The Daily Dilemma
Nap or coffee?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Learn Something Every Day
I often say this to students who ask "are we learning today?" I find this a surprising and peculiar question, but I always respond that we should all try to be learning all the time, even if we're just fooling around.
So what did I learn at the hospital? The biggest thing I learned is that medical care at a big hospital is like a game of telephone. Quality and consistency of care are completely dependent on how well each person passes on information to the next. If you have a nurse who doesn't write something down or forgets to mention something, the next day you might not get fed. In the course of a 17 day stay, there's a combined oral and written tale that's collaboratively created and retold to later generations and this seems to me to be the weakest part of the system. That's why you need to advocate for yourself- not because anyone means harm, but because they don't know anything if the person before them didn't say so or write it down.
I learned that there's such a thing as an extern that is different from an intern but not really.
I learned that it's possible for a hospital responsible for feeding hundreds of children to run out of pizza. And veggie burgers. At the same time.
I learned that the more comprehensive and well-documented a treatment plan is, the greater the opportunity for personal style to play into how it's implemented.
I learned that Lost really was a good show.
I learned that if you have lots of electrical circuits and therefore lots of circuit-breakers, it's a very good idea to label every outlet with its circuit number.
And I learned that it's very nice to have a nourishment room nearby at all times, because everyone needs some nourishment now and then.
I often say this to students who ask "are we learning today?" I find this a surprising and peculiar question, but I always respond that we should all try to be learning all the time, even if we're just fooling around.
So what did I learn at the hospital? The biggest thing I learned is that medical care at a big hospital is like a game of telephone. Quality and consistency of care are completely dependent on how well each person passes on information to the next. If you have a nurse who doesn't write something down or forgets to mention something, the next day you might not get fed. In the course of a 17 day stay, there's a combined oral and written tale that's collaboratively created and retold to later generations and this seems to me to be the weakest part of the system. That's why you need to advocate for yourself- not because anyone means harm, but because they don't know anything if the person before them didn't say so or write it down.
I learned that there's such a thing as an extern that is different from an intern but not really.
I learned that it's possible for a hospital responsible for feeding hundreds of children to run out of pizza. And veggie burgers. At the same time.
I learned that the more comprehensive and well-documented a treatment plan is, the greater the opportunity for personal style to play into how it's implemented.
I learned that Lost really was a good show.
I learned that if you have lots of electrical circuits and therefore lots of circuit-breakers, it's a very good idea to label every outlet with its circuit number.
And I learned that it's very nice to have a nourishment room nearby at all times, because everyone needs some nourishment now and then.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
George Carlin
I'm really sad today because George Carlin died. Maybe it's kind of stretch to say he was an "influence" on me, because I'm not a comedian or even a humorist in the way people usually think about it. But as a person for whom humor is a defining characteristic, he was among my strongest influences. He considered himself a writer first and performer second and his books are funny, but his delivery made the material even better. I think he did audio versions of his books. They're not as spirited as his stage act, but still worth listening to.
He's probably most famous for his "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" bit, which is still funny, mostly because you still can't say most of those words on TV and almost everyone uses and hears every one of them every day. It's not the words that are funny, but what it says about the strangeness of our society that they're "kind of" taboo. Can you think of anything else that's kind of taboo? Seems pretty oxymoronic to me. Or maybe just moronic.
Carlin was an angry iconoclast, and he had an ear for language that was unsurpassed, even among observational comedians. There are plenty of obituaries and "appreciations" out in the newspapers and online, but all I want is to see a marathon tribute of his HBO specials, to trace his evolution from stoner humor to social commentary to the plain old "Did you ever notice..." stuff that he did better than anyone. Comedy Central did a ranking of the top standup comedians of all time, which is an incredibly stupid idea, but any list that has George Carlin between Richard Pryor (ranked #1) and Lenny Bruce (#3- before my time so I don't really know) turned out okay. Pryor, by the way can be seen in a couple of concert movies that are still spectacular if you don't mind hearing the f-word every 10 seconds or so (you get used to it after a while).
With all the bits that were repeated in the obituaries, I didn't see one of my favorites, where he riffs on "Save the Planet." He goes on about how it's not the planet we're trying to save, it's us. The planet will be here long after we're gone and maybe the our part in the great cosmic plan was just to come to the earth for a period and to leave the earth with plastic.
