In one of those moments that, after the fact, seems inevitable, I landed the job at X High School, a job I have wanted since I first subbed there three years ago!!! Seriously, this school is so whitebread--70% Caucasian, 95% meets/exceeds standards in writing, 74% graduation rate (compared to 60% district-wide!)--it's like Warren-Walker with more public-school hoops to jump through, but a better benefits package to make up the difference. Plus it's a four-minute drive or about a 10-minute bike ride, so I can leave the house at the same time as I do now, about 6 a.m., but I'll be home by about 2:30, even staying late to grade/plan. (For some reason CCSD continues to ignore research about adolescents' sleeping patterns and makes them go to school from 7 to 1:15, but that's how I prefer it, anyway.) While I don't know the exact breakdown of the classes I'll be teaching, the official title is Honors American Literature, so I'm guessing I'll have at least two of those.
Anyway, it was SO EXCITING, and it's already becoming difficult to concentrate on the rest of this year. I even got a move-in date, just like a new house. I can't wait to see what great stuff comes in my room.
So everybody stop in at the comments section and congratulate me and tell me how great I am, natch, and then go back to the animal rhymes or what ever else ya'll have going on.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
In which "Audience Participation Monday" happens on a Tuesday (again)
In honor of the poetry going on at Tyson's blog today, Audience Participation Monday is an activity I like to call
It is probably the simplest one of these that we've done. You just make a sentence using some kind of animal name and some other word that rhymes with it. An even easier way to explain would be to give some examples.
"There are APES in the DRAPES!"
The frog lived in the peat bog.
...and so on. Mine are pretty tame, although it gives me a giggle to imagine someone's fine velvet curtains infested with primates. Let's see what else we can come up with!
ANIMAL RHYMES.
It is probably the simplest one of these that we've done. You just make a sentence using some kind of animal name and some other word that rhymes with it. An even easier way to explain would be to give some examples.
"There are APES in the DRAPES!"
The frog lived in the peat bog.
...and so on. Mine are pretty tame, although it gives me a giggle to imagine someone's fine velvet curtains infested with primates. Let's see what else we can come up with!
In which I may just have aced an interview
I just got in from an interview with a principal at a high school down the street--a job I have been coveting since I saw the listing last Monday--that would be teaching American Lit to juniors at one of four "high-achieving" high schools in Clark County. ("High-achieving," according to NCLB, just means that they do a certain amount better than their mandated AYP. Go ask your child's teacher. They'll explain what all the acronyms mean. They'll probably find a few choice epithets to share with you, too.)
Anyway, my interview lasted about an hour, and a couple of times I thought we were about to wrap it up, but then we kept talking about more stuff. So I should know by Friday whether or not I got the job; maybe sooner than that if I get put on the top of the list. After my interview I went to the gym and now have my brain is all mushy from the interview adrenaline and the exercise endorphins and the the not having had dinner yet. (If you were wondering why my prose did not seem as tight as usual, that should help explain some things. Haven't you ever re-read that college essay you wrote at 3 a.m. the day it was due, hopped up on a pot and a half of coffee and a semester of worrying about it? And after you got it back and re-read it, you were either amazed at your genius or startled by the way your ideas went in a hundred different directions at once, like water spilling across a kitchen table? Apparently job anxiety and weightlifting do pretty much the same thing.)
Besides that, today is just a Tuesday. I got an email today saying that my sister will be coming out next week, so there is something to look forward to. That and the Decemberists (which none of you except for her really cares about, anyway, and she will be here for it.)
I should probably go eat something now.
Anyway, my interview lasted about an hour, and a couple of times I thought we were about to wrap it up, but then we kept talking about more stuff. So I should know by Friday whether or not I got the job; maybe sooner than that if I get put on the top of the list. After my interview I went to the gym and now have my brain is all mushy from the interview adrenaline and the exercise endorphins and the the not having had dinner yet. (If you were wondering why my prose did not seem as tight as usual, that should help explain some things. Haven't you ever re-read that college essay you wrote at 3 a.m. the day it was due, hopped up on a pot and a half of coffee and a semester of worrying about it? And after you got it back and re-read it, you were either amazed at your genius or startled by the way your ideas went in a hundred different directions at once, like water spilling across a kitchen table? Apparently job anxiety and weightlifting do pretty much the same thing.)
