Cheryl's Wedding
I hit this up pretty well in the Bagwell post, but it should be pointed out that this was a blast. Always good to see the old faces to shock myself into the fact that life really is a continuous stream of people and experiences that continue to exist even out of sight. Or at least they do so effectively as to render any difference moot. My inner solipsist refuses to die. Anyways, yah, it was a great time, and great to see people. Dan McCallum is my hero.
Thanksgiving at the Searls
Always a treat, and at least part of the reason that iPJ is one of Wegman's Top 100 Shoppers! Congratulations, Digital Messiah! The Beck and I are still undecided as to whether this is a fact or an elaborate/brilliant prank. Thanksgiving itself was great per usual; beck and I headed down early on Wednesday and hung out until Sunday morning. Lots of talk of the wedding during the week, and many details were further hammered out. We also made it out to Bishop Manor to celebrate Liz's 3 cubed birthday. And let us pause to give...
PROPS TO LIZ!
She is one of the big reasons the blog is back up and running, because hey, who else would fill her idle hours with clumsy prose? Meghan and Greg also made the 90 West Trek, so we got to spend Thanksgiving with them, and James Searl was en la case as well. His band, Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad is on a successful rampage of sites from New York to Colorado and states inbetween, so if you get a chance to check them out, you most definitely should (don't be lame like TBN and fall asleep on them). Anyways, the beat rolls on in Rachacha, and I look forward to many holiday spendings in the years to come (though rumor has it, the Searls are planning to visit Boston the second my plane leaves the ground for texas, which makes me suspicious. If I come back to a vacant lot with no forwarding address, your primary suspects are IPs J and MM. Maybe I should start using Macs...)
New Teacher Conference
I will say for sure that the big benefit of my three day stay in Rhode Island was definitely the war story sharing with other teachings and learning first hand what a wide variety of teacher experiences there are out there. I also remembered that over-obsessed, over-bearing nerds in any profession are relatively unbearable. One quote sums it up for me - I had asked some (I think) fairly legitimate questions about reconciling your own pride in your level of talent with the fact that a career in education virtually guaranteed that you would earn less money and have less prestige than your peers from your college (a topic that, as noted, is and was near to my mind). This lifelong teacher responds with this tale of how she was once at a dinner party and people starting asking each other "what they make," and after many folks responded 80K or 6 figures or what have you, she stared down the table and delivered:
"What do I make? (Pause). I make a difference."
Same said lady teacher ended the conference by playing that crappy banjo Jamaican or whatever version of the what a wonderful world / somewhere over the rainbow medley and did some spoken word poetry about imagining ourselves in front of our classrooms, helping our students, blah blah blah. It was like watching a psychological ego defense and self-preservation tactic demonstration video in action; the lack of authenticity was impressive (or the brutal presence of authenticity was a veritable diploma from the College for the Insane). I mean, I love my students, too, but I don't pretend that teaching in new England private schools is somehow the equivalent of buying the world a coke. The koolaid stains on this lady's lips were permanent tattoos, Ay Caramba!
On the plus side, I roomed with Jon, one of the other math teachers from the Nut, and Antonio, the new Spanish teacher at the Nut. This was a good experience as they are both down to earth peeps. In fact, the situation at school is fairly great; the bulk of my (same-level) colleagues are great, and my bosses do not interfere with my day-to-day and when they do they are generally amicable about it. So good times.
Classes
I should additionally mention that my classes are great. Very sweet kids who don't always do their work completely but are generally on board with me. There are definitely some pains in the ass, but even they are mostly funny pains in the ass and not annoying ones, so it's all good. One of my favorite students of all time, Rachel, is transferring after break, so that's a bummer. But it's good to be surrounded by driven, optimistic people on a daily basis, even if I have to reign their egos in and/or crush their silly dreams now and then. Kidding! I have had a lot of management to do with my advisees, but they are doing well for the most part, too. The whole thing is very familial, and I appreciate that as a great place to be in. More props to the Liz for that one; she knows I am more or less forever indebted to her. First introducing me to Phish and now this! Liz is a superstar.
World Events
Clearly a slew of events have gone down. GWBush looks more like a war criminal everyday; I have really enjoyed Jay Severin's near daily call for his impeachment, even though I think it would never happen in, say, a billion years. Jay Severin is in general an entertaining guy, wacky in a lot of respects and borderline heartless in others. But intelligent, regardless, and so it's nice to hear a solid viewpoint these days, even if they are occasionally filtered through the same popular caricature nonsense that someone at some point deemed necessary to be heard in the grand old U.S. of A. Anyways, big discussions in class over the democrats capturing the House and Senate, Bush's crashing approval rating, the war in Iraq, and the grand etc. that has accompanied all of it. Michael Richards's tirade followed a couple of weeks later by a Holocaust Denial Conference in Iran? WTFTTM. I have found myself listening to the radio a lot more and am seeing the fallacies on both sides of the coin in nearly all arguments; hell in a handbasket looks like the only great consensus. The best political thing I've read of late was an offhand comment in this article on American English Usage by David Foster Wallace and yes, uh-oh, I realize that's the second article I've linked from DFW today. Sue me; he's a great writer, and those are the books I've been reading lately. Anyways, DFW makes a rather stunningly simple argument as why you should be simultaneously pro-life and pro-choice. The essay itself, incidentally, has nothing to do with abortion, but is a grade A five star essay on prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, which is awesome if you're into that sort of thing (which you very might be if, say, you were an Anthropology major in a former life).
