here is the start to my ridiculous story that contains the four elements from the create-a-short-story-from-a-chart handout and assignment that my tenth graders and i are working on. this will become a podcast eventually (and a better piece of writing one day):
“Doctor’s Downfall”
Here is the story of Doctor Knight’s downfall.
In the heart of Winchester, England, a hard-working heart surgeon passed his time with his life’s pleasure: giving life to those whose heart can’t handle the weighty woes of the world. But, what was unique about this doctor, aside from his own large heart and dedication to practice (but, aren’t all doctors like this?) was that he lost his hand in The Crusades.
At first an ironic tragedy for the young aspiring surgeon, this devastation bloomed into blessing! How sanitary! How sterile! How mechanical and exact, not fumbling like the flaws that beleaguer simple humans. This anomaly made him famous—the famous Doctor Knight, head heart surgeon at Winchester’s Hospital of St. Cross...
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
high school journalism assignment.
i am in my fifth year of teaching high school english. for the last two and a half years i have been working in an alternative education program at a public school in upstate new york.
people have no concept of what alternative education is. most people just think it is another, perhaps politically correct, name for special education. well, it is not (although some students have individualized education programs or a five o'four plan--but, really a lot of kids do, even in general education classes).
so what is alternative education? well, it is different for every school. the program i work in consists of students who have been disillusioned by their home school experience because they have social issues, or discipline issues, or truancy issues, or academic issues, or have blue hair, or are gay, or enjoy celine dion and have been shunned by all of their peers. in any case, they were not finding success within the structure of their home school. so they come to us, because they don't want to drop out or sit for a general education diploma; they still want a high school experience, but on a smaller scale.
some of my classes contain three students. some fifteen. all the students spend part of their school day in the alternative education program, and spend the other half in a career and technical class (i.e. international virtual business, computer networking, fashion, et cetera).
for the most part, all of my students like the program. they even like me (even though i am beyond this: i don't care if they like me, as long as they respect me). the one thing they all have in common: they dislike work, homework and or in-class work.
as a general rule, i try to do all the assignments i give my students. if i end up hating the assignment, i change it and or never do it again. so i try to make my assignments relevant and as exciting as i can make english assignments for those that hate the subject (which is about ninety percent of my students--although, i must say, they do all the assignments i ask of them, and usually do so without complaining, unless of course, the assignment really sucks, i.e. regents preparatory work).
for my journalism class i had them set up a blog (not linked to this one). the following is first assignment that i gave them, which i did as well:
who am I?
five things that define who am i am are as follows:
food.
writing.
my father.
coffee.
music.
well, the first is pretty obvious, if i'm not working or sleeping, i'm stuffing my face with various food prodcuts. mostly cheese and chocolate. i eat the most ridiculously large breakfast every morning before work and on the weekends--mostly because i don't eat at work (they serve lunch at 10:30 and really, the only appropriate foods to eat at 10:30 in the morning is BREAKFAST). when i get home from work i gorge on dishes almost every hour (until seven, when i usually pass out in a food related coma) that must, MUST, include cheese. usually a quesadilla. or a cheese sandwich. or nachos.
writing. i like writing, although i don't fancy that i'm actually good at it anymore.
as far as my father is concerned, i lost him almost thirteen year ago to cancer. i still think of him everyday, as i am filled with constant reminders that trigger some sort of paternal nostalgia.
coffee. nuff' said. what teachers don't drink coffee? if they don't, then they cannot call themselves an educator. it is a standard in the profession to have horrible coffee breath for students to remember (and cringe in the thought) for the rest of their lives.
if you don't like music, then you are not a human. cat power. jose gonzalez. bon iver. tom waits. the hold steady. radiohead. bob dylan. life of agony.
people have no concept of what alternative education is. most people just think it is another, perhaps politically correct, name for special education. well, it is not (although some students have individualized education programs or a five o'four plan--but, really a lot of kids do, even in general education classes).
so what is alternative education? well, it is different for every school. the program i work in consists of students who have been disillusioned by their home school experience because they have social issues, or discipline issues, or truancy issues, or academic issues, or have blue hair, or are gay, or enjoy celine dion and have been shunned by all of their peers. in any case, they were not finding success within the structure of their home school. so they come to us, because they don't want to drop out or sit for a general education diploma; they still want a high school experience, but on a smaller scale.
some of my classes contain three students. some fifteen. all the students spend part of their school day in the alternative education program, and spend the other half in a career and technical class (i.e. international virtual business, computer networking, fashion, et cetera).
for the most part, all of my students like the program. they even like me (even though i am beyond this: i don't care if they like me, as long as they respect me). the one thing they all have in common: they dislike work, homework and or in-class work.
as a general rule, i try to do all the assignments i give my students. if i end up hating the assignment, i change it and or never do it again. so i try to make my assignments relevant and as exciting as i can make english assignments for those that hate the subject (which is about ninety percent of my students--although, i must say, they do all the assignments i ask of them, and usually do so without complaining, unless of course, the assignment really sucks, i.e. regents preparatory work).
for my journalism class i had them set up a blog (not linked to this one). the following is first assignment that i gave them, which i did as well:
who am I?
five things that define who am i am are as follows:
food.
writing.
my father.
coffee.
music.
well, the first is pretty obvious, if i'm not working or sleeping, i'm stuffing my face with various food prodcuts. mostly cheese and chocolate. i eat the most ridiculously large breakfast every morning before work and on the weekends--mostly because i don't eat at work (they serve lunch at 10:30 and really, the only appropriate foods to eat at 10:30 in the morning is BREAKFAST). when i get home from work i gorge on dishes almost every hour (until seven, when i usually pass out in a food related coma) that must, MUST, include cheese. usually a quesadilla. or a cheese sandwich. or nachos.
writing. i like writing, although i don't fancy that i'm actually good at it anymore.
as far as my father is concerned, i lost him almost thirteen year ago to cancer. i still think of him everyday, as i am filled with constant reminders that trigger some sort of paternal nostalgia.
coffee. nuff' said. what teachers don't drink coffee? if they don't, then they cannot call themselves an educator. it is a standard in the profession to have horrible coffee breath for students to remember (and cringe in the thought) for the rest of their lives.
if you don't like music, then you are not a human. cat power. jose gonzalez. bon iver. tom waits. the hold steady. radiohead. bob dylan. life of agony.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
eighteen.
December 9, 2008 - Tuesday
logging thoughts.
I bought Ponaris Nasal Emoillent today, and it was like dropping liquid pine into my nose. I cannot wash away that slick oily feeling that has built up in the back of my tongue.
_______________________
As an English teacher I love words. But words have power. And some powerful words that I hate (when used in a negative way) are as follows: fag, dyke, gay, nigger, bitch, fat, and retard.
And maybe some people use these words in a way that empower, but I am not one hundred percent for the appropriation of words, even though people believe they are turning a “negative into a positive.” These words are (still) hurtful and base.
______________________
I’m even a bad mother to my own dogs.
_______________________
I need a nap.
______________________
Sometimes I don’t feel complete. What is missing?
_______________________
Insane Clown Posse. What the fuck. So bad.
December 8, 2008 - Monday
this is my blog...
for the writing challenge i have been given. some blogs items will be public, and others will be for my preferred list, and sometimes for myself.
6:00AM- i woke up thing about how i really don't have my own spaghetti recipe, and i'd love an easy one to modify and call my own. my mother has what i consider a really complicated recipe (perhaps the process is too long for my sometimes impatient self), which i have never even attempted to make. i eat sauce almost everyday, and it is always from a jar.
7:00AM - (recording) how am i going to write my thoughts down and drive at the same time? seven o'clock hits when i'm about halfway through my commute. and driving and writing don't mix. so i have a recording mechanism on my phone, so i'm going to utilize this application in the moments that writing can be unsafe.
8:00AM - i should be the poster child for vera wang. i would be her best marketing tool as i am wearing vera wang earrings, pants, and blouse.
9:00AM - miserably hungry, it is ridiculous! i didn't eat breakfast today. and i forgot to pack a lunch and snack. and the cinnamon pop tart i purchased from the vending machine i call 'el diablo' has made me even more hungry.
10:00AM - lunch, lunch, lunch. even though i don't have anything to eat, i welcome the break with a hot cup of coffee. i sort of dread lunch at the same time, because it is followed by my third period. and third period is the tenth grade. and tenth graders are ridiculous. i can feel an anxious knot growing in my stomach.
11:00AM - cyanide and happiness cartoons blow. and i'm wondering if it is because i'm old and my sense of humor is just different (or perhaps i am old AND crotchety). i love 'the perry bible fellowship' cartoons (http://www.pbfcomics.com/) and 'toothpaste for dinner'(http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/) but my students are not interested in my brand of online cartoon humor.
12:00PM - fun. third period is sometimes fun (even when they are bad). i should write a book on classroom management class. three rules: no throwing things, no touching, no running around. picture these commands on repeat. but no one listens. they are bad. but, they need to be goofy. perhaps i am guilty of being too flexible, too nice? they need to be goofy sometimes, right? pencil thrown: so what was their punishment? dance out the macarena! and they did without telling me to fuck off. every time they get in trouble, they are going to have to dance!
1:00PM - oh shit. progress reports (are due to tomorrow).
**note: i started working on them as soon as i wrote this down. which is good, because i forever procrastinate when it comes to grading. i'm a lousy teacher.
2:00 - (recording) there is this point in the mohawk river that seems so low. it is a point i can see from I890 in the scotia area. it is so low, i can see long arms of rock from each bank stretching out to reach each other, but they never connect, separated by a few yards (how big is a yard? i don't even know how to gauge it, except from the mental football field map in my head). if i walked down the river's bank, could i walk across the mohawk without drowning, without the water covering my head? how deep is the mohawk at its deepest point? how shallow is the river at its most shallow point? wikipedia? but, doesn't it always change with erosion?
3:00 - consumed with the writing challenge. this challenge is good for me. i complain about how all my thoughts are stuck in my head, and i want to be a writer! in my head, now on paper. the recording device will help me. progress report ugh. and, so hungry.
4:00PM - sitting, typing, listening, full. thinking of the work i have to do.
5:00PM - my toes are so cold, even wrapped up in tights and socks. i know they are purple.
6:00PM - tyler pooped on the floor and ate it. i smelled her poopy breath and wanted to cry. grading is awful. i'm glad i'm not in high school.
7:00PM - grandma is missing jeopardy and her bed time is fast approaching. when will the work end?
8:00PM - tired.
__________________________
food and drink and worst knock-knock joke ever!
kashi crunch!
coffee!
cranberry juice!
hummus and triscuits!
water!
pizza!
milk!
eggplant parmesan and angel hair!
white hot chocolate!
i wish i had some of that whipped chocolate cheesecake left! i'm hungry again.
knock, knock!
who is there?
oswald!
oswald who?!
OSWALD MY GUM!
bada dada doo-cha!
__________________________
for tracey.
Current mood: nostalgic
thank you for being a motivator and a new good friend.
okay, on the way home from a pretty dang good dinner at romano's (and a liquid refreshment break at dunkin donuts--i highly recommend the white hot chocolate, it is fabulous and will make you feel like a kid again) i heard bruce springsteen's cheesy new single "working on a dream" on wext 97.7. as cheesy as it is, i will always have a special place in my heart for bruce. he reminds me of being sixteen, sitting on my filthy pink carpet in my bedroom playing all of my dad's bootleg "bruce springsteen live in concert" cassette tapes. i would sit in my room and listen and cry.
there is just something about bruce's words that echo true in my own heart:
Out here the nights are long, the days are lonely
I think of you and I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Now the cards I've drawn's a rough hand, darling
I straighten my back and I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Though sometimes it feels so far away
I'm working on a dream
I know it will be mine someday
Rain pourin' down, I swing my hammer
My hands are rough from working on a dream
From working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
I'm working on a dream
Our love will chase the trouble away
I'm working on a dream
Though it can feel so far away
I'm working on a dream
And our love will make it real someday
The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Though it can feel so far away
I'm working on a dream
And our love will make it real someday
I'm working on a dream
Though it can feel so far away
I'm working on a dream
And our love will make it real someday
December 7, 2008 - Sunday
this is not my real blog (regarding my myspace blog).
but sometimes i'll post things here that i would like to share with everyone. if you are interested in my real blogs, i'll share them with you if you are lucky!
<3,
me
logging thoughts.
I bought Ponaris Nasal Emoillent today, and it was like dropping liquid pine into my nose. I cannot wash away that slick oily feeling that has built up in the back of my tongue.
_______________________
As an English teacher I love words. But words have power. And some powerful words that I hate (when used in a negative way) are as follows: fag, dyke, gay, nigger, bitch, fat, and retard.
And maybe some people use these words in a way that empower, but I am not one hundred percent for the appropriation of words, even though people believe they are turning a “negative into a positive.” These words are (still) hurtful and base.
______________________
I’m even a bad mother to my own dogs.
_______________________
I need a nap.
______________________
Sometimes I don’t feel complete. What is missing?
_______________________
Insane Clown Posse. What the fuck. So bad.
December 8, 2008 - Monday
this is my blog...
for the writing challenge i have been given. some blogs items will be public, and others will be for my preferred list, and sometimes for myself.
6:00AM- i woke up thing about how i really don't have my own spaghetti recipe, and i'd love an easy one to modify and call my own. my mother has what i consider a really complicated recipe (perhaps the process is too long for my sometimes impatient self), which i have never even attempted to make. i eat sauce almost everyday, and it is always from a jar.
7:00AM - (recording) how am i going to write my thoughts down and drive at the same time? seven o'clock hits when i'm about halfway through my commute. and driving and writing don't mix. so i have a recording mechanism on my phone, so i'm going to utilize this application in the moments that writing can be unsafe.
8:00AM - i should be the poster child for vera wang. i would be her best marketing tool as i am wearing vera wang earrings, pants, and blouse.
9:00AM - miserably hungry, it is ridiculous! i didn't eat breakfast today. and i forgot to pack a lunch and snack. and the cinnamon pop tart i purchased from the vending machine i call 'el diablo' has made me even more hungry.
10:00AM - lunch, lunch, lunch. even though i don't have anything to eat, i welcome the break with a hot cup of coffee. i sort of dread lunch at the same time, because it is followed by my third period. and third period is the tenth grade. and tenth graders are ridiculous. i can feel an anxious knot growing in my stomach.
11:00AM - cyanide and happiness cartoons blow. and i'm wondering if it is because i'm old and my sense of humor is just different (or perhaps i am old AND crotchety). i love 'the perry bible fellowship' cartoons (http://www.pbfcomics.com/) and 'toothpaste for dinner'(http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/) but my students are not interested in my brand of online cartoon humor.
12:00PM - fun. third period is sometimes fun (even when they are bad). i should write a book on classroom management class. three rules: no throwing things, no touching, no running around. picture these commands on repeat. but no one listens. they are bad. but, they need to be goofy. perhaps i am guilty of being too flexible, too nice? they need to be goofy sometimes, right? pencil thrown: so what was their punishment? dance out the macarena! and they did without telling me to fuck off. every time they get in trouble, they are going to have to dance!
1:00PM - oh shit. progress reports (are due to tomorrow).
**note: i started working on them as soon as i wrote this down. which is good, because i forever procrastinate when it comes to grading. i'm a lousy teacher.
2:00 - (recording) there is this point in the mohawk river that seems so low. it is a point i can see from I890 in the scotia area. it is so low, i can see long arms of rock from each bank stretching out to reach each other, but they never connect, separated by a few yards (how big is a yard? i don't even know how to gauge it, except from the mental football field map in my head). if i walked down the river's bank, could i walk across the mohawk without drowning, without the water covering my head? how deep is the mohawk at its deepest point? how shallow is the river at its most shallow point? wikipedia? but, doesn't it always change with erosion?
3:00 - consumed with the writing challenge. this challenge is good for me. i complain about how all my thoughts are stuck in my head, and i want to be a writer! in my head, now on paper. the recording device will help me. progress report ugh. and, so hungry.
4:00PM - sitting, typing, listening, full. thinking of the work i have to do.
5:00PM - my toes are so cold, even wrapped up in tights and socks. i know they are purple.
6:00PM - tyler pooped on the floor and ate it. i smelled her poopy breath and wanted to cry. grading is awful. i'm glad i'm not in high school.
7:00PM - grandma is missing jeopardy and her bed time is fast approaching. when will the work end?
8:00PM - tired.
__________________________
food and drink and worst knock-knock joke ever!
kashi crunch!
coffee!
cranberry juice!
hummus and triscuits!
water!
pizza!
milk!
eggplant parmesan and angel hair!
white hot chocolate!
i wish i had some of that whipped chocolate cheesecake left! i'm hungry again.
knock, knock!
who is there?
oswald!
oswald who?!
OSWALD MY GUM!
bada dada doo-cha!
__________________________
for tracey.