Besides that, today is just a Tuesday. I got an email today saying that my sister will be coming out next week, so there is something to look forward to. That and the Decemberists (which none of you except for her really cares about, anyway, and she will be here for it.)
I should probably go eat something now.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Elaine, I think I may have changed my mind...
Having read Stephen Pressman's engaging Gates of Fire, I watched 300 and couldn't help but make unfavorable comparisons (although I have no doubt the pictures in the original graphic novel are pretty). However, PZ may have changed my mind on this issue.
Apparently, what I saw as mindless, over-hyped doggerel, was actually a complex parody of the creation/evolution debate. I actually get a little thrill picturing PZ in tight spandexy underwear and a cape hidden beneath his white lab coat. Tammy and Elaine, maybe we can find some pictures like that and put them on our blogs.
Apparently, what I saw as mindless, over-hyped doggerel, was actually a complex parody of the creation/evolution debate. I actually get a little thrill picturing PZ in tight spandexy underwear and a cape hidden beneath his white lab coat. Tammy and Elaine, maybe we can find some pictures like that and put them on our blogs.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
In which I am not, obviously, "stuck in Paradise"
...unless you are referring to the township of Paradise, where it is about 50 degrees warmer than when we left Summit County two days ago.
Thanks to Ed's friend Terry, who did exactly the ghetto-style yank-and-bend job on the front of our van that I kept telling Tyson was all we would need to get back on the road, we made it to Keystone on Monday. We kicked around some, took in a couple of movies--300 (crappy, with apologies to Elaine) and Shooter (Marky Mark makes such a great reluctant badass ["oh, man, I totally didn't want to blow up your compound in the woods with an assortment of homemade explosive devices, then take out an entire helicopter by shooting up a propane tank, but the imported Libyan commandos kind of made me do it"])--and generally behaved like ski bums for half a week. I can now make it down a green run in wide S-shaped traverses, repeating "fall line, fall line, bigtoelittletoebigtoelittletoe" to carve a pretty good string of parallel turns. It snowed on us on Thursday while we were attempting to crash a barbecue lunch at Nico's office, so that was both fun and interesting. I can't say I get too excited about snow once it's on the ground, but I can't resist the light, feathery feeling of snowflakes on my face. (No, Tyson, this does not give you permission to wing a snowball at my head. That is so not what I meant.)
But now we are back, with all the realities of home now crushing down upon us--grocery lists, lesson plans, endless piles of laundry, a bathroom inexplicably full of muddy cat prints. At least Tyson had the grace to clean the house on his half-day of early vacation on Friday.
Thanks to Ed's friend Terry, who did exactly the ghetto-style yank-and-bend job on the front of our van that I kept telling Tyson was all we would need to get back on the road, we made it to Keystone on Monday. We kicked around some, took in a couple of movies--300 (crappy, with apologies to Elaine) and Shooter (Marky Mark makes such a great reluctant badass ["oh, man, I totally didn't want to blow up your compound in the woods with an assortment of homemade explosive devices, then take out an entire helicopter by shooting up a propane tank, but the imported Libyan commandos kind of made me do it"])--and generally behaved like ski bums for half a week. I can now make it down a green run in wide S-shaped traverses, repeating "fall line, fall line, bigtoelittletoebigtoelittletoe" to carve a pretty good string of parallel turns. It snowed on us on Thursday while we were attempting to crash a barbecue lunch at Nico's office, so that was both fun and interesting. I can't say I get too excited about snow once it's on the ground, but I can't resist the light, feathery feeling of snowflakes on my face. (No, Tyson, this does not give you permission to wing a snowball at my head. That is so not what I meant.)
But now we are back, with all the realities of home now crushing down upon us--grocery lists, lesson plans, endless piles of laundry, a bathroom inexplicably full of muddy cat prints. At least Tyson had the grace to clean the house on his half-day of early vacation on Friday.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Stranded in Paradise
or
The Kindness of Strangers
So it's Spring Break (finally). We spent all day and all night Friday frantically cleaning the house so it would be under control when we got back, then yesterday we threw skis, climbing gear, and a suitcase into the van and left for Utah.
The plan was this: lunch at Irmita's in St. George, then camping just outside Escalante and getting up early to hike and fish on the way to Calf Creek Falls. We stopped in St. George to catch a movie (Blades of Glory--good mindless fun surrounded by mindless Mormon teeny-boppers), then headed east through Zion and towards Bryce Canyon. I crawled back to the bed a little after 9, then was awakened by T yelling "fuck!" then being thrown forward off the bed and onto the floor.
