You're Toxic, I'm Slipping Under

The day started with an email, someone trying to flake from something they committed to months ago. Minutes later, he unflaked. I am starting to tighten the screws.

I taught the passive voice today (ser + past participle + por + agent). What a lie.

The office got toxic today, and I drove away mad. I listened to the news on the radio and only got madder, listening to a) the rapes that are happening in the state of Mexico (one rape/murder committed by a policeman) and b) an earnest GWB trying to get us to believe that the Iranians are smuggling arms into Iraq.

Shut up, Mr. President. Shut your stupid, fat mouth. You started this war in Iraq by deceiving us about WMDs. I don't give a shit what the Iranians are selling the insurgents; we wouldn't be in this mess if YOU HADN'T SENT US.

I went and applied for a new passport. My old one isn't set to expire until 2010, but it was too beat up from being in my pocket. My application to the Hangzhou program I want to go to is only missing three more things: my Chinese essay, my English essay, and two recommendations. I'm still waiting to hear yes or no from one recommender.

I made rice in my new dolsot, but now I realize it might not be a dolsot at all, since it is made out of clay. Maybe tonight I will go to a Korean store and buy one that is made of stone. I will ask J* what she thinks.

It's Valentines day; I don't really care. I have some grading to do, but it shouldn't take long. Ash Wednesday Mass is almost planned; I'm picking music that everyone hates, because I hate HATE the sing-songy shit that people think they like because they recognize it.

Seriously, "Change Our Hearts" is a terrible song when you sing it straight, but when the Catholics start making that awful scooping hissing noise they call singing, it just starts to make me angry.

White people! Why do you sing like that? Who tells you that sounds good? Why don't you try singing with your VOICE? No wonder you have low self esteem when it comes to music; you insist on singing like children being punished.

Yes, it's official; I've got the "toxic febs".... those blues that teachers tend to get around February. The kids, the other teachers, even the news on the radio... toxic.

The good news, when I got home my house smelled like paint! Sweet! Until I went downstairs, and the walls have, indeed, not been painted, just spray textured. Still, it's only a matter of days until I get my den back.

Sensei Taiso

Presented without comment.

Seattle Polite

Nothing To Live For

My cable and internet are back, after a 24 hour construction-induced blackout. I came home after an overnight rereat with sophomores, and cable/internet wasn't working. It took me a good five minutes of refreshing, checking my wireless, and rebooting before it occured to me to check to see if I had picture on my TV.

When I got static, I went outside and asked the dude when my cable would be back on. He said, oh, it's out? Whoops. We'll get it back on tomorrow. So last night I read a book and went to bed early.

This morning when I got to work, I wrote an email to the supervisor, telling him subtely that I hope cable was reconnected today, since without tv and internet, I really have nothing to live for.

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Full Of Juice

The student who had been serving as a guide turned to me and said, oh, that's our bus, we'll have to wait 15 minutes for the next one. Another, more energetic student said, we can catch it! Let's go! And with that, he took off sprinting, followed closely by the two girls in the group, who said enthusiastically "Come on, Mr. YouDon'tHaveToRead!"

Guide-boy also took off running, but half-way to the bus stop, he turned back to see me and another student walking casually. He started laughing and had to stop.

I turned to NotRunningKid. Are you going to run? No, he says. Why not? I ask.

Because I drank too much juice.

By this time, the three sprinters are at the bus stop with the bus, gasping for breath, hands in the air to protest our three block betrayal.

Of course they blamed me, but when we caught up to them, I blamed NotRunning. He was full of juice!
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Fancy Meeting You Here

I found out that my across-the-alley neighbors, the ones whose "noise" drove out the psycho neighbor, works at one of the social service agencies we visit. She was really nice, and I regret never meeting her, although I did meet her older sister.

She told me what was going down in the drug house since the drug boys moved out. Some rapper had moved in, who was quiet and fine, but apparently there was a couple of dramatic domestic scenes. They have since moved out, and a Mexican family who had been staying down the street is now there. I haven't met them yet, even though their kids played in the yard every day of the snow day.
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Seattle Polite


I was on a crowded 49 to downtown with 30+ students, who stood in the aisle quietly (!). Some regular riders were a little surprised to see the bus so full, but they were generally cool with it.

Then Mr. ButtonUpPeaCoat with a tight scarf and a stacking metal lunchbox got on the bus and yelled back a pouty "move to the back of the bus please."

