- Clothes are more expensive.
- Facebook is used as a weapon.
- When I get sick, my mom doesn't take care of me. Although if I were in a dire enough situation, she probably still would.
- Some people grow up, but don't mature, and such people are not fun to deal with.
- No one appreciates you.
- Vacuums break.
- People leave.
- Skinny jeans stop fitting.
- Pants don't exist like in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
- 11% of my paycheck is gone before I receive it.
- I still can't spell "receive" right the first time.
- You get judged for asking for a kids' menu and crayons at a restaurant. I mean really, why should that particular fine motor skill be limited to children?
This blog is as random as I am.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Being an adult sucks.
I don't like being an adult.
Thoughts
Teaching: I have a new, reaffirmed faith in my ability not only to do this, but to do this well.
Running: I have faith that I will find more time for it.
Summer: Will come, not but soon enough.
He: Will be okay.
My skinny jeans: Will fit. I already fit into a super short skirt that I didn't fit into for New Year's. Isn't that EXCITING?
Obama: Will change things.
The snow fort we built during Running class today: Will still be there tomorrow, or I'll be damned.
Inner Playlist:
Running: I have faith that I will find more time for it.
Summer: Will come, not but soon enough.
He: Will be okay.
My skinny jeans: Will fit. I already fit into a super short skirt that I didn't fit into for New Year's. Isn't that EXCITING?
Obama: Will change things.
The snow fort we built during Running class today: Will still be there tomorrow, or I'll be damned.
Inner Playlist:
- Foo Fighters- Summer's End
- U2- Put on your boots
- Eels- Souljacker, Part 1
Monday, January 19, 2009
I found the final version of my Berlin story.
Sorry for those of you who have read this a thousand times...
The single most valuable skill a traveler can have is the ability to make the best of any and every situation, no matter how awful, annoying, unexpected, or inconvenient. If nothing else, Berlin taught me this. Berlin, a city so enveloped in chaos through the years, proved to be no different for this lonely traveler.
In November of 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Around the same time, the Irish band U2 finished their "Joshua Tree" tour and flew to Berlin to begin recording a new album. The group was on the last commercial flight to Berlin before the unification of East and West Germany. At this extraordinary time in history, these four Irishmen ended up in the U-Bahn station called "Zoo Bahnhof," which had been the gateway to the East when everything was divided by war. The track, "Zoo Station," from the band's "Achtung, baby!" album was inspired by their hectic experience at the Zoo Bahnhof station.
Zoo Station is aptly named, not because it's near a zoo, but rather because it is a zoo. Imagine a mall, train station, subway station, food court, and video arcade in one building, and you have Zoo Station. The lady at the service desk doesn’t understand me when I ask in German if she speaks English, but that's probably because I learned that particular phrase thirty seconds before from the woman next to me in line. She gives me a U-Bahn map and sends me on my way. Subways, regardless of how confusing and illogical they may be, are systems that I understand, so I find my way to the Mocken Bruke stop on the U1 and walk to my hostel.
Berlin is more than anything else an overwhelmingly honest city. It's like everything and nothing I've ever seen before. It's beautiful in its own classic, unafraid, rough-around-the-edges way. It works to keep its streets clean, but when coke bottles find their way to the sidewalks, it isn't ashamed. It says, matter-of-factly, "I am what I am." Berlin. Not perfect, but with a reality that is very appealing. The sidewalk felt solid beneath my feet.
Two hours later I sit down to dinner at Potsdammer Platz. A good friend of mine went to Germany for a year and told me that she survived entirely on cheese and chocolate, and until my dinner plate arrived, I didn't believe her. An hour and more cheese than an entire army could eat later, I understand first-hand what she meant.
There is a keg in the middle of the sidewalk. The head of the Pub Crawl - a British transplant named Tom - is probably the loudest person I've ever met. Everything about him is loud, from his voice to his clothes to the way he walks, confidently, pounding the cobblestones with his scuffed Timberland boots.
"We're going to another pub," Tom yells over the voices, "but before we go another meter, we need to consume at least two liters of vodka!" Out came plastic shot glasses. We look around at each other for a split second, then the crowd erupts in cheers. At the end of the Pub Crawl, I go back to find my friend who drunkenly wandered off, and once I am alone it looks more like a dungeon. The walls are uneven, the edges jagged, and the floors dusty. The air glows an eerie blue as a result of dust and blacklight, and I shiver for reasons completely unrelated to the temperature. My nose itches from the scent of stale smoke and sweat.
I sit down on a bench, put my bag beside me, and start looking for my friend on the dance floor. Reaching for my cell phone in the pocket of my bag, my hand hits the cool leather of the bench instead. Alarmed, I look over, and stare in shock at the empty space where my bag used to be.
Tearing through piles of coats and knocking over mountains of purses, I become more hysterical by the second. A man with a cigar walks up to me and offers me a smoke and I stare at him in disbelief. A girl in a hot pink cropped top offers me some tissue and the rest of her martini, and I took the tissue, not the drink.
