1.
I finally fixed my car. According to the mechanic, it is not a good idea to drive around on your spare tire for a week before getting it fixed. Well, now I know. Also, note to self: If a mechanic asks you why you bought a Rav-4, and you tell him a long, drawn-out story, he will laugh at you.
Long, drawn-out story:
I was fourteen years old the first time I fell in love. It was a red Jeep Wrangler with no doors. All I wanted was to own a car like that. I spent most of freshman and sophomore year scouring the classifieds trying to buy one used, while attempting to learn how to drive a stick in what spare time I had left.
This might have worked out if I hadn't blown all my money on clothes and screwed up in school so much that my mother refused to let me get my license until I was 6 months away from college. It ended up working out for the better, because as I later realized, I hate driving. When I got out of grad school, I inherited the minivan, and I'd still be driving that today if crazy lady hadn't slammed into it at the corner of Parsons and Faneuil Street in Brighton.
When it came time to buy my first real car, I knew one thing: It needed to have a spare tire on the back. I suppose I could've bought a Wrangler, but the Toyota dealer offered me such a good trade-in for my demolished minivan that I couldn't turn it down. Plus, I was sort of emotional. It was right after I watched a season of House in one week, and I kept equating "sold for parts" with "harvesting for organs" and yeah... You could say I'm a bit high strung. So I got a Rav-4. Which I adore. Despite the fact that it's not a Wrangler. Someday.
Though I will say this: The one downside to having a spare tire on the back of your car is that when you drive around with the spare, you have to put the dead tire in the trunk because the lug nuts don't match, which means you're driving around with what looks like a big, gaping dent in your car. It's ugly.
2.
I am sick and tired of explaining tampons to middle school boys. From now on I'm going to walk around with some Tampax instructions in my back pocket.
3.
When did it become okay to announce to your teacher that you needed to change your pad? I'm not at all shy about that stuff, but you better believe I never told that to a teacher.
4.
There is an odd squeaky sound that sound like it's coming from my wall. I blame Boston College.
5.
The dreams have started again. Grey, slouchy, suede boots with a simple, distressed buckle. Sleek, black riding boots. Maroon with a stacked heel. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold out. I want to buy boots so badly. I see them everywhere. I'm like a dude who stares at boobs, except I stare at boots. If I can just hold out until Black Friday and go to the outlets like last year... I need help. Rehab. Twelve steps.
Until I get a shoe rack, this is how I'll store my boots... And that's not even all of them. Like I said, I have a problem.
6.
Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to remediation. In my experience, if a student fails seventh grade math, for example, it's usually not because he doesn't understand seventh grade math. It's because there are fourth grade math concepts he doesn't understand.
I know how easy it is to fall behind. I never failed, but I memorized formulas for the test and promptly forgot them later because I didn't know the reasoning behind the formulas. The older I got, the harder it became, because instead of a bank of mathematical reasoning, I had a bank of formulas I couldn't explain. The older I got, the more formulas I tried to keep straight, and the fewer I could remember with any kind of consistency. Even if you go for extra help, it's overwhelming, because you're afraid to ask questions because you know that everyone else mastered that concept two years ago and you've just been faking it. God knows I know how difficult it is to be the teacher in that situation. I can't tell you how many times I've started teaching sixth-grade level sentence structure to seventh graders only to find out they don't know what verbs are.
What I'm wondering is, what do we do? Here's what happens now: Student fails seventh grade math, most likely because he doesn't understand fourth and fifth and sixth grade math. He goes to summer school, where he is given seventh grade math, which he still doesn't understand, and no matter how fantastic the teachers are, there's only so much you can do with a seventh grader who doesn't know how to divide. In a perfect world, each kid would have individualized interventions based on specific learning needs, but that's a tall order. Do they make assessments that evaluate multiple levels (grade and complexity) of mathematical concepts? When would we give them? Who has the time to design that instruction? Who has the money to implement it with the student-teacher ratio it would require? I don't know. Certainly no districts I know.
Here's what happens: You get a group of students who fail subjects, go to summer school, don't fill in enough of the gaps, and get promoted to the next grade. If you could fail everything and still pass, wouldn't you? If you know you can get away with that, you do it, unless you have tons of intrinsic motivation. If you knew you could fail everything, get suspended on multiple occasions, and still pass to the next grade, why wouldn't you do that?
I know it's pointless to hold kids back. I've seen it happen many times, and I've never seen it work. Passing them up doesn't work. Holding them back doesn't work. So basically we're damned if we do or damned if we don't.
I don't know.
7.
My computer is a magnet.
8.
I am so excited for Halloween it is ridiculous. I'm trying to figure out what amalgam of Khaleesi gear I'm going to wear.
I'm thinking this will be my basic costume:
But I want to add in the element of "I just walked out of a fire unscathed having mystically birthed three dragons, thus I am covered in soot." Any ideas? I don't want to make my entire apartment and all the guests a mess by rubbing off on them. I also can't go naked, like she is in this scene, because of societal constraints, which is why I'm combining the two costumes.
9.
I'm still looking for a Khal Drogo.
2 comments:
lol @ 7.
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