Everyone shifted a step or two, but most people who were standing were getting off at the next stop, so there wasn't a lot of movement.

So Mr. PeaCoat was then walked around people standing as he made his way back. There was plenty of room for him to move. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for him.

"So much for Seattle politeness," he muttered bitterly, choaking on the bitch sauce that someone had obviously dumped on his bitchy head.

I am Seattle polite, so I held my tongue. Besides, there were students all around.

Just so you know, Seattle people are culturally polite, moreso than other parts of America. Yes we are.

Also, we mind our own business, and as a rule we don't respond to people who yell back at us in general, as if he were the bitchy Prince of Pouting. And we don't move away from the door when a) we're getting off at the next stop, and b) there is plenty of room for Mr. BitchyPeaCoat to walk his tight ass to a less crowded section of the bus.

To us, being polite does not mean that we jump when someone issues a general order. I saw everyone around me look to see how they can make room, and when we found it impractical, we made room so he could pass.

And nobody got in his face, because in the Pacific Northwest, we mind our own business. It's the rule. For two centuries, people have been leaving their lives in the rest America to move to the rainy anonymity of the Pacific Northwest; the misty, mystic corner of the country where you can start over and no one will butt in.

Yes, this cultural tendency makes it harder for "community" to happen, the way it does in other parts of the country. But also, we will not be quick to yell "eat shit" when you bitch your way onto a crowded 49.

"Giada in the 206"; and "I hate the GMS people"

Giada's first Weekend Getaway is in Seattle. Funny.

All-Purpose Pizza finally found my place. It's about time. The pizza is good.

So this is my Friday night. I was taking a nap on my couch, when a student called, saying there was a problem with her Gates Millennium Scholarship application. My job was to go online and nominate her. Someone else would handle the recommendation.

So last night, I went online, registered with the GMS, and tried to fill out the nomination form. I tried for about 20 minutes to make it work, but, unhappily, I kept getting the recommendation form, not the nominator form. Screw it, I thought. I'll start over.

So I started from the beginning; I registered again under a different variation of my name, and this time it worked; I was able to fill out the nomination form no problem.

So when the student called me a few minutes ago, and told me there was a problem. Boo! Apparently, the nomination is fine, but that recommendation form that I kept getting by mistake? Yah, it's BLOCKING the other guy from submitting the student's recommendation.

Don't worry, I told her, I'll call the Gates people. So I called them, and explained the problem. All I needed to do was to back out of that aborted recommendation registration. Right? Or maybe they could just delete that registration, so the real recommender can get in. Piece of cake.

Sigh. I know this is a generalization, but honestly, this is what I think of East Coast people. The person at the GMS told me... it's hard to explain. All she told me was "no." No, you can't back out of a mistaken registration. No, it can't be deleted. The part that's hard to explain is that she wasn't doing anything to help me find a solution. Not suggesting options, not offering any kind of help, just telling me "no." Like I'm annoying her.

So I start getting frustrated, but I really don't want to blow it for my student. So I said, this is just a matter of backing me out of a registration... or deleting it. There's gotta be a way that the recommender can get in and submit his recommendation. "No."

At this point, I need this person to acknowledge how stupid the situation is. She won't apologize, or even empathize. Fine. There's got to be a way to get my student recommended, because she deserves it. So Ms. Concrete Wall says, the recommender can fill out the paper form and have it postmarked by midnight tonight... or you can finish the recommendation form yourself. And then finally, we get to the bottom of it, "We have no way of deleting the original registration."

First of all, yes you do. Yes you fucking do, you asshole, yes you do. You ask one person, and it's done. It's a computer and you are the fucking GATES FOUNDATION.

Second, if that's the case, then you people might as well hang a sign that says HACK OUR DUMB ASSES because all you have to know is a student's name and SSA to sabotage their application.

I have to go now, because Ms. Concrete wall just called the student to remind her that the postmark has to be 9pm Seattle time, since the deadline is midnight Eastern. Have you ever heard of such a thing? And the original recommender is at the Sonics game. What bullshit.

My student deserves this scholarship. But the GMS people deserve to be set on fire.
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UPDATE: Both the student and I managed to hit "send" just under the wire. We were both writing as fast as we could to beat the deadline, so I'm sure the application will stand out... for the hastiness of completion. There goes the scholarship. Oh well, my consolation is that those stupid GMS people will have to read it.

