4000 in 5

4000 Americans
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/us/25dead.html?th&emc=th
Masters of War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muQRIUVd6Aw
Soldiers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh6mk8f0HdU&feature=related
Cold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acn3fwwNH00

Spring without a Revolution

I used up all of my fun before the week of spring break. Now I face a few days with nothing to do but grade and clean. This weekend will be fun with A's baby shower. Ug and grad scbool. ugh and charley has created this feeling of conspiracy in my paranoid brain
yes I have a great support group. But it feels like the first time I've been alone in while. Maybe I just miss "the Wire": one is never alone with cable I suppose, my true love, HBO. That's ok, maybe I'll marry it and I'll change my name to Mrs. K.J. HBO.

I love the John Adams series. I know I'm supposed to be in love with In Treatment, and I am, but John Adams is so interestin.g Econtrario talked about Thomas Jeffe rson for an entire summer and I am actually kind of shocked about how much I know about it. The cast so interestingly portrays this part of America. Also, they were comparing Obama to Jefferson on Bill Maher the other night. Politicians who rise above their times and see the ultimate government ever created for what it really is. or what it really should be. I thought Bill Maher was a little defensive, thinking he could joke about the race issue and then realizing his panel was so serious about it. I actually couldn't keep watching the entire thing because the woman professor was so intense.

I complain about how I couldn't afford to travel this break, and then watch people 200 years ago having to take a boat across the Atlantic to gain support for their revolution! Leaving their wives, children, and fellow countrymen to die while they go dine with the silly French. I complain about my silly chores, when I don't have many rows to hoe as they say. Have to clean my house, but not scrub it in fear of small pox.

What strange lives we lead in the Information Age.
I will just enjoy spending the time working on my work that I have put off for so long, and clean this house that has caused a bit of a headache this week. I will chat with sisters and email mom.

Speech

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords

Slug or Sloth

The beginning of March has been quite unproductive. I have made significantly large piles of assignments, lab equipment, dishes, mortgage forms, bills, bottles, ashes, clothes, and a sticky mess of chocolate mint syrup spilled by unknown cat in smelly basement. However, today, I have cleaned up said syrup mess and thought about the above mentioned piles and prioritized them.

My students may have changed their minds about me, I may actually have a little more energy and a lot more jokes in the classroom this quarter. We are always laughing. Field trip next week and it always the part of the year that the kids start to make connections with all the lame assignments I give all year and how they apply to the actual environment. We also have a good time. It is supposed to rain, but we won't melt. They also just had sports night, where the classes (Srs, Jrs, Soph, Freshies) compete for silly games. They sit in areas in the gym and chant taunts at one another. They played crab soccer, bat relay, rope climbing, blind volleyball, etc. The dance team are the referees. It appears the most important thing was how much of your belly you were willing to expose to write your class on the belly 2008! Some of my students started out with one letter on each of their shirts to spell out SENIORS. By the end of the evening they spelled IRS ONE! I thought this hilarious.

Also, team ironhorse has the 9th highest score this year from our trivia league. But we did lose quite dramatically last night being tied for 2nd at halftime and then bombing all the remaining questions. Science teachers lost on Xyphoid process ? and Einsteins birthplace ?, English teachers misspelled aneurysm (aneurism is wrong).

Heading to a colleagues 40th bday party tonight with a "Casino Night" theme. Ice luge for shots, a tornado of cash, roulette, poker, craps, deep fried turkeys, etc. Should be fun, but it is in PA.

