on some level I still think this video post thing is a terrible idea, but it's so easy! I recorded this at about 9:30 this morning right after I got home from my park run, and clearly I haven't managed to use it as a writing prompt, so what the hell. at least my mom will be happy to see me.



a few addendums:

1. if I ever do this again I will shower and change first. yeesh.

2. much like the dictionary, I don't have a consistent pronunciation of the word "banal." about half the time it's british-y, like here, and the other half of the time it rhymes with canal.

3. my favorite smell in the park is along one of the bridle trails, between the zoo and the nethermead. you run along and it just smells normal and woodsy, and then suddenly you get hit by a surge of sweet honeysuckle scent. it's like a little firework of fragrance.

4. it's easy to like the smells of the park, of course, but I also really like the smell of the city in the heat. the asphalt-bricks-concrete-metal-subway steam-cooking oil smell. every city's is a little different; the air of new york has a tang of sharpness in the summer that I've never smelled anywhere else. in boston the smell is more wet and mellow, like a cucumber.

5. when I was in seventh grade I thought the illustration on my shirt, with the girl and her cue reflected in the yellow ball, was very cool. I drew my own version of it but with ned hall, the main character of richard russo's the risk pool, instead.

things being what they are, I can't guarantee that it won't be another month before I manage to put something up here. (the last day of school is june 26.) if you're not disgusted by microblogging -- I sort of am but that seemingly hasn't stopped me from doing it -- here are a couple things you can look at for more frequent updates:
- my twitter feed, which shockingly dates back to 2006!
- my tumbl...whatever, which is almost entirely pointless.

(I almost just posted this without embedding the video! good job, brain.)
[ 25 May 2009]  ·  [ ]



today I was at school after all the other saturday school teachers had left. I wandered into my principal's office to ask her something and she said, "why are you still here?"

I said, "well, my subject takes so much physical prep time that I can't really do that and also do all the bulletin boards and filing and stuff during the week."

she said, ".... ohhhh."

I love that she cheerfully okays all my purchase orders -- I recently spent as much on rocks and minerals alone as I would bet the rest of my grade team has spent on all their supplies for the entire year -- even though she obviously hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about what I must be doing with them!

after the kids left this afternoon I got out the hot plates and made fresh ice. I threw a bunch of homemade sandstone against the floor so it would break into nice angular fragments, then cleaned that up and set them out along with the beakers, bottles, funnels, flashlights, marbles, rulers, hand lenses, reference tables, and filter paper for monday's lab. (physical weathering.) I photocopied 77 labs, warmup slips (or do nows or starters or whatever you want to call the thing you make the kids do the second they walk in the room because bell-to-bell instruction is required even if you don't have bells!), and homework assignments. I still didn't get very far with the bulletin boards, to be honest. I stapled up the six best rock classification thingies the kids did onto my classwork board and that was about it. I haven't even taken down the old projects on the hallway board yet.

all our bulletin boards have to be updated with brand-new work & stuff because our school quality review is this week. so they are actually just a tiny bit of the big picture of insanity that is my school right now. (do you non-NYC teachers have to do SQRs too? are they run by bafflingly british people?) I like talking about data and whatnot so I am feeling relatively sanguine about my role in everything, as long as I can get those silly bulletin boards finished. accountability, rah rah rah!

ps I've decided that it is more productive for me to spit out whatever comes to mind instead of pretending I will write about it someday. hence this sort of post. I hope it does not offend you.
[ 02 May 2009]  ·  [ ]