Tag: me

A tragic day for my favorite pair of sandals

I bought these sandals when I was preparing to go to Hungary and Romania in 2005. I love them. They have cute swirly designs on them, they look fashionable, I can walk for miles in them, they give me an extra inch or two in height. They are the perfect sandal. Today, they did what they have been threatening to do for months now, split open in the back. I love them too much to discard them outright, so I will take them to the cobbler to see if miracles can be worked. But I’m not very optimistic. It may be time for us to part ways.

The best intentions.

Things I had in my mind to do today.

  • Deal with the greens harvested from the garden
  • Start at least one round of cheese, if not two
  • Make some salad dressing
  • Work on my scrapbook
  • Work on the roman shades

Things actually done today

  • Five loads of laundry, washed, hung to dry, brought in, folded and put away.
  • Finish fiction book
  • Finish non-fiction book
  • Start fiction book.
  • Take two naps
  • Pretty much laze about.

I think I’m feeling a bit paralyzed by my unfinished projects. Blast!

Bands

The location of my work is near several live music venues, with one of them large enough to get moderately famous acts able to have a painted truck and a fancy tour bus. Sometimes when walking to work from the train I see the various tour buses and vans that make up the gypsy train that is modern music touring. Once in awhile, when I am on recess duty in the park across the street from my school, a van with a tow-trailer will pull up and park and out will tumble a pack of grungy musician-looking people. I once saw someone brushing his teeth right there at the edge of the park.

I’m guessing I will always remember that guy brushing his teeth. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, back in the day I wanted to be one of those modern-day minstrels. I knew I wasn’t good enough to actually be a band member, but I had hopes of moving equipment in fifty different states and around the world. In my current life, the roadie lifestyle is my idea of hell. Charles Cross’s Heavier Than Heaven painted a very clear picture of life on the road: selling enough t-shirts to get to the next town, choosing between food and gas, sleeping in horrible motels and no time to yourself. The kind of things that would make brushing your teeth at a city park in the middle of the day an entirely normal act.

Though I will never experience that lifestyle, I love that I wander by it during my daily routine.

Administrative Professional’s Day

Did you remember to thank your Administrative Professional? My co-workers did. It was a great day.
Flowers from gardens, cards, an itunes gift card, a shrinky dink Buddha, and KALE! What more could a girl ask for?
Not much, but that incredible generosity was compounded in the afternoon when FES, the parent group at school brought in this jaw dropping flower arrangement.
Thanks to everyone. It was a magical day.

Test results are in!

It had been more than four weeks since my Praxis test, so yesterday I called to see if the reports had been mailed. They were mailed on Tuesday from New Jersey. I was thinking I would see it Friday at the earliest, but today they was waiting for me. I was thinking I needed a 169 to pass the test in Oregon, so I was thrilled to see that I got a 176 (of 200 possible). But it turned out I only needed a 156. So I hit the ball out of the park. Or at least had a double play.

No more frantic studying in addition to my math classes! Good job me!

Included in my test results were the other Praxis tests I’ve taken. I was thinking this was my seventh Praxis test, it turns out to be my ninth. Thanks Praxis, for making me a highly qualified teacher. Even if I’ve never taught a day for pay in my life.

Things I love right now

It is still cold here and my toes freeze a bit in the evenings. Enter the hot water bottle! It looks exactly like the one we had when I was growing up and it is a low-tech way to keep my poor toes tosty warm before I fall asleep. Though it kind of reminds me of chin hairs and nursing home smells, I still like it.
These jars have changed my life! They are normal 4 oz jelly jars that are available at every Fred Meyer in Portland that I’ve been to, but they have transformed my brown bagging experience. I take breakfast and lunch to work with me every day and I tend to have a variety of different things. These tiny–actually they are normal serving sized, but they don’t seem it because our collective portion size is so bloated right now–jars let me take a bit of this or that. I eat less and still get all my options. They come with the rings and lids on the right, or you can buy the plastic lids that screw on both these and the half pint and pint jars.

March. The month in which I drink the Kool-Aid

Growing up, I loved records. I had many, many 45s (the smaller ones with the big hole in the middle) and dreamed of someday having my own jukebox. Technology changed and records went away (and that phrase nicely avoids my years of complaining about that fact.) Given my love of both music and random playing of songs, one would think that I would have jumped on the ipod wagon early. But I didn’t. I didn’t like how expensive they were and how everyone had one. But mostly I didn’t like how individual they were.

