Well, we had a nice party at M&M's house. I'm excited about giving out candy tomorrow; I never have, because I live in the neighborhood of my old school. I didn't want my kids to know where I lived. Not a problem now! I'm wearing my cowgirl costume again tomorrow to school.
They were talking about teenagers trick-or-treating in the newspaper the other day. I really don't have a problem with it, given a couple conditions. First, they have to be in costume! If they show up in a half-assed attempt, like a football jersey, I'll give them some credit, but if your ass is like 16, you had better have put some time into a real costume to deserve my candy. Second, you have to say "Trick or treat." This is non-negotiable. It would also be nice if you either smiled, or looked scary (but goofy-scary, not intimidating-scary, like making "wooo" noises and ghoulish jazz hands). And say thank you. We all know you're pushing it, so be nice.
I cut my hair. Well, no I didn't, I paid a nice young lady named Monique to cut my hair. It's cool. I don't want to describe it because I don't want to lose the element of surprise on my fellow Gynas. I think it looks good, though, and it's a pretty dramatic change. Yay me.
That's about it. I've been pretty busy, and have fallen behind on a lot of domestic stuff. I'm working on it. I think I'll hit my stride soon and develop a routine that allows me to do my job well, keep up with my exercise routine, and keep my house in order. If I manage all that, then maybe I'll get to throw in some of those longer-term goals, like learning to read music, play bass better, learn Spanish, etc.
Okay, CM out (gotta fold laundry).
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Friday, October 28, 2005
I do have stuff to do . . .
Yeah, I'm slacking for a moment. The kids are taking a test, so I have a few moments of quiet. I got to talk to Leafy Greens the other night, who is coming down this weekend.
There is still some stuff I really need/want to do that I haven't, like make up about 5 ballet classes, schedule a hair appointment (if you've noticed my roots lately, you're probably going "yes, PLEASE!"), clean up my office (my mom and Piggs are definitely saying "please"), fold and put away my laundry, re-hang my kitchen light (it didn't last), and a few other domestic things.
Some other things I really want to do include play my bass more often (I think I could be a lot better if I were just of that teenage boy mentality -- you know, capable of spending hours every day on one activity), write more poetry, maybe do NaNoWriMo this year (it's hard to decide -- I don't really know if I have another story in me), sing with my school buddies (they invited me to "jam" with them yesterday, and I had fun -- I got that universal raised-eyebrow-of-acceptance for my singing), write more songs, make Halloween costumes for the Lankees (don't ask), make sourdough bread (I captured WILD YEAST to make a starter!), cook some nice cold-weather soups . . .
Okay, the natives are getting restless. Gotta go.
By the way, happy 1 year anniversary of shared residency to my punkinhead.
--CM
There is still some stuff I really need/want to do that I haven't, like make up about 5 ballet classes, schedule a hair appointment (if you've noticed my roots lately, you're probably going "yes, PLEASE!"), clean up my office (my mom and Piggs are definitely saying "please"), fold and put away my laundry, re-hang my kitchen light (it didn't last), and a few other domestic things.
Some other things I really want to do include play my bass more often (I think I could be a lot better if I were just of that teenage boy mentality -- you know, capable of spending hours every day on one activity), write more poetry, maybe do NaNoWriMo this year (it's hard to decide -- I don't really know if I have another story in me), sing with my school buddies (they invited me to "jam" with them yesterday, and I had fun -- I got that universal raised-eyebrow-of-acceptance for my singing), write more songs, make Halloween costumes for the Lankees (don't ask), make sourdough bread (I captured WILD YEAST to make a starter!), cook some nice cold-weather soups . . .
Okay, the natives are getting restless. Gotta go.
By the way, happy 1 year anniversary of shared residency to my punkinhead.
--CM
Thursday, October 27, 2005
It's time to play the music . . .
It's time to light the lights. It's time to get things started for the Muppet show tonight!