Current mood: nostalgic
thank you for being a motivator and a new good friend.
okay, on the way home from a pretty dang good dinner at romano's (and a liquid refreshment break at dunkin donuts--i highly recommend the white hot chocolate, it is fabulous and will make you feel like a kid again) i heard bruce springsteen's cheesy new single "working on a dream" on wext 97.7. as cheesy as it is, i will always have a special place in my heart for bruce. he reminds me of being sixteen, sitting on my filthy pink carpet in my bedroom playing all of my dad's bootleg "bruce springsteen live in concert" cassette tapes. i would sit in my room and listen and cry.
there is just something about bruce's words that echo true in my own heart:
Out here the nights are long, the days are lonely
I think of you and I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Now the cards I've drawn's a rough hand, darling
I straighten my back and I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Though sometimes it feels so far away
I'm working on a dream
I know it will be mine someday
Rain pourin' down, I swing my hammer
My hands are rough from working on a dream
From working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
I'm working on a dream
Our love will chase the trouble away
I'm working on a dream
Though it can feel so far away
I'm working on a dream
And our love will make it real someday
The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream
Though it can feel so far away
I'm working on a dream
And our love will make it real someday
I'm working on a dream
Though it can feel so far away
I'm working on a dream
And our love will make it real someday
December 7, 2008 - Sunday
this is not my real blog (regarding my myspace blog).
but sometimes i'll post things here that i would like to share with everyone. if you are interested in my real blogs, i'll share them with you if you are lucky!
<3,
me
thirteen.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
An old poem.
I.
Today in the bathroom mirror I traced
the outlines of your furrowed visage and (my bleared eyes
brought us back to the living room on Three Kingsboro Avenue:
I, stoned, in that burlap chair.
You, still, on the couch)
the scar that would have been
if your neck had healed.
II.
Today felt like autumn.
Nose ruddy from north winds blowing through Avenue C:
I thought of those silly incantations in October afternoons,
urging drafts to emulsify—vivify
your relics.
III.
Today I read Walt Whitman, in honor of you.
Ruminations of his springs as my falls.
His lilacs, my begonias and grub bugs.
Graybeard's empyrean sky, my garden
where three-quarters of your ashes lie.
[October 2nd, 2003 Notation]
This October marks the beginning of the eighth stanza of my changed life. I am sure I will not 'cease my song for thee' as long as memory persists.
_________________________________________
Erica L. Dow 2003 5:29 AM
Friday, April 11, 2008
in loco parentis.
a colleague of mine has had a pretty rocky year. most are unsympathetic, and by far, the students are the ones who are the most ruthless. why is it, that we as teachers, can be so accommodating and forgiving of all of our students' problems and attitudes, but when we have a "bad" day we are no longer categorized as humans, but as monsters?
how is it that a student can yell at me for something that they did wrong, and not understand the legitimate consequences of his or her own poorly deliberated (and often unhealthy) decisions? why is that my seniors (my favorites), the most mature, the ones closest to plunging into the real world of it all, can be so hurtful?
Monday, April 07, 2008
a funeral.
recently, i read a blog by a talented individual about her experience disposing the artistic extensions of who she was, to embrace the person she is today. her blog made me think about what part of the old me I have been holding on to, even in the latter part of this new decade of age. i thought about whether or not i would have the cojones to rid myself of the only artistic expression that i was once (and maybe still am?) good at, but i’ve come to realize that i could never part with any of my writings, as much of it deals with my own grief regarding my dead father.
i’ve been thinking long and hard about what it is that i would like to bury, in hopes that a new me can grow from the dead weight of the old me. i decided that i would like to bury my silence and submissive attitude.
it has been far too easy for me to be quiet for all these years, silent in my own company, and painfully so in the presence of others. it is far to easy to say nothing even when i do have something to say. and,i do have something to say; i always have something to say. so today i will bury this part of the old me and embrace what it is that is now a part of the new me.
i want to thank this person (and her blog) for sharing her own experience and insight, as it has greatly helped me in discovering that we are all works in progress and that sometimes it is okay to just let go.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
new goal:
honesty, remix:
i will forever remain misunderstood if i allow my voice to be muted for the sake of other peoples' voiced opinions and or feelings. i will never be heard (or read, in this case), if i let my words fall to the knotted pit of my anxious stomach, only to be digested internally with the occasional flare up of heartacheburn. further, my new goal is not intended for the sole purpose of stirring shit up, or to exercise my right to be a bitch. its purpose is to get everything inside of me, out.
Monday, March 24, 2008
an unhealthy relationship with a blog.
my not-so-secret obsession is lurking profiles and reading blogs. this has been a voyeuristic habit of mine since the early days of livejournal. i don’t know what it is about blogs, but i’m hooked beyond a normal degree. i think i enjoy gaining insight to other’s lives, not to fulfill some empty space of dissatisfaction in my own, but perhaps to gauge my day to day experiences and emotions against another’s and, in totality, gauge my own sanity, or the times there is a lack thereof.
i’m obsessed with a local blogger whose life is an absolute fucking train wreck, and i cannot, for the life me, stop reading this person’s blog (and this person is not a "friend" in the myspace sense of the word, or even in the in-real-life sense of the word). i dislike this person with many fibers of my being, so why is it that i am glued to his or her blog? do i enjoy watching his or her plagued life unfold before my eyes? no, because it is beyond anti-climatic. do i wish ill will on he or she? no, because he or she has enough of his or her own to deal with. does this person make me feel secure within my own sanity? a little. i’ll tell you why i’m hooked: i’ve never been witness to such a disaster of a person in my entire life (textually and literally). never have i had such an experience to meet and read about a person who has so little regard for other people--his or her behavior is despicable, dehumanizing, and shamefully ostentatious.
what angers me the most is that the limits of this person’s lack of tact go well beyond personal interactions on a day to day basis--it is broadcast through online social networking sites. and i may be a hypocrite, as i stand a lesson or two in keeping private matters private, but i pride my self in being honest, careful, and somewhat cryptic in my textual deliveries of my somewhat suppressed emotional states.
this person’s blog perpetuates the severe dislike i already had for this person, so why do i willingly and faithfully read this blog on a day to day basis? because it reinforces not only what is wrong with this world, but makes me appreciate all the rights.
Monday, February 25, 2008
i don’t fit in.
and i probably never will. i know this. and, i am perfectly okay with this.
Monday, January 28, 2008
winter thaw.
a few things, which i would like to type out for my future self's sake:
one. i love the warmth and smell of my dingy dog so much it makes my heart melt.
two. i wrote a poem last week, whilst the students were taking part two of the english regents examination.
three. i hate my job.
four. i'm going to attempt writing a book. it will most likely turn out to be a novella. it has everything to do with item number three, but it will be partially fictionalized.
five. scary mansion sounds like cat power. and cat power's new album sucks.
six. i hate your fucking surveys, so stop, please.
seven. i like to make lists.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Sometimes I question my profession...
Current mood: calm.
Currently listening : I’m Sorry That Sometimes I’m Mean
By: Kimya Dawson
Release date: 02 December, 2003
..and what i love.
When I grow up I'd like to be a(n):
Radio jockey.
Veterinarian.
Writer.
Cosmetologist.
Social worker.
Massage therapist.
Actor (again).
As for hobbies, I'd like to:
Volunteer for a local pet rescue.
Be a seller on Ebay.
Learn to play guitar from Jacob.
Construct a four square team or kickball team (high school coach).
Knit.
Monday, October 15, 2007
if you’re racist... that scares me.
if you're sexist, xenophobic, and or homophobic, that scares me too.
scares me into being angry at you. and, not liking you. don't be an idiot.
just sayin'.
Friday, October 12, 2007
black francis and the christmas tree shop.
what the hell happened to black francis? captain pasty is THE WORST song ever.
and, i think the christmas tree shop should be burnt down. ALL of them.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
a deer, i hit.
i was very prepared for a long and eventful day. i woke up at ten of five this morning. i coffee'd, i showered, i packed for the gym, i packed for parent-teacher night. i left at around 6:30 this morning. i and my automobile traveled down state street, through the light that intersects 30A. i drove past hussman, and i drove past the forrester's club. and i almost made it to the sign that denotes the change of speed limit from forty miles per hour to fifty-five miles per hour. but, i did not make it, which could have been my saving grace.
a pack of my favorite large-sized furry friends--a mother, a father, and child--traveled across the paved way through the agragian panorama of mayfield. i did not hit the brakes hard, as the road was slick from a damp night. but in this instance brakes would not have stopped me from hitting the stalwart hind-end of one of the deers. all i saw, in my periphery, was the deer flip, as the other two ran off to the sanctity of the woods.
i just remember shaking uncontrollably, but i was not hurt (thankfully).
this experience made me think about why people hunt. it seems so foolish. i feared that the deer i hit would die (a driver of the local transportation system of gloversville, who witnessed the entire scene told me the hit deer ran off). i felt an overwhelming sensation of grief thinking about the more-than-likely-fatally-injured animal and thought: why would anyone purposely kill for sport? it seems so asinine and cruel.
this entry was sort of tangential. for those of you that are worried about me, i'm fine, though my nerves are shot.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Hulk Hogan and Bruce Springsteen.
Current mood: tired
Category: Life
Currently listening : Zeitgeist
By: Smashing Pumpkins
Release date: 10 July, 2007
i feel horribly guilty even admitting that when i was much, much younger i yearned for a famous dad. my famous dream dads were: hulk hogan and bruce springsteen. hulk hogan, back in the day seemed so outrageous, yet down to earth. i have recently divorced my dream of having hogan as a dad--his show "hogan knows best" dashed my childhood dreams; he has has become too hollywood and oily (and tan!) and extremely outrageous, to a sickening degree.
bruce, on the other hand, is still unbelievably amazing.
but, neither can compare to the father i lost over twelve years ago.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Working.
Well, I went to work on Monday and promised myself I would return Tuesday and Wednesday. I broke my promise to myself. And here I sit wishing I went in. What prevented me? Sound sleep with dreams of neck biting zombies, sexing snakes, and mentally perverse murderers.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
september twenty-fourth.
[insert picture of laproscopy]
Saturday, July 28, 2007
one of the worst feelings.
at least for me, is to be slighted by loved ones when simple acts of consideration can make all the difference in one's day.
i'm just menstrual, i suppose.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
new doctor.
i finally got a new doctor, as my last appointment with the previous doctor was a train wreck. bad news is that i pretty much have endometriosis. and my cyst is still hanging around. i have an appointment with the new doctor on the first of august. wish me luck.
i missed the lemonheads last saturday, and a joyce carol oates reading at skidmore on the eleventh.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
blogs.
i read them and now i have gone back to reading livejournals too. thank goodness i will be working on kevin's project soon.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Future plans, summer plans.
So I am opting not to teach summer school, as I told my friend Natasha I believe the abuse that summer school represents could be likened to the torture one would receive in the Malebolge of Dante's Inferno. I hope I get to work the days I put in for at the school, as the pay is hella and it is at my leisure and can be done from home (I love the Internet).
So on this list of summer plans slash ideas:
1. A trip to Animal Land (shut up, I want to pet the llamas).
2. THE MOTHER-EFFIN GREAT ESCAPE AND SPLASH WATER KINGDOM.
3. Field hockey summer league in Gloversville or maybe a field hockey team in Albany (which I might add: the first scrimmage is this Sunday at 6:30 at UAlbany, on the turf).
4. Gym membership or some place that offers yoga. I really want to do Bikram yoga on the regular, but I am unaware of where I should actually go.
5. An all ladies trip to a spa in Saratoga.
6. Lotsa horse-ball and bowling.
7. Fixing my Peugeot inner-tube and blazing trails on two wheels throughout the Kingdom of Fulton County.
6. A summer bartending gig (maybe Saratoga). I did bartend in SoHo for two years whilst living in the city. I am no Tom Cruise from Cocktail, but I am fast and can make a innovative cocktail in a minute.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
On seeing a specialist.
All of my doctor experiences in Gloversville, aside from my pediatric care, have been pitiful and confusing: antiquated tools of the trade, as in ultrasound machines from '84 and filing systems on computers older than I (Commodore); cramped dirty rooms; and megalomaniacal local doctors.
What it is inside me is not known. I have a fourth appointment in a month regarding the size of my (it belongs to me; I have taken ownership of this undesirable abnormal character) ovarian cyst, with free flowing browned blood swimming inside. My last appointment the doctor had a "hypothetical" conversation with me regarding endometriosis and my "potential" issues with infertility. All of which was grounded in speculation, as hard evidence in the form of testing does not exist. His solution to my health issue was to sit and wait and agonize for one more month.
I should see a specialist outside of this area.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
on being tired.
it seems these days that if i tell someone i'm tired, the retort i generally receive is "wait 'til you have kids." hi, i have kids. fifty-six of them to be exact. and last year i had eighty seven, and the year before that, over one hundred and five. the way things are going, anatomically speaking, i might not be able to have kids, so one: it bothers me when people say this because of my recent issues with health; and two: it is rude to assume that i don't know the meaning of tired considering my life, personal, and professional interests have everything to do with children and young adults.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
I’m just a quiet person.
I know some of you think I have been quiet and maybe sort of "off" lately. Maybe you think I don't like you because I don't have a lot to say—this is wrong. I'm just a quiet person.
I've never felt comfortable talking around people; I have never felt comfortable with having friends. For more than ten years I have been on my own, for the most part. In high school I had a small group of close friends, but watched those relationships either fade or disintegrate for one reason or another (college, time, distance damage, arguments, et cetera). In college I had one solid friend, but after graduation our relationship became diluted by our post-college interests and careers. My early years in New York City and Boston were clouded with getting to know these new places—and I wasn't in these places long enough to establish any friendships. The last few years in New York yielded one solid friendship with a colleague and since my relocation to upstate we have lost touch too.
I have Jacob and his wonderful family, Tyler, and my family and I am satisfied with these things—and I don't mind sharing the wealth because each are amazing and intoxicating and their energy needs to be shared with others. But, I'm not ready to share too much of myself with anyone outside these things just yet. I'm nervously shy, complicated (who isn't), emotional, and quietly contemplative; I don't want you to confuse these aspects of my personality by equating me with a bitch or think that I am judging you.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Memento Mori: Loki
Yesterday, almost home, from my tiring hour commute from work, my mother called to discuss and weep, the decision she and Ron made to put Loki down, as he was very ill during the night. She told me he was euthanized at 10:30 in the morning and they had plans to bury his body (as opposed to shipping him off to an Albany crematorium) just beyond the small tree farm, slightly before the wood of their ever-expansive acreage.
I won't spare the details. My mother woke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and returned to bed. It is customary for Loki to follow anyone he feels the need to protect, even if the distance is a few feet. Both returned to sleep. But Ron woke in the middle of the night startled by a strange smell and woke my mother and they both found Loki lying in a pool of his own tar-like feces. They took him outside so he could eliminate more without embarrassment, cleaned him up, and fixed him up a resting spot in the garage. I doubt if any of them slept.
In the morning my brother brought up his mini-van to transport Loki to the veterinarian. I was told Loki had a large tumor in his stomach and a tumor on his spleen; his blood work was far from copacetic.
We got Loki shortly after my father died. He was the best thing for us at the time, as we no longer could mope about when there was a puppy to look after. He was good for all of us; a good companion that forced us to stop grieving once in a while. He was an integral part of my post-pubescent existence. He was my furry four-legged protector and constant shadow.
After eleven years it is natural for a family to move from one stage of life to other stages. I went to college, moved about the Northeast, settled in New York City for more than three years before moving back Upstate to be closer to my family and to Jacob. My mother found love again, remarried, and relocated a few towns over. My brother has been preserving my childhood memory of "home," found love, and is a loving father of two and a soon-to-be husband. With all the changes in our family dynamic, Loki was our constant—the tangible furry glue of a once three-member family who had lost their fourth. Yesterday I felt like my memories of what used to be, what once was, were gone; that without Loki to remind me of my sixteen year old self and grueling depressive years to follow I would not know what to turn to when memories are needed.
But memories never really expire—the sound of my father's voice faded long ago, but this does not mean I don't remember his words. I will never have that midnight black shadow of Loki to follow me from room to room, but I will never forget him and what he represents in the grander scale of things. But, I will surely miss him; he was a good boy.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
ge commercials make me laugh.
they sure do.
i have two doctor's appointments in the next two weeks to clarify the length of my life i'm sure.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
ovarian cyst.
this might be too much information about ms. dow than you would care to know. know this: i have a cyst on one of my ovaries. but, i really think my ovary has sprouted arms and is punching me, repeatedly, in the gut. or it is dancing, drunk, wildly, around my fallopian tube.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Air.
In the very early mornings and in the early evenings I enjoy spending more time in the yard with Tyler. It is because of the air—crisp and intoxicating.
I remember living off of Houston and between Avenue C and D. Waking to the smells of exhaust filtering through my south bound window and walking home from bartending in the wee hours of the morning, disgusted more by the smell of dirty air than the foul sticky smell of dried alcohol and cigarette smoke that clung to my clothes and hair. On Twenty-ninth Street, just off of Fourth Avenue, the same dingy highway-like air made me want to die as my hand griped my inhaler.
Another reason I am happy about my move: air.
Friday, March 23, 2007
also, i like to read blogs.
even if i don't know you. i would read livejournals all day, but now it's myspace blogs. if you have a tracker i'm not stalking you. i just like blogs.