I will miss George Carlin and I'm glad I can still hear his voice in my head.
I'm really sad today because George Carlin died. Maybe it's kind of stretch to say he was an "influence" on me, because I'm not a comedian or even a humorist in the way people usually think about it. But as a person for whom humor is a defining characteristic, he was among my strongest influences. He considered himself a writer first and performer second and his books are funny, but his delivery made the material even better. I think he did audio versions of his books. They're not as spirited as his stage act, but still worth listening to.
He's probably most famous for his "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" bit, which is still funny, mostly because you still can't say most of those words on TV and almost everyone uses and hears every one of them every day. It's not the words that are funny, but what it says about the strangeness of our society that they're "kind of" taboo. Can you think of anything else that's kind of taboo? Seems pretty oxymoronic to me. Or maybe just moronic.
Carlin was an angry iconoclast, and he had an ear for language that was unsurpassed, even among observational comedians. There are plenty of obituaries and "appreciations" out in the newspapers and online, but all I want is to see a marathon tribute of his HBO specials, to trace his evolution from stoner humor to social commentary to the plain old "Did you ever notice..." stuff that he did better than anyone. Comedy Central did a ranking of the top standup comedians of all time, which is an incredibly stupid idea, but any list that has George Carlin between Richard Pryor (ranked #1) and Lenny Bruce (#3- before my time so I don't really know) turned out okay. Pryor, by the way can be seen in a couple of concert movies that are still spectacular if you don't mind hearing the f-word every 10 seconds or so (you get used to it after a while).
With all the bits that were repeated in the obituaries, I didn't see one of my favorites, where he riffs on "Save the Planet." He goes on about how it's not the planet we're trying to save, it's us. The planet will be here long after we're gone and maybe the our part in the great cosmic plan was just to come to the earth for a period and to leave the earth with plastic.
I will miss George Carlin and I'm glad I can still hear his voice in my head.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
An explore
I think the phrase "going for an explore" is from Winnie the Pooh, but that's what I did for a few minutes. My destination, the mythical Connely Center. I was only interested in this place because any time I ask about about where I can get something, more soda, a cup of non-McDonalds coffee, DVDs, they tell me to go to the Connely Center. From where I am now, that requires either an escort with magnetic card or two elevator rides. It's not busy now, so I figured the elevator part wouldn't take too long and I was right.
The Connely Center looks kind of like an airport lounge without a bar and 8 TVs with CNN on. And airplanes (though there is a heliport on the roof). It was empty and quiet, but, like airport lounges, would clearly be loud and uncomfortable if there were more than a half dozen people in it. It does have the elusive fully equipped coffee machine (there are other coffee machines but no coffee to accompany them), which I will check out and report on in the morning. I already feel a bit of performance anxiety, because there are lots of signs saying there's video surveillance. For the moment, I settled for a can of soda, since the Nourishment Room is all out.
What You've All Been Wondering...
Is whether all the doctors and nurses are hot and have significant and poignant conversations at every turn. Or whether I'll be able to watch another medical show after I'm out of there.
This particular hospital seems to be run almost entirely by women, though the occasional male doctor or nurse appears to stir things up a bit. Depending on your point of view, this would either virtually eliminate any drama or perhaps create drama where none really exists. The nurses are pretty in about the same proportion as people anywhere are pretty. The conversations, however, are more like what you hear between the checkers at Acme than anything on TV. When's break? Where are you going for the weekend? The boss (or in this case, hospital bureaucracy) is a pain in the butt. I've got too much work. I don't have enough to do.
Since life in a hospital has absolutely nothing to do with TV hospitals, I don't think I'll have any trouble with medical shows. Life in the hospital reminds me of what they say about being a policeman- 99% boredom and 1% pure terror. We haven't really had any terror, but I've been doing nothing for 99 or even 99.9% of the time, then occasionally some issue comes up that requires a bit of brain power. Otherwise, it's like having a total vacation at the most boring, uncomfortable place ever. And (for me anyway) without the beds. I used to like sleeping on the couch, but not anymore.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Non-Medical Hospital Update
The Icee machine is fixed after suffering a painful-sounding seizure a couple of days ago. Even better, whoever fixed it also brought big Icee cups with those cool dome lids. My tongue is now bright orange.