I was reminded of the Muppet show yesterday morning, I ordered the DVD of the first season when I got to work, and it's already been shipped! I'm so excited! Anyone want to come over for a Muppet viewing party this winter?
-CM
I was reminded of the Muppet show yesterday morning, I ordered the DVD of the first season when I got to work, and it's already been shipped! I'm so excited! Anyone want to come over for a Muppet viewing party this winter?
-CM
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Weekend, the homefront, personalization, radio, UTI, advertising
I wrote a really big post yesterday, but BLOGGER ATE IT, so less informative today.
Our camping trip for this weekend has been cancelled due to rain. I have really mixed feelings about this. I wanted to go, and was excited about using all the camping gear that usually sits in my garage (Piggs can tell you about my unearthing my old camping coffee percolater -- "Sweet! I rule!"). On the other hand, it was going to be really cold, I hate having substitutes, and it would mean no time alone with my sweetie this weekend. Also, I had to cancel a Gynas show (or, in reality, ask the other Gynas to cancel it), which was disappointing in the first place, and now I'm embarrassed that we had to cancel a booked show (with a good lineup -- we've been wanting to play with Uberkunst forever!) for no good reason, since now I'll be sitting at home Friday night. I'm embarrassed to even tell the girls, although at least Gynagirl will likely find out by reading this very post. Anyway, harumph in general.
On the homefront, we (Mom and I) have painted the kitchen, walls, ceiling and trim, but the biggest job, the cabinets, is still to come. I also changed the outlets and light fixture, and it's a tremendous improvement thus far. I also bought a composter!
I am irritated at the radio right now. About two years ago, a new butt-rock station hit the airwaves, and I was pleased. It was at 93.7. I told my friends and my cousin, even. Then it changed to Howard, an alternative format. I liked it, even though I found it a little redundant, since we already had KWOD. The KWOD became KWOD 2.0 and plays a lot of Counting Crows. But I still had Howard. And now Howard is Jack, as of about 24 hours ago. Yesterday afternoon one of their stupid recorded announcers said "We're Jack. People call us new and, yeah, I guess we are new." Oh, I guess so, since when I got out of the car this morning you were a completely different station! Anyway, now THEY'RE playing adult contemporary shit, and I only have 98 Rock left for hard rock, and no alternative station (not that very much alternative music still exists, but when I want my Radiohead and Foo Fighters, I want 'em!)
I was talking to Monkeygirl about the Personalization of America. Basically, listen to almost any TV or radio advertisement, and there will be something in there about how the product, whether it's education or chicken fingers, is tailored just to your specific needs. Now, not only is this bullshit (you get a choice of three sauces -- whoo!), it also really feels like pandering to our collective egos. Each of us, apparently, is so damned special that our personal car insurance experience must be made for us individually. And since when did getting to choose what we eat become some special selling point? For as long as I can remember, McNuggets have come with your choice of sauce. Waitresses at restaurants rattle off your choices of salad dressings. Who decided this was revolutionary? It just irritates me.
UTI. Yeah, that's actually short for Universal Technical Institute, not Urinary Tract Infection, in case you were wondering. They've been advertising on the radio recently with all the enthusiasm of those "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY" monster truck rally ads, but they seem to have no idea that their name is synonymous with painful urination.
And finally, I know that all things Asian are hip right now, but does anyone else find it annoying that Jeep is advertising the "yin and yang" experience of driving their vehicle and Newcastle Brown Ale is talking about whether or not their beer interrupts your flow of chi?
Okay, random thoughts dispersed.