The owner of the club emerges from a dimly-lit back room and looked at me disapprovingly. "You dumb, drunk American kid," he says in a thick, almost indiscernible German accent, and I nearly choke on my tears. "I'm not dumb," I said meekly, "I'm not drunk, and I'm not a kid. I just need to find my stuff." I barely got the words out.
"Go home, it is not here," he snarled. I felt the brick wall behind me and slowly sank to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably for the first time in years. A new song came on that was ten times louder than the last, and my thoughts struggled to find their way through the jungle of sounds. I made a mental list of my losses: camera, memory card, shirt, money, cards, IDs, passport, eurail pass, U-Bahn pass, bag, U2 patch sewn on bag. Then I had a thought. I haven't checked the men's bathroom yet. With a renewed sense of hope, I walked towards it.
He intercepted me three feet from the door. Huge and broad, he was clearly inebriated, but that didn’t stop him from pushing me up against a wall and knocking my head on the bricks.
"Oh sweetie, why you goin' in there? You want some of this, huh?" He pressed a hairy forearm against my neck and pointed at his crotch, and from a combination of airway obstruction and sheer horror, I gaged. I tried to wiggle out of his grip but he stood firm, braced in his sick, drunken glory against the adjacent wall. Looking frantically around, I saw no one with any semblance of authority, and the club-goers didn’t seem to notice.
I tried to wiggle a leg free to kick him in the obvious destination, but one foot remained jammed underneath his shoe and the other was stuck between a table and a wall. Pinned up against the wall, I frantically tried to figure out how I was going to get out of this situation, when he jammed his other hand down my pants. Simultaneously, I saw a navy blue billfold on the floor of the men's bathroom and switched into survival mode. I stopped struggling, and he looked at me curiously. "You like that, huh?" I threw my arms around his waist and pulled him towards me. He was too surprised to react, and too drunk to guess my next move as I kicked him so hard that he flipped over backwards and my thigh hurt on impact.
Limping into the men's bathroom I snatched the billfold off the floor. It was empty except for the innermost pocket, and by this point I was too tired to pray. I reached in to find my passport and red emergency card and in a moment of sheer bliss sank to the filthy bathroom floor.
At night, the streets of Berlin are nasty, not as in dirty, but as in mean. They're angry, and regardless of what you did to piss them off, you better pray they forgive you long enough to get home. Since my coat was stolen too, I rub my arms and run through East Berlin, humming random melodies in my head in attempt to block out the evil growls of the streets. I have no idea where I am, but I'm too petrified to ask for directions, so I wander around for an hour before I find a U-Bahn station buried in a mass of angular concrete. I'm so cold that I actually throw up outside the entrance, my cheese dinner glowing an uneasy off-white color on the frozen dirt. Dizzy, I lay down next to my regurgitated 10 euro meal and think things over.
My sweater gets thinner and thinner until there's barely anything between my bruised body and the cold dirt. I pull myself to my feet and walk slowly into the u-bahn station, a shell of a human being in a torn black top and ripped jeans. An old man working at a little shop inside the station puts his arm on my shoulder and leads me into the tiny store. He doesn't speak a word of English and I don't speak a word of German, but somehow he knows. He sits me down on a metal chair, takes off his coat, puts it around my shoulders, and disappears only to return with hot cocoa and a tomato mozzarella baguette. I cry. Not the tears of fear I cried in the club, but the slow, rhythmic tears that you cry when the reality of the situation sets in. For some reason I tell him the entire story, even though I know he doesn't understand me, and he knows that I know, but it helps, somehow. He hugs me and whispers, "it ok, it ok," and at first I'm more hysterical than I was to begin with, because after being so violated, sometimes compassion is harder to handle.
"Where are you going?" he asks, six feet tall with a face I can't remember but a voice I can't forget, smooth and kind, unassuming and clear. "Can I help you at all, are you okay?" I'm so tired. The subway roars into the station and I hear Zoo Station in my head, “I’m ready, ready for the crush,” coursing through my barely-conscious mind. He shakes me awake when it's my stop, and as I walk away from the train I realize he stayed on ten stops too long to make sure I got off okay. And I will be okay. Because for every awful person I encounter in Berlin, there are at least three people who show me such kindness, for nothing in return, just because they see that I am in need.
Six hours later the Australians in my room comfort me. They call the police and bring me to the front desk, where the hotel staff arranges a makeshift meal for me. The cops won’t give me a copy of the police report, despite my hiccupping sobs and Chester’s fierce-sounding German over the phone.
I’ve lost everything but my passport, and apparently to get the money my father wired me, I have to journey to a remote airport at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, because tomorrow’s Sunday, and nothing else is opened. I can’t shower, change clothes, take out my contacts, or even read because my stuff is padlocked in a locker next to my bed, and the key was stolen too. It’s the last straw.
Sometimes you laugh at yourself. Sometimes you laugh at the situation. Sometimes you laugh so hard you cry. And sometimes you laugh because you can’t cry anymore. Because you refuse to. And I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard. I thanked whoever, wherever for the fact that I was okay, laughed some more, and went to sleep. Because when you think about it, it really is pretty funny. I may have lost almost everything, but I’ll always have the image of my three Australian bunkmates singing up a storm in the middle of the night trying to break my lock open with a crowbar.