The TV in the MPFL generally has FOX on during the day, and from 2 PM until now it has had one of those pseudo courtroom shows on. It's Judge Judy now, but there was an older African-American judge on from 2-3 and a younger Caucasian judge from 3-4. Judge Judy is, predictably, a woman. The plaintiffs are indistinguishable.
Since we've been here we've been following something they've called a "protocol." At one point when I was complaining about the lack of flexibility in the protocol (as far as the patient is concerned, of course, the hospital itself has total flexibility) the representative they sent to talk to me said, "Well, it's not so much a protocol as guidelines." I'm presuming most of you have seen Pirates of the Caribbean and I can assure you it took tremendous effort for me to not burst out laughing.
So we have an accord.
The Icee machine is fixed after suffering a painful-sounding seizure a couple of days ago. Even better, whoever fixed it also brought big Icee cups with those cool dome lids. My tongue is now bright orange.
The TV in the MPFL generally has FOX on during the day, and from 2 PM until now it has had one of those pseudo courtroom shows on. It's Judge Judy now, but there was an older African-American judge on from 2-3 and a younger Caucasian judge from 3-4. Judge Judy is, predictably, a woman. The plaintiffs are indistinguishable.
Since we've been here we've been following something they've called a "protocol." At one point when I was complaining about the lack of flexibility in the protocol (as far as the patient is concerned, of course, the hospital itself has total flexibility) the representative they sent to talk to me said, "Well, it's not so much a protocol as guidelines." I'm presuming most of you have seen Pirates of the Caribbean and I can assure you it took tremendous effort for me to not burst out laughing.
So we have an accord.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Multi-Purpose Family Lounge
So I investigated the MPFL and today its purpose is to house me while I grade papers and for the staff to keep their lunch in the refrigerator. No other family members entered during my tenure there. The TV was on, with lots of pictures of Tim Russert, who I guess is especially big news for TV people because he was a TV person.
So I investigated the MPFL and today its purpose is to house me while I grade papers and for the staff to keep their lunch in the refrigerator. No other family members entered during my tenure there. The TV was on, with lots of pictures of Tim Russert, who I guess is especially big news for TV people because he was a TV person.
I can see outside!
We've been in several rooms so far, but this is the first one where I can actually see outside, kind of. I can see the sky at least, and I can see a building across what I thought was a courtyard until a man in a hard had casually walked past my 5th floor window this morning. Tempted as a was to snatch the curtains back and make a scary face, I refrained. Becasue this is a nice, new room I feel like I should behave
Watched "Little Shop of Horrors" on video last night. The score is really reminiscent of "Hairspray," or I guess it's the other way around. I remember seeing it off-Broadway many years ago. It's still fun.
We've been in several rooms so far, but this is the first one where I can actually see outside, kind of. I can see the sky at least, and I can see a building across what I thought was a courtyard until a man in a hard had casually walked past my 5th floor window this morning. Tempted as a was to snatch the curtains back and make a scary face, I refrained. Becasue this is a nice, new room I feel like I should behave
Watched "Little Shop of Horrors" on video last night. The score is really reminiscent of "Hairspray," or I guess it's the other way around. I remember seeing it off-Broadway many years ago. It's still fun.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Hospitals Suck
Nothing personal, mind you. This is a perectly nice hospital, as hospitals go, but as a species, they're awful places. With an occasional exception, all the crappy cheap motels I've ever stayed in are more pleasant places than the nicest hospitals.
For one thing, there are sick people everywhere. I know that's not a coincidence or anything, but you see people being wheeled around in beds or attached to IVs and then when you see someone in a gown just walking around you thing to yourself, "ooh, what's wrong with that one?"
I'm not sure that you ever really get used to being in a hospital, but you do learn to navigate it. I know that you can get free coffee at McDonalds. I know how to get to park in the closer parking lot when you're not really supposed to be there, and the quickest way to get here from the further parking lot.
On the other hand, how do you navigate having an aide sitting in the room while you're sleeping who listens to gospel music loud on headphones and mutters "Amen" under her breath all night?
On the other hand, you do get to see signs like "This room for pumping mothers only." And there's an Icee machine in the nourishment room on the 5th floor.
Nothing personal, mind you. This is a perectly nice hospital, as hospitals go, but as a species, they're awful places. With an occasional exception, all the crappy cheap motels I've ever stayed in are more pleasant places than the nicest hospitals.