----------
a dream about dying. i had today. and i woke up all tears.
the sequence of the dream images leading up to the "death scene" is confusing, but i ended up in a vestibule of a house, perhaps a rustic cabin. i was accompanied by a host, and at this point it escapes me whether or not this host was human or animal. i'm thinking it was a human, as he (not she) spoke to me in standard american english. i was also surrounded by a grey and white kitten and what i remember to be a rabbit who told me he (yes, he) rode bulls. i do believe the kitten represents the non-verbal communication of love as i was asked to mimic its actions, which of course consisted of nuzzling against me, the host, and the rabbit, whilst purring. the rabbit, who happened to also speak standard american english, told me the hardest challenges he endured in his lifetime was riding bulls. i think this is linked, metaphorically, to the challenges we all have in life (juxtaposed, of course, to what i will now refer to as the "kitten" experience we all long for when faced with tough challenges). the rabbit suggested to me that another good outlet to the feeling associated with being challenged (frustration) is to dance it off. i remember in my dream i closed my eyes and wriggled to a the beat of deep sadness i seem to hold in my heart in my conscious life.
after the lectures, the dancing, and the nuzzling (it happened in this order) my host was about to tell me it was "time to go." i told him i was aware of what was happening (although i am positive he, nor the others, were trying to be tricksy) , even though i did not want to go through with it.
he opened the door to the "outside" world, which of course offered its light to the darkness of the vestibule. i remember i asked my host if it was okay to be scared. he replied that it was perfectly okay to be scared, but assured me there was nothing to be afraid of. i asked him if i would have just as many friends on the other side, to which he replied "of course. you will have as many friends as you need."
before i walked through the threshold, i woke up (crying).
Sunday, March 18, 2007
two excellent movies.
i recommend the following:
brick
and
half nelson
Monday, March 12, 2007
built by wendy.
wendy mullin i love your clothes, but why so pricey? design a line for target.
my wallet hates you wendy.
---------
the tale of the winter piglet. i cannot stop eating. even when i am not hungry i still eat. i dream of ice cream while i eat cookies. of bagels when i eat muffins. food is all i want. all. the. time.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
target and clothes.
when i moved to new york city, four years ago, i discovered the glory of target. i became an avid disciple--namely, for clothes. to this day i still get most of my clothes from target. i am extremely tickled by the the design for all program they have implemented. i have loved all the go designers, save for maybe two (the past winter season selection was disgusting).
i am so happy that proenza schouler is designing affordable (super cheap prices, but great quality) clothes for target. my only issue with them is the season they have chosen to design for. all the vibrant colors make me want to die (save for the purple pencil skirt)--i only wished they designed for the fall season. their fall clothing is amazing (proenza schouler fall 2005)
Saturday, February 10, 2007
mark strand poem
"Coming To This"
We have done what we wanted.
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry
of each other, and we have welcomed grief
and called ruin the impossible habit to break.
And now we are here.
The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.
The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.
The wine waits.
Coming to this
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.
We have no heart or saving grace,
no place to go, no reason to remain.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
dog babies and homework.
i was on the couch last night. jacob was doing his homework and i said:
"tyler would be the worst mommy. she'd probably eat her kids."
tyler will never have babies, unless by miracle, which made me sort of sad. maybe she would be a good mother? but, i'm still convinced she'd mouth atleast one of them.
----------
i'm so hungry i could eat ten biggy iggy ice cream sandwiches from stewart's.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Naps.
I haven't been taking them as much as my body yearns for them.
I take them when I am tired.
I take them when I am depressed because I'd rather sleep than tap into hatred.
I take them when I long for company when Jacob is not around. Tyler is warm and snores like Jacob too.
---------
On another note altogether, why do people seem sketchy? Maybe I am paranoid.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
also, a poem rather, an excerpt:
what are words, i want to ask you, what
is clarity and why do words keep burning
a century later, though the earth
weighs so much?
from "a talk with friedrich nietzsche" by adam zagajewski.
--------
antigone. i'm going to watch this movie in the absence of my other half. then i will gouge my eyes out in reverence.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
My Chelsea students...
I just want to say these things: I miss you all (even the ones who drove me nuts--you know who you are) and I am proud of you all. Class of 2008, you are the best group of young adults, ever.
Friday, December 29, 2006
shaking hands with a genius.
i went to applebee's and had kettle (tavern) chips smothered with cheese and bacon. i wish i invented this dish.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
my heart attack.
salmon wrapped in bacon topped with cheese. best. dinner. ever.
atleast today ended on a good note. this weekend was abysmal.
--------
for mary... your profile makes my computer freeze:
[insert absent image of dancing robot]
Saturday, December 09, 2006
friend.
you know, it has been about seven years since i had a good best friend. i had natasha, but after college we grew apart and now she lives in scotland with her husband and dog. i became close with nikki in brooklyn as we lived together, briefly, and co-taught together for two years at chelsea. and here i am, in this bleak town and i feel pretty lonely. maybe that is why i liked living in new york: i was always too busy to be lonely. here i have more time on my hands than i can actually deal with and i find myself sleeping a good chunk of it away because i'm so blah (minus the time spent with jacob).
Saturday, December 02, 2006
esouh.
i want to puke all over myself.
Monday, November 27, 2006
crap carp prac parc arcp
Last night I zoned out during the shittiest movie ever, "The DaVinci Code," and for moments I truly thought I was a clairvoyant, as I seemed to see clearly into my doomy future where I only wore sweatpants, ate noodles with butter, and lamented to Jacob that shampoo and soap should be separate showering entities and or luxuries.
This house shit has my brain on the fritz and I wonder if we can really do this without going stark-raving loonie. I think to myself: "I have to do this; I am twenty seven. I have no babies, I cannot rent forever..I am an adult, right?"
What if I had stayed in Brooklyn? What would it have been like? The traveling would tear us apart. Now that I am here will our obsessive-compulsive, fixative habits make us want to bounce off each other like walking padded rooms, or will we just stick together like glue and have our insecurities co-mingle in an emotional tick-oriented bliss?
I can speculate about what it would have been like to have stayed in Brooklyn, but what I have learned is that love is worth more than a twelve-grand pay cut and feeling severely uncomfortable, socially, in this insular town--it is transcendent.
Friday, November 24, 2006
I should have stayed in Brooklyn.
Sometimes I think this.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Slang.
One thing I miss about being in the city is slang. Someone used the phrase dead-ass in class the other day (in an awkward manner no less--it sounded less like one huffy fast deadass and more like dead-pause-pause-pause-asssssss) and I felt like telling him that phrase is so beat these days. But how would he know? What is hip here was hip more than two years ago down there. I don't even want to get into music or the style of clothes.
Yes, I used the word hip. Shut up.
Friday, October 27, 2006
On Walking Dogs.
Current mood: annoyed
Currently listening: Mule Variations
By: Tom Waits
Release date: 27 April, 1999
Walking dogs should be done, always, with leashes. Aside from my roommates' dog that happens to be the most docile and oblivious dog I know to date, all dogs should be walked with a leash. I will even say that any dog walker walking a dog without a leash is full-fledged moron. My case in point: yesterday afternoon, after arriving at my apartment to pick up some things for a night of grading at JV's while he was in class, I witnessed a small dog (a size-challenged breed I personally abhor) being attacked by to unleashed dogs. If it wasn't bad enough watching a small dog being mauled by some feral-looking, hick-bred dog, compound this image with a wire-hanger abortion scream coming from a young girl still holding onto the leash of her small dog. Then to add to the chaotic cacophony of hell-hound barks and anti-orgasmic screams, picture the potential hick-breeder, but most certainly hick-owner, of these ravenous, feral-looking dogs yelling out commands and kicking about like a Nazi war solider, all of which the dogs did not respond to. I mean, I will admit it: I hate small dogs. There is no room in our Darwinist society for small dogs, but they do exist, sadly, and they should have at least the minimal right to be walked around in a safe environment by owners who should wear no fear against unleashed animals. There is also no room in our Darwinist society for morons, especially those specific types of morons who own dogs and choose not to walk them on leashes. Sadly, these morons exist and I have no solution to remedy the error of their moronic ways, but I sure hope someone does and perhaps their fate will be in the form of some Hades-like Malebolge that awaits them in after-life.
An old poem.
I.
Today in the bathroom mirror I traced
the outlines of your furrowed visage and (my bleared eyes
brought us back to the living room on Three Kingsboro Avenue:
I, stoned, in that burlap chair.
You, still, on the couch)
the scar that would have been
if your neck had healed.
II.
Today felt like autumn.
Nose ruddy from north winds blowing through Avenue C:
I thought of those silly incantations in October afternoons,
urging drafts to emulsify—vivify
your relics.
III.
Today I read Walt Whitman, in honor of you.
Ruminations of his springs as my falls.
His lilacs, my begonias and grub bugs.
Graybeard's empyrean sky, my garden
where three-quarters of your ashes lie.
[October 2nd, 2003 Notation]
This October marks the beginning of the eighth stanza of my changed life. I am sure I will not 'cease my song for thee' as long as memory persists.
_________________________________________
Erica L. Dow 2003 5:29 AM
Friday, April 11, 2008
in loco parentis.
a colleague of mine has had a pretty rocky year. most are unsympathetic, and by far, the students are the ones who are the most ruthless. why is it, that we as teachers, can be so accommodating and forgiving of all of our students' problems and attitudes, but when we have a "bad" day we are no longer categorized as humans, but as monsters?
how is it that a student can yell at me for something that they did wrong, and not understand the legitimate consequences of his or her own poorly deliberated (and often unhealthy) decisions? why is that my seniors (my favorites), the most mature, the ones closest to plunging into the real world of it all, can be so hurtful?
Monday, April 07, 2008
a funeral.
recently, i read a blog by a talented individual about her experience disposing the artistic extensions of who she was, to embrace the person she is today. her blog made me think about what part of the old me I have been holding on to, even in the latter part of this new decade of age. i thought about whether or not i would have the cojones to rid myself of the only artistic expression that i was once (and maybe still am?) good at, but i’ve come to realize that i could never part with any of my writings, as much of it deals with my own grief regarding my dead father.
i’ve been thinking long and hard about what it is that i would like to bury, in hopes that a new me can grow from the dead weight of the old me. i decided that i would like to bury my silence and submissive attitude.
it has been far too easy for me to be quiet for all these years, silent in my own company, and painfully so in the presence of others. it is far to easy to say nothing even when i do have something to say. and,i do have something to say; i always have something to say. so today i will bury this part of the old me and embrace what it is that is now a part of the new me.
i want to thank this person (and her blog) for sharing her own experience and insight, as it has greatly helped me in discovering that we are all works in progress and that sometimes it is okay to just let go.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
new goal:
honesty, remix:
i will forever remain misunderstood if i allow my voice to be muted for the sake of other peoples' voiced opinions and or feelings. i will never be heard (or read, in this case), if i let my words fall to the knotted pit of my anxious stomach, only to be digested internally with the occasional flare up of heartacheburn. further, my new goal is not intended for the sole purpose of stirring shit up, or to exercise my right to be a bitch. its purpose is to get everything inside of me, out.
Monday, March 24, 2008
an unhealthy relationship with a blog.
my not-so-secret obsession is lurking profiles and reading blogs. this has been a voyeuristic habit of mine since the early days of livejournal. i don’t know what it is about blogs, but i’m hooked beyond a normal degree. i think i enjoy gaining insight to other’s lives, not to fulfill some empty space of dissatisfaction in my own, but perhaps to gauge my day to day experiences and emotions against another’s and, in totality, gauge my own sanity, or the times there is a lack thereof.
i’m obsessed with a local blogger whose life is an absolute fucking train wreck, and i cannot, for the life me, stop reading this person’s blog (and this person is not a "friend" in the myspace sense of the word, or even in the in-real-life sense of the word). i dislike this person with many fibers of my being, so why is it that i am glued to his or her blog? do i enjoy watching his or her plagued life unfold before my eyes? no, because it is beyond anti-climatic. do i wish ill will on he or she? no, because he or she has enough of his or her own to deal with. does this person make me feel secure within my own sanity? a little. i’ll tell you why i’m hooked: i’ve never been witness to such a disaster of a person in my entire life (textually and literally). never have i had such an experience to meet and read about a person who has so little regard for other people--his or her behavior is despicable, dehumanizing, and shamefully ostentatious.
what angers me the most is that the limits of this person’s lack of tact go well beyond personal interactions on a day to day basis--it is broadcast through online social networking sites. and i may be a hypocrite, as i stand a lesson or two in keeping private matters private, but i pride my self in being honest, careful, and somewhat cryptic in my textual deliveries of my somewhat suppressed emotional states.
this person’s blog perpetuates the severe dislike i already had for this person, so why do i willingly and faithfully read this blog on a day to day basis? because it reinforces not only what is wrong with this world, but makes me appreciate all the rights.
Monday, February 25, 2008
i don’t fit in.
and i probably never will. i know this. and, i am perfectly okay with this.
Monday, January 28, 2008
winter thaw.
a few things, which i would like to type out for my future self's sake:
one. i love the warmth and smell of my dingy dog so much it makes my heart melt.
two. i wrote a poem last week, whilst the students were taking part two of the english regents examination.
three. i hate my job.
four. i'm going to attempt writing a book. it will most likely turn out to be a novella. it has everything to do with item number three, but it will be partially fictionalized.
five. scary mansion sounds like cat power. and cat power's new album sucks.
six. i hate your fucking surveys, so stop, please.
seven. i like to make lists.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Sometimes I question my profession...
Current mood: calm.
Currently listening : I’m Sorry That Sometimes I’m Mean
By: Kimya Dawson
Release date: 02 December, 2003
..and what i love.
When I grow up I'd like to be a(n):
Radio jockey.
Veterinarian.
Writer.
Cosmetologist.
Social worker.
Massage therapist.
Actor (again).
As for hobbies, I'd like to:
Volunteer for a local pet rescue.
Be a seller on Ebay.
Learn to play guitar from Jacob.
Construct a four square team or kickball team (high school coach).
Knit.
Monday, October 15, 2007
if you’re racist... that scares me.
if you're sexist, xenophobic, and or homophobic, that scares me too.
scares me into being angry at you. and, not liking you. don't be an idiot.
just sayin'.
Friday, October 12, 2007
black francis and the christmas tree shop.
what the hell happened to black francis? captain pasty is THE WORST song ever.
and, i think the christmas tree shop should be burnt down. ALL of them.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
a deer, i hit.
i was very prepared for a long and eventful day. i woke up at ten of five this morning. i coffee'd, i showered, i packed for the gym, i packed for parent-teacher night. i left at around 6:30 this morning. i and my automobile traveled down state street, through the light that intersects 30A. i drove past hussman, and i drove past the forrester's club. and i almost made it to the sign that denotes the change of speed limit from forty miles per hour to fifty-five miles per hour. but, i did not make it, which could have been my saving grace.
a pack of my favorite large-sized furry friends--a mother, a father, and child--traveled across the paved way through the agragian panorama of mayfield. i did not hit the brakes hard, as the road was slick from a damp night. but in this instance brakes would not have stopped me from hitting the stalwart hind-end of one of the deers. all i saw, in my periphery, was the deer flip, as the other two ran off to the sanctity of the woods.
i just remember shaking uncontrollably, but i was not hurt (thankfully).
this experience made me think about why people hunt. it seems so foolish. i feared that the deer i hit would die (a driver of the local transportation system of gloversville, who witnessed the entire scene told me the hit deer ran off). i felt an overwhelming sensation of grief thinking about the more-than-likely-fatally-injured animal and thought: why would anyone purposely kill for sport? it seems so asinine and cruel.
this entry was sort of tangential. for those of you that are worried about me, i'm fine, though my nerves are shot.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Hulk Hogan and Bruce Springsteen.
Current mood: tired
Category: Life
Currently listening : Zeitgeist
By: Smashing Pumpkins
Release date: 10 July, 2007
i feel horribly guilty even admitting that when i was much, much younger i yearned for a famous dad. my famous dream dads were: hulk hogan and bruce springsteen. hulk hogan, back in the day seemed so outrageous, yet down to earth. i have recently divorced my dream of having hogan as a dad--his show "hogan knows best" dashed my childhood dreams; he has has become too hollywood and oily (and tan!) and extremely outrageous, to a sickening degree.
bruce, on the other hand, is still unbelievably amazing.
but, neither can compare to the father i lost over twelve years ago.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Working.
Well, I went to work on Monday and promised myself I would return Tuesday and Wednesday. I broke my promise to myself. And here I sit wishing I went in. What prevented me? Sound sleep with dreams of neck biting zombies, sexing snakes, and mentally perverse murderers.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
september twenty-fourth.
[insert picture of laproscopy]
Saturday, July 28, 2007
one of the worst feelings.
at least for me, is to be slighted by loved ones when simple acts of consideration can make all the difference in one's day.
i'm just menstrual, i suppose.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
new doctor.
i finally got a new doctor, as my last appointment with the previous doctor was a train wreck. bad news is that i pretty much have endometriosis. and my cyst is still hanging around. i have an appointment with the new doctor on the first of august. wish me luck.
i missed the lemonheads last saturday, and a joyce carol oates reading at skidmore on the eleventh.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
blogs.
i read them and now i have gone back to reading livejournals too. thank goodness i will be working on kevin's project soon.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Future plans, summer plans.
