will go a long way in solving that streaming problem for me.
I've done summer binges on TV shows dating back to the time before binge-watching was a trending catchphrase, and I'm looking forward to getting back into that habit again soon. I'm not a big TV watcher most of the time, so summer break is the perfect chance to get caught up on shows I've missed. I know Netflix doesn't carry everything but they do have season 2 of "House of Cards," and that alone is enough reason for me to reactivate my account.
But catching up on TV shows isn't the only reason to give Netflix another try -- they also have movies!! Part of my problem with movies is that I miss out on a lot of good ones when they're in the theater. I used to go to the movies nearly every weekend, often seeing something just because it was the least unappealing option available. But with the price of seeing a movie in a theater bordering on the ridiculous these days, I've pulled back considerably. When I go now, I'm looking for the pure entertainment, the thrills, the escape. I would probably see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" five times before I'd even consider seeing something like "12 Years a Slave." Not because I don't think "12 Years a Slave" wouldn't be a landmark movie, but somehow I don't see myself walking out of the theater with a big stupid grin on my face after that one.
And this is where Netflix comes in. With that I can stream the movies I know would be good but wouldn't have been my theater choices, or see the smaller movies I was curious about but not curious enough to drive to the the one independent theater within a 40 mile radius. And this is to say nothing about the dozens of classics I've missed over the decades. I have huge cultural gaps there: Would you believe it if I said I've never seen "The Godfather?" Not because I'm not interested or completely unaware of it, but four hours is just such a long time to sit still for someone who doesn't have the attention span to endure most commercial breaks, so it's just one of many I've never gotten around to. (Although in a tangentially-related way, I have to say the film version of "Fight Club" is one of my all-time favorites; saw it in the theater, twice, owned it on normal and special edition DVD and Blu-Ray, and have seen it countless times on cable.) And now I'm kind of feeling like I should see "The Godfather," along with several other classics still on what I'll call my Gap List, too many of which would be humiliating to point out haven't seen yet.
So as soon as I pull the trigger and get the Netflix showing up on the iPad, I'm going to put together a queue of all those classic movies I've missed out on and finally get caught up. Maybe that will even become a semi-regular blog feature throughout the summer. In the meantime I'll just put this question out there: What are the must-see movies of cinematic history that I should put on the list, in case I haven't seen them yet?
I've done summer binges on TV shows dating back to the time before binge-watching was a trending catchphrase, and I'm looking forward to getting back into that habit again soon. I'm not a big TV watcher most of the time, so summer break is the perfect chance to get caught up on shows I've missed. I know Netflix doesn't carry everything but they do have season 2 of "House of Cards," and that alone is enough reason for me to reactivate my account.
But catching up on TV shows isn't the only reason to give Netflix another try -- they also have movies!! Part of my problem with movies is that I miss out on a lot of good ones when they're in the theater. I used to go to the movies nearly every weekend, often seeing something just because it was the least unappealing option available. But with the price of seeing a movie in a theater bordering on the ridiculous these days, I've pulled back considerably. When I go now, I'm looking for the pure entertainment, the thrills, the escape. I would probably see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" five times before I'd even consider seeing something like "12 Years a Slave." Not because I don't think "12 Years a Slave" wouldn't be a landmark movie, but somehow I don't see myself walking out of the theater with a big stupid grin on my face after that one.
And this is where Netflix comes in. With that I can stream the movies I know would be good but wouldn't have been my theater choices, or see the smaller movies I was curious about but not curious enough to drive to the the one independent theater within a 40 mile radius. And this is to say nothing about the dozens of classics I've missed over the decades. I have huge cultural gaps there: Would you believe it if I said I've never seen "The Godfather?" Not because I'm not interested or completely unaware of it, but four hours is just such a long time to sit still for someone who doesn't have the attention span to endure most commercial breaks, so it's just one of many I've never gotten around to. (Although in a tangentially-related way, I have to say the film version of "Fight Club" is one of my all-time favorites; saw it in the theater, twice, owned it on normal and special edition DVD and Blu-Ray, and have seen it countless times on cable.) And now I'm kind of feeling like I should see "The Godfather," along with several other classics still on what I'll call my Gap List, too many of which would be humiliating to point out haven't seen yet.
So as soon as I pull the trigger and get the Netflix showing up on the iPad, I'm going to put together a queue of all those classic movies I've missed out on and finally get caught up. Maybe that will even become a semi-regular blog feature throughout the summer. In the meantime I'll just put this question out there: What are the must-see movies of cinematic history that I should put on the list, in case I haven't seen them yet?
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