So it's been pretty much the longest week of my life, near equal to stress and anxiety levels around this time last year during the thesis. I guess I should just thank my lucky stars that I don't have hives...yet. I'm so tired of pretending to be an adult lately, when everyone else seems to be able to act like a child. Whining probably isn't the most productive activity, but this is electronic communication, so in some way that makes it okay. Right? Whatever. Somebody told me when I signed up for this experience that I was "tough as nails," and recently I've heard that I'm "resilient" and "strong," but pulling up to MCHS this afternoon from the courthouse I realized that I'm fucking tired of trying to juggle all of my responsibilities, and I just don't have it in me to be the stoic. I'm tired, it's not me, and it doesn't really even work that well.
I'm a bit in awe that it's finally Thursday night, and that we have our teacher workday tomorrow. Honestly, on Monday I really wasn't sure how I was going to make it to Friday; on Wednesday night (was that really yesterday) while driving home from FIU after a 4 hour presentation, I couldn't remember the day before. There are still things left to do, but I've reached my point of not caring.
I'm over that stupid place, and just want to finally be enrolled in the program so that we can start negotiating. They desperately need people in the Urban Master's school, and if they're not all of a sudden super fucking nice to me, I'm going to tell everyone from the '05 Corps exactly how we've been treated: with patronizing condescention, broken promises, rude administration, unflexible and inconvenient schedules, and overpriced tuition. Yeah, that should get the enrollment you need, you bastards.
Finals week is hell normally, and when you haven't got a car, have to commute 1.5 hours to class, and work a 60 hour a week job at the same time, that doesn't make it any easier. I was in Broward County at 10:45 on Tuesday night, got up at the usual 5:30 to go to work all day Wednesday, sit through a ridiculously childish faculty meeting with some confrontational angry bitch who marched in and told everybody that we had to change our curriculum for a BLACK URBAN SCHOOL to include a UNIT on the Holocaust before the end of the year because black kids need to learn about racial persecution. Excuse me? What didn't help was when the "adult" teachers started catfighting with her and she showed us a clip of that god-awful HBO documentary with Kenneth Branaugh and Colin Firth as an "exemplary lesson" for our students. She "knew" they'd identify with that. Could we be a little further out of touch with reality?
Mary and I then drove to FIU, missed getting my car by 15 minutes because 826 was a parking lot, and then sat in a room from 7:00 pm to 11:30 listening to TESOL education presentations. They weren't bad, but the class has been all semester, and I'm sorry if 4.5 hours of sleep isn't *quite* enough to get me through an 8 hour teaching day with 90 students. Did I mention that both residents of apt. 2 have lost their voices? Yeah. Fun to tell kids to stop running out of the hallway and calling each other "dirty haitians" with no voice.
Then, in the midst of trying to orchestrate another logistical feat to somehow, someway get me down to SW Miami and pick up my car (pay and arm and a leg for my car) , and be able to transport myself again in the city of traffic jams and inept drivers ASIDE: I was informed by my sagacious roommate that the Florida legislature recently passed a law requiring slower-moving traffic to move to the right hand lanes on interstate highways. Are you *kidding*? And people wonder why nothing gets accomplished in the government around here. It's because they don't have time to spend on trivial issues like education and election fraud, when they're so busy taking care of keeping our roadways safe., when I had to pack up and head off to my depostion at the Juvenile Justice Center.
If ever I thought that there was some sort of cosmic order, and that karma evened out things in life, this week as most thoroughly disabused me of that idea.
I'm really to exhaused to get into it, and it's probably not safe for me to say anything in even a quasi-public forum, but let it suffice to say that I find it disconcerting that school employees can give partially falsified statements to court officials, and that I find it *very* hard to believe (as apparently, MY testimony was hard to belive) that "nice, respectful girls" 1. attack teachers, 2. hang around teachers' rooms whom they have attacked after they have been expelled from school, or 3. say blatantly untrue things like "my teacher hit me" when security drags them into the police officer's room for the first time. Maybe it's just my skewed perspective on things, and I should be a little more open to "alternate views" of Februrary 5th. Please excuse my cynicism.
So now do I not only think that my school administration, security, and half the faculty is out to get me fired, but hey, there's not a goddamnn thing I can do about it because the justice system is fucked too. It's like some kid told a rumor, and because she's the cool one at school, everyone believes her instead.