So Giada, you know with the cleavage and the giant head? Giada's in Seattle, and she ate at Cascadia happy hour, Victrolla, Revolutions, Lowell's, the Dahlia Lounge, Cafe Nola... at the Dahlia Lounge, she actually moan-growled; it sounded like Grover and Yoda having an orgasm together. Over the doughnuts.

Dear White Guy...

Dear White Guy,

Why haven't you been beaten you to death yet?

There are dozens of ways this video is wrong.

Thanks a lot, Angry Asian Man.

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Today I had school. Dang it! If they don't call a snow day tomorrow, I might eat my shoe. Tomorrow is our Dr. King assembly, and I'm in charge of morning prayer, but I've still got my fingers crossed for a big deep freeze.

Today I had a meeting from 4 to 7, and snack was Ezell's. I teased one of my students for looking exactly like the guy on freecreditreport.com, which I won't link to because it's a scam. It's a scam in that it's not free at all. Incidentally, the youtube comments seem to show that the actor, "I'm thiiiiinking of a number between 450 and 850...." that the guy is a math teacher named Mark Swanson.

At 7pm after the meeting, it was snowing hard, so I offered to drive B home, rather than let her take the bus for 5 hours. We finally made it to SeaTac Mall, where I dropped her off, since the rest of the way was dangerous hills. Her husband came and got her in a minivan with chains. That was around 9pm, and it took me another hour to get back home.

For dinner I made myself two pancakes, some brown n' serve sausages, and a fried egg. That's right, for dinner, so what?

And now I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

Another Snowday? and No Comment Video

Don't you want one of these? I'd like one, but I'll wait until the third or fourth generation of it.

I've decided I want to do this this summer. Now I gotta pay the funding game.

The day started at around 57 degrees. I actually slept in; I jumped out of bed when I realized it was daylight already. Whoops. We had a short day scheduled; a faculty meeting, a luncheon, and an afternoon dedicated to office work. Around 2 pm the wind started kicking up and it sounded like the ocean. People started leaving, especially if they had biked to work, or if they wanted to get across the bridges.

When I got home, my parking spot was filled with construction debris. My condo association's renovation has finally started, and work has started on my building. They've torn up the roof at the other end of the building, and they've excavated around the leak in my basement. I've got an industrial strength dehumidifier going 24 hours in my den, the furniture is moved, and the carpet is pulled back to dry.

I am pretty sure my parking spot has been swept clean, and the roof and excavation have been wrapped in plastic. The wind and rain storm has passed, and now it's relatively calm. The news says it will freeze and snow tonight, so I'm pretty sure classes will be cancelled tomorrow. The big question is how many snow days we'll have. Other teachers and many students, especially the seniors, are wary of missing another day of school, but me, I'm confident that I can adapt. I face the day off work without fear.

And now it's time for a nap.



I don't want to comment on this video, except to tell you that it's about chicken anuses.

So mad I could bite someone!

Due to my policy of overbooking myself, I have overbooked myself.

Of course work is insane, and I didn't get a chance to look at my appointment calendar today. Sound check, Mass, meeting, quiz, meeting. I finally came home, changed out of my suit, and relaxed on the couch, only to realize I had blown off an appointment with the oral surgeon that I had made in October.

That was today? I'm so angry I could bite someone. I think I will take my blood pressure right now, just for fun...

151/93. Rowr!

You know, I should be thankful everyday that I have medial insurance. And I am. But frankly, I resent having to take care of medical, financial, or even personal problems when I am slammed at work.

Grrr! I hate missing appointments! I've rescheduled for next month. GRRRRR.

Two more days... two more days until Christmas Break. Obviously, my brain is already on vacation. All I want is to forget about all the obligations for a while, and spend a few weeks at home with my family.

Blackout

I went into school at 7:30 to do morning prayer about la Santa Virgen de Guadalupe. I was up late last night writing the prayer, and I managed to catch a little of the live coverage of the festivities in Mexico city. I think coverage started at midnight, and for an hour and a half, they had popular musicians singing devotions to la Virgen. At 1:30 they finally started playing Las mañanitas; the crowd was so happy, and then all the clergy came in for the procession. At that point, I went to bed.

So anyway, as I was saying, I went into work for morning prayer. Ten minutes later, the lights flickered and then finally went black. I waited five minutes, and when they didn't come back on, I went up top to see what the administration was up to. Answer: not much. So I went back to the office and started bringing candles to classrooms.