For one thing, there are sick people everywhere. I know that's not a coincidence or anything, but you see people being wheeled around in beds or attached to IVs and then when you see someone in a gown just walking around you thing to yourself, "ooh, what's wrong with that one?"
I'm not sure that you ever really get used to being in a hospital, but you do learn to navigate it. I know that you can get free coffee at McDonalds. I know how to get to park in the closer parking lot when you're not really supposed to be there, and the quickest way to get here from the further parking lot.
On the other hand, how do you navigate having an aide sitting in the room while you're sleeping who listens to gospel music loud on headphones and mutters "Amen" under her breath all night?
On the other hand, you do get to see signs like "This room for pumping mothers only." And there's an Icee machine in the nourishment room on the 5th floor.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Trash Talk
It's hard to throw something away in a hospital. In our room there are 3 color-coded bins that say General Waste, Infectious Waste and Soiled Linens, plus there's recycling for cans and bottles. It reminds me of Penn and Teller's show on recycling, where they demonstrate people's desire to recycle by asking if they will comply with increasingly complex and ridiculous rules, (e.g., "This container is for slightly used tissues.") and people always agree to go along with it.
The other thing I noticed is that there is not a box of tissues to be seen anywhere. I'm presuming this is a way of being more sanitary, but how and where you're supposed to blow your nose is a bit of a mystery.
It's hard to throw something away in a hospital. In our room there are 3 color-coded bins that say General Waste, Infectious Waste and Soiled Linens, plus there's recycling for cans and bottles. It reminds me of Penn and Teller's show on recycling, where they demonstrate people's desire to recycle by asking if they will comply with increasingly complex and ridiculous rules, (e.g., "This container is for slightly used tissues.") and people always agree to go along with it.
The other thing I noticed is that there is not a box of tissues to be seen anywhere. I'm presuming this is a way of being more sanitary, but how and where you're supposed to blow your nose is a bit of a mystery.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Levi Karaoke
Don't have the entire song, but this certainly gives a good flavor of the performance and whole scene.
If the embedding doesn't work, try this link: Levi Video
Don't have the entire song, but this certainly gives a good flavor of the performance and whole scene.
If the embedding doesn't work, try this link: Levi Video
Friday, June 06, 2008
Hospital Blogging (No medical information included)
Hospitals are peculiar places. You go to the emergency room, they determine whether you are going to (a) die no mater what they do, (b) live no matter what they do, or (c) could go either way and could use some assistance making sure it tips the right way. You get the best care if you're in category c, as I can attest from the times I had chest pains. You always get taken care of quickly if you have chest pain and you always get helped very slowly if you have a broken finger. It's called triage, so if you want fast service in an emergency room always say you have chest pains. Just like if you want to get through to PECO just say you smell gas.
Once you're in the emergency room the same rules apply. Once they know you're not going to die, you might as well not be there. In the chest pain example, I got test test test test and then hours of nothing until they told me I could go. They never figured out what was wrong with me, just that I wasn't likely to die in the next 24 hours. My regular doctor figured it out the next day in about 5 minutes and it wasn't anything serious.
During this particular visit, this led to us sitting in the emergency room bed for 2 1/2 hours waiting to go to our actual room. Then we moved to the 5th floor and just as we were getting settled, again up to the 6th floor. Once you're settled, get ready for a series of petty annoyances, getting poked, prodded, measured and to be asked for various bodily fluids.
My favorite thing about this place is the Nourishment Room. I think every place should have a Nourishment Room. In this place the Nourishment Room is kind of like the snack room at my fraternity, except with way more formula and frozen breast milk and not nearly as many chips. Cereal, peanut butter, milk and juice, that kind of stuff. Everything neatly labeled with a label maker.
Nourishment Room is typical of the odd kinds of signs you see in hospitals, like Bed Management Office, but my favorite sign here isn't hospital specific. It just says, "This Door is Closed."
Hospitals are peculiar places. You go to the emergency room, they determine whether you are going to (a) die no mater what they do, (b) live no matter what they do, or (c) could go either way and could use some assistance making sure it tips the right way. You get the best care if you're in category c, as I can attest from the times I had chest pains. You always get taken care of quickly if you have chest pain and you always get helped very slowly if you have a broken finger. It's called triage, so if you want fast service in an emergency room always say you have chest pains. Just like if you want to get through to PECO just say you smell gas.