I can be mean, I can be hurtful, and I can assume things without enough background information, but I take quite a bit of pride in the fact that I don't lie. Maybe that's just a childish thought.
If, on a winter's night a traveler outside the town of Malbork, leaning from a steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down into the gathering shadow...on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave, what story there awaits its end? -italo calvino
Friday, April 22, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Too Many Responsibilities
I just need a moment for the myriad of tasks which need to be accomplished by Friday afternoon.
-post paper 1 on internet
-create website for class 2
-presentation for class 2
-give quiz on odyssey
-fix car, which crapped out in the middle of I-95 Saturday afternoon
-pick up fixed car
-call parents about crapped-out car
-organize a soccer tournament on sunday (are you fucking kidding!?!?)
-buy candy for soccer players to sell
-buy groceries for me to eat
-pay cable bill
-go out for drinks with soccer team, who won the finals on Monday night. Was that last night? What day is it?
-check my FOURTEEN missed calls from psycho group member. I don't think I've gotten 14 calls in one day. Ever. There are barely 14 people's numbers in my phone.
-organize "exemplary school visits"
-give a deposition in court
-get a substitute for the time when i'm giving a deposition
-feed the cat
-feed myself. shit, did I buy food yet?
-lesson plans (ha! yeah, right. i'll just get fired)
-doctor's appointment
-get my voice back
-get over the flu for good
-read/post for class 2
-teach? is that what i do?
-sleep?
-call dave.
let's start from the bottom up =)
-post paper 1 on internet
-create website for class 2
-presentation for class 2
-give quiz on odyssey
-fix car, which crapped out in the middle of I-95 Saturday afternoon
-pick up fixed car
-call parents about crapped-out car
-organize a soccer tournament on sunday (are you fucking kidding!?!?)
-buy candy for soccer players to sell
-buy groceries for me to eat
-pay cable bill
-go out for drinks with soccer team, who won the finals on Monday night. Was that last night? What day is it?
-check my FOURTEEN missed calls from psycho group member. I don't think I've gotten 14 calls in one day. Ever. There are barely 14 people's numbers in my phone.
-organize "exemplary school visits"
-give a deposition in court
-get a substitute for the time when i'm giving a deposition
-feed the cat
-feed myself. shit, did I buy food yet?
-lesson plans (ha! yeah, right. i'll just get fired)
-doctor's appointment
-get my voice back
-get over the flu for good
-read/post for class 2
-teach? is that what i do?
-sleep?
-call dave.
let's start from the bottom up =)
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Bar-B-Que-d Lizard
I’m sitting here at my computer, sipping on my second glass of pinot grigio this evening, which I’m only half sorry to say has made me more than half-tipsy. Please don’t let this small caveat color what I have to say this evening, or at least if it does, let it be a soft, yellow glow =).
When I went outside to fire up the grill this afternoon, I was feeling pretty good. It was a balmy 78 degrees, as it usually is around here in the tropics, and I had plans for the night. It’s the last week of classes at Florida International University, which means that projects, papers, etc. are all due. I have a research paper to finish for my TESOL class, and for some reason it’s been hell to actually get it done.
Theoretically, I could have grilled the peppers, have Virginia be my prep cook for the rest of the roasted red pepper soup, reheated Sunday’s delectable polenta, eaten, and then edited my nearly complete paper. Unfortunately, life had other things in store for me. It all started with the lizard.
When I poured the Matchlight charcoal onto our petite grill, a frightened gecko ran out of the bottom, fleeing for his life. A second, slightly smaller and less speedy one poured out of the bag of briquettes onto the rack, confused and clearly disoriented. One could hardly blame our reptilian friend, literally tossed into a foreign and rather hostile environment with little warning. He (and we’ll use the masculine indefinite pronoun here, because I just feel like it) made his way down to the bottom of the steel bowl only to find that the ventilation holes had already been covered. Unbeknownst to me, my lizard friend sat there petrified while flames exploded overhead. As I monitored the growing blaze, I noticed that the lizard I thought had escaped was actually doing terrified laps around the grill, searching in vain for an exit. With my limited knowledge of zoology, I knew that this little guy was unable to regulate his own body temperature, and if he stayed too much longer in the heat, he’d kick the proverbial bucket. But even after I opened the vents, he didn’t get it right away; he kept running. Eventually, he fell a few feet to the ground below the grill and laid exactly where he landed, perfectly still.