So I am opting not to teach summer school, as I told my friend Natasha I believe the abuse that summer school represents could be likened to the torture one would receive in the Malebolge of Dante's Inferno. I hope I get to work the days I put in for at the school, as the pay is hella and it is at my leisure and can be done from home (I love the Internet).
So on this list of summer plans slash ideas:
1. A trip to Animal Land (shut up, I want to pet the llamas).
2. THE MOTHER-EFFIN GREAT ESCAPE AND SPLASH WATER KINGDOM.
3. Field hockey summer league in Gloversville or maybe a field hockey team in Albany (which I might add: the first scrimmage is this Sunday at 6:30 at UAlbany, on the turf).
4. Gym membership or some place that offers yoga. I really want to do Bikram yoga on the regular, but I am unaware of where I should actually go.
5. An all ladies trip to a spa in Saratoga.
6. Lotsa horse-ball and bowling.
7. Fixing my Peugeot inner-tube and blazing trails on two wheels throughout the Kingdom of Fulton County.
6. A summer bartending gig (maybe Saratoga). I did bartend in SoHo for two years whilst living in the city. I am no Tom Cruise from Cocktail, but I am fast and can make a innovative cocktail in a minute.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
On seeing a specialist.
All of my doctor experiences in Gloversville, aside from my pediatric care, have been pitiful and confusing: antiquated tools of the trade, as in ultrasound machines from '84 and filing systems on computers older than I (Commodore); cramped dirty rooms; and megalomaniacal local doctors.
What it is inside me is not known. I have a fourth appointment in a month regarding the size of my (it belongs to me; I have taken ownership of this undesirable abnormal character) ovarian cyst, with free flowing browned blood swimming inside. My last appointment the doctor had a "hypothetical" conversation with me regarding endometriosis and my "potential" issues with infertility. All of which was grounded in speculation, as hard evidence in the form of testing does not exist. His solution to my health issue was to sit and wait and agonize for one more month.
I should see a specialist outside of this area.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
on being tired.
it seems these days that if i tell someone i'm tired, the retort i generally receive is "wait 'til you have kids." hi, i have kids. fifty-six of them to be exact. and last year i had eighty seven, and the year before that, over one hundred and five. the way things are going, anatomically speaking, i might not be able to have kids, so one: it bothers me when people say this because of my recent issues with health; and two: it is rude to assume that i don't know the meaning of tired considering my life, personal, and professional interests have everything to do with children and young adults.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
I’m just a quiet person.
I know some of you think I have been quiet and maybe sort of "off" lately. Maybe you think I don't like you because I don't have a lot to say—this is wrong. I'm just a quiet person.
I've never felt comfortable talking around people; I have never felt comfortable with having friends. For more than ten years I have been on my own, for the most part. In high school I had a small group of close friends, but watched those relationships either fade or disintegrate for one reason or another (college, time, distance damage, arguments, et cetera). In college I had one solid friend, but after graduation our relationship became diluted by our post-college interests and careers. My early years in New York City and Boston were clouded with getting to know these new places—and I wasn't in these places long enough to establish any friendships. The last few years in New York yielded one solid friendship with a colleague and since my relocation to upstate we have lost touch too.
I have Jacob and his wonderful family, Tyler, and my family and I am satisfied with these things—and I don't mind sharing the wealth because each are amazing and intoxicating and their energy needs to be shared with others. But, I'm not ready to share too much of myself with anyone outside these things just yet. I'm nervously shy, complicated (who isn't), emotional, and quietly contemplative; I don't want you to confuse these aspects of my personality by equating me with a bitch or think that I am judging you.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Memento Mori: Loki
Yesterday, almost home, from my tiring hour commute from work, my mother called to discuss and weep, the decision she and Ron made to put Loki down, as he was very ill during the night. She told me he was euthanized at 10:30 in the morning and they had plans to bury his body (as opposed to shipping him off to an Albany crematorium) just beyond the small tree farm, slightly before the wood of their ever-expansive acreage.
I won't spare the details. My mother woke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and returned to bed. It is customary for Loki to follow anyone he feels the need to protect, even if the distance is a few feet. Both returned to sleep. But Ron woke in the middle of the night startled by a strange smell and woke my mother and they both found Loki lying in a pool of his own tar-like feces. They took him outside so he could eliminate more without embarrassment, cleaned him up, and fixed him up a resting spot in the garage. I doubt if any of them slept.
In the morning my brother brought up his mini-van to transport Loki to the veterinarian. I was told Loki had a large tumor in his stomach and a tumor on his spleen; his blood work was far from copacetic.
We got Loki shortly after my father died. He was the best thing for us at the time, as we no longer could mope about when there was a puppy to look after. He was good for all of us; a good companion that forced us to stop grieving once in a while. He was an integral part of my post-pubescent existence. He was my furry four-legged protector and constant shadow.
After eleven years it is natural for a family to move from one stage of life to other stages. I went to college, moved about the Northeast, settled in New York City for more than three years before moving back Upstate to be closer to my family and to Jacob. My mother found love again, remarried, and relocated a few towns over. My brother has been preserving my childhood memory of "home," found love, and is a loving father of two and a soon-to-be husband. With all the changes in our family dynamic, Loki was our constant—the tangible furry glue of a once three-member family who had lost their fourth. Yesterday I felt like my memories of what used to be, what once was, were gone; that without Loki to remind me of my sixteen year old self and grueling depressive years to follow I would not know what to turn to when memories are needed.
But memories never really expire—the sound of my father's voice faded long ago, but this does not mean I don't remember his words. I will never have that midnight black shadow of Loki to follow me from room to room, but I will never forget him and what he represents in the grander scale of things. But, I will surely miss him; he was a good boy.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
ge commercials make me laugh.
they sure do.
i have two doctor's appointments in the next two weeks to clarify the length of my life i'm sure.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
ovarian cyst.
this might be too much information about ms. dow than you would care to know. know this: i have a cyst on one of my ovaries. but, i really think my ovary has sprouted arms and is punching me, repeatedly, in the gut. or it is dancing, drunk, wildly, around my fallopian tube.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Air.
In the very early mornings and in the early evenings I enjoy spending more time in the yard with Tyler. It is because of the air—crisp and intoxicating.
I remember living off of Houston and between Avenue C and D. Waking to the smells of exhaust filtering through my south bound window and walking home from bartending in the wee hours of the morning, disgusted more by the smell of dirty air than the foul sticky smell of dried alcohol and cigarette smoke that clung to my clothes and hair. On Twenty-ninth Street, just off of Fourth Avenue, the same dingy highway-like air made me want to die as my hand griped my inhaler.
Another reason I am happy about my move: air.
Friday, March 23, 2007
also, i like to read blogs.
even if i don't know you. i would read livejournals all day, but now it's myspace blogs. if you have a tracker i'm not stalking you. i just like blogs.
----------
a dream about dying. i had today. and i woke up all tears.
the sequence of the dream images leading up to the "death scene" is confusing, but i ended up in a vestibule of a house, perhaps a rustic cabin. i was accompanied by a host, and at this point it escapes me whether or not this host was human or animal. i'm thinking it was a human, as he (not she) spoke to me in standard american english. i was also surrounded by a grey and white kitten and what i remember to be a rabbit who told me he (yes, he) rode bulls. i do believe the kitten represents the non-verbal communication of love as i was asked to mimic its actions, which of course consisted of nuzzling against me, the host, and the rabbit, whilst purring. the rabbit, who happened to also speak standard american english, told me the hardest challenges he endured in his lifetime was riding bulls. i think this is linked, metaphorically, to the challenges we all have in life (juxtaposed, of course, to what i will now refer to as the "kitten" experience we all long for when faced with tough challenges). the rabbit suggested to me that another good outlet to the feeling associated with being challenged (frustration) is to dance it off. i remember in my dream i closed my eyes and wriggled to a the beat of deep sadness i seem to hold in my heart in my conscious life.
after the lectures, the dancing, and the nuzzling (it happened in this order) my host was about to tell me it was "time to go." i told him i was aware of what was happening (although i am positive he, nor the others, were trying to be tricksy) , even though i did not want to go through with it.
he opened the door to the "outside" world, which of course offered its light to the darkness of the vestibule. i remember i asked my host if it was okay to be scared. he replied that it was perfectly okay to be scared, but assured me there was nothing to be afraid of. i asked him if i would have just as many friends on the other side, to which he replied "of course. you will have as many friends as you need."
before i walked through the threshold, i woke up (crying).
Sunday, March 18, 2007
two excellent movies.
i recommend the following:
brick
and
half nelson
Monday, March 12, 2007
built by wendy.
wendy mullin i love your clothes, but why so pricey? design a line for target.
my wallet hates you wendy.
---------
the tale of the winter piglet. i cannot stop eating. even when i am not hungry i still eat. i dream of ice cream while i eat cookies. of bagels when i eat muffins. food is all i want. all. the. time.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
target and clothes.
when i moved to new york city, four years ago, i discovered the glory of target. i became an avid disciple--namely, for clothes. to this day i still get most of my clothes from target. i am extremely tickled by the the design for all program they have implemented. i have loved all the go designers, save for maybe two (the past winter season selection was disgusting).
i am so happy that proenza schouler is designing affordable (super cheap prices, but great quality) clothes for target. my only issue with them is the season they have chosen to design for. all the vibrant colors make me want to die (save for the purple pencil skirt)--i only wished they designed for the fall season. their fall clothing is amazing (proenza schouler fall 2005)
Saturday, February 10, 2007
mark strand poem
"Coming To This"
We have done what we wanted.
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry
of each other, and we have welcomed grief
and called ruin the impossible habit to break.
And now we are here.
The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.
The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.
The wine waits.
Coming to this
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.
We have no heart or saving grace,
no place to go, no reason to remain.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
dog babies and homework.
i was on the couch last night. jacob was doing his homework and i said:
"tyler would be the worst mommy. she'd probably eat her kids."
tyler will never have babies, unless by miracle, which made me sort of sad. maybe she would be a good mother? but, i'm still convinced she'd mouth atleast one of them.
----------
i'm so hungry i could eat ten biggy iggy ice cream sandwiches from stewart's.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Naps.
I haven't been taking them as much as my body yearns for them.
I take them when I am tired.
I take them when I am depressed because I'd rather sleep than tap into hatred.
I take them when I long for company when Jacob is not around. Tyler is warm and snores like Jacob too.
---------
On another note altogether, why do people seem sketchy? Maybe I am paranoid.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
also, a poem rather, an excerpt:
what are words, i want to ask you, what
is clarity and why do words keep burning
a century later, though the earth
weighs so much?
from "a talk with friedrich nietzsche" by adam zagajewski.
--------
antigone. i'm going to watch this movie in the absence of my other half. then i will gouge my eyes out in reverence.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
My Chelsea students...
I just want to say these things: I miss you all (even the ones who drove me nuts--you know who you are) and I am proud of you all. Class of 2008, you are the best group of young adults, ever.
Friday, December 29, 2006
shaking hands with a genius.
i went to applebee's and had kettle (tavern) chips smothered with cheese and bacon. i wish i invented this dish.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
my heart attack.
salmon wrapped in bacon topped with cheese. best. dinner. ever.
atleast today ended on a good note. this weekend was abysmal.
--------
for mary... your profile makes my computer freeze:
[insert absent image of dancing robot]
Saturday, December 09, 2006
friend.
you know, it has been about seven years since i had a good best friend. i had natasha, but after college we grew apart and now she lives in scotland with her husband and dog. i became close with nikki in brooklyn as we lived together, briefly, and co-taught together for two years at chelsea. and here i am, in this bleak town and i feel pretty lonely. maybe that is why i liked living in new york: i was always too busy to be lonely. here i have more time on my hands than i can actually deal with and i find myself sleeping a good chunk of it away because i'm so blah (minus the time spent with jacob).
Saturday, December 02, 2006
esouh.
i want to puke all over myself.
Monday, November 27, 2006
crap carp prac parc arcp
Last night I zoned out during the shittiest movie ever, "The DaVinci Code," and for moments I truly thought I was a clairvoyant, as I seemed to see clearly into my doomy future where I only wore sweatpants, ate noodles with butter, and lamented to Jacob that shampoo and soap should be separate showering entities and or luxuries.
This house shit has my brain on the fritz and I wonder if we can really do this without going stark-raving loonie. I think to myself: "I have to do this; I am twenty seven. I have no babies, I cannot rent forever..I am an adult, right?"
What if I had stayed in Brooklyn? What would it have been like? The traveling would tear us apart. Now that I am here will our obsessive-compulsive, fixative habits make us want to bounce off each other like walking padded rooms, or will we just stick together like glue and have our insecurities co-mingle in an emotional tick-oriented bliss?
I can speculate about what it would have been like to have stayed in Brooklyn, but what I have learned is that love is worth more than a twelve-grand pay cut and feeling severely uncomfortable, socially, in this insular town--it is transcendent.
Friday, November 24, 2006
I should have stayed in Brooklyn.
Sometimes I think this.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Slang.
One thing I miss about being in the city is slang. Someone used the phrase dead-ass in class the other day (in an awkward manner no less--it sounded less like one huffy fast deadass and more like dead-pause-pause-pause-asssssss) and I felt like telling him that phrase is so beat these days. But how would he know? What is hip here was hip more than two years ago down there. I don't even want to get into music or the style of clothes.
Yes, I used the word hip. Shut up.
Friday, October 27, 2006
On Walking Dogs.
Current mood: annoyed
Currently listening: Mule Variations
By: Tom Waits
Release date: 27 April, 1999
Walking dogs should be done, always, with leashes. Aside from my roommates' dog that happens to be the most docile and oblivious dog I know to date, all dogs should be walked with a leash. I will even say that any dog walker walking a dog without a leash is full-fledged moron. My case in point: yesterday afternoon, after arriving at my apartment to pick up some things for a night of grading at JV's while he was in class, I witnessed a small dog (a size-challenged breed I personally abhor) being attacked by to unleashed dogs. If it wasn't bad enough watching a small dog being mauled by some feral-looking, hick-bred dog, compound this image with a wire-hanger abortion scream coming from a young girl still holding onto the leash of her small dog. Then to add to the chaotic cacophony of hell-hound barks and anti-orgasmic screams, picture the potential hick-breeder, but most certainly hick-owner, of these ravenous, feral-looking dogs yelling out commands and kicking about like a Nazi war solider, all of which the dogs did not respond to. I mean, I will admit it: I hate small dogs. There is no room in our Darwinist society for small dogs, but they do exist, sadly, and they should have at least the minimal right to be walked around in a safe environment by owners who should wear no fear against unleashed animals. There is also no room in our Darwinist society for morons, especially those specific types of morons who own dogs and choose not to walk them on leashes. Sadly, these morons exist and I have no solution to remedy the error of their moronic ways, but I sure hope someone does and perhaps their fate will be in the form of some Hades-like Malebolge that awaits them in after-life.
eleven.
Monday, March 28th, 2005
Time: 8:45 pm.
horizontal rain won.
Saturday, March 26th, 2005
Subject: e-mail.
Time: 5:36 pm.
yo ms d whats good its ralphy i was just wondering if u have n e work i can do to atleast pass your class with a 65 if you do holla at me ight
Friday, March 4th, 2005
Time: 7:40 pm.
Cold was the night, hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
Lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out
On the street.
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Ida said she couldn't keep Georgia
From dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
But she kept runnin away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Close your eyes and count to ten
I will got and hid but then
Be sure to find me. I want you to find me
And we'll play all over
We will play all over again
There's a toad in the witch grass
There's a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying
For her mom
As the hills turn from green back
To gold
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Saturday, February 26th, 2005
Time: 10:44 am.
vacation is almost over. school is almost over. less than four months.
please recommend any cheap vacationing spots for two, for the summer months.
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Time: 7:32 pm.
NEW YORK—Teach For America, a national program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income rural and urban communities, has devoured another ethnic-studies major, 24-year-old Andy Cuellen reported Tuesday.
"Look, the world is a miserable place," said Cuellen, a Dartmouth graduate who quit the TFA program Monday morning. "All people—even children—are just nasty animals trying to secure their share of the food supply. I don't care how poor or how rich you are, that's just a fact. I'm sorry, but I have better things to do than zoo-keep for peanuts."
Just one of the 12,000 young people TFA has burned through since 1990, Cuellen was given five weeks of training the summer before he took over a classroom at P.S. 83 in the South Bronx last September.
"I walked into that school actually thinking I could make a difference," said Cuellen, who taught an overflowing class of disadvantaged 8-year-olds. "It was trial by fire. But after five months spent in a stuffy, dark room where the chalkboard fell off the wall every two days, corralling screaming kids into broken desks, I'm burnt to a crisp."
Cuellen said his TFA experience "taught him a lot about hopelessness."
"The cities are fucked. The suburbs are fucked. The whole country is fucked," Cuellen said. "And there's not a goddamned thing you or anyone can do about it. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Or trying to get you to teach kids math."