Once you're in the emergency room the same rules apply. Once they know you're not going to die, you might as well not be there. In the chest pain example, I got test test test test and then hours of nothing until they told me I could go. They never figured out what was wrong with me, just that I wasn't likely to die in the next 24 hours. My regular doctor figured it out the next day in about 5 minutes and it wasn't anything serious.
During this particular visit, this led to us sitting in the emergency room bed for 2 1/2 hours waiting to go to our actual room. Then we moved to the 5th floor and just as we were getting settled, again up to the 6th floor. Once you're settled, get ready for a series of petty annoyances, getting poked, prodded, measured and to be asked for various bodily fluids.
My favorite thing about this place is the Nourishment Room. I think every place should have a Nourishment Room. In this place the Nourishment Room is kind of like the snack room at my fraternity, except with way more formula and frozen breast milk and not nearly as many chips. Cereal, peanut butter, milk and juice, that kind of stuff. Everything neatly labeled with a label maker.
Nourishment Room is typical of the odd kinds of signs you see in hospitals, like Bed Management Office, but my favorite sign here isn't hospital specific. It just says, "This Door is Closed."
Senior Trip, Day 3
Or should I say day 2, continued, since day 3 started only a few hours after the chaperoning business concluded during the night.
The weather was pretty lousy, so we decided not to go to Dorney Park and to just stay at the resort for a few more hours. Because we had to get out of the rooms, everyone dumped their bags in Governor's Ballroom C (I'm sorry, I think I can say with absolute certainty that the governor has never held a ball here and even if he did he would have used the much grander Governor's Ballroom B or perhaps the mythical Governor's Ballroom A, which we never saw) and then moved on to whatever indoor activities were available in the morning. As best I could see, that mostly included, bowling, arcade games, signing each other's yearbooks, or the always-popular, waiting to get served at the restaurant.
The restaurant really reminded me of when we went to Paris and 2 747's arrived and there was one immigration officer there to process all 600 people. Imagine that a plane might show up at the airport full of people! Imagine that people might show up at a hotel coffee shop at 9AM and want breakfast! Forty minutes for a toasted bagel and half a grapefruit. This yielded a visit to the hotel desk to say that we couldn't check out in time because of how long breakfast took.
In spite of Ballroom C's lack of character, it was nice to have someplace to hang out and I was able to do some of my least favorite work, that being making up incorrect answers to multiple choice questions. This is more subtle and difficult than you might believe. You can't ask the question, what's the vertex of y = x^2 + 6x + 8 and give and answer of 17. It has to be something that could possible (the smiley-face graph aside).
It got boring enough that a bunch of students joined in the morning BINGO game. And yes, bingo is just as exciting as you remember. The highlight was the special game where you had to fill your B row and your O row and when you won you had to stand up all call out "I have BO." For some reason, by the time that was over, most of the students had left. Do people even know what BO means anymore? That term, if you can call it that, was invented by an ad agency in the 1950's to sell a product called Ban deodorant. I'm not sure if they still sell Ban
Then it was time to gather on the buses and head home. We watched "The Goonies," which was fun. And then it was done.
At the risk of sounding mushy, I love this group of seniors. I've never met a group of kids that I've been this fond of. I would have loved to have friends like them when I was in school. So taking a trip like this was absolutely the highlight of my teaching career. I wish I'd been able to spend more time with certain people, but I'm hopeful that I can keep in touch with them.
Or should I say day 2, continued, since day 3 started only a few hours after the chaperoning business concluded during the night.
The weather was pretty lousy, so we decided not to go to Dorney Park and to just stay at the resort for a few more hours. Because we had to get out of the rooms, everyone dumped their bags in Governor's Ballroom C (I'm sorry, I think I can say with absolute certainty that the governor has never held a ball here and even if he did he would have used the much grander Governor's Ballroom B or perhaps the mythical Governor's Ballroom A, which we never saw) and then moved on to whatever indoor activities were available in the morning. As best I could see, that mostly included, bowling, arcade games, signing each other's yearbooks, or the always-popular, waiting to get served at the restaurant.
The restaurant really reminded me of when we went to Paris and 2 747's arrived and there was one immigration officer there to process all 600 people. Imagine that a plane might show up at the airport full of people! Imagine that people might show up at a hotel coffee shop at 9AM and want breakfast! Forty minutes for a toasted bagel and half a grapefruit. This yielded a visit to the hotel desk to say that we couldn't check out in time because of how long breakfast took.