One important thing to me is that music be communal. Back in the day, if you wanted to hear music you had to create it using your voice or a musical instrument. Then there was the radio, which played music, but for a lot of people to listened to. After the invention of the phonograph, people have always had ways of dragging their favorite music with them. But until the digitalization of music, it took effort to bring your music along. Record players weren’t that portable, cassette tapes took up a lot of space and CDs scratched easily. Now that music can be bits and bytes, people can have thousands of songs in a tiny device.

And that is my point. All those people listening to ipods on the train in the morning are picking and choosing what they want to hear. It’s individualized, sure, and they get to hear what songs they want without commercials. But I can’t help lament the loss of the local radio station as a place to hear music. I realize I’m mourning something that doesn’t really exist anymore, thanks to Clear Channel and the deregulation of the airwaves. Regardless, I think our communities suffer when they lack media outlets that tie the entire community together. And that friends, is why I have resisted the ipod.

The other reason I never bought an ipod is that I never had a lot of use for it. When I am walking hither and yon, I don’t like to have music in my ears. I like to think, or I sing to myself. Most of the time I already can hear music in my head, I don’t need a device. I also never listen to music while I exercise. I need to be alert, and music blocks the sounds that keep me tuned in to what is going on around me. Plus, it is hard to get in a meditative state when I’m fiddling with a device. And all of you kids are going to go deaf, with that music playing too loudly in your ears all the time.

But then they came out with the ipod touch. My co-worker showed me how it worked and I was mesmerized. “We are living in the future!” I gasped. Because my tax refund was large this year, I drank the Kool-Aid and ordered my own. And it is magical.


Here, I’m trying to get a picture of the engraving I chose. It didn’t turn out, but I like the picture anyway.


UPDATE!

The math test went well. I was pleased with the amount of studying I did. I’m not sure how they will score the three constructed response questions that are worth 33%. I worry that I should have been more wordy in my answers. But I knew how do all of them, with the exception of one part of one question. This has not been the case in the practice sessions.

I finished all of the 40 multiple choice questions. If a question was confusing to me, I skipped it to go back later and do it. I was not sure I would finish every question and I wanted to do the easier ones I had more chances of getting right first. When I got to the end, there were only eight that I didn’t do the first time around. Of those eight, seven I fiddled with and came up with an answer that seemed like a good guess. The remaining one, I had no idea and I went with “C”.

I thought I developed a particularly good time management strategy. I spent 5 minutes reading over the test at the beginning. That calmed my fears a lot as everything looked familiar. Then I spent 10 minutes on the first constructed response and 15 minutes on multiple choice. I alternated those until I had finished the constructed response. When there were 30 minutes remaining, I took a look at where I was and strategized. I think this back and forth effort helped me not only finish everything, but also not worry that I was going to run out of time before I had even attempted large sections of the test.

The other thing that was nice was that almost every time when I came up with an answer it was one of the choices on the multiple choice. When I was studying I would often puzzle my way through a problem only to find that my answer wasn’t there. It was a bit defeating. This time, even if I figured wrong, I was at least validated by the answer being present.

So overall, I think I did well. I’m not sure it is enough to pass, but even if it isn’t I have now taken the test and know what to expect if I take it again next time.

I came home, and alternately napped and read Dennis Lehane’s new book which is very, very good.

Two short rants.

Hey big-calfed, expensive biked man,

I can see that you spend a lot of time on your bike. You clearly have the physique and have sunk a lot of money into that bike you are riding. And if I cared about speed I would be so impressed with how fast you are. But you know what? One of the reasons I love riding a bike is that mostly people who ride bikes are nice people, friendly, polite. Not you apparently. When you pass someone on the right—because you are so fast and can’t stand to slow down—especially when someone else is passing that person on the left, it would be rather nice if you said something like, “Coming up on your right.” We aren’t trapped in cars, unable to communicate. I don’t listen to an i-pod while biking and can hear quite clearly. Use your words. A, “good morning” would be nice too. And I know that you can’t have fenders on your bike because they add precious weight to your superfast machine. But when you ride without fenders in the autumn/winter/spring in Portland all that road grit goes everywhere. Including on me as you abruptly pass me on the right. Nice. Thanks a lot.

Hello parents at the school in which I work,

Yep, I stand every day at the door at the beginning and end of school and greet you and your children. Some of you even return my greeting, which is nice. You know what isn’t nice? You saying, “You look exhausted!” You know why? Most days I’m not exhausted, just someone with large bags under her eyes getting through a part of her day she doesn’t really enjoy that much. So when I’m doing the part of my job that I have settled into tolerating, and someone comments on how tired I look and I’m not actually tired at all—or, as happened yesterday, feeling the most well-rested I’ve felt in months—it doesn’t feel very good. If you are tired yourself and just projecting, don’t. If you are actually concerned about my physical state, there are better ways to ask. Just don’t assume I am tired.

Thanks.