I-5 Bridge North at Rush Hour.

I had a class to get to in Vancouver, so off I rode on my bike. There is a section of the bike path to the I-5 bridge where the path is surrounded by freeway and freeway on ramps.
On this Thursday night traffic was not moving.

Not on the freeway, not on the on ramps, no where.

I beat a lot of these cars over the bridge.

Though then I had a long ride up a gradual hill before I got to my class.
I don’t want a huge bridge to replace the current bridge, I think the people who choose to live in Vancouver and work in Portland have made their beds and need to lie in them. I would, however, be in favor of a bridge the same size with a rush hour tolling structure, and the extension of light rail across the Columbia into Vancouver. In the meantime, I’m glad I have no reason (nor car) to drive across the bridge during rush hour.

Books read in June

A mostly nonfiction month due to a bunch of teaching-inspired holds arriving at the same time. Not a stellar month for fiction. Hopefully July is better.

Read
Women Food and God
Geneen Roth
I’ve read all of Geneen Roth’s books and really like her philosophy. This short book was a restatement of such, but with more god this time. Because it didn’t include a magic pill to fix everything, I guess I’ll have to start following her advice. Again.

The Women
TC Boyle
I liked the writing style of this book but I did not like this book. Frank Lloyd Wright: unlikeable. Mistress #1: not really likable. Mistress/Wife #2: extremely unlikable. Mistress/Wife #3: likable. The story of Wright’s women is told in reverse order, so once likable wife #3 exits the scene, the last half of the book is filled with women I wasn’t quite so fond of. Also, intrigued to see what Taliesin, his home in Wisconsin, looked like I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered the great tragedy associated with Wright that I was not aware of. Had I not read about that, this book probably would have had more dramatic tension, as Boyle presents that part of the story last.

I did like the narrator as former Japanese apprentice. That worked for me. But ultimately, this was a big, thick book full of people I could not stand.

Motivating Students Who Don’t Care
Allen Mendler
Very short book(65 pgs) with five different approaches to get students to learn what you want to teach them. The approaches are:

  • Emphasize Effort
  • Creating Hope

  • Respecting Power

  • Building Relationships

  • Expressing Enthusiasm

Within these approaches are some good tips such as working two minutes per day for 10 days to build a relationship with the student and telling the chronically late student that though you will probably keep bringing the issue up, you are happy to have him/her the 50 minutes in class s/he is there. Also a great point made: there is very little teacher can force students to do these days, so why not gentle them along?

There was a tip about calling home and leaving praise messages for students so they would be most likely to hear it when they get home after school, which I don’t think was such good advice, but other than that, a great quick read.

Change your brain, change your body
Daniel Amen
Interesting perspective on changing your body. Amen uses brain scans and identifies areas of the brain that are not functioning well. With treatment, patients see rapid improvement in a variety of areas. This is according to him. I, not being a medical professional, have no idea if this is true or not. It was interesting to see the brain scans of people with head trauma and hear about their impulse control issues.

Amen has clearly built a commercial empire, with brain scanning clinics across the country as well as a line of supplements and many, many other things you can buy to make yourself better. However, you could follow many of the action steps without all his merchandise and probably still see improvement.

Brooklyn

Colm Toibin

Not a very long book. The whole time I was reading it, I kept wondering why. The plot seemed to have no compelling reason for me to keep reading. I did get attached to the main character and her choices, but there wasn’t really an ending. I feel like this was a fleshed out outline for a much longer book.


Started but did not finish
What every teacher should know about student motivation.
Donna Walker Tileson
Seemed to be a good book, but I lost interest in learning more about student motivation. (Hah!)

Meet Me In the Middle: Becoming an Accomplished Middle School Teacher.
Rick Wormeli
A broad approach to middle school teaching. It being my vacation, the fiction books were calling and I set this aside. It would be good to read before an interview though.

Poem for June: The Lake Isle of Innisfree

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
W.B. Yeates

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

I chose this poem because one of my visualizations for mediation is at a small cabin on a lake. I would like to eventually find a tiny cabin on a lake to visit each summer, but for now, my visualization and this poem will do.

Three sentence movie reviews: Hot Tub Time Machine


Four separate times during the movie Matt leaned over and said, “Remember, you were the one who chose this movie.” And indeed there was a lot–from a feminist perspective alone–to quibble with during the show. However, I thought they had a particularly brilliant way of showing the 40-ish actors as 20-year-olds and there were some laugh-out-loud funny parts.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2010/hot_tub_time_machine.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Serenity


It’s still a tragedy this show was canceled so early on. The characters still are fabulous, lovable and funny. As good as this movie is, it doesn’t make up for the fact that we never got even a full season of the series Firefly.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2005/serenity.html

I can’t look away.

This photo doesn’t accurately capture the object of my fascination and for this you should thank me. This gentleman, who I sat behind on the train, clearly had trouble shaving all the hair from his head. The hair caught in the fat rolls was rather long, and you could see how the clippers and razor missed them. As he would turn his head, different hairy patches were exposed. I tried hard to concentrate on the newspaper, but I kept getting distracted.

Three sentence movie reviews: Frank Lloyd Wright


I’ve just finished T.C. Boyle’s book the Women and had to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin. Who better to show me than Ken Burns? Very nicely done documentary with a insight into FLW’s life.

poster from: http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=1402646

Three sentence movie reviews: Mama Mia


Kinda slow and mostly vapid and you would be better off seeing it as live theater where you can hear so many people sing along. That said, it does have Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried who are always delightful to watch. And Pierce Brosnan’s singing wasn’t nearly as bad as I was led to believe.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2008/mamma_mia.html