The airport money gram isn’t the right place to go of course, because this is just my weekend of course. I go to board the S-Bahn back to Zoo Station when the Berlin police decide to check me of all people at all times for a valid ticket. Minutes later I’m in handcuffs, and no one understands my protests that I filed a police report and that I was robbed. One says, “No policeman named Rob!” and growls at me. I end up on the sidewalk. They won’t let me get back on the S-Bahn. I have not one cent to my name. And I can’t get to Zoo to pick up the money my Dad wired me to get home.
A woman glares at me and I wonder why but I look around and it’s clear enough. I’m slouched on a dirty sidewalk outside airport Shonefeld, and the tattered buildings are nothing compared to my haggard appearance. She thinks I’m homeless. And right before I hit rock bottom, I smile at the cigarette butts next to me on the sidewalk.
A man tosses an empty coffee cup on the street and I grab it. I sit for ten minutes and nothing happens, so I lean back and zone out. I wonder, what skills do I have that could help me in this situation? And in a daze of exhaustion, frustration, hysteria, depression, and confusion, it comes to me. I remember all the years of voice coaching, choral groups, and musicals. And I sing.
I sang U2 songs at first, “Where the streets have no name” and “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” among others. Anything I could remember the words to. I thought about my parents, so I sang Les Miserables, and I thought about home, so I sang acapella. I sang and sang and somewhere in all the songs I started to feel better. I called out in a clear, hopeful alto. And halfway through U2’s greatest hits, I had enough money for my S-Bahn fare. But I sang a little bit more, on my street corner in Berlin. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.
It’s odd the clarity of mind that comes from a moment like singing for change on a street corner in Berlin. But if you can get through that, you can get through anything.
The single most valuable skill a traveler can have is the ability to make the best of any and every situation, no matter how awful, annoying, unexpected, or inconvenient. If nothing else, Berlin taught me this. Berlin, a city so enveloped in chaos through the years, proved to be no different for this lonely traveler.
In November of 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Around the same time, the Irish band U2 finished their "Joshua Tree" tour and flew to Berlin to begin recording a new album. The group was on the last commercial flight to Berlin before the unification of East and West Germany. At this extraordinary time in history, these four Irishmen ended up in the U-Bahn station called "Zoo Bahnhof," which had been the gateway to the East when everything was divided by war. The track, "Zoo Station," from the band's "Achtung, baby!" album was inspired by their hectic experience at the Zoo Bahnhof station.
Zoo Station is aptly named, not because it's near a zoo, but rather because it is a zoo. Imagine a mall, train station, subway station, food court, and video arcade in one building, and you have Zoo Station. The lady at the service desk doesn’t understand me when I ask in German if she speaks English, but that's probably because I learned that particular phrase thirty seconds before from the woman next to me in line. She gives me a U-Bahn map and sends me on my way. Subways, regardless of how confusing and illogical they may be, are systems that I understand, so I find my way to the Mocken Bruke stop on the U1 and walk to my hostel.
Berlin is more than anything else an overwhelmingly honest city. It's like everything and nothing I've ever seen before. It's beautiful in its own classic, unafraid, rough-around-the-edges way. It works to keep its streets clean, but when coke bottles find their way to the sidewalks, it isn't ashamed. It says, matter-of-factly, "I am what I am." Berlin. Not perfect, but with a reality that is very appealing. The sidewalk felt solid beneath my feet.
Two hours later I sit down to dinner at Potsdammer Platz. A good friend of mine went to Germany for a year and told me that she survived entirely on cheese and chocolate, and until my dinner plate arrived, I didn't believe her. An hour and more cheese than an entire army could eat later, I understand first-hand what she meant.
There is a keg in the middle of the sidewalk. The head of the Pub Crawl - a British transplant named Tom - is probably the loudest person I've ever met. Everything about him is loud, from his voice to his clothes to the way he walks, confidently, pounding the cobblestones with his scuffed Timberland boots.
"We're going to another pub," Tom yells over the voices, "but before we go another meter, we need to consume at least two liters of vodka!" Out came plastic shot glasses. We look around at each other for a split second, then the crowd erupts in cheers. At the end of the Pub Crawl, I go back to find my friend who drunkenly wandered off, and once I am alone it looks more like a dungeon. The walls are uneven, the edges jagged, and the floors dusty. The air glows an eerie blue as a result of dust and blacklight, and I shiver for reasons completely unrelated to the temperature. My nose itches from the scent of stale smoke and sweat.
I sit down on a bench, put my bag beside me, and start looking for my friend on the dance floor. Reaching for my cell phone in the pocket of my bag, my hand hits the cool leather of the bench instead. Alarmed, I look over, and stare in shock at the empty space where my bag used to be.
Tearing through piles of coats and knocking over mountains of purses, I become more hysterical by the second. A man with a cigar walks up to me and offers me a smoke and I stare at him in disbelief. A girl in a hot pink cropped top offers me some tissue and the rest of her martini, and I took the tissue, not the drink.
