wiggolation

So tomorrow we go to the Women's Project Theatre here in Manhattan. That should be fun. I get to ride the so-called cheese bus with my kids. They make fun of it just as I did way back when. Dreadfully, though, I have to go to the school out in Queens anyway at the same time -- 6.45 a.m. -- to get the kids together and get them on the bus and so forth. I get set free though after the play, at about 12.30, when we tell the kids to take the train back to Queens. Ha! See ya! I have to go make up a quiz I missed in grammar class last week, though. So no play time for me. Bummer. The play is called Cheat, but I don't know much about it. I will report on it later, if I can muster the energy.

Got observed today by James for the second time. He gave me some good feedback as before. He was wondering if I could somehow rearrange the students' desks so they could face one another and do pair work and such. Nice idea but I explained how this was my "difficult" class and that they blew their chances with that kind of interactive set up ealier in the term. I was all for the dynamic classroom in which they could do interactive things, like work in pairs and listen to music and watch films and such. But they basically took advantage of me and what I wished to do. A few actually ruined it for the rest for whom I do feel pretty bad--they have to put up with goof-offs in their class. With most classes those dynamic set ups are great fun. But now things are better in this class and I know from the kids that they appreciate the more serious tone of the class. Now they read and write and discuss and read and write and discuss and read and write. I regret they all have to stare straight at the board -- and at my mug for a double period -- but that's the only way it works with this class. All in all, even negative knowledge is knowledge is you use it to improve your teaching practices in the long term.

James also was amazed at how well behaved this class seemed. I told him it didn't just happen. That it took many weeks of sleepless nights and headaches to get the class focused and learning. (I think they are learning more now than before anyway.) So the observation thing is going well and is actually pretty helpful. James is a little older than I am, I think, but only a little, so there is an easy exchange of ideas and opinions on teaching. He's a PdD. candidate in the philosophy dept. and has a great teaching career ahead of him, I can tell. (I think we are going to hook up for drinks sooner or later as he too lives in the city.) As for the age thing though, some observers are as much as thirty years older. "What experience!" you might say. But when you think about it, if the teacher has not been keeping up to date with the advancement of teaching methods and the proverbial professional development stuff -- I frankly don't think many teachers in my school are -- things can get very difficult in many ways. I plan to elaborate on this very soon in an separate entry. Yeah, as soon as I get the time.....

Otherwise, life's a bitch and I'm never growing up.

Enjoy the moment.

Hey, kids -- leave them teachers alone! All in all, just another ....

Trying to get together a respectable homepage but it's tough when you've got this much laundry.

Possible MA thesis: The Red Pony as Joyce's rural counterpart and Bildungsroman.

It's otherwise a beautiful day in NYC with lots of sunshine.

Got a new look. I like it myself as it's white text on black background and so easier to read than the old gray on, eh, gray.

I’m such a puss. There’s another mouse in my studio, running around and making me crazy. This is pathetic. I thought I heard something under my sink where I keep plastic bags for the garbage can. I got up and startled the mouse and myself. This time the mouse is very dark and not light gray like the last one. It’s not a rat though--too small. Now I’ll be thinking about it all night. I’m so lame sometimes. Like this is news to you.

Today I went to Butler Library. Butler is Columbia’s main library and very, very nice, not surprisingly. Awesome resources ad infinitum. Beautiful classic design inside with lots of marble and oak and all that. There is a great coffee shop as you walk in too! I love going there, even if there are a lot of undergrads with an obnoxious number of workout clothes that say Columbia on them. I just laugh to myself. I'm such an ass.

Anyway, I returned some of the books I was reading, or at least scanning, for the MA exam. I happened to be in the mood to read some rhetoric and picked up NIU professor John D. Schaeffer’s “Sensus Communus: Vico, Rhetoric, and the Limits of Relativism.” I’ve only gotten through the intro and first chapter but I think it’s a very well written book and full of great ideas on rhetoric and literature and writing and orality and, well, a lot more. He’s a great writer and a sharp thinker Schaeffer. I learned in the Acknowledgements that Walter Ong was his dissertation advisor. How cool is that? Shaef bases his discussion of oral or “non-literate” cultures and literate ones on Ong’s work. If you want to read a good book on rhet, this is it. Reading the first chapter is like reading my lecture notes from the two semesters in which I had Schaeffer. Interesting to read your prof's scholarship.

I was, however, supposed to be marking essays and grammar quizzes and such. But I just couldn’t be bothered. Today I just needed to sit down with an interesting book and a strong coffee and relax. I need to reclaim my life from Queens and Columbia, if that’s possible. We're starting The Red Pony on Monday. Who can forget that book? I read it in eighth grade I think. Man, that was something like forty years ago. Of course, my kids are twenty and not in eighth grade--but they are ESL students and read at about the 5th grade level. So this short novel of Steinbeck's should be OK. I hope they like it.