Word came back later that if the power had not been restored by the end of that class period, students would be sent home. So then it was a waiting game of chatting with other teachers and intimidating students who were wandering the hallways in packs. Well, we waited it out, and stil now power, so the students all went home; and I went to brunch at Glo's on Capitol Hill with some other faculty. I had the corned beef hash with eggs over medium and wheat toast.

Now I'm back home. I will do a couple loads of laundry and maybe tidy up the office; I have a quiz to write for tomorrow, and that should be it. For now, I think it's naptime.

Funny Monday

So I went in this morning to do morning prayer that I wrote just in case the scheduled student flaked. Well, she showed, so she did her morning prayer, and I got to work.

Gave a quiz, got some work done. Scheduled an appointment. Had the last two chicken nuggets in the cafeteria, and a boat of jo-jos. Does everyone know what jo-jos are? Here, they are potato wedges. M had never heard of them. She's from eastern europe, so she pronounced them 'yo-yos.' I found it charming, so I didn't correct her.

Anyway, after work I came home, had some oatmeal and crackers and cheese for snack. Met J and had dinner at the Attic. I wasn't hungry enough for the specials (seafood chowder; pot roast) so I just ordered a Chinese chicken salad. It wasn't what I expected. I expected mandarin oranges and those crispy fried noodles. It had some kind of spicey sesame dressing.

Afterward, we went to the Christmas concert. It's funny how you can tell which songs the kids like to sing, and which ones they don't. There are three sets, an opening ensemble set, a piano bar for soloists and small ensembles, and an ensemble finale. The one thing I want to say about the piano bar... choices, children! Choices! Hee hee.

When I came home, a light bulb had gone out in the kitchen, so I'm going to go to the store now to replace it.

The other thing is that I found a bunch of comment spam on this blog. I erased it all and turned on comment moderation. All though I like it when commenters log in, you can still log in anonymously an comment, but you'll have to wait until I approve your comment before you see it posted. Sigh. Another layer of busy work.

Frightening

My friend N in Shanghai sent me this frightening link. There is nothing about it that isn't frightening.

For dinner tonight I will have some leftover potatoes and some frozen meatballs. I'm not sure yet if I will make a cheese sauce or a brown gravy, but I sure hope there is a can of cranberry sauce somewhere in my cupboard.

Today I spent 5 hours at work for Open House. At the language dept. table, they ask us we teach Latin or Chinese, as if their lazy kids had a prayer of learning that. At the science table, they ask if they teach Creation. At the ministry table today, they asked me if the Masses were in English or Latin. They also asked how many kids come in "professing Catholicism." Wha? Are you kidding?

I went shopping afterwards. Bought a pitcher for punch, some flat plates for cheese, a chrome rack for above the sink (it doesn't fit in the kitchen, it will go in one of the bathrooms. I also bought a bench, which, once I got home, I realized it had storage inside. Sweet! Well, inside were three matching footstools. Surprise! But what am I supposed to do with three matching footstools?

Brown Elephant 2006

So tonight was our annual Brown Elephant party. For those of you that are new, in early December we have a Brown Elephant gift exchange.

My mama started this tradition one Christmas because we didn't have a lot of money for real presents, so mama went around the house wrapping what she could find; cans of tuna, panty, hospital bedpan. That's when we realized that the gifts themselves were irrelevant, the fun of Christmas is opening the packages.

Then one year, S imposed rules on our joke gifts, White Elephant rules, complete with numbers from a hat and swapping gifts and all that.

So the 2006 edition was excellent.

First, attendance: H and T, M, C and M, E and E, K and R. And me.

Next the food: Arrozcaldo, secret chicken wings, turkey/pork/beef/bacon meatloaf, cold noodles, cheese fondue (jack, cheddar, emmenthaler) with bread cubes, potatoes, and broccoli). Cheese plate, huge creamy cream puffs, spinach mushroom pastries, apple crisp.

To drink: Brown Elephant Punch (pomegranate cider with soda and rum on the rocks); frozen peach vodka, some kind of tequila in the cell phone flask.

The gifts: a tiny Christmas tree, incredible hulk fists, White Chicks DVD, Girls Gone Wild DVD, Brokeback Mountain DVD, Cowsins Gone Wild DVD (from K and R's wedding). A Japanese sake ceremony set in a box. A framed chart plotting the data of a couple's fertilization efforts. A cute teddy bear. I tried to trade for the cute teddy bear, but at the last second I was thwarted, and I ended up with Brokeback Mountain. Also, White Chicks managed to remain in my house after the party; I will keep them both.