The owner of the club emerges from a dimly-lit back room and looked at me disapprovingly. "You dumb, drunk American kid," he says in a thick, almost indiscernible German accent, and I nearly choke on my tears. "I'm not dumb," I said meekly, "I'm not drunk, and I'm not a kid. I just need to find my stuff." I barely got the words out.
"Go home, it is not here," he snarled. I felt the brick wall behind me and slowly sank to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably for the first time in years. A new song came on that was ten times louder than the last, and my thoughts struggled to find their way through the jungle of sounds. I made a mental list of my losses: camera, memory card, shirt, money, cards, IDs, passport, eurail pass, U-Bahn pass, bag, U2 patch sewn on bag. Then I had a thought. I haven't checked the men's bathroom yet. With a renewed sense of hope, I walked towards it.
He intercepted me three feet from the door. Huge and broad, he was clearly inebriated, but that didn’t stop him from pushing me up against a wall and knocking my head on the bricks.
"Oh sweetie, why you goin' in there? You want some of this, huh?" He pressed a hairy forearm against my neck and pointed at his crotch, and from a combination of airway obstruction and sheer horror, I gaged. I tried to wiggle out of his grip but he stood firm, braced in his sick, drunken glory against the adjacent wall. Looking frantically around, I saw no one with any semblance of authority, and the club-goers didn’t seem to notice.
I tried to wiggle a leg free to kick him in the obvious destination, but one foot remained jammed underneath his shoe and the other was stuck between a table and a wall. Pinned up against the wall, I frantically tried to figure out how I was going to get out of this situation, when he jammed his other hand down my pants. Simultaneously, I saw a navy blue billfold on the floor of the men's bathroom and switched into survival mode. I stopped struggling, and he looked at me curiously. "You like that, huh?" I threw my arms around his waist and pulled him towards me. He was too surprised to react, and too drunk to guess my next move as I kicked him so hard that he flipped over backwards and my thigh hurt on impact.
Limping into the men's bathroom I snatched the billfold off the floor. It was empty except for the innermost pocket, and by this point I was too tired to pray. I reached in to find my passport and red emergency card and in a moment of sheer bliss sank to the filthy bathroom floor.
At night, the streets of Berlin are nasty, not as in dirty, but as in mean. They're angry, and regardless of what you did to piss them off, you better pray they forgive you long enough to get home. Since my coat was stolen too, I rub my arms and run through East Berlin, humming random melodies in my head in attempt to block out the evil growls of the streets. I have no idea where I am, but I'm too petrified to ask for directions, so I wander around for an hour before I find a U-Bahn station buried in a mass of angular concrete. I'm so cold that I actually throw up outside the entrance, my cheese dinner glowing an uneasy off-white color on the frozen dirt. Dizzy, I lay down next to my regurgitated 10 euro meal and think things over.
My sweater gets thinner and thinner until there's barely anything between my bruised body and the cold dirt. I pull myself to my feet and walk slowly into the u-bahn station, a shell of a human being in a torn black top and ripped jeans. An old man working at a little shop inside the station puts his arm on my shoulder and leads me into the tiny store. He doesn't speak a word of English and I don't speak a word of German, but somehow he knows. He sits me down on a metal chair, takes off his coat, puts it around my shoulders, and disappears only to return with hot cocoa and a tomato mozzarella baguette. I cry. Not the tears of fear I cried in the club, but the slow, rhythmic tears that you cry when the reality of the situation sets in. For some reason I tell him the entire story, even though I know he doesn't understand me, and he knows that I know, but it helps, somehow. He hugs me and whispers, "it ok, it ok," and at first I'm more hysterical than I was to begin with, because after being so violated, sometimes compassion is harder to handle.
"Where are you going?" he asks, six feet tall with a face I can't remember but a voice I can't forget, smooth and kind, unassuming and clear. "Can I help you at all, are you okay?" I'm so tired. The subway roars into the station and I hear Zoo Station in my head, “I’m ready, ready for the crush,” coursing through my barely-conscious mind. He shakes me awake when it's my stop, and as I walk away from the train I realize he stayed on ten stops too long to make sure I got off okay. And I will be okay. Because for every awful person I encounter in Berlin, there are at least three people who show me such kindness, for nothing in return, just because they see that I am in need.
Six hours later the Australians in my room comfort me. They call the police and bring me to the front desk, where the hotel staff arranges a makeshift meal for me. The cops won’t give me a copy of the police report, despite my hiccupping sobs and Chester’s fierce-sounding German over the phone.
I’ve lost everything but my passport, and apparently to get the money my father wired me, I have to journey to a remote airport at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, because tomorrow’s Sunday, and nothing else is opened. I can’t shower, change clothes, take out my contacts, or even read because my stuff is padlocked in a locker next to my bed, and the key was stolen too. It’s the last straw.
Sometimes you laugh at yourself. Sometimes you laugh at the situation. Sometimes you laugh so hard you cry. And sometimes you laugh because you can’t cry anymore. Because you refuse to. And I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard. I thanked whoever, wherever for the fact that I was okay, laughed some more, and went to sleep. Because when you think about it, it really is pretty funny. I may have lost almost everything, but I’ll always have the image of my three Australian bunkmates singing up a storm in the middle of the night trying to break my lock open with a crowbar.