Anyways, yeah, the world is majorly crazy right now. I am non-plussed by the general "First Israel, then the Americans" sentiment that seems to be coming from Iran these days. That's not good. And I don't like Americans dying sans good reason in Iraq, but I seriously hesitate to take the "demonize the bad guys" stance that a lot of the conservative folks take out there. In the butchered words of a Seinfeld quote, People: They're the Worst.
Tufts Alums Weekend
This was awesome. I spent a Saturday and Sunday down in Boston with a bunch of the Tufts E-men alums from the year I played there. It was mainly just a whole lot of hanging out and chillin', spiked by a game of disc golf, some bowling, some Ana's, some pizza, and a party at the undergraduates place. I can still DJ with the best of them it turns out, even if my music selection is appropriate for those born in the 80's or earlier only. We then spent Sunday hanging out at Funboy and Skipper's new house watching the Patriots, and as I mentioned earlier today, watching football with knowledgeable, cool folks is two steps above watchingiti by yourself and seventeen steps above watching with The Professor & The Sphere. Argh.
It's hard to define the E-men scene, and I'd be hard pressed to define it as anything other than Fraternity Plus, something I've relatively despised with the party line my whole life. My big groups of guy friends have been rare - there was certainly a substantial one at Rice just in the Lovett crowd, and another one with the Ultimate folks there. But there's just something otherworldly about this crew - a whole lot of well-fitting cogs with fascinating individual personalities that get amplified a million times when we hang out together. Conversations range from hard core philosophy to politics to sports to brutal idiocy, and occasionally we head bang and scream to Metallica. There is absolutely no doubt that any kind of alumni reunion has the danger of echoing a Springsteen song, a certain kind of remember when we were young, we shined like the sun, but with this group that's not entirely the point - sure, we do delve into a little bit of harmless idiocy on occasion, but it's really just an ongoing spike in a continual keeping in touch that I've never really felt committed to enough to work for int he past with a group of dudes. The E-men are sweet - we've got friends from multiple years of graduation, our Callahan trophy winner is as down to earth as can possibly be, and there's just an Emengeist that resonates with the group. When we converge, it's a pretty sweet feeling that goes beyond reminiscing; it's a dose of rejuvenation, a energetic pickmeup, a reminder that there are those great people out there with whom you click, even if you would never expect it upon first meeting. It can't be emphasized enough that the differences (well, as different as white suburbanites can really be) is a huge portion of what makes the thing transcendent. Plus the fact that I'm pretty much indestructible when I hang out with that crowd.
That's about all I got for the past three months,a t least for now. If I think of anything else overwhelmingly meaningful, I'll post it here. Otherwise, I'll have to wait for meaning in the present, which is always so damn elusive...
New Teacher Conference
I will say for sure that the big benefit of my three day stay in Rhode Island was definitely the war story sharing with other teachings and learning first hand what a wide variety of teacher experiences there are out there. I also remembered that over-obsessed, over-bearing nerds in any profession are relatively unbearable. One quote sums it up for me - I had asked some (I think) fairly legitimate questions about reconciling your own pride in your level of talent with the fact that a career in education virtually guaranteed that you would earn less money and have less prestige than your peers from your college (a topic that, as noted, is and was near to my mind). This lifelong teacher responds with this tale of how she was once at a dinner party and people starting asking each other "what they make," and after many folks responded 80K or 6 figures or what have you, she stared down the table and delivered:
"What do I make? (Pause). I make a difference."
Same said lady teacher ended the conference by playing that crappy banjo Jamaican or whatever version of the what a wonderful world / somewhere over the rainbow medley and did some spoken word poetry about imagining ourselves in front of our classrooms, helping our students, blah blah blah. It was like watching a psychological ego defense and self-preservation tactic demonstration video in action; the lack of authenticity was impressive (or the brutal presence of authenticity was a veritable diploma from the College for the Insane). I mean, I love my students, too, but I don't pretend that teaching in new England private schools is somehow the equivalent of buying the world a coke. The koolaid stains on this lady's lips were permanent tattoos, Ay Caramba!
On the plus side, I roomed with Jon, one of the other math teachers from the Nut, and Antonio, the new Spanish teacher at the Nut. This was a good experience as they are both down to earth peeps. In fact, the situation at school is fairly great; the bulk of my (same-level) colleagues are great, and my bosses do not interfere with my day-to-day and when they do they are generally amicable about it. So good times.