According to Dartmouth literature, as a member of the ethnic-studies department, Cuellen learned "to empower students of color to move beyond being objects of study toward being subjects of their own social realities, with voices of their own."
Teach For America executive director Theo Anderson called ethnic-studies departments "a prime source of fodder."
"Oh, I'd say we burn through a hundred or so ethnic-studies majors each year," said Anderson, pointing to a series of charts showing the college-major breakdown of TFA corps members. "They tend to last a little longer than women's studies majors and art-therapy students, but Cuellen got mashed to a pulp pretty quickly. It usually takes ethnic-studies majors another year to realize that they're wasting their precious youth on a Sisyphean endeavor."
Continued Anderson: "Of course, we don't worry about it too much. Every year, there's a fresh crop to throw in the grinder. As we speak, scores of apple-cheeked students are hearing about TFA for the first time."
According to Anderson, a small portion of these students will lose interest after hearing horror stories from program alumni.
"But the majority of them will march on like cattle to the slaughter, thinking that pure determination and hope can change young lives," Anderson said. "I can hear their footsteps now, marching toward our offices like lemmings to a cliff. And believe me, we're ready for 'em."
Cuellen said he applied to TFA in search of a "character-building experience."
"I knew that teaching in a severely under-funded inner-city school would be challenging, but I wanted to get out into the real world," Cuellen said. "Well, breaking up fistfights between 8-year-olds all day long, I got a real ugly view of reality. Do you want to know reality? Look at a dog lying dead in the gutter. That's reality."
Although Cuellen quit the program early, his mother said he was with TFA long enough for it "to crack open his bones and suck out the marrow inside."
"Andy is a ghost," Beverly Cuellen said. "Those [TFA] people beat the idealism out of him, then they stomped on him while he lay there gasping for air."
TFA regional coordinator Sandra Richman said it is common to blame the TFA employees for the organization's high plow-through rate.
"Should I have said something to wake those kids up sooner?" Richman said, crushing out her seventh cigarette. "Probably. But listen, no one can tell you that you can't make a difference. It's something you have to figure out for yourself."
"You can only do so much," Richman added. "After a couple years of trying to teach our applicants about how difficult and depressing their lives will inevitably be—no matter what they choose to do for money—I just got burnt out. In the end, you've gotta resign yourself to failure and move on with your life."
Saturday, February 12th, 2005
Subject: is wangster a word?
Time: 10:24 pm.
wow. so i was hired and trained to teach this ninth grade ramp-up to literacy class, which is prescribed to almost every junior high school and high school in new york city. if you have not a clue as to what it is, it is a course designed to "ramp-up" students to higher reading levels. if little jorge joins the ninth grade community with a fourth-grade reading level, my job is to get him to a higher reading level (not necessarily that of a ninth grade reading level). our mantra is the seven habits of the proficient reader: activating schema (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-word); creating images/visualizing; asking questions; making inferences; making predictions; monitoring for meaning (using fix-up strategies); and summarizing, synthesizing, and retelling.
with this mantra, i am to read-aloud, yes, read-aloud to my youngsters as they follow along with their own copy of whatever text i push on them.
so.
i've ditched the program for a bit to teach my little flowers poetry and the fundaments of writing a research paper.
i've created a "poem a day" project for my little roses, and boy o'fucking boy do i have some neat poems to share with you in the days to come! here is a little sample:
(background info: theme, individuality (me, myself and i). purpose, to inform. audience, young adults. mood, serious. form, eight lines with some sort of rhyming pattern)
i like math class
alot of girls got fat ass
i am the master
anything he write i do it faster
i sometime get in trouble
but i always have a double.
Monday, January 31st, 2005
Subject: this just in.
Time: 10:04 pm.
i hate english teachers.
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
Subject: HA!
Time: 10:41 am.
[insert picture of young ashley judd]
[insert picture of young erica dow's acting i.d. card]
Friday, January 21st, 2005
Subject: i just want to say.
Time: 6:43 pm.
i'm one lucky gal.
Saturday, January 8th, 2005
Time: 6:23 pm.
i felt better! i went back to teaching. but now, i feel shitty again. i cannot shake the heats. i'll blame the kids.
adam and i forfeited a trip to peekskill because of the weather. so today was full of naps and mopping. as he tinkers around on his computer, burning away copies of cds, i am getting my sunday work load in now.
guh ( i'm pretty backed up in grading.
save me.
Wednesday, January 5th, 2005
Subject: delirious.
Time: 2:33 pm.
is it the flu that makes me feel this way? or all the medicine.
Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
Subject: Patience, and lack thereof.
Time: 7:00 pm.
That is my summation. I feel like my patience is waning because it is perpetually tested every week, day, hour, minute, and second. Where once I found myself pliable I now find myself stiff, somewhat hardened to the environment around me. Sometimes I can hear my own bones creak and my hair shooting at the root freezing to white.
Today I asked a fellow art academy teacher this:
“Do they get better?”
He replied as follows:
“No…”
Followed by the longest, most dramatic caesura I have ever encountered, and then:
“…but you will.”
Gah! That’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that my students would eventually yield, that they would lie down and play dead at the demands of their teacher. What the hell is this anarchy?
Is anarchy so pure that those that possess the quality therein don’t even understand the meaning and concept and history? What the hell do they need to rebel against? All I’ve shown them has been tough-love, tolerance, and guidance. And what do they do? They make me feel sad, too often, at the end of the day.
Will it, if not them or I, get better?
_________________________________
I will refer, again, to the time when a colleague told me, flatly, to “Just stop caring.” And later in the day hearing a similar resonance of fucking idiocy from another peer: “Teachers aren’t going to change the world.”
Fuck you. Fuck the both of you. Fuck your dim-witted lack of ideals. Why the fuck are you teaching? Leave the miserable to wrestle with the ethic and morale of teaching and get a fucking telemarketing job if you don’t care. Push papers across desks if you don’t want to perpetuate change in the world of [academic] complacency.
_____________
If this is the disillusionment phase, I have hit it. And hit it hard. I think some good teas and a nice Thanksgiving break will pull me out of this sluggish lull of the winter blues and the poisonous waters of my buckled patience.
Monday, November 15th, 2004
Time: 5:33 pm.
in my twenty five years i have never experienced a day like sunday. i mean it when i say it was the best birthday that i've ever had. sugar-free chocolate cheesecake with sugar free whipped cream. beer and wings at croxley ales. photobooth pictures at seven b. ballooned kitchen floor. shiny birthday banner. they say it's your birthday. on repeat. unicorn plates, napkins, cups, and mostly importantly, hats. pin the tail on the donkey. kerplunk.
sound special? it was. and so is he.
Sunday, November 14th, 2004
Subject: merry christmas!
Time: 9:12 am.
[insert broken image of something i don't remember]
Saturday, November 13th, 2004
Subject: also. this is fucking amazing. hello wallpaper.
Time: 12:27 pm.
[insert awesome perry bible comic indicating unicorn power]
Time: 11:33 am.
yesterday was the sort of day that made me question just about everything in my life.
i stepped away from it all with a cigarette in the rain.
why does this kid* make me angry? how does a child make me angry?
______________
this always makes me feel better:
you're the pincard, you're
the lifeguard, you're the
information guy, but things
look much bigger on the
knees, on your knees.
miss the signal, miss the
signpost, lose the access to
it all. and all of a sudden
you are one with the freaks.
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
Time: 6:29 am.
chan marshall, you make me want to die.
Sunday, November 7th, 2004
Subject: owned.
Time: 9:40 am.
[insert image of lacoste dunk type sneakers called turbo]
they are a smidgen too big. but my feet are happy. my wallet on the other hand...
Saturday, November 6th, 2004
Subject: a list. edited. and updated.
Time: 10:19 am.
hi. built by wendy.
old school (cheaper) ipod.
cheap ass digital camera.
pedicure.
paul brown nike air trainer ones, size seven.
target gift certificate.
adopted boxer.
hi black and gum nike air force ones, size six and a half or seven.
built by wendy vintage demin jeans, wrangler edition, size twenty seven or twenty eight.
underwear, size five, small, or extra small.
socks, with strips. three, not two.
mittens with the finger flap.
arm length mittens.
unicorn earrings.
bird wall decals.
unicorn bag.
cheap ass all-in-one printer.
nike lucky sevens. size seven.
simply basic lotion from wal-mart.
peanut butter and company peanut butter.
yankee candle. storm watch.
monday.
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
Subject: Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher...
Time: 7:27 pm.
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn’d of Nature—of the politics of Nature, you have not learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from These States.
__________________________________________
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet—for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
Time: 8:45 pm.
horizontal rain won.
Saturday, March 26th, 2005
Subject: e-mail.
Time: 5:36 pm.
yo ms d whats good its ralphy i was just wondering if u have n e work i can do to atleast pass your class with a 65 if you do holla at me ight
Friday, March 4th, 2005
Time: 7:40 pm.
Cold was the night, hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
Lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out
On the street.
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Ida said she couldn't keep Georgia
From dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
But she kept runnin away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Close your eyes and count to ten
I will got and hid but then
Be sure to find me. I want you to find me
And we'll play all over
We will play all over again
There's a toad in the witch grass
There's a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying
For her mom
As the hills turn from green back
To gold
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Saturday, February 26th, 2005
Time: 10:44 am.
vacation is almost over. school is almost over. less than four months.
please recommend any cheap vacationing spots for two, for the summer months.
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Time: 7:32 pm.
NEW YORK—Teach For America, a national program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income rural and urban communities, has devoured another ethnic-studies major, 24-year-old Andy Cuellen reported Tuesday.
"Look, the world is a miserable place," said Cuellen, a Dartmouth graduate who quit the TFA program Monday morning. "All people—even children—are just nasty animals trying to secure their share of the food supply. I don't care how poor or how rich you are, that's just a fact. I'm sorry, but I have better things to do than zoo-keep for peanuts."
Just one of the 12,000 young people TFA has burned through since 1990, Cuellen was given five weeks of training the summer before he took over a classroom at P.S. 83 in the South Bronx last September.
"I walked into that school actually thinking I could make a difference," said Cuellen, who taught an overflowing class of disadvantaged 8-year-olds. "It was trial by fire. But after five months spent in a stuffy, dark room where the chalkboard fell off the wall every two days, corralling screaming kids into broken desks, I'm burnt to a crisp."
Cuellen said his TFA experience "taught him a lot about hopelessness."
"The cities are fucked. The suburbs are fucked. The whole country is fucked," Cuellen said. "And there's not a goddamned thing you or anyone can do about it. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Or trying to get you to teach kids math."
According to Dartmouth literature, as a member of the ethnic-studies department, Cuellen learned "to empower students of color to move beyond being objects of study toward being subjects of their own social realities, with voices of their own."
Teach For America executive director Theo Anderson called ethnic-studies departments "a prime source of fodder."
"Oh, I'd say we burn through a hundred or so ethnic-studies majors each year," said Anderson, pointing to a series of charts showing the college-major breakdown of TFA corps members. "They tend to last a little longer than women's studies majors and art-therapy students, but Cuellen got mashed to a pulp pretty quickly. It usually takes ethnic-studies majors another year to realize that they're wasting their precious youth on a Sisyphean endeavor."
Continued Anderson: "Of course, we don't worry about it too much. Every year, there's a fresh crop to throw in the grinder. As we speak, scores of apple-cheeked students are hearing about TFA for the first time."
According to Anderson, a small portion of these students will lose interest after hearing horror stories from program alumni.
"But the majority of them will march on like cattle to the slaughter, thinking that pure determination and hope can change young lives," Anderson said. "I can hear their footsteps now, marching toward our offices like lemmings to a cliff. And believe me, we're ready for 'em."
Cuellen said he applied to TFA in search of a "character-building experience."
"I knew that teaching in a severely under-funded inner-city school would be challenging, but I wanted to get out into the real world," Cuellen said. "Well, breaking up fistfights between 8-year-olds all day long, I got a real ugly view of reality. Do you want to know reality? Look at a dog lying dead in the gutter. That's reality."
Although Cuellen quit the program early, his mother said he was with TFA long enough for it "to crack open his bones and suck out the marrow inside."
"Andy is a ghost," Beverly Cuellen said. "Those [TFA] people beat the idealism out of him, then they stomped on him while he lay there gasping for air."
TFA regional coordinator Sandra Richman said it is common to blame the TFA employees for the organization's high plow-through rate.
"Should I have said something to wake those kids up sooner?" Richman said, crushing out her seventh cigarette. "Probably. But listen, no one can tell you that you can't make a difference. It's something you have to figure out for yourself."
"You can only do so much," Richman added. "After a couple years of trying to teach our applicants about how difficult and depressing their lives will inevitably be—no matter what they choose to do for money—I just got burnt out. In the end, you've gotta resign yourself to failure and move on with your life."
Saturday, February 12th, 2005
Subject: is wangster a word?
Time: 10:24 pm.
wow. so i was hired and trained to teach this ninth grade ramp-up to literacy class, which is prescribed to almost every junior high school and high school in new york city. if you have not a clue as to what it is, it is a course designed to "ramp-up" students to higher reading levels. if little jorge joins the ninth grade community with a fourth-grade reading level, my job is to get him to a higher reading level (not necessarily that of a ninth grade reading level). our mantra is the seven habits of the proficient reader: activating schema (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-word); creating images/visualizing; asking questions; making inferences; making predictions; monitoring for meaning (using fix-up strategies); and summarizing, synthesizing, and retelling.
with this mantra, i am to read-aloud, yes, read-aloud to my youngsters as they follow along with their own copy of whatever text i push on them.
so.
i've ditched the program for a bit to teach my little flowers poetry and the fundaments of writing a research paper.
i've created a "poem a day" project for my little roses, and boy o'fucking boy do i have some neat poems to share with you in the days to come! here is a little sample:
(background info: theme, individuality (me, myself and i). purpose, to inform. audience, young adults. mood, serious. form, eight lines with some sort of rhyming pattern)
i like math class
alot of girls got fat ass
i am the master
anything he write i do it faster
i sometime get in trouble
but i always have a double.
Monday, January 31st, 2005
Subject: this just in.
Time: 10:04 pm.
i hate english teachers.
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
Subject: HA!
Time: 10:41 am.
[insert picture of young ashley judd]
[insert picture of young erica dow's acting i.d. card]
Friday, January 21st, 2005
Subject: i just want to say.
Time: 6:43 pm.
i'm one lucky gal.
Saturday, January 8th, 2005
Time: 6:23 pm.
i felt better! i went back to teaching. but now, i feel shitty again. i cannot shake the heats. i'll blame the kids.
adam and i forfeited a trip to peekskill because of the weather. so today was full of naps and mopping. as he tinkers around on his computer, burning away copies of cds, i am getting my sunday work load in now.
guh ( i'm pretty backed up in grading.
save me.
Wednesday, January 5th, 2005
Subject: delirious.
Time: 2:33 pm.
is it the flu that makes me feel this way? or all the medicine.
Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
Subject: Patience, and lack thereof.
Time: 7:00 pm.
That is my summation. I feel like my patience is waning because it is perpetually tested every week, day, hour, minute, and second. Where once I found myself pliable I now find myself stiff, somewhat hardened to the environment around me. Sometimes I can hear my own bones creak and my hair shooting at the root freezing to white.
Today I asked a fellow art academy teacher this:
“Do they get better?”
He replied as follows:
“No…”
Followed by the longest, most dramatic caesura I have ever encountered, and then:
“…but you will.”
Gah! That’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that my students would eventually yield, that they would lie down and play dead at the demands of their teacher. What the hell is this anarchy?
Is anarchy so pure that those that possess the quality therein don’t even understand the meaning and concept and history? What the hell do they need to rebel against? All I’ve shown them has been tough-love, tolerance, and guidance. And what do they do? They make me feel sad, too often, at the end of the day.
Will it, if not them or I, get better?
_________________________________
I will refer, again, to the time when a colleague told me, flatly, to “Just stop caring.” And later in the day hearing a similar resonance of fucking idiocy from another peer: “Teachers aren’t going to change the world.”
Fuck you. Fuck the both of you. Fuck your dim-witted lack of ideals. Why the fuck are you teaching? Leave the miserable to wrestle with the ethic and morale of teaching and get a fucking telemarketing job if you don’t care. Push papers across desks if you don’t want to perpetuate change in the world of [academic] complacency.
_____________
If this is the disillusionment phase, I have hit it. And hit it hard. I think some good teas and a nice Thanksgiving break will pull me out of this sluggish lull of the winter blues and the poisonous waters of my buckled patience.
Monday, November 15th, 2004
Time: 5:33 pm.
in my twenty five years i have never experienced a day like sunday. i mean it when i say it was the best birthday that i've ever had. sugar-free chocolate cheesecake with sugar free whipped cream. beer and wings at croxley ales. photobooth pictures at seven b. ballooned kitchen floor. shiny birthday banner. they say it's your birthday. on repeat. unicorn plates, napkins, cups, and mostly importantly, hats. pin the tail on the donkey. kerplunk.
sound special? it was. and so is he.
Sunday, November 14th, 2004
Subject: merry christmas!