Then it came to me, as I watched the pathetic creature heave painfully on the concrete below the grill: I am that lizard. I’m stuck in this ludicrous situation, a burning, dirty mess of flames and charred carbon hanging perilously over my head, just waiting for something to fall and maim me.
At the time, I thought I’d progressed further through my little allegory: I picked up the lizard gently and took him to the shade of my windowsill, where he could cool off in the shade safe from predators. I even gave him a piece of canteloupe to snack on. The REAL Read 180 representative came to my classroom today to observe, and not only did she give me objective, constructive advice as well as encouraging acknowledgement of the things that I was doing well, she offered me a fucking JOB at a museum-based Magnet fucking bilingual elementary school program. I swear to god, if I weren’t contractually bound to Miami Central, I would have booked it faster than that first gecko did out of the grill. We then proceded to have a personal conversation in SPANISH about bilingual education, and the fact that my qualifications were being wasted in my current job. Sigh. [Heart]. She opened up the ventilation holes in my world view of public education: there is not an overwhelming majority of incompetent assholes in the world, there’s just an overwhelming concentration of them where I happen to work. I’m not completely overworked and underappreciated all the time, just 9 days out of 10. She was a person with real authority and real suggestions, not the quasi-Read 180 rep who was just a Zone observer masquerading as support, doling out obfuscated advice that was in reality condemnation and critique. There were real, concrete reasons that I decided to teach this year, and there are real, concrete moments when I love some of the kids I teach, and I feel like I’m giving them access to the tools they need for success. I thought I was at the same place my lizard friend was, lying paralyzed on the concrete, not knowing if I’d just been obliterated by the heat or released from it. If I just gathered my wits, waited a little while and toughed it out, someone would realize that I was lying there and pick me up to cool me off.
With this cutesy optimistic notion in my head, I went back into my apartment to find that our fucking air conditioning had created another goddamn lake in our kitchen, making odd noises to boot. This wouldn’t be an issue if we could OPEN OUR WINDOWS, which have no screens. But don’t worry, they were supposed to be here “two weeks ago. They’re on order.” That was d-place’s November comment. Fuck you, d-place. So I’m stuck in a sweltering apartment with a paper to write, and dinner only half cooked, with the water lapping up to the stove. In my ire, I write a ridiculously sarcastic letter to the design place management, the proceed to storm over there (still in my charcoal-smeared apron; I’d been grilling) and step in a pile of dog shit on the way, thanks to my responsible dog-owning neighbors. Fuck you, dog owners.
Let it suffice to say that after a long, delicious dinner of grilled polenta and roasted red pepper soup, expertly garnished and served with a chilled white wine, I may have vented to Carlos and Virginia, but I still have not written my paper, and am not, shall we say, in a state to be doing said task. Dammit, am I freaking out under the burning hot coals, or have things finally started to cool off?!
…and a postscript. I miss Dave a lot. We saw each other every 2 weeks for the past 2 months and I miss him. I really also wish people would stop asking me if we’re getting married. I don’t even know how I’m going to be earning a paycheck in the next 2 years, let alone know with whom I’m going to spend the rest of my life. I think I should just go to bed.
When I went outside to fire up the grill this afternoon, I was feeling pretty good. It was a balmy 78 degrees, as it usually is around here in the tropics, and I had plans for the night. It’s the last week of classes at Florida International University, which means that projects, papers, etc. are all due. I have a research paper to finish for my TESOL class, and for some reason it’s been hell to actually get it done.
Theoretically, I could have grilled the peppers, have Virginia be my prep cook for the rest of the roasted red pepper soup, reheated Sunday’s delectable polenta, eaten, and then edited my nearly complete paper. Unfortunately, life had other things in store for me. It all started with the lizard.