We played Catchphrase. Overheard: fire crotch! Penis... Penal colony! Cows... The opposite of... If you get too drunk you ruin your... Wedding! The blank blank of the blankety blank!

H and T tried to rope me into watching Brokeback Mountain, but it didn't work. SNL was on, so I watched that. I'm thinking about buying another DVD player for upstairs. We'll see. They're so cheap now.

I have to go in to work tomorrow for Open House. That's when some sixth graders show up and ask what languages we offer, I tell them Spanish, French, Japanese, German. Then their parents butt in, asking if we teach Latin. I teach modern Latin, sweetheart, it's called Spanish and French.

It's either that, or they ask if we teach Chinese. Look, many students pass their language classes, many even get As. Far fewer, what, one in a thousand? go on and actually learn to speak, read, and write that language. The vast majority of these kids don't learn it because of their high school language class; they learn it because they go and spend time in the target language environment... they learn it in the wild.

And I'll guarantee you one thing; people who learn language are the students who WANT to learn it, NOT the ones who are taking it because it's useful or because they hear the buzz about all the economic benefit. People learn language because they enjoy it; their enjoyment activates their language learning instinct, and once your instinct kicks in, it's hard NOT to learn it.

Amerian second language classrooms do not exist to teach kids target language, anyway, so it doesn't matter if the target language is widely spoken or not. Second language study in America is geared towards grammatical concepts in the first language. They exclaim, "I learned more about English in Spanish class than I do in English class!" Congratulations, genius, that's why we do it. If we were serious about teaching them language, we wouldn't do it in a 5 hour a week classroom.

Shudder. Not looking forward to Open House.

Late Start; You Gotta Be Kidding

So at 5:45 am I got a phone call from the faculty snow tree. Grr, I should have let it go to voicemail. School is two hours late today. I dragged my sorry ass out of bed, so I could find the number of the next person on the snow tree. I put on all my clothes in anticipation of my freezing house.

Well, I opened the door, and the bathroom wasn't freezing, the hallway wasn't freezing, I went upstairs and it wasn't freezing! I looked at the thermostat: 66 degrees. I looked at another thermometer: 66 degrees. What the heck is going on? I spend two days at home, and it's an icy deep freeze; but they day I have to go to work it miraculously comes back to life? Three days ago I was unhappy with 66 degrees, too cold. But after two days of 50 degrees, 66 seems downright balmy.

Man, whatever.

So my school starts two hours late this morning, but you wouldn't know it from watching the news. It's 6:20 now; a half hour after my snow tree call, but my school's delay is still not showing up on tv news.

The school's website is modified to show today's special late start schedule, but it's listed wrong, showing block 1, block 2, block 3, and block 4. Whoops. It should say blocks 3, 5, 7, 1. Which shows that whoever changed the website doesn't understand the class schedule.

I promised my students a quiz today; I'll go in at 8 to write it. Right now I'm going back to sleep.

Apple Crisp is in the oven

So I finally made the apple crisp; I used four big Rome apples and my mama's apple pie crust recipe, but I added a fistful of brown sugar. We'll see how it goes!

I've managed to convince my thermostat to stay on for more than five minutes... whoops, it just shut off. Spoke too soon. Oh well, it's a blistering 66 degrees in the house.

I was supposed to put up the Christmas tree today; there's still plenty of time to do it tonight, but I think I'll do it tomorrow, because CLASSES ARE CANCELED FOR TOMORROW, TOO! We just had a mid-week weekend! Our assembly has been moved to Friday, so we'll rehearse Thursday. Our reconciliation service is canceled. Sweet!

I might stop in at work tomorrow, just to grab a stack of papers. If the roads are ok, I'll go looking for dishwashers. I subscribed to Consumer Reports; they like Frigidare, Maytag, and Kenmore. I'll stop at Loew's, Best Buy, and then Sears. Any suggestions?

I gotta go jiggle the thermostat again.

Arrr!

The tech department told me I shouldn't pirate music anymore. I asked, is that why it was crashing? No, they said, but you just shouldn't anyway.

Fine. It's their computer.

But how am I supposed to work?