CM
Our camping trip for this weekend has been cancelled due to rain. I have really mixed feelings about this. I wanted to go, and was excited about using all the camping gear that usually sits in my garage (Piggs can tell you about my unearthing my old camping coffee percolater -- "Sweet! I rule!"). On the other hand, it was going to be really cold, I hate having substitutes, and it would mean no time alone with my sweetie this weekend. Also, I had to cancel a Gynas show (or, in reality, ask the other Gynas to cancel it), which was disappointing in the first place, and now I'm embarrassed that we had to cancel a booked show (with a good lineup -- we've been wanting to play with Uberkunst forever!) for no good reason, since now I'll be sitting at home Friday night. I'm embarrassed to even tell the girls, although at least Gynagirl will likely find out by reading this very post. Anyway, harumph in general.
On the homefront, we (Mom and I) have painted the kitchen, walls, ceiling and trim, but the biggest job, the cabinets, is still to come. I also changed the outlets and light fixture, and it's a tremendous improvement thus far. I also bought a composter!
I am irritated at the radio right now. About two years ago, a new butt-rock station hit the airwaves, and I was pleased. It was at 93.7. I told my friends and my cousin, even. Then it changed to Howard, an alternative format. I liked it, even though I found it a little redundant, since we already had KWOD. The KWOD became KWOD 2.0 and plays a lot of Counting Crows. But I still had Howard. And now Howard is Jack, as of about 24 hours ago. Yesterday afternoon one of their stupid recorded announcers said "We're Jack. People call us new and, yeah, I guess we are new." Oh, I guess so, since when I got out of the car this morning you were a completely different station! Anyway, now THEY'RE playing adult contemporary shit, and I only have 98 Rock left for hard rock, and no alternative station (not that very much alternative music still exists, but when I want my Radiohead and Foo Fighters, I want 'em!)
I was talking to Monkeygirl about the Personalization of America. Basically, listen to almost any TV or radio advertisement, and there will be something in there about how the product, whether it's education or chicken fingers, is tailored just to your specific needs. Now, not only is this bullshit (you get a choice of three sauces -- whoo!), it also really feels like pandering to our collective egos. Each of us, apparently, is so damned special that our personal car insurance experience must be made for us individually. And since when did getting to choose what we eat become some special selling point? For as long as I can remember, McNuggets have come with your choice of sauce. Waitresses at restaurants rattle off your choices of salad dressings. Who decided this was revolutionary? It just irritates me.
UTI. Yeah, that's actually short for Universal Technical Institute, not Urinary Tract Infection, in case you were wondering. They've been advertising on the radio recently with all the enthusiasm of those "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY" monster truck rally ads, but they seem to have no idea that their name is synonymous with painful urination.
And finally, I know that all things Asian are hip right now, but does anyone else find it annoying that Jeep is advertising the "yin and yang" experience of driving their vehicle and Newcastle Brown Ale is talking about whether or not their beer interrupts your flow of chi?
Okay, random thoughts dispersed.
CM
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Ahem . . .
I always feel kind of guilty telling people about this kind of thing, but I have a poetry reading at CSUS in the Library Gallery next Wednesday, October 26th, at 5pm. If you'd like to go, I'd be happy to see a friendly face in the audience.
--CM
--CM
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Daniel's Secret Identity?
Is it me, or does Daniel look mysteriously like CNN anchor Daryl Kagan? Has anyone every seen these two in the same room? I'm serious . . .Sunday, October 09, 2005
I'm a penguin!
Me in a penguin egg at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Do you spot the other visitor to the aquarium?See more photos here.
Piggs is a Penguin?!
My gorgeous brand-new husband became a penguin briefly on our Minimoon in Monterey! Yes, we went to the aquarium and had a great time. I suspect you'll be able to read about it from another perspective soon.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Of Polkas and Principals
I seriously polkaed with the principal yesterday. How many people can say that? We had a friend of mine from ballet come and teach us polka yesterday in that after-school dance class. We went outside (because we couldn't use the cafeteria -- long, beurocratic story), and were polka-ing around in a big circle. The principal walks by and asks me "what's going on here?" I explained that it was the dance class, and we were learning the polka, and he said "I know how to polka!" I said, "you do?" He responded by holding his hands out in the universal "may I have this dance" gesture, and I took him up on it. He whirled me around the lawn once, then left to the applause and laughter of the kids. Funny.