When I poured the Matchlight charcoal onto our petite grill, a frightened gecko ran out of the bottom, fleeing for his life. A second, slightly smaller and less speedy one poured out of the bag of briquettes onto the rack, confused and clearly disoriented. One could hardly blame our reptilian friend, literally tossed into a foreign and rather hostile environment with little warning. He (and we’ll use the masculine indefinite pronoun here, because I just feel like it) made his way down to the bottom of the steel bowl only to find that the ventilation holes had already been covered. Unbeknownst to me, my lizard friend sat there petrified while flames exploded overhead. As I monitored the growing blaze, I noticed that the lizard I thought had escaped was actually doing terrified laps around the grill, searching in vain for an exit. With my limited knowledge of zoology, I knew that this little guy was unable to regulate his own body temperature, and if he stayed too much longer in the heat, he’d kick the proverbial bucket. But even after I opened the vents, he didn’t get it right away; he kept running. Eventually, he fell a few feet to the ground below the grill and laid exactly where he landed, perfectly still.
Then it came to me, as I watched the pathetic creature heave painfully on the concrete below the grill: I am that lizard. I’m stuck in this ludicrous situation, a burning, dirty mess of flames and charred carbon hanging perilously over my head, just waiting for something to fall and maim me.
At the time, I thought I’d progressed further through my little allegory: I picked up the lizard gently and took him to the shade of my windowsill, where he could cool off in the shade safe from predators. I even gave him a piece of canteloupe to snack on. The REAL Read 180 representative came to my classroom today to observe, and not only did she give me objective, constructive advice as well as encouraging acknowledgement of the things that I was doing well, she offered me a fucking JOB at a museum-based Magnet fucking bilingual elementary school program. I swear to god, if I weren’t contractually bound to Miami Central, I would have booked it faster than that first gecko did out of the grill. We then proceded to have a personal conversation in SPANISH about bilingual education, and the fact that my qualifications were being wasted in my current job. Sigh. [Heart]. She opened up the ventilation holes in my world view of public education: there is not an overwhelming majority of incompetent assholes in the world, there’s just an overwhelming concentration of them where I happen to work. I’m not completely overworked and underappreciated all the time, just 9 days out of 10. She was a person with real authority and real suggestions, not the quasi-Read 180 rep who was just a Zone observer masquerading as support, doling out obfuscated advice that was in reality condemnation and critique. There were real, concrete reasons that I decided to teach this year, and there are real, concrete moments when I love some of the kids I teach, and I feel like I’m giving them access to the tools they need for success. I thought I was at the same place my lizard friend was, lying paralyzed on the concrete, not knowing if I’d just been obliterated by the heat or released from it. If I just gathered my wits, waited a little while and toughed it out, someone would realize that I was lying there and pick me up to cool me off.
With this cutesy optimistic notion in my head, I went back into my apartment to find that our fucking air conditioning had created another goddamn lake in our kitchen, making odd noises to boot. This wouldn’t be an issue if we could OPEN OUR WINDOWS, which have no screens. But don’t worry, they were supposed to be here “two weeks ago. They’re on order.” That was d-place’s November comment. Fuck you, d-place. So I’m stuck in a sweltering apartment with a paper to write, and dinner only half cooked, with the water lapping up to the stove. In my ire, I write a ridiculously sarcastic letter to the design place management, the proceed to storm over there (still in my charcoal-smeared apron; I’d been grilling) and step in a pile of dog shit on the way, thanks to my responsible dog-owning neighbors. Fuck you, dog owners.
Let it suffice to say that after a long, delicious dinner of grilled polenta and roasted red pepper soup, expertly garnished and served with a chilled white wine, I may have vented to Carlos and Virginia, but I still have not written my paper, and am not, shall we say, in a state to be doing said task. Dammit, am I freaking out under the burning hot coals, or have things finally started to cool off?!
…and a postscript. I miss Dave a lot. We saw each other every 2 weeks for the past 2 months and I miss him. I really also wish people would stop asking me if we’re getting married. I don’t even know how I’m going to be earning a paycheck in the next 2 years, let alone know with whom I’m going to spend the rest of my life. I think I should just go to bed.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Vice, Miami Style
Enmired in the depths of procrastination, as per usual, and it came across my mind that putting things off is definitely one of my vices. I have several, but imaginative procrastination might be one of my favorites.