The airport money gram isn’t the right place to go of course, because this is just my weekend of course. I go to board the S-Bahn back to Zoo Station when the Berlin police decide to check me of all people at all times for a valid ticket. Minutes later I’m in handcuffs, and no one understands my protests that I filed a police report and that I was robbed. One says, “No policeman named Rob!” and growls at me. I end up on the sidewalk. They won’t let me get back on the S-Bahn. I have not one cent to my name. And I can’t get to Zoo to pick up the money my Dad wired me to get home.
A woman glares at me and I wonder why but I look around and it’s clear enough. I’m slouched on a dirty sidewalk outside airport Shonefeld, and the tattered buildings are nothing compared to my haggard appearance. She thinks I’m homeless. And right before I hit rock bottom, I smile at the cigarette butts next to me on the sidewalk.
A man tosses an empty coffee cup on the street and I grab it. I sit for ten minutes and nothing happens, so I lean back and zone out. I wonder, what skills do I have that could help me in this situation? And in a daze of exhaustion, frustration, hysteria, depression, and confusion, it comes to me. I remember all the years of voice coaching, choral groups, and musicals. And I sing.
I sang U2 songs at first, “Where the streets have no name” and “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” among others. Anything I could remember the words to. I thought about my parents, so I sang Les Miserables, and I thought about home, so I sang acapella. I sang and sang and somewhere in all the songs I started to feel better. I called out in a clear, hopeful alto. And halfway through U2’s greatest hits, I had enough money for my S-Bahn fare. But I sang a little bit more, on my street corner in Berlin. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.
It’s odd the clarity of mind that comes from a moment like singing for change on a street corner in Berlin. But if you can get through that, you can get through anything.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Halloween 2009: Katy Perry!
I'm going as Katy Perry for Halloween next year. Wig, corset, no pants... basically, best costume ever.
Battlestar Galactica Questions: Ep. 1
Okay, so these are my predictions for Battlestar Galactica:
- Starbuck is not a Cylon. Despite the fact that she clearly ressurected, I have another explanation. The ressurecting idea is just not limited to Cylons.
- The humans and the skinjob Cylons are more closely intertwined than previously thought.
- If Col. Tigh, Chief Tyrol, Tory whatsherface, and Anders are Cylons, why are there not multiple copies of them?
- How did Tigh age if he's a Cylon? Number Six stays the same. Thank God -- she's awesomely hot.
- Have they been alive the whole time, or were they just randomly reborn however many years ago?
- Did they age? Were they born as babies?
- If Adama (Husker, not Apollo) said "Saul, when I met you, you had hair," then why in the flashback did he not have hair?
- Why is Michael Trucco so hot? Why isn't he in my life?
- Why isn't Jamie Bamber in my life as well? At least they are in my hotboxes. Or, as Rob called them, ManBoxes.
- If the final five were reborn within the fleet, then why weren't the 250 Cylon Skinjob skeletons also reborn within the fleet? Or... were they?
- If the Resurrection Ship is gone, then if the Cylons die, will they not be resurrected?
- What is Kara's destiny? How will she lead them to their end? I mean, she led them to earth... that seems good, not bad.
- Where was Athena in this episode? I missed her.
- Where are the other Cylons?
- Why would they make Brother Cavil a humanoid model? He's so ugly. At least the other Cylons skinjobs are hot. Even Leoben. I am strangely attracted to him.
Oh, and I totally knew Dee was going to off herself.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Rough day... pudding
Today was the type of day that makes you question whether or not somewhere, along the way, you made the wrong choice.
Inner Playlist:
Well I'll look at the positives:
--lw
Inner Playlist:
- John Legend- Sun Comes Up
- Eels- Souljacker Pt. 1
- Pigeonhead/Lo-Fidelity All-Stars- Battleflag
Well I'll look at the positives:
- I'm losing weight.
- I have clean underwear.
- I still love my job.
- I have an entire summer to plan for next year, which means it will go much better.
- I like pudding.
--lw
Monday, January 12, 2009
I want summer / My Rambling Autobio
I'm sick of winter. I lasted til January. Now I'm ready for sun. Still getting back in shape, though.
My mom once said that once you pass 18, you don't lose weight, you beat it off with a stick. True story. But my legs are coming back. I can feel them. The muscles are there, and soon, my legs will be nice again. I'm excited. I have no less than 25 ridiculously short skirts waiting to be worn. Including two that resemble ballet tutus.
Today I'll do my rambling autobiography, for today at least. The point is to write a rambling autobiography. Tons of mini-stories in one. Rambling. Random. Somewhat disorganized.
MY RAMBLING AUTOBIOGRAPHY
My feet haven't grown since my bat mitzvah. I have the shoes I was bat mitzvahed in. I still wear them out sometimes. 10 years later.
I have a running shoe menorah. I think it's the most incredible thing in the world, and it's easily the coolest gift I've ever received. Some people think it's unclassy and unjewish. Those people should be covered with peanut butter, dipped in bird seed, and hung out to dry in Dam Square in Amsterdam for all the sickly pigeons to snack on.
