The Brain Dump

Giving in to laziness

2005-02-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

So, for a while, I've been posting here and on my livejournal. But I'm tired of that. For the near future, anyway, I'm only going to post on the livejournal, so cruise on over there if you want to read my blog. Feel free to voice your anger/frustration/disappointment over the change. ;)

Who is reading this anyway? The only one I know of is Cy.. and maybe Joe, Andrew, Alana?

I work in the daytime now!

2005-02-03T20:46:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my last night working at night. I'm so happy to be moving to the daytime. I will miss my students a lot though. I hope my replacements treat them well (I'm sure they will). We ended the semester on a good note: the students worked hard on a math test and some models for science, then we invited the other classes in to see our science museum.

So today I wore myself out moving my classroom, grading, making report cards, organizing my files, throwing stuff out, and on and on. Tomorrow is more of the same. I'm going to try to get lesson plans for the first week of the new semester. In a perfect world I'd always be at least a week ahead on my lesson plans.

Interesting Reading

2005-02-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Doug Muder has some interesting new articles up on his open source political journalism page. One is an expansion on his previous article about terrorist strategy; the other is a reframing of "judicial activism." Both are worth reading.

Today

2005-01-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched that new show numb3rs. It was okay but it gave me nightmares all night, so I probably won't watch it again. Then I woke up grumpy because of the nightmares, but brendan made french toast with blueberry pudding for breakfast and now I'm happy again.

I'm almost done reading Middlesex for book club, which isn't even until next week. It's a good book; I reccomend it. I'm looking forward to the discussion... (ps, if you're interested book club, let me know & I'll get you details)

I'm not normally a pedant, BUT...

2005-01-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

Three things that really bug me:

-Overuse of the word "literally" to mean "I really, really mean it." The band wasn't literally on fire unless they were acutally combusting.

-Saying "I'm like, ..." or "I was going to say, ..." all the time, as if the speaker is merely a narrator in his or her own life.

-Using "media," "data," or "nuclei" as if they are singular.

(okay, maybe I am a little bit of a pedant.)

Stuff to check out...

2005-01-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

A couple of my friends have been doing interesting things this week. And putting them on the internet!

Cyrus posted a radio piece about a protest he went to in Bern last weekend.

And in the background of that piece, you can hear Jesse's band WadiRum. We went to their gig at Penny Lane on Saturday, and they had the place totally packed. If you're local, you should check them out sometime. They also have a CD coming out soon. In case you're not local :)

I'm constantly amazed and grateful that I know so many interesting people who do so many different and cool things.

NO!

2005-01-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Last night I had two school nightmares. In one, I was proctoring the state standardized test, and the students kept opening the booklets and working on the problems before we were ready to start. And I started *screaming* at them. Then I had to invalidate the tests, but of course that was good for them, because then they didn't have to take them. And I was afraid that everyone was going to start doing it.

I must have been really good in a past life...

2005-01-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

When I got home last night, Brendan had made banana cream pie. With chocolate crust. The recipe for which he made up himself. Sooooo yummy... :)

:)

2005-01-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

When I went for a walk this morning, a crow and a magpie were having a yelling match.

It went like this:
Caw-Caw-Caw
reereereeree
Caw-Caw-Caw
reereereeree
...and so on...

It lasted my whole way down the block.

It's a miracle!

2005-01-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

I just went to a consensus-based church meeting that got stuff done and ended on time. Not only that, but when we'd moved on to the "closing" part and someone tried to keep talking about business, he was redirected to the appropriate person to speak with, instead of being allowed to make me late for dinner. I love this church group! I'm going to become an official member.

2 thoughts

2005-01-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

First, the weather is interesting today. At the top of the hill on 36, the car said it was 50 degrees out (and I thought, great, it's warm enough to go to the car wash) and I was looking down on a big icky brown cloud over Boulder. Then, when I got down into town, it was only 36 degrees out. It's like this cloud of cold, dirty air is trapped in the "Boulder valley".