I'm busy this week, but very much looking forward to my mini-moon this weekend in Monterey. Yay! Mom and Boompah rock.
I'm busy this week, but very much looking forward to my mini-moon this weekend in Monterey. Yay! Mom and Boompah rock.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
This week
Okay, let's see. Well, besides school, not that much is going on. It's almost our 3 month anniversary, as well as our honeymoon (next weekend). I've still been so busy I haven't been to the gym, which makes me feel kind of sucky, but I have been really active in teaching that dance class. In fact, Wednesday at ballet I was SUPER sore and the ballet teacher caught me kind of cheating at grand plies and made me do another really slow one.
I also found out (speaking of ballet) the answer to the mystery of the one high boob. And knowing, now I feel kind of bad for having been so curious. You may remember ages ago I mentioned a woman at ballet who had a breast that seemed way higher than the other one? It turns out that she had a radical mastectomy years ago and had the reconstructive surgery and a silicone implant put in. But since so much of her tissue was destroyed, there was really nothing to hold the implant in place, and it worked its way up. She's going to have another surgery, but was hesitant at the recovery time and the process they'd need to do (it includes taking muscle from your abdomen!). So she has heard of another type of surgery and may go with that one instead. Anyway, mystery solved.
School was neat this week. We finished Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and on Thursday I just put the following on the board as they came in: "Creatively express your controlling impression of the chapter 'Night Life.' You have 25 minutes to prepare." After a few points of clarification, they were off and running, and 25 minutes later I found myself watching dueling MCs rapping about the chapter, the "Rat Kiley going nuts" part being acted out (complete with lighting and minimal props) with three students playing the bugs that obsessed him, crawling across the floor after him. We had a puppet show. There was a musical group singing lines from the chapter (my favorite, "I saw his liver!" with the backup singers going "His actual fucking liver!" -- and yes, I let them use profanity, because they were quoting the book). It was cool. The best part is that the next day we really did finish the book and I asked them to write about their reactions to it. I read their papers, and they overwhelmingly liked it and thought they'd remember it for years to come. I was worried about halfway through, because they were really frustrated with the book's narrative (i.e., in one chapter some story will get told, and in the next the narrator will completely negate what was said and tell the story in a completely different way).
Then in my 2nd period class, there was some bad news this week -- a student had been harassing another, and assaulted him, bloodying his nose. I didn't hear the whole story, but apparently he was so afraid he was going to get in trouble that he took off, not even going home. No one has heard from him. So with that kind of tense, emotional background (it didn't happen in my class, but the group kind of travels in a pack all day), we entered Thursday, where a young lady in the class presented her oral autobiographical narrative (as everyone was required to do), but was so emotionally overpowering that about 75% of the class was in tears. The story was about her grandfather who had passed away, and the combination of her storytelling skills, her obvious emotional state (she was weeping openly through most of her own story), and the story itself (basically, she was very close to her grandfather, but because of her Tongan culture, she wasn't allowed to do much of what she wanted at the funeral, like help carry the casket). We had to just take a long moment of silence to recover after she was done. I'm not exaggerating -- we ran out of Kleenex. It was hard to know what to do as a teacher -- it seems like most people, when overcome like that, would stop talking and sit down, or would take a moment and recover, but she just kept crying and telling her story. It was a long one, too, filled with rich detail and her thoughts and feelings at the time. At one point she started to really sob, so I stopped her and gave her a hug. I said "It was really brave of you to come up here and share your story. Are you okay?" She nodded, then said "Can I finish?" I said yes, and got the hell out of her way. Afterwards, I took that as an opportunity to address (however obliquely) the other incident, saying that I knew it had been a rough, emotional week, but that I hoped it would help bring that group closer, because to make it all the way through the diploma program, they were going to need each other's support. It was interesting.