I have disturbingly diverse taste in music. In my mind, Britney Spears, Enya, Ani Difranco, NeYo and AC/DC belong on the same mix cd.
In middle school, I had the Backstreet Boys' heights marked off on my door with masking tape.
I am completely baffled by homophobia and people who are against gay marriage. I don't understand what the big deal is. If you don't believe in gay marriage, then don't get one. I don't believe in Jesus, but you don't see me protesting outside churches and wearing mean t-shirts, do you?
I think I made myself allergic to mushrooms.
For 11 years, I ate, slept, and breathed ballet - I wanted to spend my life dancing. I quit ten seconds after hearing my mother on the phone saying I wasn't as thin as the other girls.
Embarrassingly, my parents are much cooler than I am.
When we lived in Texas, my mom used to work out with Chuck Norris.
I once lived in an 11th-century castle in Holland with moats and peacocks.
I traveled all over Europe, but in almost every country, I went to H&M. My brother thinks this means I no longer have the right to make fun of him for eating McDonalds instead of local cuisine when we're traveling, but I think it's completely different.
I'm writing a book on my approach to teaching writing, because all the guides I've been given have something missing, somehow. If you read this, and you have something I should put in my book, please tell me.
I can never find jewelry to match what I wear, so I keep several hundred beads on hand and make my own. No one knows the difference.
When I planned this lesson on rambling autobiographies, the part that excited me the most was the hope that (my co-teacher) would write one.
One of the campers I taught to swim died last week, from complications due to Epilepsy, the seizure disorder. When I heard, I was watching a TV special on a woman who was 115 years old, and all I could think was, how is it fair that an 11-year-old boy has to die when she gets to live?
As a child, I had a friend with one of those wide, wonderful, toothy smiles, and when she wore lipstick for ballet recitals, it lit up her face. This led me to believe that the lipstick made her smile look like that, rather than the actual act of smiling. As a result, I am not smiling in dozens of pictures taken of me that year.
I have survived scarlett fever, anorexia, shin splints and (name omitted).
I once had to sing for spare change on a streetcorner in Berlin.
My brother is a high-functioning autistic, and as a child, sometimes I resented him for it. This is unforgiveable because the cruelty of it defies logic, and because he never held it against me.
My mom once said that once you pass 18, you don't lose weight, you beat it off with a stick. True story. But my legs are coming back. I can feel them. The muscles are there, and soon, my legs will be nice again. I'm excited. I have no less than 25 ridiculously short skirts waiting to be worn. Including two that resemble ballet tutus.
Today I'll do my rambling autobiography, for today at least. The point is to write a rambling autobiography. Tons of mini-stories in one. Rambling. Random. Somewhat disorganized.
MY RAMBLING AUTOBIOGRAPHY
My feet haven't grown since my bat mitzvah. I have the shoes I was bat mitzvahed in. I still wear them out sometimes. 10 years later.
I have a running shoe menorah. I think it's the most incredible thing in the world, and it's easily the coolest gift I've ever received. Some people think it's unclassy and unjewish. Those people should be covered with peanut butter, dipped in bird seed, and hung out to dry in Dam Square in Amsterdam for all the sickly pigeons to snack on.
I have disturbingly diverse taste in music. In my mind, Britney Spears, Enya, Ani Difranco, NeYo and AC/DC belong on the same mix cd.
In middle school, I had the Backstreet Boys' heights marked off on my door with masking tape.
I am completely baffled by homophobia and people who are against gay marriage. I don't understand what the big deal is. If you don't believe in gay marriage, then don't get one. I don't believe in Jesus, but you don't see me protesting outside churches and wearing mean t-shirts, do you?
I think I made myself allergic to mushrooms.
For 11 years, I ate, slept, and breathed ballet - I wanted to spend my life dancing. I quit ten seconds after hearing my mother on the phone saying I wasn't as thin as the other girls.
Embarrassingly, my parents are much cooler than I am.
When we lived in Texas, my mom used to work out with Chuck Norris.
I once lived in an 11th-century castle in Holland with moats and peacocks.
I traveled all over Europe, but in almost every country, I went to H&M. My brother thinks this means I no longer have the right to make fun of him for eating McDonalds instead of local cuisine when we're traveling, but I think it's completely different.
I'm writing a book on my approach to teaching writing, because all the guides I've been given have something missing, somehow. If you read this, and you have something I should put in my book, please tell me.
I can never find jewelry to match what I wear, so I keep several hundred beads on hand and make my own. No one knows the difference.
When I planned this lesson on rambling autobiographies, the part that excited me the most was the hope that (my co-teacher) would write one.
One of the campers I taught to swim died last week, from complications due to Epilepsy, the seizure disorder. When I heard, I was watching a TV special on a woman who was 115 years old, and all I could think was, how is it fair that an 11-year-old boy has to die when she gets to live?
As a child, I had a friend with one of those wide, wonderful, toothy smiles, and when she wore lipstick for ballet recitals, it lit up her face. This led me to believe that the lipstick made her smile look like that, rather than the actual act of smiling. As a result, I am not smiling in dozens of pictures taken of me that year.
I have survived scarlett fever, anorexia, shin splints and (name omitted).
