wiggolation

Another pub-crawl has come and gone. Burp. I joined in at about 8:00 at The Abbey Pub over der on 105th and Broadway. The highlight was listening to all the gang at the last pub, The Dublin Pub. (Forget where that is.) PC people are fine drinkers.

Now it's supposed to be planning for the first week of school, which begins Tuesday for teachers and Thursday for the students. But my cousin is in town from Ireland for the weekend! She and her traveling companion (another Irish lass) are staying at my place tonight as they can't get hotel accommodation till Sunday. So it looks like I'll be out gallivanting round New York today and most certainly tonight. This cousin comes from Donegal and the Corley clan, so she is mad like the rest. So we've a lot in common.

So much to do and so little motivation on a mild, cool day like today.

O! Went cycling yesterday in the Park and along the river. Lots of fun too, though I have to regain my old level of fitness before I go as hard as I did yesterday. Still walking a little funny.

Some facts I came across on the Web.

New York Public Schools Stats

Number of Schools: 1,098

685 elementary schools
234 middle schools
179 high schools

Average School Size:* (1995-1996)

Elementary schools: 759
Middle Schools: 874
High schools: 1,573

*numbers do not include citywide, special education students, pre-K students or long term absentees.

Number of Students: 996,821* (1995-1996)
37% Latino
35.9% African American
16.8% White
10.3% Asian

Note: Asian includes Native American, Pacific Islander and Other
*numbers do not include citywide special education students, pre-K students
or long term absentees.

Number of Teachers: 68,248 (1996-1997)
64.1% White
18.9% African American
13.0% Latino
2.7% Asian/Pacific Islander
.8% Unknown
.5% Native American

Percentage of Students Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: (1995-1996)
approximately 75.5% of all elementary students
approximately 69.8% of all middle school students
percentage of high school students is not available.

Back in NYC after a trip to the Chi. T'was a generally good time back too--got to party with the DeKalb crowd at Matt's party, see family at my sister's surprise party, and buy a new bike. I got to hang out with special friends too.

NYC I came back to in the rain. And it's still raining a day later.

Went to Brooklyn for the first time to submit some paperwork. The person I dealt with was friendly and funny so the hard-ass city teacher/support figure I had had in mind did not surface, at least in this visit.

Today's the first "cold" day in NYC for me. It's about 60 F. or so and wet.

I felt content to be back in NYC. A feeling that just came out of me. I suppose I'm getting to like it here even more.

To all my Czech friends: If there's anything I can do for you, please email me or call me. I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

12 Symptoms of Peace Corps Withdrawal

1. Subscribing to magazines normally found only at libraries.
2. Salivating when you hear poly-rhythmic music.
3. Confusion between immediately and next week.
4. Anxiety induced insomnia from lack of mosquito net in bedroom.
5. A fixation with ethnic restaurants.
6. Decorating more than two rooms of your house with host country memorabilia.
7. Considering yourself better informed about developing countries than other people working in the field.
8. Greetings exceeding three sentences, eight seconds, or more than three body parts.
9. Involuntary use of foreign swear words and interjections.
10. The desire to do everything outdoors.
11. The inability to use the left hand for any cash transactions.
12. Guilty feelings about your indulgent lifestyle.

Nothing's fallen out of any windows lately, at least as far as I can tell....

Can't wait till this week is over. I mean, really, I can't wait. School is OK and some days even interesting, but I just can't forget the fact that I have so few days to go outside and be outside and just be outside. In good weather, no matter how humid and hot it gets here in NYC. Before you know it it'll be Labor Day. Jeez! That's fucking scary. Must not think about this.

One teaching portfolio turned in today; one to go. Might be a late one tonight. If I stopped blogging I might get some work done.

Columbia seems a hell of a lot easier than NIU was. Though I say this with reservation. I guess I think this is the case because TESOL is by and large a lot easier to grasp than rhetoric.

My cousin from Ireland is coming to NYC soon. Should be fun to hang out with him and his wife, who is French. He's a marathoner and a chemical engineer but still manages to be a great person to go on the piss with. Can't keep a good....

The humidity just kills me. I never felt so sweaty and generally in need of a cold shower in the Chi or elsewhere. Must be the overpopulated boro I live in.

On the bright side I'm close to owning a new racer. Yay, Student Aid! Central Park and the Hudson shoreline never sounded so good.

Busy with the semester winding down: less than a week to go. Got two portfolios to do for Monday and Tuesday and a last week’s worth of lesson planning to boot.

Went to the Forum Cinema today to see Rashomon by Kurosawa. Cool narrative and beautiful score. Overall a great film. The only thing that bothered me was the almost visceral, cackling laughter of the Bandit and the Wife. An element of the grotesque almost. But what do I know about film anyway. (The Forum, by the way, is on Houston Street near downtown. For some secret reason the street's pronounced HOW-STON and not hue-stun.)

Otherwise, last week I was somewhat startled when I heard a loud crash outside my window, down on Broadway. Surprisingly it was not a car accident but also something I could not really see. I noticed, once I stuck my head out my window and looked straight down seven floors on to Broadway, that there was a large hole in the Italian restaurant’s red awning directly below me. There were also three Asian men pointing up in my direction, as if to say, “Hey! What’s the big idea up there?” I just retired to my book.

Fast forward to today. I’m walking into Duane Read (the NYC Walgreen’s) for some toiletries and I meet the Columbia University Resident Director of my building, Orla, a charming PhD. candidate from dear dirty Dublin nonetheless. After bullshitting with her about how I’m going to join the gym that she goes to across the street, I ask her what she’s been up to. She says “nothing but about a week ago my air conditioner fell out of my 15th-story window.”

Now there’s an Irish joke here somewhere. Suggestions welcome. If only I could write--or tell--jokes.

I have been very lazy about posting to my blog. I get the feeling no one really cares anyway. Well, I need to post or I'll forget all that happens to me and how to write regularly.

Having said that, I am just posting this short update to say I took a long weekend to myself. I needed it. Things were getting a little too busy and routine at school. So I hooked up with some friends and avoided all things responsible. Felt good too. And I had more energy and concentration on Monday.

Otherwise, there is only a week and a half left of school. That is, only a week and a half of teaching at night and attending class in the day. I will be heading to Chicago Friday, August 23 till Wednesday, August 28. This should be fun. I mean, you can't get Old Style in NYC. What's up with that? You can get beer from fucking CZ but not from Wisconsin?

Teaching still going very well. Students have been engaged and all that, which is good. It's certainly a lot of work though.

I am going to get back into cycling regularly again. Been too long and I miss it. Will be the terror of Central Park. One of hundreds of terrors, that is.