End of long post, it appears the mid of march has turned things around a bit, and no matter how often I wash them, my hands still smell like chocolate mint.

new roo mates post

so we're living here in towson town
where they're tearing all the college buildings down
out in bethelehem their tearing up forms standing in line

so our forefathers fought the world warz
and all your mothers are world class whores
why would we care and who wants INDY (thats kendeall-jackson's dog by the way)
She likes him very much?

new

They tore down all the old houses in Towson.
You can see from Burke to the Circle.
The library sign glows red in the distance.
They tore down all the old houses in Towson.
They used to be boarded up.
But you could see the keg parties on the porches on the duplexes front porches
and the kids playing in the backyards of the mansions
and wonder about their large lion gated front steps.
The old houses in Towson that they tore down used to block the view.
Now it shows the drive thru starbucks all the way to the starbucks by the mall.
They tore down all the old houses in Towson.
Now we wait for the new condos/townhomes/single family homes that will block our view again.

snow days

The shallots I sauteed in butter still resonate in the kitchen. There may be an infestation of small flying things in the potato bin in cupboard. The fridge full of food all inedible. The pants stay unfolded in the laundry bin, iron is on, but will not press. Newly painted fingers and toes wait to dry. Snow in Maryland seems to freeze time, inside and out.

Switzerland

So Divorce club is going well, who knew that my little disease is contagious! I've been helping four friends deal with their divorces. TNT said I should teach remedial divorce 101, especially for those that failed the marriage HSA. Hilarious! I must be careful to not take sides, or to make anyone feel that I'm not there for them. I also should be careful how many drunk texts I send to ex#1.

I've been working on how I teach a lesson. The presentation, expecting questions, socratic questions, increasing participation. I know that the students have noticed. It may have come about from my education classes at grad school. It has been awhile since I have focused on the art of teaching instead of the content. This is much more fun than molecular biology or animal physiology. To analyze how I teach instead of what I teach is making my job more fun and actually easier . Except the grading, which I just keep in a pile.

Thank goodness for these few days off in February (today is an ice storm day off! yesterday off for the obama day!). I'm going to go to NYC for the weekend.

Obama

Mr. Epiph and Sr. Econtrario both have the same Obama video on their blogs.

Obama Video
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/semr?source=SEM-register-yahoo-obama-search
Yes, we can. I'm in all the way - hope this isn't another of my life altering heart breaking Bavetta moments when I get crushed. I am completely an Obama supporter. Putting myself all the way behind something... dangerous. Like "When John Stockton passed the ball to Karl Malone, Michael Jordan stole the ball away and dribbled to the front. Guarding him was Bryon Russell, one of the Jazz's best perimeter defenders. Jordan drove inside the 3-point line, crossed over (while apparently pushing off[1]), took a jumpshot from 20 feet and made it to give the Bulls an 87-86 lead with 5.2 seconds left. After a time-out, Stockton's three-pointer hit the rim and bounced away, giving the Bulls their sixth NBA title in 8 years." I was crushed. 2000 election heartbreak, electoral put not popular vote...crushed.

Let's go Obama team, win this one for the dogs...As goes the superbowl.

P.S. I watched this game again 9 years later in a cabin in Vermont.

Older

Best bday present was my iPod fixing itself. I dropped it and it turned from sad pod to playing music!!! I have saved all the songs on computer #3 and it is very calming to have all the music back. A missing section of myself is back. Quite nice. Many friends, food, and flowers at the Friday night get together.

So I will spend this weekend planning lessons, cleaning house, and I have a couple of lunch dates and even a movie date (??).

We'll see. Now I just want to listen to music all day and so I shall.

Song of the Day "You've Got Her In Your Pocket": The White Stripes

New year

Resolutions, tend to turn out as successfully as my vows I guess.
Things I did in 2007 I will not do in 2008... anti-resolutions (anti-vows)

• Exchange vows or fall down at any weddings.
• Go on vacation 8 times to 12 places
• Move to different house (unless forced by bankrupt bipolar bears)
• Procrastinate housework
• Watch movies in lieu of reading
• Murder a computer
• Sing Karaoke

Things I did in 2007 that I will keep doing

• Instant Messaging & Blogging with my Family (more than weekly :))
• iPhone iPhanatic
• Refrigerator magnetic poetry
• Is my hair really brown?
  