T had come up over a hill and met up with a huge buck, just standing in the road like a moron. When he told me what had happened, I, of course, was picturing the bloody, mangled corpse of a deer jammed up into the front of the car, perhaps dangling in chunks from the grille, and it took a few moments before I was brave enough to go survey the damage.
One headlight was out. The grille had been shattered, and something, car part or deer part, was stuck in the fan, resulting in a loud thwapthwapthwapthwap from the engine.
A white van pulled over to help within about three minutes of the accident. The driver, an older woman who had been on the road since 3a.m., offered to drive or escort us to town. While she was offering her assistance, her husband stumbled out of the passenger door and threw up onto the side of the road. They, apparently, were having some of their own problems.
We made it to Mt. Caramel Junction, less of an actual town than an assortment of 2 gas stations and a hotel, at top speeds of 20 mph, that thwapthwapthwapthwapthwap sound drumming in our ears. Naturally, everything was closed except the hotel lobby. The night guy gave us the name of a guy with a garage in the next town who might or might not work on Sundays, as well as directions to his house.
This morning, we decided to forgo the cold cereal breakfast we'd bought earlier and do a real meal at the hotel. T had his computer out and was searching for mechanics in and around the area, or, at the very least, a tow company to get us back to St. George or Cedar City, when a guy named Ed from the golf shop showed up. He offered to call a couple of people he knew and see what he could find. He made us mochas from the espresso cart and, in the end, called his own mechanic to come down and take a look at the van. "While you're waiting," he said, "there's a black Samurai in the lot with the keys still in it. Take it down the road a ways until you see a cave. While my guy is working on your car, at least you'll have something to do." He even offered to run our credit cards at the hotel so we could pay the guy, since all the cash we have is probably not enough.
All in all, it is probably the nicest thing that has ever happened to me. If we ever make it out of Mt. Caramel Junction, we'll have Ed to thank for it.
The plan was this: lunch at Irmita's in St. George, then camping just outside Escalante and getting up early to hike and fish on the way to Calf Creek Falls. We stopped in St. George to catch a movie (Blades of Glory--good mindless fun surrounded by mindless Mormon teeny-boppers), then headed east through Zion and towards Bryce Canyon. I crawled back to the bed a little after 9, then was awakened by T yelling "fuck!" then being thrown forward off the bed and onto the floor.
T had come up over a hill and met up with a huge buck, just standing in the road like a moron. When he told me what had happened, I, of course, was picturing the bloody, mangled corpse of a deer jammed up into the front of the car, perhaps dangling in chunks from the grille, and it took a few moments before I was brave enough to go survey the damage.
One headlight was out. The grille had been shattered, and something, car part or deer part, was stuck in the fan, resulting in a loud thwapthwapthwapthwap from the engine.
A white van pulled over to help within about three minutes of the accident. The driver, an older woman who had been on the road since 3a.m., offered to drive or escort us to town. While she was offering her assistance, her husband stumbled out of the passenger door and threw up onto the side of the road. They, apparently, were having some of their own problems.
We made it to Mt. Caramel Junction, less of an actual town than an assortment of 2 gas stations and a hotel, at top speeds of 20 mph, that thwapthwapthwapthwapthwap sound drumming in our ears. Naturally, everything was closed except the hotel lobby. The night guy gave us the name of a guy with a garage in the next town who might or might not work on Sundays, as well as directions to his house.
This morning, we decided to forgo the cold cereal breakfast we'd bought earlier and do a real meal at the hotel. T had his computer out and was searching for mechanics in and around the area, or, at the very least, a tow company to get us back to St. George or Cedar City, when a guy named Ed from the golf shop showed up. He offered to call a couple of people he knew and see what he could find. He made us mochas from the espresso cart and, in the end, called his own mechanic to come down and take a look at the van. "While you're waiting," he said, "there's a black Samurai in the lot with the keys still in it. Take it down the road a ways until you see a cave. While my guy is working on your car, at least you'll have something to do." He even offered to run our credit cards at the hotel so we could pay the guy, since all the cash we have is probably not enough.
All in all, it is probably the nicest thing that has ever happened to me. If we ever make it out of Mt. Caramel Junction, we'll have Ed to thank for it.
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