In spite of Ballroom C's lack of character, it was nice to have someplace to hang out and I was able to do some of my least favorite work, that being making up incorrect answers to multiple choice questions. This is more subtle and difficult than you might believe. You can't ask the question, what's the vertex of y = x^2 + 6x + 8 and give and answer of 17. It has to be something that could possible (the smiley-face graph aside).
It got boring enough that a bunch of students joined in the morning BINGO game. And yes, bingo is just as exciting as you remember. The highlight was the special game where you had to fill your B row and your O row and when you won you had to stand up all call out "I have BO." For some reason, by the time that was over, most of the students had left. Do people even know what BO means anymore? That term, if you can call it that, was invented by an ad agency in the 1950's to sell a product called Ban deodorant. I'm not sure if they still sell Ban
Then it was time to gather on the buses and head home. We watched "The Goonies," which was fun. And then it was done.
At the risk of sounding mushy, I love this group of seniors. I've never met a group of kids that I've been this fond of. I would have loved to have friends like them when I was in school. So taking a trip like this was absolutely the highlight of my teaching career. I wish I'd been able to spend more time with certain people, but I'm hopeful that I can keep in touch with them.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The rest of Day Two
My favorite sign of the day:
NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY. PLEASE SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK.
I’ve seen plenty of “swim at your own risk” signs, but none of them really sounded like invitations to do so. In any event, it’s nice to be polite.
After dinner, most of the kids gravitated toward karaoke. I’ve successfully avoided karaoke for most of my life, but it was really fun to watch kids I know get up and perform this ridiculous stuff. There was a pool party going on at the same time, so every time on of our kids was singing everyone would pile out of the pool and into the hallway, wrapped in towels. Two of our kids made it to the final round, one of whom sang “Hey Jude” (inexplicably, the 7 minute version with all the na-na-na’s) with background vocals by his fellow students and the other sang “Summer Loving,” again, with the boys singing the “wella wella wella” part and the girls doing their “tell me mores.” By this time, there was about ¼ inch of water on the floor and everyone is dancing and sliding everywhere. Ultimately, one of our boys won and celebrated by sitting on and falling through a glass-topped table. It was really quite spectacular.
Then it was everybody back in the pool for some beach ball volleyball until midnight, when it was time for ice cream. Predictably, this did not aid in settling everybody down and going to bed. It was a smaller crowd in the hallway, with lots of people signing yearbooks, playing music or cards, or just talking. Then the security guard came and it was time to insert everyone into their rooms.
Let me take a moment to discuss the whole chaperone thing. I’ve chaperoned the school ski trip for the last 3 years, but aside from that I’ve never participated in any of the out-of-school activities that take place around here. It never would have occurred to me to do this if it wasn’t this particular group of kids. I know they wanted me along because they like me, but I have this sneaking suspicion that part of it is that I’m not really inclined to be strict. Maybe it’s my own general issues with authority (I am a child of the 60’s remember) and maybe it’s the giving people the benefit of the doubt thing, or maybe (and I certainly hope not) it’s because I hope people will like me more if I’m “nice,” but I’m not exactly Mr. Discipline.
This puts me in a ticklish position from time to time and brings up the occasional slight discomfort about just what is my relationship with the kids. I’ve thought about this a lot, probably more than I should, because there are a bunch of kids that I relate to as if they were friends, at least when I’m not grading their tests. And it’s my nature to always want to know exactly where I stand. I speak openly and honestly about my life and I think they respond in turn. But we’re not exactly friends in the regular sense of the word. I guess maybe I’m like an uncle. Most everyone has a uncle they like. More fun than a parent, but still an adult. I’ll go with that for the moment.
So the kids go to their rooms and Uncle Frank and the rest of the chaperones do a head count. The security guard settles into his chair and we go in to our rooms. At 2:15 AM, I get a phone call saying “This is the manager and could you please come outside?” These aren’t really the word one wants to hear. What’s up? Well one group of boys is trying to run over to the girls’ room and another guy was running around the hall with a lampshade on his head. So part of me is thinking “Lampshade? That’s kind of refreshingly old school. So chiche’ it’s not cliché.” And part of me is thinking, “Whoever it is I am so calling him 60 Watt for the rest of his life.” And part of me is really irritated.