Yesterday, coming out of an ACT session at Central (complete with token 2 white kids from Miami Shores), I decided that instead of working dilligently on the TESOL paper that I (today) found out is due on Wednesday, I should go lie in the sun. True, napping in the gentle springtime Miami sun was pretty much divine, but did little to advance my academic growth. Sunning oneself with a delicate norweigan complexion is a favorite foible of mine, leading to much aloe. Luckily this weekend my little green friend wasn't needed. After my restorative basking, clearly the house just *had* to be clean, so I did dishes, cleaned my room and the litterbox. Outstanding.
It then took me a good hour to motivate myself into getting to the gym for a workout, another of my addictive vices. In the D-Place weight room, I met the most precocious 5 year old that I have encountered in quite some time. Dejanee (Day-shuh-nay) and I had a surprising amount of things in common, including our fascination with the elliptical trainer, our desire to be teachers (though she wants to teach Head Start, not 9th grade. I don't blame her), and our mutual dislike of small babies. Plus, as anyone knows, Beyonce is cool. Perhaps I don't hate all children, just the ones that drive around on their mini ATV's early on Saturday and Sunday mornings and knock over my plants.
Procrastination really snowballed out of control when I totally blew off work to have dinner out on the Shuckers' dock with the crew. Our supposed quick trip to the seafood bar stretched into a languid two hours as we sat on the deck with breezes from the bay. Pretty sweet, huh? Then, all of a sudden, it was 11:00.
I can be pretty talented at finding things to do other than whatever activity I'm supposed to be completing.
Take, for example, my next vice: Fiametta. Much, too much of this weekend was spent rectifying the rusted side panel that I painted last summer. Damn cheap primer; aah, sweet sunny Sunday afternoons. I love that damn thing, and even though it's never going to look as nice as I want it to, the engine's going to crap out, and the 1.5 speakers are busted, she draws me in. Countless hours down the drain running errands to get paint, sandpaper; countless brain cells evaporated from inhaling aerosol on windy days. Sigh. The double-edged sword of vice.
All this talk of vice, depravity, and licentiousness (although, unfortunately there hasn't been much of that lately) originated sometime Friday night when VA and I cruised back from Aventura via Biscayne Boulevard. I should, at this time, mention that this particular roadway, AKA US highway 1, has historically been the hotbed of Miami's prostitution industry. Pun intended.
Biscayne is lined with the seediest, sketchiest 1920's motels that I have ever seen in my life. Half of them look like they were ripped right out of the pags of some Elmore Leonard novel, except that this isn't Hollywood. I see hookers regularly in the mornings at the bus stops on my way to work, and there's even a local hip-hop song called "Miami Clap" (not really sure if there's some pun going on *there*) which features the line "I'm gonna be on sixty-first, wearin' my dukes." When there's an allusion to your neighborhood in a hip-hop song, you know you're ghetto.
With this in mind, when us two little whiteys saw 6 cop cars at 59th street at 10:30 on a Friday night at the "Seven Seas Motel," we didn't really bat a blonde eyelash. What did catch our eyes were the 8 white vans, camera crews, lights, and boom mic's. At the time, my guess was that CSI Miami was filming on location. This alone would have been cool, and pretty amusing that they came down to Morningside for the crime scene. But no, ardent listeners, it gets better! Carlos, a little more adventuresome (and insane) than the two of us girls, went over to the "set" the next day to find Jamie Foxx and Michael Mann hard at work on 2006's "Miami Vice." I nearly ran off the road when I found out that Colin Farrel could have been 7 blocks from my apartment. Luckily my less depraved instincts took over, and I merely shrieked in delight that our little community was the site of a major motion picture.
So yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am living in vice city, experiencing the high life Miami-style. Now, if only I could conquer my favorite indulgence and finish my paper. In such a vice-ridden environment, I'm not sure if it's even humanly possible.
Yesterday, coming out of an ACT session at Central (complete with token 2 white kids from Miami Shores), I decided that instead of working dilligently on the TESOL paper that I (today) found out is due on Wednesday, I should go lie in the sun. True, napping in the gentle springtime Miami sun was pretty much divine, but did little to advance my academic growth. Sunning oneself with a delicate norweigan complexion is a favorite foible of mine, leading to much aloe. Luckily this weekend my little green friend wasn't needed. After my restorative basking, clearly the house just *had* to be clean, so I did dishes, cleaned my room and the litterbox. Outstanding.