I once had to sing for spare change on a streetcorner in Berlin.
My brother is a high-functioning autistic, and as a child, sometimes I resented him for it. This is unforgiveable because the cruelty of it defies logic, and because he never held it against me.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
New Year's Resolutions for 2009
People are going to law school, and med school, and having babies, and getting engaged, and getting married, and buying property, and it all makes me feel very old. Should I be married with kids and a mortgage? YES, I SPELLED MORTGAGE RIGHT, probably for the first time ever. No, someone who gets so much pleasure out of spelling the word mortgage correctly is probably not ready for one.
New Year's Resolutions:
New Year's Resolutions:
- Lose 30 pounds.
- Not wear pants.
- Spread the word about not wearing pants.
- Run at least 4 times a week.
- Grow my hair out.
- Read students' notebooks more often.
- Have more patience with my students.
- Plan further ahead.
- Stay organized and clean.
- Throw out at least a third of my wardrobe.
- Learn and implement more effective classroom management.
- Learn (well, re-learn) Spanish.
- Keep working on my book.
- Learn to sew.
- Be a better friend / keep in touch with people more.
- Not spend as much money!
- Learn to use the Smartboard MUCH BETTER.
- Be on time.
- Go on more outdoor adventures.
- KEEP THE MINIVAN CLEAN.
- Dial down the road rage.
- Do more art.
- Read for PLEASURE.
- Actually revisit my New Year's resolutions periodically to see if I've made any progress.
- Cook more.
- Learn to make caramelized onions.
- Learn my way around Brookline/Allston. At this point, it's just pitiful.
- Run road races. To think that I went an entire year (more, actually) without running one.
- Travel somewhere, even if it's not that far away.
I <3 running, I don't <3 pants...
I used to be so good at blogging. I decided to start a blog again because of a teacher from grad school. Long story short: he lost a paper I wrote. Rather than going on a joyride through my old, ruined hard drive, I elected to write it again, and OH MY GOD I had so much fun.
I forgot how much I loved to write. All my time is spent teaching adolescents to write, so I haven't been writing, and I MISS IT! So, this is my attempt to get back in the writing game. It will probably be all rambly and horrible, but you made the decision to read it, so...
So, what's going on with me? I am completely overwhelmed at work. It will probably be this way for the first couple of years, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's so hard creating everything from scratch for four grade levels, but at the same time, I know that if I were given a curriculum and told to teach it exactly, I would hate it. I'd rather spend the extra time making something I love.
One of my eighth graders wrote the greatest writing reflection the other day. He's a guy's guy, a self-described "not so much writer," but he wrote a fantasy story for his little brothers and they loved it so much that he's gone off the fiction deep end (in a good way). It made me happy.
Recent obsession: Twilight. One of the unexpected pleasures of teaching eighth grade is their alarming insight into themselves. My fifth graders are so oblivious, but my eighth graders are very aware of their own thoughts and feelings. That doesn't make them rational, logical human beings or anything, but still, it's interesting to hear what they think about themselves. My Twilight obsession came about because one of my eighth graders said, "Miss, I hate everything pretty much. If these books can get me to read over 2000 pages, you should definitely hit them up."
After this, I realized two things:
1. She's right. If she connected with them, I should definitely experience them.
2. I clearly have a borderline creepy love for vampires already. Think about it. I grew up watching Buffy. I loved Interview with a Vampire. I liked that short-lived cheesy show Moonlight. I OBSESS over True Blood (on HBO, go watch it, it will change your life). Clearly, another vampire story is not such a stretch.
Hmm, what else is up with me...
What author study should I do with my students? I'm already doing a mini- one on Sharon Creech, but that's more of an excuse to read Love That Dog and introduce free verse poetry. The older ones like really twisted stuff, so I'm thinking Poe, but we'll see.
Oh, I went running for the first time in forever yesterday! I got so confused. My body isn't used to running in this area. I always start in Beacon Hill, so by the time I reach the Holiday Inn on St. Paul's street and Brookline, I've been going for a few miles already. Living in Brookline completely screws it up. Marathon training is going to be challenging. I'm going to be tempted to just run home mid-run. Good thing that's not happening for a year at least.
So, I ran all around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and into the middle of it by accident. I'm not sure how it happened, but it all looks different in the snow. At some point I looked down and thought to myself, "If I jump really hard, I will fall into a body of water. Oops."
Anyway, I am feeling it today, but not as badly as I had expected, which is good, I suppose. 90 more miles and I can buy new sneakers, BOOYEAH.
I was also deathly ill. I still kind of sound hoarse. My students began an unofficial "use figurative language to describe our teacher's horrible voice" contest, and my favorites were:
She sounds like Lindsay Lohan after a rough night.
She sounds like an adolescent male going through puberty.
She sounds like Sylvester Stallone punched her in the voice box.
I love my creative ones.
Any other updates? Oh, HOW 'BOUT THAT TOBIN BRIDGE? One lane? Really people? I'm going to have to take the Turnpike to work. That costs $4.25. Damnit.
My vaccuum broke. It is tragic, and probably my roommate's fault.