On the way home I bought a computer desk, which I assembled myself without fucking it up. Now I don’t have to pile crap on top of crap and have crap all over the place. Well, I still do but it’s nicer to compute on my new desk. It’s really like a “work station” now. I think I’ll put up a cubicle round my new desk too. Yeah....

Two of the brothers come to visit me here in Manhattan Nov. 1–3. That’ll be fun. Probably get into some kind of mischief and decadence. I might bring them to Carmine’s, the Italian joint in my building. It’s said to be one of the best Italian joints in the whole city. Maybe we’ll play up the whole stupid Irish thing and go to the new Irish famine memorial down in Battery Park or something. Definitely want to take them to the Village for some bevies and haut culture.

I need to spice up this blog with pix and links and such. If I could just make the time.

Going home for dead bird weekend. That should be fun. I’m renting a car again so I can get down to some visiting straight away. Would like to get out to DeKalb and into the Chi and to my parents’ place in…somewhere in the bufu south suburbs.

Looks like Paris for Xmas but it’s not certain yet.

The Tour de France 2003 route was announced this week. It's based almost exactly on the first one back in 1903. Can Lance take his fifth tour in a row? He said he wants to do Paris-Nice next year too. I would return to Nice to see that as he hasn't ridden it in ages...and it's not a bad place to visit.

Now I need to make a Bailey's coffee to get rid of the mousy jitters....

Had a studious three-day weekend with Henry James, Mary Shelley, and even Shakespeare. I am feeling more confident about passing the comps than I did last week, that's for sure.

Got observed on Friday. That seemed to go OK but the observer later sent especially positive feedback. I'd say it was generous even. I certainly needed it.

Today was beautiful out though I had only an hour of it walking to and from the library. Too busy to bike is really just too busy.

may your mind be wide open
may your mind set you free

may your heart beat strong
may your heart lead you on

Been raining in NYC for a day straight. Like a monsoon. Yes, torrents of rain, that’s right. The grocery store across the street had to close up its fruits and veggie stand out front as there was too much rain coming down a little too constantly. Well, we did need a rinse.

The whole week just sucked. I can’t get over the constant roller coaster. I hate the lack of normalcy in the teaching profession. At least at the high school level. It’s so hard to deal with. It helps little that my school is alternative and fucked up in many ways. There are two camps: those who like the AP and those who don’t. I just don’t like teaching in this environment. As Beckett says, though, “I can’t go on; I’ll go on.”

That said, I am back to organizing everything in my life. Catching up on the tedious bills, paperwork for Peace Corps Fellows, AmeriCorps, and the Teachers’ Union, cleaning and organizing the flat, and trying to get things done that I have been having to put off for want of time. If there is one consolation in my madness presently it is that I can say I have been doing what I can and that if there are things I am not getting done it is because they are impossible to get done. It feels good to clear that up in my own mind. God, this is so pathetic. If there is actually somebody reading this….get a life already. I mean, God.

Need to keep my mind on higher levels. Know what I mean? There are so many trivia in my daily life that distract me from the important things, like art, understanding, progress, knowledge, identity, passion. I am happy to say that for about an hour my students and I got to a higher level in our discussion today of a short story. We were talking about gender roles in a Hemingway story, “A Day’s Wait,” but the main thing was that when the bell rang we all seemed to feel it was a shame we had to end our exchange. This was motivating and kept me thinking on the train. God I hate the fucking train.

Well, this could be what it’s all about. I mean, you grow up thinking there are brilliant things awaiting you, things which are for ever “going to happen,” and yet you find you can at best make only the smallest of efforts. Your time is scant and you do what you can. If you are fortunate you realize, that is, you make real, your demands on the things that are “going to happen.”

Seems to me that once you accept that there is no such thing as the future and no such thing as the period in which you are going to do these important, meaningful things, you begin to act on what is important to you. Then, and only then, do you begin.

The rain is coming down. I can’t see the rain or even hear it but I can hear the rain water splashing off the tires of the taxis as they drive past my building down on Broadway.

Let it rain down.

OK, I've been too lazy to blog. Too busy, that is. Way too much going on with MA(s) and teaching. It's just so fucking ridiculous. I can't believe I put myself in this position. I am really doubting my ability to write a passing exam when I sit the Comprehensives October 19. I just can't concentrate on lit crit when my Queens classes demand this much from me. What was I thinking? Complain, the little voice says, complain, that's all you do, complain....

This work thing totally sucks.

OK, I'm being stupid and ranting. Having a bad day, in other words.

OK. Things to be happy about. Happy Hour at The Parlour. That's one. Columbus Day off (so I can sit in the library). That's two. Money in the bank to spend (when I get the chance to, that is). That's three. I think I'm going to pay off my bike and do some major CD shopping. At least I'm not materialistic or anything.

A co dal?
Veci, veci, veci.
Miluju veci.

I've got to find out who Nelly really is and what "A Day's Wait" is all about.

This is such a lame fucking entry.

O, kind reader! Do find worthier reading!