Second, today we had off of work, but I had a couple of hours' worth to do, so I went in this morning. Then, when I was done, I went to Mile Hi Comics because it's really near my work and I've never been in there. First, I noticed that they have tables for gaming in the front, which is something we've discussed, so it's noteworthy. I wandered around, it was a cool store. It got me thinking about "wench" and all the other nicknames/alternate personas people had in high school. (Wench was the nickname/persona of my friend whose family owns the store; I think I got to thinking about it because I could see a lot of where she probably collected it from).. It was entertaining to me to try to remember all the nicknames we had for people.. why did some stick and others not? It seems that most have long since been abandoned. Were they some kind of survival tactic to get through high school? Almost nobody I know has a nickname like that now.

Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil

2005-01-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

Apparently this song is at the top of the German music charts right now.

A 4-year-old made it up.

Listen and read the lyrics here. I think the orginal version is best.

This made my morning :)

Another good weekend...

2005-01-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Last week was a little weird. Tuesday school was canceled because of the snowy roads, and then Wednesday we hardly had any students, so we did an art project. So it was kind of a slow start after break. Maybe this week will be a little more normal.

This weekend was nice.. Saturday a bunch of people came over and we all made dinner. Jeff brought his new pasta maker and made pasta for the first time. I think it was a successful experiment. Then today we role-played... we finished the campaign that's been going for about a year. A couple of people are moving away starting now, but we're going to re-group and play again, probably something a little different. (So if you're in town and interested, let me know. Especially if you're female; we've had an even number of men and women and would like to keep it that way)

Brendan and I seem unable to grocery shop lately. For the past 4.5 years, we've done a really good job of grocery shopping once a week and not having to run out in the middle of the week for whatever. The last couple weeks, though, we've gotten home without something we really need, like toilet paper or pasta sauce. And then we have to run back out..

stuff

2005-01-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

I went to church on Sunday. There are 3 UU groups in town: the UU Church, The UU Fellowship, and this other one started by most of the people my family was friends with at the Church. It's a tiny little lay-led group. I went to the tiny little group and I really enjoyed it. The sermon was given by a family friend who's about 5 or 6 years older than me, so of course I idolized her growing up, and now she's about to become a minister. (but elsewhere) I'll probably be going to more of their meetings.

We had a snow day tonight! W00t!

It turns out we will be going to three weddings on three consecutive saturdays in May and June. We went to one last week too. It's like an epidemic or something.. :)

New year resolutions

2005-01-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm a couple of days late..

Eat sweets less and drink water more
Sit on the couch less and exercise more
Whine less and chill out more

Snowshoeing pics

2004-12-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

Andrew got us snowshoes for Christmas, so today we went hiking at brainard lake. It was already late by the time we decided to go, so we only got as far as Brainard Lake, but we had fun. Pics here. Also note the awesome new coat Brendan gave me for Christmas :)

Turn your back on bush

2004-12-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

Check out this inauguration day action.
I'm a fan.

brrrr

2004-12-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

our heater broke. I think it's partially our fault, too, for not changing the filter in time. but it is also kind of old.. so i'm sitting here totally bundled up and hoping the repair people call back soon...

update

2004-12-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

Things went pretty well at school last week. We have a professional development day tomorrow, which should be interesting. It's the first time the staff from both campuses will be together since the first week of school. I'm looking forward to the presenter, and both a little anxious and excited to see the other staff.

This weekend has been good. Friday night we went to the Downer, which I enjoy but always does seem to be a little bit of a downer. There were a lot of people there from high school who I haven't seen in forever, which is good and also strange. For some reason it makes me feel as awkward as I was in high school. And I was just having an awkward day to begin with, partially because I didn't like what I was wearing. And none of the people who usually act as awkwardness buffers* were there.