Time: 9:12 am.
[insert broken image of something i don't remember]
Saturday, November 13th, 2004
Subject: also. this is fucking amazing. hello wallpaper.
Time: 12:27 pm.
[insert awesome perry bible comic indicating unicorn power]
Time: 11:33 am.
yesterday was the sort of day that made me question just about everything in my life.
i stepped away from it all with a cigarette in the rain.
why does this kid* make me angry? how does a child make me angry?
______________
this always makes me feel better:
you're the pincard, you're
the lifeguard, you're the
information guy, but things
look much bigger on the
knees, on your knees.
miss the signal, miss the
signpost, lose the access to
it all. and all of a sudden
you are one with the freaks.
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
Time: 6:29 am.
chan marshall, you make me want to die.
Sunday, November 7th, 2004
Subject: owned.
Time: 9:40 am.
[insert image of lacoste dunk type sneakers called turbo]
they are a smidgen too big. but my feet are happy. my wallet on the other hand...
Saturday, November 6th, 2004
Subject: a list. edited. and updated.
Time: 10:19 am.
hi. built by wendy.
old school (cheaper) ipod.
cheap ass digital camera.
pedicure.
paul brown nike air trainer ones, size seven.
target gift certificate.
adopted boxer.
hi black and gum nike air force ones, size six and a half or seven.
built by wendy vintage demin jeans, wrangler edition, size twenty seven or twenty eight.
underwear, size five, small, or extra small.
socks, with strips. three, not two.
mittens with the finger flap.
arm length mittens.
unicorn earrings.
bird wall decals.
unicorn bag.
cheap ass all-in-one printer.
nike lucky sevens. size seven.
simply basic lotion from wal-mart.
peanut butter and company peanut butter.
yankee candle. storm watch.
monday.
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
Subject: Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher...
Time: 7:27 pm.
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn’d of Nature—of the politics of Nature, you have not learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from These States.
__________________________________________
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet—for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
ten.
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004
Subject: secret to teenage acne:
Time: 7:57 pm.
high schools clog your pores!
Sunday, October 31st, 2004
Subject: pardon the typos.
Time: 6:21 pm.
Mood: gah.
Music: notwist. neon golden.
to distill this week into paragraphs. what a tricky thing to do.
i've built a community in the classroom. both classrooms, to be exact. it took me awhile to crack period four five. but i did. they are immersed in a program called "map for life" where every thursday a guest speaker joins the class and maps out his or her life (o, what a clever program name) via a chalk and talk as the children fill in the veins of a workbook with the plasma, blood cells, and platelets of information about the speaker. it's an interesting program. i had had my doubts. but now that i've witnessed the sound of silence filled with only breath and a sniffle here and there, i am happy the program has been implemented. how is it that they can stay so silent for so long? it makes me want to dress up as a new person everyday--dress up so they won't recognize me, and then, maybe, just maybe, i could get through more than ten minutes of a lesson.
i mapped my life out for them the following friday. you know those lunatics thought i was teaching for the money?
"miss, you make a hundred dollars and hour."
i had to turn my head away when i heard that one. i felt like saying "zelda, if that were the case, don't you think i'd be in ireland or dollywood soaking up the culture?"
i told them about how my father was an english teacher as well, and as he worked on his masters and worked full-time at a juvenile facility he fell ill and passed away. and i was fifteen.
"ms. dow, do you teach because your father taught."
i didn't have to think. the word just flew out:
"yes."
it took until that moment to realize why, i suppose, i'm truly teaching.
__________
[we'd be leading slanted parallel lives if he'd grown younger and healther as i, older and increasingly unhealthy (thank you bacon and coffee).] <---- i need to work this part into a syllabic and slanted poem.
_________________________________
i thought about my father all week. i cannot wait to go home and exhume graphic organizers from nineteen ninety three.
____________
on a shittier note. my handheld was lifted from the faculty bathroom. isn't that lovely? i had finished a mentor meeting and ran upstairs to de-chalk before another class. i placed the cased gadget on a sink counter. and ran out the door down to two thirteen. as i paced around the room taking a mental status of the class, i looked around for my handheld to mark attendance. and realized i'd left it upstairs on the sink counter.
i'm a fucking idiot. really. i am.
i grabbed a passing teacher to monitor my room as i ran upstairs. i fully expected to find the gadget sitting, still, on the counter since only ten minutes had passed. it was gone.
strangely i feel as though part of me has died since wednesday. how can this be? people have functioned years without a handheld. teachers still get by using a pencil and a log book. why can't i?
what saddens me, other than the fact that i'm an oaf, is the fact that a faculty member has taken my little electronic 16mb heart. fuckers. why? i hope it dies on them and they are too ridiculously incompetent to figure out what sort of charger they need to revitalize and eventually pawn off to their little cousin as a used birthday present. because christmas for bid they walk around the school sporting technology they never would have ever used until they laid their little beady eyes on that sink counter i will bust at the seams until they see green and tattered jeans and the spitting image of dr. david bruce banner's alter ego.
i'm pissed. wow. it feels good. it feels better than this shitty i hate myself feeling i've been carrying around for days.
________________________________
the parent-teacher festivities on thursday evening and friday afternoon were interesting. i was nervous only about whether or not the parents would think me very young looking and take me less seriously than if i was old and tweedy (because really when i think "teacher," i think of my own--and they were old and tweedy). i had my inclusion co-teacher with me, the one that works with my period four five. we had a ball. sang mister sandman during the dull moments, and begged mr. cerny (young and tweedy) to buy us a round of flan from the student bake sale downstairs (yes, flan. weird. i know). thursday left me a tired egg for friday's early class schedule--a half day followed by more meetings with parents and guardians.
i did not make it to happy hour. i knew if i had made it up the block for a beer and game of beer pong, the sticky tables of down the hatch would have become my bed for the rest of the day.
__________
i took adam to a play at the opera house on arion place. hamlet. it was amazing, what i saw at least. adam fell ill fifteen minutes before intermission. i met him outside and we traveled back home. this summer i will do theatre. and with lisa's helpful friends (i watched her movie today, swimming, and thought fondly again of acting) maybe i can get some head shots done.
_________________
all in all i had a weird week. i wish i could talk more about my father, but those feelings, still, don't have words, even after nine years.
Subject: i need to have a dance off with this girl.
Time: 9:07 am.
http://home.comcast.net/~subtlelikeatrex//...orage/dance.avi
i'll write later. it's just too early. and i've had only one cup of coffee.
Wednesday, October 27th, 2004
Subject: i hate.
Time: 6:01 pm.
myself when i lose things.
i feel like an idiot.
two people have made me feel a little bit better. thank you joanne. and thank you adam.
Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
Time: 5:01 pm.
today was a not so great day.
Sunday, October 24th, 2004
Time: 4:00 pm.
Mood: positive.
Music: the pharcyde. passin' me by.
I sort of dreaded sitting down and logging all my goods and my bads of this week. It sure felt hectic. I felt unprepared starting the week. Having worked the weekend, leaving me little time for planning, I was sure the work week’s motto was going to be “sink or swim.” But I was okay.
I survived the week. And it wasn’t that bad. Sadly, Ramp-Up to Literacy leaves little to no room for creativity. Well, it depends if you follow the model. I do, pretty much, to a certain degree. I ride the wave of twenty to thirty minute independent reading time, fifteen minute independent writing time, fifteen to twenty minute mini-lesson and homework review, and a fifteen to twenty minute read aloud session. By the time the class is settled into surfing through the motions, the class is over. Ramp-Up is what you put into it, I suppose. Ask me three months from now if I’m still riding this wave—chances are I won’t be. It’s boring, but I’ll settle for it, as I settle into teaching. I’ll change it around when I feel the urge to jump out of our classroom’s third story window.
Between professional development, mentor meetings, academic meetings, meeting with this so-and-so artist from this gallery for a trip (next spring no less), last minute paper grading, student participation and general assessment write-ups, and class on Thursday evening, I was able to breath, eat, plan (minimally), sleep, and relax. How?
This is a profession of balancing duties and working under pressure—two things that I do very well. This is how I made it through college. It reminds me of a survival of the fittest game. I can see how people burn out. But, summer—summer is my recuperative time. I’m sure I will be busy with class and maybe teaching summer school, but everything will be moving at a much slower pace, affording me all the rest and relaxation needed for the second year.
I think I might have found my calling. It just feels right. I can deal with all the politics, and paperwork, and poor behavior (of students and colleagues, alike).
I’m not in the disillusionment phase of teaching. Though there are weeks, days, hours, minutes, and even seconds that I drop into that phase—but I move in and out of all of them on a moment-to-moment basis. I feel a range of emotion that has been vacant in me for some time. It makes me feel alive.
I sound crazy, don’t I?
I feels like a good crazy.
______________________________
My nine-ten block can see right through my feigned meanness. They tell me I’m no good at being mean. I’m okay with it. I’m strict, and that warrants me respect. I’m fair, and that warrants me respect. I give one hundred and fifty percent of my attention to my students when they need.
So I can’t wear mean. I knew that already.
I just don’t have it in me, and they respect that too.
_______
After bubbling in all my marking period grades and comments, journaling, and lesson planning for the day, I need to run to the market for chocolate chip cookie ingredients. Tonight I will bake, as a few of my students and I will be having a cookie luncheon in the afternoon (thanks for the game idea Carolyn).
______
I’m nervous about parent-teacher night. I catch myself giving speeches in the shower.
Wednesday, October 20th, 2004
Time: 6:40 am.
three three?
guh.
Sunday, October 17th, 2004
Time: 9:00 pm.
Mood: anxious.
Music: yankees.
As for a long weekend and a short work week, this felt like the longest week ever. It might have something to do with the fact that I worked the high school fair at Brooklyn Tech both Saturday and Sunday. The assistant principal of our academy had approached me on Wednesday. He said to me, “Ms. Dow, are you available Saturday and Sunday?” With the mantra, imbedded in my head from the Fellow’s program; from the unwritten rule of new teacher hood; and from the advice spoken directly from the academy’s assistant principal, I said, “Yes.”
But it was on Friday I truly learned what I yessed. It had been a long four days…all I wanted was a good game of beer pong at Down the Hatch and good napping sessions over the cold weekend:
“Ms. Dow, you are available both Saturday and Sunday, from ten to four?”
“Yes…but what will I be doing?”
“You’ll be promoting our high school and its new art academy. You are exactly the right person for the job!”
I thought, right?! What? Are you sure?!?! I was somewhat flattered, but then I thought that maybe I was just the only one available and willing.
When I stepped foot in Brooklyn Tech, I was overwhelmed. I felt like I should have had my mother by my side. Half of these eighth graders looked older than I. And what the hell did I know about Chelsea? Certainly not enough to field the first hour of questioning by students and parents alike.
This weekend work can’t even be considered a shitty end to a shitty week because tomorrow I’ll wake up at five in the morning and continue this steady stream of going through the motions. I’ve never wanted a weekend off so badly. I cannot what until Friday.
__________
I browsed my handheld notes and realized the only thing I noted was the poor behaviors of my students in both my blocks. Most of the notes where filled with foul and swear words and racial epithets—anecdotes to shove students into our main academy office where they had the opportunity to sit and brood over their juvenile behavior.
__________
Some of these kids are so vacant. They won’t look you in the eye. Where is the respect?
____
I feel like I have to work one hundred and fifty percent harder than a lot of my colleagues because I’ve been stigmatized as looking twelve indefinitely. I think the crappy vernacular of the student body tends to slip out more in my presence than it really should. Sure I make them write, “I will never say (this racial epithet, foul or swear word) ever again” one hundred times…but does it sink in? Does sitting in the office with the dean register any remorse? Am I fighting the wrong battles? Does the idea, the threat of, suspension phase the majority of the teenage population? Why the fuck is it so goddamn different down here than anywhere that I’ve ever seen?
__________________________
I really did some much deserved drinking on Friday, and as much as I tried to avoid conversations related to work, they just kept on sprouting up like unwanted weeds in a slightly kempt garden. Yes, I like to commiserate…its healthy once in a while, but situations like these make me want to run. Far. Far. Away.
I really should take up skateboarding more seriously. Or yoga.
_________________________________________________
One major obstacle I dealt with all week was -----. That kids just loves to push my buttons. I had two informal meetings with him in regards to his poor behavior and failing grade, and he was cool one to one. But there is something about the classroom…it becomes ------’s arena where he is the master of ceremonies. He just wants to get in trouble. He loves to drive me insane. And it drives him nutso when I don’t punish him immediately. It irks him that I take notes on his behavior during the class and don’t do anything with them. Yet. I will. I just need to really observe him now to see what he really needs, rather than give him what he wants. I’m too tired to chase ---- around all day, to battle with him ever other minute in the classroom. He’s not that special to deplete the little energy I have, day in and day out.
_________
Oh, to be thirteen again.
Monday, October 11th, 2004
Subject: a letter to a friend made me think.
Time: 7:24 pm.
that maybe i haven't been explicit:
alas, my graduate class is a joke thus far. can you imagine thirty new teachers in one room? can you imagine thirty new teachers drinking in a bar together? you could only imagine what they bitch about in and out of class.
we have good literature to read for the class, yet we do not discuss it. the assignments, these in-task course assignments, spread out over our two year track at pace, are but a one page joke. to most. but i put my best effort forth, and squeeze as much thought on one page (believe me i stretch the margins, something, as an undergrad, i would have never done).
i look forward to classes with more content and less student venting. maybe this is what the course was constructed for. and academic hug for those teachers who are not getting hugged enough in these formative stages.
teaching though. wow, it's amazing. it's a career that you can not not care about.
in one day two people said to me," erica, you just have to stop caring. some of these kids don't care, why should you?" the other spoke something equally profound, "you can't change the world by teaching."
both phrases are a crock. i wanted to say to them, "well maybe this job isn't for you." but working hard, and sleeping less hours prevents me from saying a lot of things. i've harbored the art of censorship, indirectly.
i love teaching. but i can understand the short-lived careers of others. you burn out. you give and give, and receive, what some would say, very little.
all i know is this: this is first job i've ever cared about. i don't ever question why i'm doing it, and because of that, i know that i'm a good point in my life.
the theatre lingers always in my thoughts, but my classroom is my stage, every academic calendar day.
Subject: sorry for the typos.
Time: 4:23 pm.
Mood: lazy.
Music: fan humming.
This week I approached daily journaling by not journaling at all, but rather committed myself to taking notes on my palm pilot through the day to see if I could pinpoint a common theme threaded throughout the week.
____________________
I logged on Monday, October 4th at 10:47 am: “No one likes to read. Why?” Has the routine of the Ramp-Up to Literacy program lost its novelty in only four weeks? Are my students raging a fight against turning into procedural drones whereby they absolutely hate walking into class silently everyday, filing to the back corner of the room and picking up their silent reading books, silently, and silently returning to their seats to silently read? Any dip-shit could have told you that this sort of thing would be a battle from day one. Petrified and unprovoked, students for the first week didn’t mind (in the sense that they struggled less) the prescribed procedural nonsense of rotating a block period into twenty minute disjointed disciplines of study. At 10:47 am, seventeen minutes into my first block period, it became acutely clear that this battle would be a tiresome one, filled with zip its, shushes, be quiets, and stop staring out the windows.
At 1:24 pm, I logged, “Shoot me. Ugh. I have a dry throat. Chin told me I would not like him after he gives me my formal observation write up.” He has such an odd sense of humor. He said it with a half grin. What the fuck? I remember feeling then, as I do now, dead tired and full of sniffles. The last thing I wanted was some bizarro ambiguous comment from my boss relating to my teaching styles, especially after a fair post observation meeting. With a clear mind, a comment like that would have seemed congenial and witty. Then, I secretly wanted to cough and sneeze all over him.
_______________________
For Tuesday, I have nothing logged. Which makes perfect sense considering I did not have an ounce of time to myself between meeting with two mentors and fully revamping the planning I had done all night for my four five block. There will be many days like Tuesday, and many planning periods where I frustratingly tear up my plans for my block four five because I cannot seem to adequately plan for their learning needs.
_______________
Wednesday, October 6th, 2004, I logged, “Kids can’t even swear properly.” As I was descending the stairs to the front door of freedom, I heard some kid utter “That kid almost shitted his pants.” How about just shit? Can we just say shit? Can we just learn how to say something right? Because when you say shitted, it sounds like you have a speech impediment. Does shit even have a past tense? Does it even posses any merit to warrant any other tense other than present?
___
On Thursday at 11:50 am ---- alerted to me that the word shit was, in fact, not a swear word (after he blurted it out right in front of me). Whereas this once might have seemed funny, I felt no need to stifle a laugh. I looked at him and asked, “Since when?” This was intended as a hypothetical question, though with his response I gathered that he didn’t see it as such. I ended our conversation by saying “Right, it’s not a swear word, and I live on an island with gnomes, fairies, and rainbows. I’m going to write you up.” He looked at me puzzled, and I walked away.
2:24 pm, “Call ----’s grandmother!” Did I? No, and I should of because all I got the next day was more lip and more sass.
Seriously, what is with the mouths?