Oh! So, our motivation for losing weight is that we're going to throw a skanky short-shorts party in late March. Thus, we will lose weight because we must look fabulous for said party. Clear your calendars... probably one of the last couple of weekends in March. My goal is to wear short shorts WITHOUT stockings. And possibly a lifeguard bathing suit. We'll see.
I should go lift weights, but I just don't like the gym. I'd rather run outside for hours than sit in a confined area letting gravity have its way with me. Plus, I'm so used to going to an all womens gym, that going to Gold's is daunting. All these huge, burly men watch me constantly. I was flattered at first, but then I realized they didn't think I was hot, rather, they were watching with a kind of horrid fascination as I failed to bench press the bar. I'm quite good at working out. I know fifty thousand exercises for each muscle, I swear, so I would look like I know what I'm doing, except... except for the fact that I'm holding 8-pound weights. The boys are nice though. They help me when I am doing something wrong.
So, I'm off to read notebooks, make food, shower, and hypothesize about the next season of the L-Word.
Goede Nacht!
--LW
I forgot how much I loved to write. All my time is spent teaching adolescents to write, so I haven't been writing, and I MISS IT! So, this is my attempt to get back in the writing game. It will probably be all rambly and horrible, but you made the decision to read it, so...
So, what's going on with me? I am completely overwhelmed at work. It will probably be this way for the first couple of years, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's so hard creating everything from scratch for four grade levels, but at the same time, I know that if I were given a curriculum and told to teach it exactly, I would hate it. I'd rather spend the extra time making something I love.
One of my eighth graders wrote the greatest writing reflection the other day. He's a guy's guy, a self-described "not so much writer," but he wrote a fantasy story for his little brothers and they loved it so much that he's gone off the fiction deep end (in a good way). It made me happy.
Recent obsession: Twilight. One of the unexpected pleasures of teaching eighth grade is their alarming insight into themselves. My fifth graders are so oblivious, but my eighth graders are very aware of their own thoughts and feelings. That doesn't make them rational, logical human beings or anything, but still, it's interesting to hear what they think about themselves. My Twilight obsession came about because one of my eighth graders said, "Miss, I hate everything pretty much. If these books can get me to read over 2000 pages, you should definitely hit them up."
After this, I realized two things:
1. She's right. If she connected with them, I should definitely experience them.
2. I clearly have a borderline creepy love for vampires already. Think about it. I grew up watching Buffy. I loved Interview with a Vampire. I liked that short-lived cheesy show Moonlight. I OBSESS over True Blood (on HBO, go watch it, it will change your life). Clearly, another vampire story is not such a stretch.
Hmm, what else is up with me...
What author study should I do with my students? I'm already doing a mini- one on Sharon Creech, but that's more of an excuse to read Love That Dog and introduce free verse poetry. The older ones like really twisted stuff, so I'm thinking Poe, but we'll see.
Oh, I went running for the first time in forever yesterday! I got so confused. My body isn't used to running in this area. I always start in Beacon Hill, so by the time I reach the Holiday Inn on St. Paul's street and Brookline, I've been going for a few miles already. Living in Brookline completely screws it up. Marathon training is going to be challenging. I'm going to be tempted to just run home mid-run. Good thing that's not happening for a year at least.
So, I ran all around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and into the middle of it by accident. I'm not sure how it happened, but it all looks different in the snow. At some point I looked down and thought to myself, "If I jump really hard, I will fall into a body of water. Oops."
Anyway, I am feeling it today, but not as badly as I had expected, which is good, I suppose. 90 more miles and I can buy new sneakers, BOOYEAH.
I was also deathly ill. I still kind of sound hoarse. My students began an unofficial "use figurative language to describe our teacher's horrible voice" contest, and my favorites were:
She sounds like Lindsay Lohan after a rough night.
She sounds like an adolescent male going through puberty.
She sounds like Sylvester Stallone punched her in the voice box.
I love my creative ones.
Any other updates? Oh, HOW 'BOUT THAT TOBIN BRIDGE? One lane? Really people? I'm going to have to take the Turnpike to work. That costs $4.25. Damnit.
My vaccuum broke. It is tragic, and probably my roommate's fault.
Oh! So, our motivation for losing weight is that we're going to throw a skanky short-shorts party in late March. Thus, we will lose weight because we must look fabulous for said party. Clear your calendars... probably one of the last couple of weekends in March. My goal is to wear short shorts WITHOUT stockings. And possibly a lifeguard bathing suit. We'll see.
I should go lift weights, but I just don't like the gym. I'd rather run outside for hours than sit in a confined area letting gravity have its way with me. Plus, I'm so used to going to an all womens gym, that going to Gold's is daunting. All these huge, burly men watch me constantly. I was flattered at first, but then I realized they didn't think I was hot, rather, they were watching with a kind of horrid fascination as I failed to bench press the bar. I'm quite good at working out. I know fifty thousand exercises for each muscle, I swear, so I would look like I know what I'm doing, except... except for the fact that I'm holding 8-pound weights. The boys are nice though. They help me when I am doing something wrong.
So, I'm off to read notebooks, make food, shower, and hypothesize about the next season of the L-Word.
Goede Nacht!
--LW
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