We fan out into the boys’ rooms and my line is, “I don’t even want to talk to people I like at 2:15 in the morning and certainly not hotel managers” and I basically tell them I really don’t want to have to do this again tonight and yes I did think that this and all the other ideas they didn’t do were pretty funny, though not in this context. And then I go to bed and fall asleep sometime around 3.
My favorite sign of the day:
NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY. PLEASE SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK.
I’ve seen plenty of “swim at your own risk” signs, but none of them really sounded like invitations to do so. In any event, it’s nice to be polite.
After dinner, most of the kids gravitated toward karaoke. I’ve successfully avoided karaoke for most of my life, but it was really fun to watch kids I know get up and perform this ridiculous stuff. There was a pool party going on at the same time, so every time on of our kids was singing everyone would pile out of the pool and into the hallway, wrapped in towels. Two of our kids made it to the final round, one of whom sang “Hey Jude” (inexplicably, the 7 minute version with all the na-na-na’s) with background vocals by his fellow students and the other sang “Summer Loving,” again, with the boys singing the “wella wella wella” part and the girls doing their “tell me mores.” By this time, there was about ¼ inch of water on the floor and everyone is dancing and sliding everywhere. Ultimately, one of our boys won and celebrated by sitting on and falling through a glass-topped table. It was really quite spectacular.
Then it was everybody back in the pool for some beach ball volleyball until midnight, when it was time for ice cream. Predictably, this did not aid in settling everybody down and going to bed. It was a smaller crowd in the hallway, with lots of people signing yearbooks, playing music or cards, or just talking. Then the security guard came and it was time to insert everyone into their rooms.
Let me take a moment to discuss the whole chaperone thing. I’ve chaperoned the school ski trip for the last 3 years, but aside from that I’ve never participated in any of the out-of-school activities that take place around here. It never would have occurred to me to do this if it wasn’t this particular group of kids. I know they wanted me along because they like me, but I have this sneaking suspicion that part of it is that I’m not really inclined to be strict. Maybe it’s my own general issues with authority (I am a child of the 60’s remember) and maybe it’s the giving people the benefit of the doubt thing, or maybe (and I certainly hope not) it’s because I hope people will like me more if I’m “nice,” but I’m not exactly Mr. Discipline.
This puts me in a ticklish position from time to time and brings up the occasional slight discomfort about just what is my relationship with the kids. I’ve thought about this a lot, probably more than I should, because there are a bunch of kids that I relate to as if they were friends, at least when I’m not grading their tests. And it’s my nature to always want to know exactly where I stand. I speak openly and honestly about my life and I think they respond in turn. But we’re not exactly friends in the regular sense of the word. I guess maybe I’m like an uncle. Most everyone has a uncle they like. More fun than a parent, but still an adult. I’ll go with that for the moment.
So the kids go to their rooms and Uncle Frank and the rest of the chaperones do a head count. The security guard settles into his chair and we go in to our rooms. At 2:15 AM, I get a phone call saying “This is the manager and could you please come outside?” These aren’t really the word one wants to hear. What’s up? Well one group of boys is trying to run over to the girls’ room and another guy was running around the hall with a lampshade on his head. So part of me is thinking “Lampshade? That’s kind of refreshingly old school. So chiche’ it’s not cliché.” And part of me is thinking, “Whoever it is I am so calling him 60 Watt for the rest of his life.” And part of me is really irritated.
We fan out into the boys’ rooms and my line is, “I don’t even want to talk to people I like at 2:15 in the morning and certainly not hotel managers” and I basically tell them I really don’t want to have to do this again tonight and yes I did think that this and all the other ideas they didn’t do were pretty funny, though not in this context. And then I go to bed and fall asleep sometime around 3.
Metablogging
It’s a little disconcerting, albeit in a good way, to have a bunch of people running up to me and saying “I can’t wait to read about this on your blog.” It gives me performance anxiety, since I always work under the assumption that NOBODY reads what I write. I mean, I’m always happy to hear that somebody does, but I never count on it. So do I need to make it extra special good? Do I need to accurately reflect the spirit of the senior trip? Well, no, because the trip wasn’t about me and my take on it is not an insider’s take. I wasn’t in the room at 2AM deciding what pranks to pull on the security guard. But I’ll certainly reflect my own feeling about things, and I'm hoping that that's really what everyone wants.