*The awkwardness buffer theory is one I came up with on Friday.. These are people with whom I have a non awkward relationship, and who I know will be my friends later even if I act or look like a total dork, and who also are in with the "cool kids". Like Cy, Al, Evan, Kate, Estelle, Russ... Joe too, but he was working.

A good day

2004-12-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today made up for yesterday.
I went skiing with my dad and Brendan, and Brendan skis really well dispite the fact that he's only been a handful of times. And he really really enjoyed himself, which makes me happy.

Then we went downtown for dinner and there was the parade of lights, and I saw the BHS band. It was kind of depressing, because they don't even wear the uniforms anymore, but it's cool to hear the old drum cadences. I'm glad they still know those, anyway, because as far as I know they're not really written down.

Why cleaning is cool.

2004-11-26T23:01:00.000-07:00

I found lots of cool stuff while I was cleaning up the study today. The two best:
-Some english vocabulary words (ca 1995) and some german vocabulary words (ca 2000). The english words have made their way into my general vocabulary, but I sadly could only identify *one* of the german ones.
-A lime-green combination master lock, but without combination. Luckily, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to crack it during the 4th quarter of the CU-Nebraska game. I'd heard it was easy, but I thought there would be some kind of.. i dunno.. expert touch or something. Turns out, nope.

Cartoon Theme songs

2004-11-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Well, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside... I noticed that a lot of the ones I had especially good or strong memories of came out in 1985. I guess that was the year I became aware of TV or something. I did start kindergarten in 1986 so I guess it makes sense.

Just in case you don't hear it enough today...

2004-11-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

Go vote now, if you haven't already!

It's Snowing!!

2004-10-31T19:36:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo! First snow.. it's really big and wet flakes.. :)

Conference

2004-10-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

I went to my first professional conference ever this weekend. It was for ESL teachers. I had a good time and learned a lot- the learning curve is so steep for me right now that everything helps. I also got a masters' credit for it. I seem to be collecting them without too much effort, which makes me really happy. And I got a bunch of materials from publishers and things. I really had no idea what kind of stuff was out there, and now I at least have seen some stuff. It was stressful being such a newbie, though. I'm not really sure how to play the whole "professional" game yet so it takes a ton of brain energy. But, I figure the only thing that's going to help that is more practice.

Misc

2004-10-26T10:14:00.000-06:00

We were going to go to Eugene for Thanksgiving, but that fell through. Bummer, I was looking forward to a change of scenery. But a few days to hang around here won't be so bad either.

School is settling down a little bit finally, and I'm getting to work on improving my teaching instead of just surviving. We have two weeks left in the quarter.

This weekend was great. We had a lot of people around for potlucks and hanging out..

Our bandwidth is dead...

2004-10-16T11:13:00.000-06:00

... Our bandwidth remains dead. And we have killed it.

(Gotta love bittorrent..)

This week

2004-10-15T11:58:00.000-06:00

I kind of feel like I've turned a corner this week from "brand new teacher" to "first year teacher." This was a long and hard week for lots of reasons I won't go into here, but it's the weekend now :)

Current Media Diet

2004-10-10T00:15:00.000-06:00

TV:
Presidential debates, The Daily Show, World Series games, and (the guilty pleasures) daytime TV's Starting over and The People's Court

Books:
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. LeGuin; Hawaii, James Michner (been chugging away on that since my birthday)

Radio:
NPR, especially "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and "A Prarie Home Companion"; KGNU; and I've gone back to good ole corporate KBCO, because I can sing along to it in the car

Movies:
Akira, Supersize Me, Hero

Periodicals:
The Daily Camera, The Science Teacher magazine, Utne Reader, Yes! Magazine

Blogs:
All my friends', Boing Boing, Bruce Schneier on Security

If anyone is reading I'd be interested to see what media you've been consuming lately... post on your blog & let me know about it. Or if you are blogless you can post in the comments.