Last year I taught La tortura, but I couldn't show the video, because frankly, it was distracting to me. This year, I want to teach Ricky Martin's Pégate, a kick-ass song he sang at los Latin Grammys (Pégate starts at the 2:25 mark). It's got the grammar I want: a ton of verbs in different tenses, plus some fun boricua words. But nooooo, iTunes doesn't have it.

So instead I'm teaching the Spanish version of Jaleo, which is another kick-ass party song, this one with a gypsy flavor, even arabic. But the only videos available on Google or YouTube are the Spanglish versions. And just in case you didn't know, Ricky Martin sounds great in Spanish, and his English is just fine, but somewhere in the translation, our boy Ricky turns to cheese. Even in Jaleo, which is a really faithful translation of the original. Maybe it's the way he sings it. Or maybe it's really cheesy in Spanish too, but we have a higher tolerance for cheese in Spanish than we do in English.

Anyway, the Spanglish version is worthless. I wish I could just pirate stuff. Arrrr!

By the way, on the Latin Grammys, all the performances were good. Well, maybe except for that boy/girl band in the middle of the show. Still, the latinos are more polished performers than those American pop stars whose real talent is production, marketing, and dancing in expensive videows. The same goes for the country music acts; country and latino artists are good performers because they spend the year actually performing, rather than, say, walking barefoot into gas station bathrooms.

Cries of Joy

Much to say today.

So the digital piano from work died. Came back to life, and then died again. Now, when you plug it in, smoke rises from the keys. Not kidding.

The new digital piano arrived today. It is sleeker, but for some reason, sounds a little less piano-like. Oh well.

We got an email from the principal today, saying that school would be cancelled. Sweet.

J happened to be in our office. The administrators felt bad that there was no heat in one of the academic buildings.... they were considering buying us breakfast or something. Then J said something like 'F(orget) that, if you're serious about it, you'll just cancel school.'

So they did. Not kidding.

The the announcement came over the intercom... M flatly read that school would be cancelled tomorrow, and cries of joy erupted all over the school. The kids were ecstatic. Ecstatic! When they started spilling into the hallway, we could see tears in their eyes.

One day. One day of tuition down the drain! And you'd've thunk they'd won the lottery. It was hilarious.

I'm reading Persepolis 2 now; when that's done, I will start Pigtopia, which is the Faculty Book Club book of the month. Why don't you read Pigtopia with me, you all?

All Work and No Play

So I'm back from the 4-day retreat, marking the end of my Insane October. I actually have a day off tomorrow. I intend to sleep in.

If I'm smart, I'll go into work tomorrow and start grading exams. But no one is accusing me of being smart.

The retreat was good. Less weepy than usual. I was surprised by how hungry the students are for a spiritual life. The team was great; stayed on message, mostly.

Anyway, that's over. I've got some electronic followup to do, but my first priority when I got home (after eating) was Battlestar Galactica. Ahh, truth and reconciliation. Solidarity in the galley.

I'm a little annoyed that I didn't start a knock knock joke festival before I left on retreat.

Slammed and Wasted.

Ok, folks, I'm officially slammed I was awarded a certificate from the Over-Scheduled Society of America.

(Do other people say "slammed?" Where I'm from, "slammed" is restaurant language, meaning that your tables are all full of needy customers. Also, it can be used more generally to mean that you have a ridiculous amount of work.)

So I haven't been writing lately. Two of my hit counters have stopped functioning; when I get a chance I will delete them.

One of the reasons I wish I could go back to teaching at the university level, instead of teaching high school, is nightmare parents, who treat you like you are their personal monkey. It is inappropriate to tell them "you are too stupid to talk to." And that's all I will say about that.

Today I asked my students if they've been studying every night, since last week when I gave them the lecture that they have to study every night. They said they haven't been. They have a quiz next week, and I told them that if they don't practice their Spanish every night, they should expect a C on the quiz. Right? They all agreed.

People don't suck at learning languages because they are not smart. The suck at it because THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG. And it doesn't matter how much I tell them, they don't believe. I tell them exactly what has to be done, and they DON'T DO IT.

I've managed to rid my classrooms of a lot of terrible habits, like "English bombs," when the student blurts out English translation to "clarify." Duh, no wonder they have no natural retention, all they care about is English.

What's amazing to me is when students don't correct their mistakes. They read their sentence, I correct them, and they NOD at me. It doesn't occur to them to correct their paper, to some of them it doesn't even occur to say it correctly.