It then took me a good hour to motivate myself into getting to the gym for a workout, another of my addictive vices. In the D-Place weight room, I met the most precocious 5 year old that I have encountered in quite some time. Dejanee (Day-shuh-nay) and I had a surprising amount of things in common, including our fascination with the elliptical trainer, our desire to be teachers (though she wants to teach Head Start, not 9th grade. I don't blame her), and our mutual dislike of small babies. Plus, as anyone knows, Beyonce is cool. Perhaps I don't hate all children, just the ones that drive around on their mini ATV's early on Saturday and Sunday mornings and knock over my plants.
Procrastination really snowballed out of control when I totally blew off work to have dinner out on the Shuckers' dock with the crew. Our supposed quick trip to the seafood bar stretched into a languid two hours as we sat on the deck with breezes from the bay. Pretty sweet, huh? Then, all of a sudden, it was 11:00.
I can be pretty talented at finding things to do other than whatever activity I'm supposed to be completing.
Take, for example, my next vice: Fiametta. Much, too much of this weekend was spent rectifying the rusted side panel that I painted last summer. Damn cheap primer; aah, sweet sunny Sunday afternoons. I love that damn thing, and even though it's never going to look as nice as I want it to, the engine's going to crap out, and the 1.5 speakers are busted, she draws me in. Countless hours down the drain running errands to get paint, sandpaper; countless brain cells evaporated from inhaling aerosol on windy days. Sigh. The double-edged sword of vice.
All this talk of vice, depravity, and licentiousness (although, unfortunately there hasn't been much of that lately) originated sometime Friday night when VA and I cruised back from Aventura via Biscayne Boulevard. I should, at this time, mention that this particular roadway, AKA US highway 1, has historically been the hotbed of Miami's prostitution industry. Pun intended.
Biscayne is lined with the seediest, sketchiest 1920's motels that I have ever seen in my life. Half of them look like they were ripped right out of the pags of some Elmore Leonard novel, except that this isn't Hollywood. I see hookers regularly in the mornings at the bus stops on my way to work, and there's even a local hip-hop song called "Miami Clap" (not really sure if there's some pun going on *there*) which features the line "I'm gonna be on sixty-first, wearin' my dukes." When there's an allusion to your neighborhood in a hip-hop song, you know you're ghetto.
With this in mind, when us two little whiteys saw 6 cop cars at 59th street at 10:30 on a Friday night at the "Seven Seas Motel," we didn't really bat a blonde eyelash. What did catch our eyes were the 8 white vans, camera crews, lights, and boom mic's. At the time, my guess was that CSI Miami was filming on location. This alone would have been cool, and pretty amusing that they came down to Morningside for the crime scene. But no, ardent listeners, it gets better! Carlos, a little more adventuresome (and insane) than the two of us girls, went over to the "set" the next day to find Jamie Foxx and Michael Mann hard at work on 2006's "Miami Vice." I nearly ran off the road when I found out that Colin Farrel could have been 7 blocks from my apartment. Luckily my less depraved instincts took over, and I merely shrieked in delight that our little community was the site of a major motion picture.
So yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am living in vice city, experiencing the high life Miami-style. Now, if only I could conquer my favorite indulgence and finish my paper. In such a vice-ridden environment, I'm not sure if it's even humanly possible.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
"Ride on Me!"
...Says the stationary bike in our gym. I didn't notice it until tonight, when I had to use it instead of our one functional elliptical trainer.
I'm trying to sort out a whole mass of conflicting thoughts in my head, and this weekend was supposed to help me do that. I can't decide if I'm terrified that the end of the school year won't arrive soon enough, or that I won't get done all that I want to do with this year's crop of 9th graders. Dave is thoroughly entrenched in Haverford and thus the thesis, but I want him to hurry up and be with me down here in MIA as well. I don't know what I want to get out of TFA yet, and how FIU/the Master's program fits in to all of that. I don't know a lot of things, but I do still know what I like.
This morning, as the sun rose just a little bit later, thanks to the springing forward of time last night, Miami was just so beautiful. To celebrate that beauty, following up on a Saturday night barbeque of steak and peppers, we made pancakes. Then, before the masses of urban and suburban consumers descended on Biscayne Boulevard, we sped up to Barnes and Noble, in Aventura.