Classes
I should additionally mention that my classes are great. Very sweet kids who don't always do their work completely but are generally on board with me. There are definitely some pains in the ass, but even they are mostly funny pains in the ass and not annoying ones, so it's all good. One of my favorite students of all time, Rachel, is transferring after break, so that's a bummer. But it's good to be surrounded by driven, optimistic people on a daily basis, even if I have to reign their egos in and/or crush their silly dreams now and then. Kidding! I have had a lot of management to do with my advisees, but they are doing well for the most part, too. The whole thing is very familial, and I appreciate that as a great place to be in. More props to the Liz for that one; she knows I am more or less forever indebted to her. First introducing me to Phish and now this! Liz is a superstar.
World Events
Clearly a slew of events have gone down. GWBush looks more like a war criminal everyday; I have really enjoyed Jay Severin's near daily call for his impeachment, even though I think it would never happen in, say, a billion years. Jay Severin is in general an entertaining guy, wacky in a lot of respects and borderline heartless in others. But intelligent, regardless, and so it's nice to hear a solid viewpoint these days, even if they are occasionally filtered through the same popular caricature nonsense that someone at some point deemed necessary to be heard in the grand old U.S. of A. Anyways, big discussions in class over the democrats capturing the House and Senate, Bush's crashing approval rating, the war in Iraq, and the grand etc. that has accompanied all of it. Michael Richards's tirade followed a couple of weeks later by a Holocaust Denial Conference in Iran? WTFTTM. I have found myself listening to the radio a lot more and am seeing the fallacies on both sides of the coin in nearly all arguments; hell in a handbasket looks like the only great consensus. The best political thing I've read of late was an offhand comment in this article on American English Usage by David Foster Wallace and yes, uh-oh, I realize that's the second article I've linked from DFW today. Sue me; he's a great writer, and those are the books I've been reading lately. Anyways, DFW makes a rather stunningly simple argument as why you should be simultaneously pro-life and pro-choice. The essay itself, incidentally, has nothing to do with abortion, but is a grade A five star essay on prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, which is awesome if you're into that sort of thing (which you very might be if, say, you were an Anthropology major in a former life).
Anyways, yeah, the world is majorly crazy right now. I am non-plussed by the general "First Israel, then the Americans" sentiment that seems to be coming from Iran these days. That's not good. And I don't like Americans dying sans good reason in Iraq, but I seriously hesitate to take the "demonize the bad guys" stance that a lot of the conservative folks take out there. In the butchered words of a Seinfeld quote, People: They're the Worst.
Tufts Alums Weekend
This was awesome. I spent a Saturday and Sunday down in Boston with a bunch of the Tufts E-men alums from the year I played there. It was mainly just a whole lot of hanging out and chillin', spiked by a game of disc golf, some bowling, some Ana's, some pizza, and a party at the undergraduates place. I can still DJ with the best of them it turns out, even if my music selection is appropriate for those born in the 80's or earlier only. We then spent Sunday hanging out at Funboy and Skipper's new house watching the Patriots, and as I mentioned earlier today, watching football with knowledgeable, cool folks is two steps above watchingiti by yourself and seventeen steps above watching with The Professor & The Sphere. Argh.
It's hard to define the E-men scene, and I'd be hard pressed to define it as anything other than Fraternity Plus, something I've relatively despised with the party line my whole life. My big groups of guy friends have been rare - there was certainly a substantial one at Rice just in the Lovett crowd, and another one with the Ultimate folks there. But there's just something otherworldly about this crew - a whole lot of well-fitting cogs with fascinating individual personalities that get amplified a million times when we hang out together. Conversations range from hard core philosophy to politics to sports to brutal idiocy, and occasionally we head bang and scream to Metallica. There is absolutely no doubt that any kind of alumni reunion has the danger of echoing a Springsteen song, a certain kind of remember when we were young, we shined like the sun, but with this group that's not entirely the point - sure, we do delve into a little bit of harmless idiocy on occasion, but it's really just an ongoing spike in a continual keeping in touch that I've never really felt committed to enough to work for int he past with a group of dudes. The E-men are sweet - we've got friends from multiple years of graduation, our Callahan trophy winner is as down to earth as can possibly be, and there's just an Emengeist that resonates with the group. When we converge, it's a pretty sweet feeling that goes beyond reminiscing; it's a dose of rejuvenation, a energetic pickmeup, a reminder that there are those great people out there with whom you click, even if you would never expect it upon first meeting. It can't be emphasized enough that the differences (well, as different as white suburbanites can really be) is a huge portion of what makes the thing transcendent. Plus the fact that I'm pretty much indestructible when I hang out with that crowd.
That's about all I got for the past three months,a t least for now. If I think of anything else overwhelmingly meaningful, I'll post it here. Otherwise, I'll have to wait for meaning in the present, which is always so damn elusive...
No comments:
Post a Comment