I am a talented teacher. I am being wasted. I am being wasted on students who at worst refuse to connect the dots, and at best just don't believe they have to study. Present, preterit, imperfect, future... and they've been studying the first three for PAST TWO YEARS.

They don't master these tenses, and then they have the NERVE to expect to get an A.

Hey! Just "looking over the material" DOES NOT HELP YOU.

No language practice = no language learning = no getting an A.

I am being wasted.

Maybe next week I will have a knock-knock joke festival.

Deadline week

Tonight: Finish notating bridge for gathering song, verses for psalm. Grade as much as humanly possible.

Tomorrow: Scan finished notation, send it to D. Grade as much as humanly possible. Retreat leader meeting in afternoon. Chinese class afterwards; no time to study, might skip.

Thursday: Grade comments, 9am Mass, grades due at lunch. Finish choir arrangements once and for all.

Friday: Rehearsal with D, festa italiana at night (gnocchi).

Saturday: 1pm to 4pm workshop; concert in the evening. Aparently they're doing one or more of my songs.

Sunday: 10am and 4pm Mass.

There better be time for laundry.

I'm sitting at Insomniax Coffee shop on 15th, listening to Spain pop and blogging. Insomniax is a charming cafe run by two Polish brothers, the older of whom is studying to be a priest. The younger spent a year in Spain, so he plays Spain pop and talks to me in castellano. I like it here, but they close at 6:30.

You know how I call pan-asian restaurants not asian restaurants, and my friend A calls them pan-awesome!" Well, Osteria la Spiga is gone now, A. Gone. The facade has been painted bright yellow, and the new restaurant is called Vi Bacchus Sake Bar and Bistro.

Faculty Book Club Night

I just gave midterms in two classes today, so I have a stack of those to grade, as well as the creative writing stack from a while ago. There's an overnight retreat this weekend, and my choir workshop is next weekend, so I have to notate a bunch of stuff so that copies can be made, etc.

After school we made a bunch of candles; we got off around five. I came home, turned right around to go to book club. I stopped for secret chicken along the way.

The food was delicious; a pumpkin soup, a hot artichoke dip, an amazing salad with blue cheese, diced apples and nuts, and secret chicken. There was also brounie bites, baklava, and plenty of vino.

The conversation was sparkling as always; we talked about faculty karaoke possibilities, this blog, Italian class (A has discovered a new place to take classes) etcetera, etcetera.

We picked out our next book and meeting night, and then I excused myself. I am feeling the first tickles of the cold that's been going around. And I'm exhausted.

So when I got home, I took some Airborne (please don't tell me it's a placebo, I'm happy to settle for the placebo effect) and then irrigated my sinuses (i.e., I snorted a couple of handfulls of warm salt water.

No classes tomorrow... but I do have to get up early for Faculty Retreat. For once my department is not planning it. Last year a guy sang a touching song about a coyote he saw one night while driving home. I know it will be nothing like that tomorrow. I don't know much more than that, except that I ordered the steak salad for lunch.

Update: Two things before dozing off....

I'm tired of hearing how Democrats are weak on security. Just because we want to preserve civil liberties and did not want to start a land war in Asia doesn't make us weak on security. The Republicans, however, are quantifiably weak on FREEDOM. And, well, morality.

Also, Janey, you are the light of the world, you are the image of God, you are the Holiest of Holies. You deserve love and respect in your life. Don't settle for less. Go on, girl!

It's a take home quiz. Duh.

I went to my new 中文 class today. The instructor seems like a nice guy, but he spent too much time telling us how to say stuff, and not enough time actually letting us say stuff. A few times, he asked "how do you say this?" but we had to interrupt him when we actually wanted to say something. We'll see how it goes. It's going to be a challenge getting homework done, since I'm so slammed at work.

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In August I gave my students a list of all the dates when there would be quizzes and exams. Today was a quiz, and the students complained I didn't warn them. Oh hell no. Well, today I did give them a quiz, and it was a 24-hour take home quiz.

The thing about take home quizzes, and come to think of it, all homework, is that they have the opportunity to talk to each other, use dictionaries, verb books, spell check... if I give a take home quiz, the isht better be off the hook.

Oh it won't be. American students are lazy.

Once I gave a French class a take home quiz, and most of them flunked. Except for the transfer student from Sweden, who got 100%. When people said, hey how did you.... and she said, what? It's a take home quiz. As in, duh, why wouldn't you get 100% on a take home quiz.