After all these years, even with my predilection for independent detail-oriented bookstores, walking through aisles of tomes and exploring B&N makes me happy. We spent considerably more than the alotted 45 minutes making our purchases, but with the teacher discount I saved $8 on a $20 purchase. Hell yeah. I also, in a fit of sheer indulgence (to be followed with more orange-poppy-themed-Izaak-Mizrahi indulgence in Target) bought a book to read purely for pleasure: a book chock full of literary allusions and bibliophilic puns. It's completely euro-centric, unabashedly elitist, and nearly deifies all the "dead white guys" you hear so much about these days, but am thoroughly enjoying it. It reminded me that deep down in my core, there still exists that spark of enthusiasm and love of words that made me want to get involved in this someitmes horrid profession.
I also bought the SparkNotes for the Odyssey, so I wouldn't have to write intelligent summaries of the books we're skipping. Ha.
As I told the boy the other day in response to a [slightly envious?] comment about how my existence down here is pretty luscious, I have a good life to compensate for my sometimes shitty job. I have good food on the weekends, when I finally find the to cook, palm trees and turquoise waters 14 minutes away, a good cat, and good friends.
Sure, I miss my family, I miss some of the friends that I hardly ever talk to anymore, but I'm making a resolution that once I find some time, I'm going to start a great pan-American letter writing campaign. Note the sardonic realist lurking behind said girlishly idealistic comment. Let's be honest, how many letters do we think I'm going to write before June?
Anyway, it's almost 11:00 on a schoolnight, and that spells b-a-d news for me getting up in the morning, especially when it's going to seem like it's an hour earlier than it actually is. And alas, I've really decided nothing, but I've had a hell of a good time NOT doing that =).
I'm trying to sort out a whole mass of conflicting thoughts in my head, and this weekend was supposed to help me do that. I can't decide if I'm terrified that the end of the school year won't arrive soon enough, or that I won't get done all that I want to do with this year's crop of 9th graders. Dave is thoroughly entrenched in Haverford and thus the thesis, but I want him to hurry up and be with me down here in MIA as well. I don't know what I want to get out of TFA yet, and how FIU/the Master's program fits in to all of that. I don't know a lot of things, but I do still know what I like.
This morning, as the sun rose just a little bit later, thanks to the springing forward of time last night, Miami was just so beautiful. To celebrate that beauty, following up on a Saturday night barbeque of steak and peppers, we made pancakes. Then, before the masses of urban and suburban consumers descended on Biscayne Boulevard, we sped up to Barnes and Noble, in Aventura.
After all these years, even with my predilection for independent detail-oriented bookstores, walking through aisles of tomes and exploring B&N makes me happy. We spent considerably more than the alotted 45 minutes making our purchases, but with the teacher discount I saved $8 on a $20 purchase. Hell yeah. I also, in a fit of sheer indulgence (to be followed with more orange-poppy-themed-Izaak-Mizrahi indulgence in Target) bought a book to read purely for pleasure: a book chock full of literary allusions and bibliophilic puns. It's completely euro-centric, unabashedly elitist, and nearly deifies all the "dead white guys" you hear so much about these days, but am thoroughly enjoying it. It reminded me that deep down in my core, there still exists that spark of enthusiasm and love of words that made me want to get involved in this someitmes horrid profession.
I also bought the SparkNotes for the Odyssey, so I wouldn't have to write intelligent summaries of the books we're skipping. Ha.
As I told the boy the other day in response to a [slightly envious?] comment about how my existence down here is pretty luscious, I have a good life to compensate for my sometimes shitty job. I have good food on the weekends, when I finally find the to cook, palm trees and turquoise waters 14 minutes away, a good cat, and good friends.
Sure, I miss my family, I miss some of the friends that I hardly ever talk to anymore, but I'm making a resolution that once I find some time, I'm going to start a great pan-American letter writing campaign. Note the sardonic realist lurking behind said girlishly idealistic comment. Let's be honest, how many letters do we think I'm going to write before June?
Anyway, it's almost 11:00 on a schoolnight, and that spells b-a-d news for me getting up in the morning, especially when it's going to seem like it's an hour earlier than it actually is. And alas, I've really decided nothing, but I've had a hell of a good time NOT doing that =).
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