Commentary: Sometimes I feel like I get too much input and not enough practice with creating anything on my own. Perhaps this is what is behind the three-post day? When I am bored, I seek more input instead of finding something creative to do with my time. I fear that I am a TV/ computer addict. I've thought about going on a media fast. But I feel like I also don't need to try to do anything to make my life harder right now.

It's that time of the year again...

2004-10-09T18:43:00.000-06:00

...when Brendan walks around the house going, "I hate the Yankees. I just HATE the YANKEES."

See you later, space cowboy...

2004-10-09T09:54:00.000-06:00

It was fun having Cy stay here, and now he's gone.

So, Cy, have an awesome time... Don't forget to let us measley stateside folk know what you're up to. Otherwise how are we supposed to live vicariously through you?

Also, thanks to Alan for getting married so that we all have a chance to get together. hee hee...

Routine

2004-10-03T16:59:00.000-06:00

So going into week five of school, I've settled into a routine, more or less. In the morning I get up, swim laps or go jogging, watch daytime tv for an hour, get stuff together for work, eat lunch, and clean up some. Then when I get home we've been watching the Daily Show and hanging out for a little bit before bed. Who knows how this will change when Cyrus leaves... But it's nice to know that even with the strange schedule, my days have rhythm.

By the way, if you haven't seen the Daily Show's coverage of the first presidential debate, it's worth getting hold of.

Oh, also, book club is starting again. Let me know if you are interested and I'll give you more details.

Strange sensations

2004-09-20T23:19:00.000-06:00

I've been living in my house long enough now, it feels enough like home... that sometimes I feel like I could just walk out of one room in my house and into a room in my parents' house. I'll want to wash my hands, say, and just for a moment I believe that I could do that in their downstairs bathroom. It's a little creepy.

Cowboy Bebob

2004-09-19T13:55:00.000-06:00

Oh, and Brendan, Cy, and I have been watching a lot of anime last weekend and this weekend, mostly Cowboy Bebob. Someone reccomended it to me a really long time ago, probably Andy Young back in my freshman year of college when he used to hang out on my couch in the dorm all the time. Anyway, it's good. Go rent it if you haven't seen it.

Ideas -> German -> Spanish

2004-09-19T13:32:00.000-06:00

Once again it becomes apparent that I'm really comfortable in the world of ideas, and not so great at converting ideas to reality. I can think of all these great things I want to do in my teaching, and then it just doesn't convert into anything I can actually do in the classroom. It's like there's this quantum step between theory and application that I really should be able to bridge. I can see both sides, there's really not a very big gap between them, and then it comes out as mush.

It's like when I try to speak in German these days. I know what I'm trying to say, but the muscles of my mouth just won't make the sounds. People always say they're impressed with the way I speak, but I know it's my vocabulary and sentance structure that makes it sound like I can actually speak german, not my pronunciation at all.

I'm picking up quite a bit of spanish. I can understand it pretty well now, especially when I know what the person speaking is talking about beforehand. Honestly I learned a decent amount in preschool and kindergarten, and it doesn't take that much to bring it back. I knew enough spanish when I was in kindergarten to write my cousin letters in spanish.

Quick update

2004-09-11T15:02:00.000-06:00

So last week was my first official week of teaching. It went really well. I can tell that I'm having a lot of typical first-year-teacher problems, which is both reassuring (because it means that I'm not just a failure when I have problems) and frustrating (because I want to be perfect NOW, dammit). The students are great and the other teachers are great. It's a lot of work. I think this is probably the hardest thing I've ever done. Or at least, right up there. I'm getting used to the wierd schedule, but it's sad that I'm at work when everybody else is having fun in the evenings... and when brendan is home...

Tomorrow...

2004-09-06T17:28:00.000-06:00

...there will be many many students for us to orient. It also means the first day that I'll be working from 2pm-10pm instead of the 7 to 3 I'm roughly used to. We'll see how easy it is to adjust my routines. It's funny, maybe it's because I just got a contract on Friday, but I just realized, I'm actually going to be making a salary and a net positive contribution to the family budget. I'm offically not a full-time student anymore...