Nine things I learned from my unhoneymoon...

1. Waves really do sound like someone breathing. This is relaxing.
2. Walking on the beach with your toes in the sand is better than a pedicure.
3. If you stay in your room past check out, they don't send security until 7.
4. Canadians... Say a few things too often, Niagara Falls -eh?
5. The iPhone is iPhantastic and one can change a flight, email a lesson plan, and call the dog sitter without leaving the beach.
6. I have spent way too many vacations being nervous about roles and judgements from strangers. This is something I will try to never do again. I have always turned into a freak when traveling with a man. ?
7. No matter what you're going through, someone else in a hot tub somewhere is going through it too.
8. News heard near the ocean is often less shocking.
9. Relationships come and go, but friendships come and go and come back (like waves).

seven things

     1. I got a D in Romantic poetry at Cambridge University.  2.  i tell people my favorite band is Led Zeppelin but its really Aerosmith.  3. I ran away when I was 13becausse I heard Springsteens Born to Run.  4.  I am a computer serial killer.  5.    I once went skinny dipping in high school and accidentally came home in someone elses underwear. 6.  I copied Scott Robinsons homework everday in sixth grade 7.  I am the 2011 class sponsor at my school which means iI will help organize proms and read their names at graduation.

good grief

iI m making funeral potatoes jello salad and meatloaf for the wake tonight.   Am trying to fit meatloaf into container and its too big so i have to eat some.  Delicious. I want to serve completely from Tupperware.  n   iam  also grieving the other less discussed loss.  quite the ritua l want to buy a spray if flowers but probably conserved funds.  going to dress like Jackie o for the wake.also lost grammer rules and the use of a mouse with iphonehandicap.

computer wake

this is a little challengng blogging from the iphone   however  the national blog month revealed by econtrario suggests i must suffer and blog within the 5stages of death about my computer.  grief alone.

4 months

I don't want to have to live like this. I want to be fat for a reason and for my vows to count. But I will do it, I must. The tears are a bit less salty, and the sobs less loud. I still see the ghosts, but I'm starting to see my real self in the shadows. Otterbutt's novel saved the weekend. Thirty-one's brunch did much the same in the city of salt. Many thanks to them both. My students spent 40 minutes looking at soil under the stereoscope saying, Ms. Dub come see this bug. I ran to look. Ran home to not hear clunking army boots up the back stairs.

No epiphany here

I am staring at an entire weekend. I have a pile of grading, my house is a pile, besides reading back issues of New Yorker and missed episodes of Mad Men, I have no plans. None. Well, there is a bottle of KJ in the fridge = A Date! The last episode of Mad Men, of course, ends with someone sitting on the stairs listening to Don't Think Twice. I once thought that song was the meanest break up song in the world. Now I just cry when I hear the first chord, wishing I could play the guitar. I also find myself crying on the stairs very often. Stairs to the basement, Stairs to the bedroom, the crazy crooked creaking Stair in TNT's back staircase, Marble Stairs into TNTs where I sat this morning with my boys drinking coffee, picking up my car in the same clothes as the night before. The example of Entropy Stair on my front porch. Things fall apart.

The Louise Gluck poem "Marriage" in this week's New Yorker is about me, I swear. http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2007/10/22/071022po_poem_gluck
It made me plan a trip to the ocean "Down the shore" as they say here in MD. Instead of driving to the ocean, I'm sitting in my pile avoiding the stairs. Epiphany in Baltimore makes me seem ridiculously lazy.

Ironic Irony

In tribute to econtrario haiku autumn... with editing by otterbutt

Her ex man came back
with dad, bro, camera, cop.
Herman the crab too.

Bipolar Bears

Police man, video camera, dad, brother, friend, and him. 7 am. they came to get his stuff. I got to look into his eyes. At least. I feel dissected.

oh yeah

I forgot to mention my students. Teaching... it's what I do.