But this e-mail made my Thursday:
Dear Erica & Nikki,
It was a pleasure to meet you and your colleagues today. Your Assistant Principal and I discussed the program after our meeting and both feel that since you can both work together on the program it will be a great fit for your class. I'd like to schedule a time to meet with you both and discuss some curriculum links and give you a timeline for the spring semester. I am in on Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, please let me know over the next week or so when would be a convenient time to meet. I look forward to working with you this year.
Best Regards,
Dina
The Drawing Center - Drawing Connections Program
___________________________________________
The common theme for the week has been swearing. These kids have terrible mouths and no sense of censorship. Friday, 11:31 am ---- shouts out, “Fucking faggot” across the room. I escort him down to the main office. This is the third time this week that I’ve had to deal with his mouth. Tuesday the principal caught a whiff of ----’s foul mouth during a presentation he (the principal) gave to the class about credits and the importance of the freshman year. Wednesday it was “Fuck you ----, you fucking bitch” where I escorted him down to the main office.
What happened to the art of being sly when being deviant? When did it become fashionable to be so overt when displaying poor behavior like swearing and passing notes? Has the art died? What are they trying to prove? Do they enjoy getting in trouble? Has getting in trouble become some masochistic art form?
Wednesday ---- got up from his seat to pass ---- a note, to which ---- promptly showed me. The note was a caricature stick drawing of both ---- and ----. Stick figure ---- says, “No don’t kill me!” and stick figure ---- says, “You are going to die bitch!” ---- wanted to show me the note, wanted to get ---- in trouble, even though she might not have been threatened by such a juvenile drawing. Her mother happened to be visiting the school that day and she wanted to show her mother the picture. I went for the note, because it was obvious she wanted me to have it, yet she struggled to let it go…giggling and squirming as ---- pointed at laughed.
I wish I majored in Psychology. ---- has been suspended.
To remedy this growing disease of foul language I have threatened my students with writing the epithet or foul word used one hundred times following the format of “I will not use the word _____________ ever again.” Collectively, our academy has adopted this archaic mode of discipline. I will follow through. No more suffering in empty threat syndrome.
_________
Does this weekend have to end?
Time: 1:45 pm.
often i wonder if people in the world get up as early as i do, or perhaps they are just going to bed, and at rising, or just before falling, they eat a grand display of foods--peanut butter, cheese, ice cream, and pickles--and after doing so they return to, or turn to, slumber and dream of folks living in empty grocery stores; teachers yelling at students to remove their hats; and small children with pumpkin heads riding on unicorns.
i know i do.
do you?
Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
Time: 7:06 pm.
bathing ape sneakers are nasty. what the fuck are you thinking?
i want the nike golden lucky sevens hi.
also, kids can't even swear grammatically. christmas.
Sunday, October 3rd, 2004
Time: 4:32 pm.
i did heed the advice of not planning on saturday. but i must admit, i'm lacking some motivation today in regards to planning for the upcoming week.
___
i feel a tickle in my throat. also, i love wal-mart. i miss upstate. i should go home for october break.
_____________
listen, i love you fellows, but i can't keep up with the babble. i do miss my fellow's advisor. it was nice to see her on friday evening. i mean, i have mentors up the ying yang, but atleast collen can talk to me like an adult.
__
is it because i look twelve? because really, i feel like i'm all seventy-six, bedtimes at eight, and flat shoes for comfort.
Thursday, September 30th, 2004
Subject: frustrated.
Time: 10:58 pm.
frustrated at the idea that my block ----- is not an inclusion class. that it is tracked, most likely. and that my general education students are hiding under the guise of this title due to the fact that they've slipped through the cracks of testing. and how come no one told me until today?
____
what should take one day, takes three. and strict discipline doesn't work. someone suggested prizes. pencil sharpeners and bookmarks. but i feel like i don't even know how to teach this type of class. it seems so unexpected and sudden. i've got to figure out something fast.
_____________________________________________________
also coverage teachers are a joke. i think it's great that they pay considering the amount of misery we experience.
Wednesday, September 29th, 2004
Time: 7:35 pm.
i'm incapable of planning or working or studying this evening. i read about eight pages of alfie and realized that i didn't digest any of the words or ideas.
my observation went well. the only criticism i received was about the negative sarcasm i bring to the classroom environment (yes, i pick on them for not eating lunch and sleeping during my class). i was told to try teaching without the comments, because what purpose do they really serve? he told me i was lucky that they were even coming to my class, considering it's the last period of their day. he said they want to be there, or they wouldn't show up; that they like me and want to be there.
at first i thought, what is a classroom without sarcasm? but today i taught without the comments, and it still went well. but, i did bite my tongue here and there.
___
my students are overwhelmed by all the visitors. and i am too.
Tuesday, September 28th, 2004
Time: 5:16 pm.
blargh. i feel like i'm just going through the motions, trying to keep awake and afloat in this sea of tired.
how come my kids didn't know the definition or purpose of revision? i feel like i'm not just the ninth grade teacher, but a sixth, seventh, and eighth grade educator as well. i have a lot of work to do.
Monday, September 27th, 2004
Time: 6:41 pm.
i felt pretty good today after a full sunday of preparation. i was happy to learn that i did not have professional development this afternoon (it's every other week erica), but i still came home later than i wanted after an academy meeting after school. i'm to be observed tomorrow by the art academy assistant principal.
also, my students don't follow directions well.
Friday, September 24th, 2004
Time: 7:39 pm.
i have no entry for thursday.
by the time i got home from pace all i wanted was bed. my head hurt. i could feel my eyes becoming watery. i didn't even accept a hug from adam, and i blamed it on the germs.
i felt pretty awful today too.
i didn't get a coverage today. i was pretty happy about that. i've had two already. my first coverage was a disaster. each academy is on a different bell schedule. they assigned me for another academy's period which they thought fit within my school's bell schedule. and it did not. i sat in the coverage class. no one showed up until five minutes before the period was up. five minutes before i had class.
a veteran gave me attitude. and i stuck up for myself. man she was snotty. i was to consult her for work students could do during that period. she looked at me (with disdain) and said:
what?!
i'm here to gather materials from you for my coverage period.
well, how many students are in there?
i don't know.
what do you mean you don't know? did you not go the class to count?
i've come a half an hour early to gather the materials. as i should. so, i don't know how many kids will be in there.
man, she was a bitch. pardon my phrasing. but just because i'm a new teacher it doesn't give anyone the right to treat me like a twelve year old in front of colleagues and students. and just because i have young face, it doesn't mean that i'm naive. it doesn't mean you are going to walk all over me.
i think she was surprised, and most likely angered, by my age appropriate and professional mannerisms.
---- showed up before the period was to end. for me. apparently it was to begin for him. i took him to her office. i told her there was a scheduling problem. she picked up the phone and told me it was not her problem.
i stayed in that room until she addressed me again, where i said calmly: as you know, i can't leave--we can't leave children in the classroom without a teacher, it's illegal. i cannot be in two places at once. i cannot check four floors down about scheduling issues. i cannot stay in the classroom if i'm to teach my own class within five minutes. so, they will have to stay with you.
and i left.
_____________________
today i broke it down to my ninth and tenth period classroom that i did not want to battle with them all year. i'm their teacher. and they have to deal with it. i told them i don't want to butt heads. i don't have the time nor the energy. i told them i don't want to bring the drama home, because i have a life too. i have dinner plans, and party plans, and relaxing plans too. i told them it hurts my feelings when they talk out of the side of their mouths, because i can hear it. and it's not cool. i told them if they are here to learn, they will. if they feel like they are forced to be here because of their parents, they are not...and if they don't want to be here, then don't come. but if they cut, and i call home to the parents (especially the onces that "force" them to come to school) how is going to make their situation better when their parents are going to be more upset at them for cutting?
i tried to problem solve with them today. they feel disrespected, not necessarily by me, but in general--i don't know if they mean by other teachers, administrators, or the school. they feel that they are being treated like third graders. and i asked them why they are treated this way. and they all admitted, in some way, that they are not disciplined enough to be treated like adults.
___
my ---- made me cry today. i didn't cry in front of them. instead, i cried in the women's bathroom.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
Time: 3:54 pm.
i feel the germ creeping up.
my co-teacher spoke to ----. it went well. he admitted to copying. he's going to do it again. now, if we could just get him to pay attention in class.
i have so many mentors it makes my head swirl. board of education mentor. pace mentor. literacy coach mentor. lead fellow mentor. english department mentors. and i'm collaborating up the yahoo with matt (who never received ramp up training), two other english teachers from another academy (for ramp up), nikki (for english period four and five), the academy's science teacher (for advisory), and the literacy coach.
my head. it swirls with everything i'm to do. thank goodness i have this palm pilot to log everything. i just have to remember to use it more.
Tuesday, September 21st, 2004
Time: 4:32 pm.
Mood: concerned.
Music: van morrison.
i spent hours last night reading about the artist cam'ron. if i never have to read another article about cam'ron, i will die happy. ---- handed me a questionable paper on monday. questionable in the idea that what he wrote was most likely written by somebody else. either the entire essay was plagiarized. or bits and pieces. in any case, i know that cam'ron didn't go to his house. and cam'ron didn't get caught with drugs at his house that lead cam'ron to his heavy possession charge.
how do you approach a kid? a kid who definitely has some learning disabilities, and some emotional needs. how do you not embarrass him? how do you tell him that what he did was wrong, and have him process it?
he didn't show up for class today.
he obviously wants to do well in class. he obviously needs one on one attention. but i have nineteen other kids to manage.
note to self: start bringing lunch. or leave the building. erica why do you trap yourself in these walls?
Subject: secret to teenage acne:
Time: 7:57 pm.
high schools clog your pores!
Sunday, October 31st, 2004
Subject: pardon the typos.
Time: 6:21 pm.
Mood: gah.
Music: notwist. neon golden.
to distill this week into paragraphs. what a tricky thing to do.
i've built a community in the classroom. both classrooms, to be exact. it took me awhile to crack period four five. but i did. they are immersed in a program called "map for life" where every thursday a guest speaker joins the class and maps out his or her life (o, what a clever program name) via a chalk and talk as the children fill in the veins of a workbook with the plasma, blood cells, and platelets of information about the speaker. it's an interesting program. i had had my doubts. but now that i've witnessed the sound of silence filled with only breath and a sniffle here and there, i am happy the program has been implemented. how is it that they can stay so silent for so long? it makes me want to dress up as a new person everyday--dress up so they won't recognize me, and then, maybe, just maybe, i could get through more than ten minutes of a lesson.
i mapped my life out for them the following friday. you know those lunatics thought i was teaching for the money?
"miss, you make a hundred dollars and hour."
i had to turn my head away when i heard that one. i felt like saying "zelda, if that were the case, don't you think i'd be in ireland or dollywood soaking up the culture?"
i told them about how my father was an english teacher as well, and as he worked on his masters and worked full-time at a juvenile facility he fell ill and passed away. and i was fifteen.
"ms. dow, do you teach because your father taught."
i didn't have to think. the word just flew out:
"yes."
it took until that moment to realize why, i suppose, i'm truly teaching.
__________
[we'd be leading slanted parallel lives if he'd grown younger and healther as i, older and increasingly unhealthy (thank you bacon and coffee).] <---- i need to work this part into a syllabic and slanted poem.
_________________________________
i thought about my father all week. i cannot wait to go home and exhume graphic organizers from nineteen ninety three.
____________
on a shittier note. my handheld was lifted from the faculty bathroom. isn't that lovely? i had finished a mentor meeting and ran upstairs to de-chalk before another class. i placed the cased gadget on a sink counter. and ran out the door down to two thirteen. as i paced around the room taking a mental status of the class, i looked around for my handheld to mark attendance. and realized i'd left it upstairs on the sink counter.
i'm a fucking idiot. really. i am.
i grabbed a passing teacher to monitor my room as i ran upstairs. i fully expected to find the gadget sitting, still, on the counter since only ten minutes had passed. it was gone.
strangely i feel as though part of me has died since wednesday. how can this be? people have functioned years without a handheld. teachers still get by using a pencil and a log book. why can't i?
what saddens me, other than the fact that i'm an oaf, is the fact that a faculty member has taken my little electronic 16mb heart. fuckers. why? i hope it dies on them and they are too ridiculously incompetent to figure out what sort of charger they need to revitalize and eventually pawn off to their little cousin as a used birthday present. because christmas for bid they walk around the school sporting technology they never would have ever used until they laid their little beady eyes on that sink counter i will bust at the seams until they see green and tattered jeans and the spitting image of dr. david bruce banner's alter ego.
i'm pissed. wow. it feels good. it feels better than this shitty i hate myself feeling i've been carrying around for days.
________________________________
the parent-teacher festivities on thursday evening and friday afternoon were interesting. i was nervous only about whether or not the parents would think me very young looking and take me less seriously than if i was old and tweedy (because really when i think "teacher," i think of my own--and they were old and tweedy). i had my inclusion co-teacher with me, the one that works with my period four five. we had a ball. sang mister sandman during the dull moments, and begged mr. cerny (young and tweedy) to buy us a round of flan from the student bake sale downstairs (yes, flan. weird. i know). thursday left me a tired egg for friday's early class schedule--a half day followed by more meetings with parents and guardians.
i did not make it to happy hour. i knew if i had made it up the block for a beer and game of beer pong, the sticky tables of down the hatch would have become my bed for the rest of the day.
__________
i took adam to a play at the opera house on arion place. hamlet. it was amazing, what i saw at least. adam fell ill fifteen minutes before intermission. i met him outside and we traveled back home. this summer i will do theatre. and with lisa's helpful friends (i watched her movie today, swimming, and thought fondly again of acting) maybe i can get some head shots done.
_________________
all in all i had a weird week. i wish i could talk more about my father, but those feelings, still, don't have words, even after nine years.
Subject: i need to have a dance off with this girl.
Time: 9:07 am.
http://home.comcast.net/~subtlelikeatrex//...orage/dance.avi
i'll write later. it's just too early. and i've had only one cup of coffee.
Wednesday, October 27th, 2004
Subject: i hate.
Time: 6:01 pm.
myself when i lose things.
i feel like an idiot.
two people have made me feel a little bit better. thank you joanne. and thank you adam.
Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
Time: 5:01 pm.
today was a not so great day.
Sunday, October 24th, 2004
Time: 4:00 pm.
Mood: positive.
Music: the pharcyde. passin' me by.
I sort of dreaded sitting down and logging all my goods and my bads of this week. It sure felt hectic. I felt unprepared starting the week. Having worked the weekend, leaving me little time for planning, I was sure the work week’s motto was going to be “sink or swim.” But I was okay.
I survived the week. And it wasn’t that bad. Sadly, Ramp-Up to Literacy leaves little to no room for creativity. Well, it depends if you follow the model. I do, pretty much, to a certain degree. I ride the wave of twenty to thirty minute independent reading time, fifteen minute independent writing time, fifteen to twenty minute mini-lesson and homework review, and a fifteen to twenty minute read aloud session. By the time the class is settled into surfing through the motions, the class is over. Ramp-Up is what you put into it, I suppose. Ask me three months from now if I’m still riding this wave—chances are I won’t be. It’s boring, but I’ll settle for it, as I settle into teaching. I’ll change it around when I feel the urge to jump out of our classroom’s third story window.
Between professional development, mentor meetings, academic meetings, meeting with this so-and-so artist from this gallery for a trip (next spring no less), last minute paper grading, student participation and general assessment write-ups, and class on Thursday evening, I was able to breath, eat, plan (minimally), sleep, and relax. How?
This is a profession of balancing duties and working under pressure—two things that I do very well. This is how I made it through college. It reminds me of a survival of the fittest game. I can see how people burn out. But, summer—summer is my recuperative time. I’m sure I will be busy with class and maybe teaching summer school, but everything will be moving at a much slower pace, affording me all the rest and relaxation needed for the second year.
I think I might have found my calling. It just feels right. I can deal with all the politics, and paperwork, and poor behavior (of students and colleagues, alike).
I’m not in the disillusionment phase of teaching. Though there are weeks, days, hours, minutes, and even seconds that I drop into that phase—but I move in and out of all of them on a moment-to-moment basis. I feel a range of emotion that has been vacant in me for some time. It makes me feel alive.
I sound crazy, don’t I?
I feels like a good crazy.
______________________________
My nine-ten block can see right through my feigned meanness. They tell me I’m no good at being mean. I’m okay with it. I’m strict, and that warrants me respect. I’m fair, and that warrants me respect. I give one hundred and fifty percent of my attention to my students when they need.
So I can’t wear mean. I knew that already.
I just don’t have it in me, and they respect that too.
_______
After bubbling in all my marking period grades and comments, journaling, and lesson planning for the day, I need to run to the market for chocolate chip cookie ingredients. Tonight I will bake, as a few of my students and I will be having a cookie luncheon in the afternoon (thanks for the game idea Carolyn).
______
I’m nervous about parent-teacher night. I catch myself giving speeches in the shower.
Wednesday, October 20th, 2004
Time: 6:40 am.
three three?
guh.
Sunday, October 17th, 2004
Time: 9:00 pm.
Mood: anxious.