Some people were here playing video games until late last night, which I enjoyed and Brendan really enjoyed. He's been wanting someone to play video games with him for a really long time.

It's all coming together...

2004-08-29T20:53:00.000-06:00

I spent a lot of Saturday buying secondhand books and stuff for my classroom (Ares Thrift Store was having a $10/bag sale, and KGNU was having a book & music sale.. score!)... I'm starting to feel like this is really real.. I'm actually going to have a class very very soon..

I had a great weekend, got to hang out with lots of cool people Saturday night and today.

Yes! and Utne Reader

2004-08-26T18:50:00.000-06:00

Those of you who read Natural Capitalism might be interested to know that the current issue of the magazine "Yes! A journal of positive futures" has a story written by Hunter Lovins and has several stories which reference Hunter Lovins, Amory Lovins, and their Rocky Mountain Institute. It also has a story on the boulder biodiesel group. The theme of the current issue is reducing our dependance on oil.

Also, this month's Utne Reader has a short point-counterpoint style article about hydrogen fuel cells. Amory Lovins provides the "for" voice.

Busy Busy

2004-08-25T19:43:00.000-06:00

So... if I didn't see anyone who's reading this lately.. I took a job at a brand new charter school for students who are learning english. I'll be teaching science and possibly math too. It's in Thornton & I'll be working at night. So.. It should be an interesting experience. And by interesting I mean really really hard. The students come to school in two weeks. Right now we are training in strategies to help the students learn english, and planning like crazy. The other people who work there are super-cool and way intense like me :)

p.s. The link is to a classic poem that I especially like.

Go Sara, JT, and Mom!

2004-08-23T07:36:00.000-06:00

Good luck to Sara and JT on their first day of college, and to my mom as she goes back to college! :)

Party Pics

2004-08-22T12:42:00.000-06:00

Pics from Friday's party are up on my website. Check 'em out!

I (almost certainly) have a job!

2004-08-21T15:37:00.000-06:00

It looks like I'll be teaching at this charter school for english language learners.. The students will be high schoolers who've recently immigrated to the US. I'll be working a strange day: 2pm to 10pm. Planning and training starts monday! I'm really excited about this.. I think it will be super hard but also really rewarding and I'll learn a lot.

Exploding

2004-08-21T12:54:00.000-06:00

I think it was Al last night who said something like, "I guess it's better for the group to explode rather than just fade away." It makes me sad to know that I'm going to have to miss some of you very soon, but I'm excited to hear about everyone's new adventures.

Hmm...

2004-08-20T13:44:00.000-06:00

duh = no duh
flammable = inflammable
I could care less = I couldn't care less

Can you think of more?

Wish me luck...

2004-08-16T15:38:00.000-06:00

So now I have not one, not two, but THREE interviews tomorrow (Tuesday). Yikes, it's going to be a loooong day. But there's a good chance I'll get a job offer out of it.

Self Destruction

2004-08-16T15:22:00.000-06:00

I borrowed parts of Carl Sagan's Cosmos this week. It struck me how much he says things like, "If humans do not destroy ourselves, we will one day travel to the stars." This series was made in 1980, the year before I was born, when the threat of nuclear holocaust was both new and real. I don't think that our generation thinks about it as much. What I was wondering is this: is the threat of nuclear holocaust less real or just less novel to our generation than to our parents'?

Good News

2004-08-14T11:52:00.000-06:00

Good News #1: I got my teaching license in the mail! I'm officially licensed to teach science in the state of Colorado. That also means I can tell potential employers that I actually have it, instead of, "I should get it any day, I've turned in all the paperwork."

Good News #2: My friend is teaching at a new charter high school for english language learners, and they have a science opening, so she passed my resume along.

Good News #3: I have an interview on Tuesday at a high school in Aurora!