I was also talking to a first year teacher this week (I saw her in the hall looking frazzled and invited her to eat lunch in my room), and I felt for the first time that I really had some experience and wisdom to offer, and a place from which to speak. I mean, I've talked to younger teachers before, but I finally really feel like a veteran. Maybe it's the fact that some enormous percentage of teachers quit in the first five years, and this is year six for me. Congratulations to me.
I also found out (speaking of ballet) the answer to the mystery of the one high boob. And knowing, now I feel kind of bad for having been so curious. You may remember ages ago I mentioned a woman at ballet who had a breast that seemed way higher than the other one? It turns out that she had a radical mastectomy years ago and had the reconstructive surgery and a silicone implant put in. But since so much of her tissue was destroyed, there was really nothing to hold the implant in place, and it worked its way up. She's going to have another surgery, but was hesitant at the recovery time and the process they'd need to do (it includes taking muscle from your abdomen!). So she has heard of another type of surgery and may go with that one instead. Anyway, mystery solved.
School was neat this week. We finished Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and on Thursday I just put the following on the board as they came in: "Creatively express your controlling impression of the chapter 'Night Life.' You have 25 minutes to prepare." After a few points of clarification, they were off and running, and 25 minutes later I found myself watching dueling MCs rapping about the chapter, the "Rat Kiley going nuts" part being acted out (complete with lighting and minimal props) with three students playing the bugs that obsessed him, crawling across the floor after him. We had a puppet show. There was a musical group singing lines from the chapter (my favorite, "I saw his liver!" with the backup singers going "His actual fucking liver!" -- and yes, I let them use profanity, because they were quoting the book). It was cool. The best part is that the next day we really did finish the book and I asked them to write about their reactions to it. I read their papers, and they overwhelmingly liked it and thought they'd remember it for years to come. I was worried about halfway through, because they were really frustrated with the book's narrative (i.e., in one chapter some story will get told, and in the next the narrator will completely negate what was said and tell the story in a completely different way).
Then in my 2nd period class, there was some bad news this week -- a student had been harassing another, and assaulted him, bloodying his nose. I didn't hear the whole story, but apparently he was so afraid he was going to get in trouble that he took off, not even going home. No one has heard from him. So with that kind of tense, emotional background (it didn't happen in my class, but the group kind of travels in a pack all day), we entered Thursday, where a young lady in the class presented her oral autobiographical narrative (as everyone was required to do), but was so emotionally overpowering that about 75% of the class was in tears. The story was about her grandfather who had passed away, and the combination of her storytelling skills, her obvious emotional state (she was weeping openly through most of her own story), and the story itself (basically, she was very close to her grandfather, but because of her Tongan culture, she wasn't allowed to do much of what she wanted at the funeral, like help carry the casket). We had to just take a long moment of silence to recover after she was done. I'm not exaggerating -- we ran out of Kleenex. It was hard to know what to do as a teacher -- it seems like most people, when overcome like that, would stop talking and sit down, or would take a moment and recover, but she just kept crying and telling her story. It was a long one, too, filled with rich detail and her thoughts and feelings at the time. At one point she started to really sob, so I stopped her and gave her a hug. I said "It was really brave of you to come up here and share your story. Are you okay?" She nodded, then said "Can I finish?" I said yes, and got the hell out of her way. Afterwards, I took that as an opportunity to address (however obliquely) the other incident, saying that I knew it had been a rough, emotional week, but that I hoped it would help bring that group closer, because to make it all the way through the diploma program, they were going to need each other's support. It was interesting.
I was also talking to a first year teacher this week (I saw her in the hall looking frazzled and invited her to eat lunch in my room), and I felt for the first time that I really had some experience and wisdom to offer, and a place from which to speak. I mean, I've talked to younger teachers before, but I finally really feel like a veteran. Maybe it's the fact that some enormous percentage of teachers quit in the first five years, and this is year six for me. Congratulations to me.
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