Music: yankees.
As for a long weekend and a short work week, this felt like the longest week ever. It might have something to do with the fact that I worked the high school fair at Brooklyn Tech both Saturday and Sunday. The assistant principal of our academy had approached me on Wednesday. He said to me, “Ms. Dow, are you available Saturday and Sunday?” With the mantra, imbedded in my head from the Fellow’s program; from the unwritten rule of new teacher hood; and from the advice spoken directly from the academy’s assistant principal, I said, “Yes.”
But it was on Friday I truly learned what I yessed. It had been a long four days…all I wanted was a good game of beer pong at Down the Hatch and good napping sessions over the cold weekend:
“Ms. Dow, you are available both Saturday and Sunday, from ten to four?”
“Yes…but what will I be doing?”
“You’ll be promoting our high school and its new art academy. You are exactly the right person for the job!”
I thought, right?! What? Are you sure?!?! I was somewhat flattered, but then I thought that maybe I was just the only one available and willing.
When I stepped foot in Brooklyn Tech, I was overwhelmed. I felt like I should have had my mother by my side. Half of these eighth graders looked older than I. And what the hell did I know about Chelsea? Certainly not enough to field the first hour of questioning by students and parents alike.
This weekend work can’t even be considered a shitty end to a shitty week because tomorrow I’ll wake up at five in the morning and continue this steady stream of going through the motions. I’ve never wanted a weekend off so badly. I cannot what until Friday.
__________
I browsed my handheld notes and realized the only thing I noted was the poor behaviors of my students in both my blocks. Most of the notes where filled with foul and swear words and racial epithets—anecdotes to shove students into our main academy office where they had the opportunity to sit and brood over their juvenile behavior.
__________
Some of these kids are so vacant. They won’t look you in the eye. Where is the respect?
____
I feel like I have to work one hundred and fifty percent harder than a lot of my colleagues because I’ve been stigmatized as looking twelve indefinitely. I think the crappy vernacular of the student body tends to slip out more in my presence than it really should. Sure I make them write, “I will never say (this racial epithet, foul or swear word) ever again” one hundred times…but does it sink in? Does sitting in the office with the dean register any remorse? Am I fighting the wrong battles? Does the idea, the threat of, suspension phase the majority of the teenage population? Why the fuck is it so goddamn different down here than anywhere that I’ve ever seen?
__________________________
I really did some much deserved drinking on Friday, and as much as I tried to avoid conversations related to work, they just kept on sprouting up like unwanted weeds in a slightly kempt garden. Yes, I like to commiserate…its healthy once in a while, but situations like these make me want to run. Far. Far. Away.
I really should take up skateboarding more seriously. Or yoga.
_________________________________________________
One major obstacle I dealt with all week was -----. That kids just loves to push my buttons. I had two informal meetings with him in regards to his poor behavior and failing grade, and he was cool one to one. But there is something about the classroom…it becomes ------’s arena where he is the master of ceremonies. He just wants to get in trouble. He loves to drive me insane. And it drives him nutso when I don’t punish him immediately. It irks him that I take notes on his behavior during the class and don’t do anything with them. Yet. I will. I just need to really observe him now to see what he really needs, rather than give him what he wants. I’m too tired to chase ---- around all day, to battle with him ever other minute in the classroom. He’s not that special to deplete the little energy I have, day in and day out.
_________
Oh, to be thirteen again.
Monday, October 11th, 2004
Subject: a letter to a friend made me think.
Time: 7:24 pm.
that maybe i haven't been explicit:
alas, my graduate class is a joke thus far. can you imagine thirty new teachers in one room? can you imagine thirty new teachers drinking in a bar together? you could only imagine what they bitch about in and out of class.
we have good literature to read for the class, yet we do not discuss it. the assignments, these in-task course assignments, spread out over our two year track at pace, are but a one page joke. to most. but i put my best effort forth, and squeeze as much thought on one page (believe me i stretch the margins, something, as an undergrad, i would have never done).
i look forward to classes with more content and less student venting. maybe this is what the course was constructed for. and academic hug for those teachers who are not getting hugged enough in these formative stages.
teaching though. wow, it's amazing. it's a career that you can not not care about.
in one day two people said to me," erica, you just have to stop caring. some of these kids don't care, why should you?" the other spoke something equally profound, "you can't change the world by teaching."
both phrases are a crock. i wanted to say to them, "well maybe this job isn't for you." but working hard, and sleeping less hours prevents me from saying a lot of things. i've harbored the art of censorship, indirectly.
i love teaching. but i can understand the short-lived careers of others. you burn out. you give and give, and receive, what some would say, very little.
all i know is this: this is first job i've ever cared about. i don't ever question why i'm doing it, and because of that, i know that i'm a good point in my life.
the theatre lingers always in my thoughts, but my classroom is my stage, every academic calendar day.
Subject: sorry for the typos.
Time: 4:23 pm.
Mood: lazy.
Music: fan humming.
This week I approached daily journaling by not journaling at all, but rather committed myself to taking notes on my palm pilot through the day to see if I could pinpoint a common theme threaded throughout the week.
____________________
I logged on Monday, October 4th at 10:47 am: “No one likes to read. Why?” Has the routine of the Ramp-Up to Literacy program lost its novelty in only four weeks? Are my students raging a fight against turning into procedural drones whereby they absolutely hate walking into class silently everyday, filing to the back corner of the room and picking up their silent reading books, silently, and silently returning to their seats to silently read? Any dip-shit could have told you that this sort of thing would be a battle from day one. Petrified and unprovoked, students for the first week didn’t mind (in the sense that they struggled less) the prescribed procedural nonsense of rotating a block period into twenty minute disjointed disciplines of study. At 10:47 am, seventeen minutes into my first block period, it became acutely clear that this battle would be a tiresome one, filled with zip its, shushes, be quiets, and stop staring out the windows.
At 1:24 pm, I logged, “Shoot me. Ugh. I have a dry throat. Chin told me I would not like him after he gives me my formal observation write up.” He has such an odd sense of humor. He said it with a half grin. What the fuck? I remember feeling then, as I do now, dead tired and full of sniffles. The last thing I wanted was some bizarro ambiguous comment from my boss relating to my teaching styles, especially after a fair post observation meeting. With a clear mind, a comment like that would have seemed congenial and witty. Then, I secretly wanted to cough and sneeze all over him.
_______________________
For Tuesday, I have nothing logged. Which makes perfect sense considering I did not have an ounce of time to myself between meeting with two mentors and fully revamping the planning I had done all night for my four five block. There will be many days like Tuesday, and many planning periods where I frustratingly tear up my plans for my block four five because I cannot seem to adequately plan for their learning needs.
_______________
Wednesday, October 6th, 2004, I logged, “Kids can’t even swear properly.” As I was descending the stairs to the front door of freedom, I heard some kid utter “That kid almost shitted his pants.” How about just shit? Can we just say shit? Can we just learn how to say something right? Because when you say shitted, it sounds like you have a speech impediment. Does shit even have a past tense? Does it even posses any merit to warrant any other tense other than present?
___
On Thursday at 11:50 am ---- alerted to me that the word shit was, in fact, not a swear word (after he blurted it out right in front of me). Whereas this once might have seemed funny, I felt no need to stifle a laugh. I looked at him and asked, “Since when?” This was intended as a hypothetical question, though with his response I gathered that he didn’t see it as such. I ended our conversation by saying “Right, it’s not a swear word, and I live on an island with gnomes, fairies, and rainbows. I’m going to write you up.” He looked at me puzzled, and I walked away.
2:24 pm, “Call ----’s grandmother!” Did I? No, and I should of because all I got the next day was more lip and more sass.
Seriously, what is with the mouths?
But this e-mail made my Thursday:
Dear Erica & Nikki,
It was a pleasure to meet you and your colleagues today. Your Assistant Principal and I discussed the program after our meeting and both feel that since you can both work together on the program it will be a great fit for your class. I'd like to schedule a time to meet with you both and discuss some curriculum links and give you a timeline for the spring semester. I am in on Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, please let me know over the next week or so when would be a convenient time to meet. I look forward to working with you this year.
Best Regards,
Dina
The Drawing Center - Drawing Connections Program
___________________________________________
The common theme for the week has been swearing. These kids have terrible mouths and no sense of censorship. Friday, 11:31 am ---- shouts out, “Fucking faggot” across the room. I escort him down to the main office. This is the third time this week that I’ve had to deal with his mouth. Tuesday the principal caught a whiff of ----’s foul mouth during a presentation he (the principal) gave to the class about credits and the importance of the freshman year. Wednesday it was “Fuck you ----, you fucking bitch” where I escorted him down to the main office.
What happened to the art of being sly when being deviant? When did it become fashionable to be so overt when displaying poor behavior like swearing and passing notes? Has the art died? What are they trying to prove? Do they enjoy getting in trouble? Has getting in trouble become some masochistic art form?
Wednesday ---- got up from his seat to pass ---- a note, to which ---- promptly showed me. The note was a caricature stick drawing of both ---- and ----. Stick figure ---- says, “No don’t kill me!” and stick figure ---- says, “You are going to die bitch!” ---- wanted to show me the note, wanted to get ---- in trouble, even though she might not have been threatened by such a juvenile drawing. Her mother happened to be visiting the school that day and she wanted to show her mother the picture. I went for the note, because it was obvious she wanted me to have it, yet she struggled to let it go…giggling and squirming as ---- pointed at laughed.
I wish I majored in Psychology. ---- has been suspended.
To remedy this growing disease of foul language I have threatened my students with writing the epithet or foul word used one hundred times following the format of “I will not use the word _____________ ever again.” Collectively, our academy has adopted this archaic mode of discipline. I will follow through. No more suffering in empty threat syndrome.
_________
Does this weekend have to end?
Time: 1:45 pm.
often i wonder if people in the world get up as early as i do, or perhaps they are just going to bed, and at rising, or just before falling, they eat a grand display of foods--peanut butter, cheese, ice cream, and pickles--and after doing so they return to, or turn to, slumber and dream of folks living in empty grocery stores; teachers yelling at students to remove their hats; and small children with pumpkin heads riding on unicorns.
i know i do.
do you?
Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
Time: 7:06 pm.
bathing ape sneakers are nasty. what the fuck are you thinking?
i want the nike golden lucky sevens hi.
also, kids can't even swear grammatically. christmas.
Sunday, October 3rd, 2004
Time: 4:32 pm.
i did heed the advice of not planning on saturday. but i must admit, i'm lacking some motivation today in regards to planning for the upcoming week.
___
i feel a tickle in my throat. also, i love wal-mart. i miss upstate. i should go home for october break.
_____________
listen, i love you fellows, but i can't keep up with the babble. i do miss my fellow's advisor. it was nice to see her on friday evening. i mean, i have mentors up the ying yang, but atleast collen can talk to me like an adult.
__
is it because i look twelve? because really, i feel like i'm all seventy-six, bedtimes at eight, and flat shoes for comfort.
Thursday, September 30th, 2004
Subject: frustrated.
Time: 10:58 pm.
frustrated at the idea that my block ----- is not an inclusion class. that it is tracked, most likely. and that my general education students are hiding under the guise of this title due to the fact that they've slipped through the cracks of testing. and how come no one told me until today?
____
what should take one day, takes three. and strict discipline doesn't work. someone suggested prizes. pencil sharpeners and bookmarks. but i feel like i don't even know how to teach this type of class. it seems so unexpected and sudden. i've got to figure out something fast.
_____________________________________________________
also coverage teachers are a joke. i think it's great that they pay considering the amount of misery we experience.
Wednesday, September 29th, 2004
Time: 7:35 pm.
i'm incapable of planning or working or studying this evening. i read about eight pages of alfie and realized that i didn't digest any of the words or ideas.
my observation went well. the only criticism i received was about the negative sarcasm i bring to the classroom environment (yes, i pick on them for not eating lunch and sleeping during my class). i was told to try teaching without the comments, because what purpose do they really serve? he told me i was lucky that they were even coming to my class, considering it's the last period of their day. he said they want to be there, or they wouldn't show up; that they like me and want to be there.
at first i thought, what is a classroom without sarcasm? but today i taught without the comments, and it still went well. but, i did bite my tongue here and there.
___
my students are overwhelmed by all the visitors. and i am too.
Tuesday, September 28th, 2004
Time: 5:16 pm.
blargh. i feel like i'm just going through the motions, trying to keep awake and afloat in this sea of tired.
how come my kids didn't know the definition or purpose of revision? i feel like i'm not just the ninth grade teacher, but a sixth, seventh, and eighth grade educator as well. i have a lot of work to do.
Monday, September 27th, 2004
Time: 6:41 pm.
i felt pretty good today after a full sunday of preparation. i was happy to learn that i did not have professional development this afternoon (it's every other week erica), but i still came home later than i wanted after an academy meeting after school. i'm to be observed tomorrow by the art academy assistant principal.
also, my students don't follow directions well.
Friday, September 24th, 2004
Time: 7:39 pm.
i have no entry for thursday.
by the time i got home from pace all i wanted was bed. my head hurt. i could feel my eyes becoming watery. i didn't even accept a hug from adam, and i blamed it on the germs.
i felt pretty awful today too.
i didn't get a coverage today. i was pretty happy about that. i've had two already. my first coverage was a disaster. each academy is on a different bell schedule. they assigned me for another academy's period which they thought fit within my school's bell schedule. and it did not. i sat in the coverage class. no one showed up until five minutes before the period was up. five minutes before i had class.
a veteran gave me attitude. and i stuck up for myself. man she was snotty. i was to consult her for work students could do during that period. she looked at me (with disdain) and said:
what?!
i'm here to gather materials from you for my coverage period.
well, how many students are in there?
i don't know.
what do you mean you don't know? did you not go the class to count?
i've come a half an hour early to gather the materials. as i should. so, i don't know how many kids will be in there.
man, she was a bitch. pardon my phrasing. but just because i'm a new teacher it doesn't give anyone the right to treat me like a twelve year old in front of colleagues and students. and just because i have young face, it doesn't mean that i'm naive. it doesn't mean you are going to walk all over me.
i think she was surprised, and most likely angered, by my age appropriate and professional mannerisms.
---- showed up before the period was to end. for me. apparently it was to begin for him. i took him to her office. i told her there was a scheduling problem. she picked up the phone and told me it was not her problem.
i stayed in that room until she addressed me again, where i said calmly: as you know, i can't leave--we can't leave children in the classroom without a teacher, it's illegal. i cannot be in two places at once. i cannot check four floors down about scheduling issues. i cannot stay in the classroom if i'm to teach my own class within five minutes. so, they will have to stay with you.
and i left.
_____________________
today i broke it down to my ninth and tenth period classroom that i did not want to battle with them all year. i'm their teacher. and they have to deal with it. i told them i don't want to butt heads. i don't have the time nor the energy. i told them i don't want to bring the drama home, because i have a life too. i have dinner plans, and party plans, and relaxing plans too. i told them it hurts my feelings when they talk out of the side of their mouths, because i can hear it. and it's not cool. i told them if they are here to learn, they will. if they feel like they are forced to be here because of their parents, they are not...and if they don't want to be here, then don't come. but if they cut, and i call home to the parents (especially the onces that "force" them to come to school) how is going to make their situation better when their parents are going to be more upset at them for cutting?
i tried to problem solve with them today. they feel disrespected, not necessarily by me, but in general--i don't know if they mean by other teachers, administrators, or the school. they feel that they are being treated like third graders. and i asked them why they are treated this way. and they all admitted, in some way, that they are not disciplined enough to be treated like adults.
___
my ---- made me cry today. i didn't cry in front of them. instead, i cried in the women's bathroom.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
Time: 3:54 pm.
i feel the germ creeping up.
my co-teacher spoke to ----. it went well. he admitted to copying. he's going to do it again. now, if we could just get him to pay attention in class.
i have so many mentors it makes my head swirl. board of education mentor. pace mentor. literacy coach mentor. lead fellow mentor. english department mentors. and i'm collaborating up the yahoo with matt (who never received ramp up training), two other english teachers from another academy (for ramp up), nikki (for english period four and five), the academy's science teacher (for advisory), and the literacy coach.
my head. it swirls with everything i'm to do. thank goodness i have this palm pilot to log everything. i just have to remember to use it more.
Tuesday, September 21st, 2004
Time: 4:32 pm.
Mood: concerned.
Music: van morrison.
i spent hours last night reading about the artist cam'ron. if i never have to read another article about cam'ron, i will die happy. ---- handed me a questionable paper on monday. questionable in the idea that what he wrote was most likely written by somebody else. either the entire essay was plagiarized. or bits and pieces. in any case, i know that cam'ron didn't go to his house. and cam'ron didn't get caught with drugs at his house that lead cam'ron to his heavy possession charge.
how do you approach a kid? a kid who definitely has some learning disabilities, and some emotional needs. how do you not embarrass him? how do you tell him that what he did was wrong, and have him process it?
he didn't show up for class today.
he obviously wants to do well in class. he obviously needs one on one attention. but i have nineteen other kids to manage.
note to self: start bringing lunch. or leave the building. erica why do you trap yourself in these walls?
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