I was feeling kind of like I'd already failed in the job search last Wednesday night, but now I think there might be hope after all :)

Party alert

2004-08-13T13:06:00.000-06:00

Warning!

1 week from today (that's Aug 20th) there will be a party at my house. Because some people are leaving, some are finishing their masters degrees, and some are getting new jobs. It also may be the last Ego/Transit tag team for quite some time (see above: people leaving). So be there!

The Hat...

2004-08-09T11:44:00.000-06:00

When I was in marching band in high school, our drum major ordered these hats for us to wear at basketball games. She didn't ask the band's opinion first, we hated them, and it became a really huge power struggle. We've since forgiven her :)

Ok, but today, when i was riding my bike on my street, there was this woman out on a lawn wearing one of the hats! I don't think it was someone I know (but who knows, the hat kind of hides the face)... they must have been thrifted or something. Or given away to other generations of band kids who didn't hate them.

Scientific Method

2004-08-09T09:38:00.000-06:00

Um... so we all know I'm a huge geek, right? Ok, then, here's something I made yesterday. It's a model of the scientific method the way I see it. It's still not perfect, and I played with adding in things like "Communicate Findings," but I like it. Mostly it looks too straightforward. Thoughts?

Updated: Al said the link didn't work, so hopefully it does now...

2004-08-07T15:54:00.000-06:00

Last night's party at Kate and Evan's new place was awesome. I hadn't seen them or Estelle since my birthday party, and that's just too long. Plus there were a lot of other people there I was glad to see. And now that I have electronic contacts for them, maybe we'll see each other more often. Because, let's face it, I'm a wanker about using the phone.

Also, Evan finally gave in and got a cell phone. Ever since Cy got his, I've been saying that if Evan got one, it would be a sign that everyone actually has one, and I need to use mine on a more regular basis. Since he's been mister anti-cell-phone for a while.. :) So, I guess that starting today, it may be a worthwhile means of contacting me.

Today I am lying on the couch recovering. It's nice.. brendan is at the other end of the couch reading a book, outside is an august storm that's actually producing rain, we're listening to electronica. Life is just generally good.

Two more great links

2004-08-06T15:11:00.000-06:00

-Freecycle- Give away stuff and get stuff for free.

-Doug Muder- This guy has been around on UU listserves forever. His hobby is writing, and his site has a lot of great fiction, political writing, sermons, essays, etc. Check it out.

Recent Favorites...

2004-08-05T11:37:00.000-06:00

Here are some cool things I've discovered lately:

-The anime series Trigun- Vash the Stampede has 60 Billion dollars on his head and loves life and donuts. Kyle left this with us.

-Threadless- Ongoing T-shirt design contest. Some really cool stuff.

-Questionable Content- Since Goats got sucky this is the best online comic strip I know of. Cy showed it to me a few weeks ago.. I read all the archives and have been reading it since..

-The author Christopher Moore- Rediscovered him, actually, in Hawaii. If you have a strange sense of humor like mine you'll love him. Some people don't seem to get it though. I bought his new book and was given a free advance copy of his next book, and both were great.

iMac

2004-08-05T11:19:00.000-06:00

So I gave away my old iMac today, and I felt kind of sentimental about it... Which is kind of silly, but- I did a lot with that computer. I had it at my parents' house, my dorm, the apartment, and here... I did all my undergrad work on it, chatted with people, etc. There comes a time to move on, though, and it's better that someone use it than it just sit in my closet.

Job Searchin'...

2004-08-04T11:02:00.000-06:00

So coming home from Hawaii was like stepping off the edge of a cliff. Never before have I had such fuzzy plans for the future. It's good for me though.

But! The job search is moving along, I figure pretty soon the administrators will go back to their schools and realize they need me there :)

Hello World

2004-08-01T13:35:00.000-06:00

I think I'll try to have a blog again.. I've been doing a personal journal recently & feel that I could edit it down to a public journal.