It’s a little disconcerting, albeit in a good way, to have a bunch of people running up to me and saying “I can’t wait to read about this on your blog.” It gives me performance anxiety, since I always work under the assumption that NOBODY reads what I write. I mean, I’m always happy to hear that somebody does, but I never count on it. So do I need to make it extra special good? Do I need to accurately reflect the spirit of the senior trip? Well, no, because the trip wasn’t about me and my take on it is not an insider’s take. I wasn’t in the room at 2AM deciding what pranks to pull on the security guard. But I’ll certainly reflect my own feeling about things, and I'm hoping that that's really what everyone wants.
Senior Trip, Day 2 (part 1)
I was half expecting to wake up to a soccer ball slamming against my hallway window, but I woke up before most of the kids. I know some of them were up early, but some of them were not up in time to make the 12:30 check-in. Teenagers are funny things.
First I'll write about what I did, though that's not really the point of this. My roommate and I went for a walk and rented bicycles for a few minutes. Then we had lunch and everybody set out for their afternoon activities. I spent most of the time at the beach. I kayaked out to the middle of the lake and just sat for a while, then met up with a couple of students and paddled around with them and finally back to the beach. I really should have napped, but I can say that almost anytime. I also probably should have gotten work done, but what the hey, finals, shminals.
Evening was dinner and Phillies game on TV and a pool party and karaoke and ice cream and finally more hanging out in the gigantic hallway. Sounds like your basic resort day. And so it was.
So a few words about the resort. Nothing terribly surprising. The bicycles we rented were a mess. Mine had no air in the tires and my colleague's had the chain off and stuck in 2 different places. The person renting the bike was mostly in charge of mini golf. She knew enough to point us to the bicycles, say"they're in here" and hand me an air pump. In general the staff isn't exactly surly, but they're not exactly bubbling over with the "what can I do to make your stay as good as it possibly could be" spirit. I don't think there are all that many other people staying in this place (and it's huge) and you'd think they might like to take care of the guests, just to give them something to do. Then again, one employee told me he gets paid $7 an hour and at that rate, who really cares?
The bathrooms require a couple of comments. First of all, I always appreciate it when bathrooms are labeled "Ladies" and "Mens." Life already has far too may apostrophes. Second, they have these high powered hand dryers in some of the bathrooms that all but peel the skin off your hands. Much more entertaining than drying your hand ought to be and completely underutilized as toys.
The resort has the usual complement of snack bar, coffee shop, pizza place at the beach and nice restaurant, although the nice restaurant may be mythical. The snack bar is very dark and looks closed even when it's open. The pizza place looks open even when it's closed, which seems to be almost all the time. The coffee shop has decent food and what may be the slowest service I've ever experienced. I guess I'm used to business hotels where the management figures that time is important to the patrons and staffs accordingly. The average wait time for breakfast, 30 minutes. For lunch, 40 minutes. This does not factor in the people who were there for shorter periods but left because nobody came to take their order. I had a sandwich called an SOB. This stands for "South of the Border," but it's odd in that there is nothing else in the hotel that even hints at a sense of humor.
I was half expecting to wake up to a soccer ball slamming against my hallway window, but I woke up before most of the kids. I know some of them were up early, but some of them were not up in time to make the 12:30 check-in. Teenagers are funny things.
First I'll write about what I did, though that's not really the point of this. My roommate and I went for a walk and rented bicycles for a few minutes. Then we had lunch and everybody set out for their afternoon activities. I spent most of the time at the beach. I kayaked out to the middle of the lake and just sat for a while, then met up with a couple of students and paddled around with them and finally back to the beach. I really should have napped, but I can say that almost anytime. I also probably should have gotten work done, but what the hey, finals, shminals.
Evening was dinner and Phillies game on TV and a pool party and karaoke and ice cream and finally more hanging out in the gigantic hallway. Sounds like your basic resort day. And so it was.
So a few words about the resort. Nothing terribly surprising. The bicycles we rented were a mess. Mine had no air in the tires and my colleague's had the chain off and stuck in 2 different places. The person renting the bike was mostly in charge of mini golf. She knew enough to point us to the bicycles, say"they're in here" and hand me an air pump. In general the staff isn't exactly surly, but they're not exactly bubbling over with the "what can I do to make your stay as good as it possibly could be" spirit. I don't think there are all that many other people staying in this place (and it's huge) and you'd think they might like to take care of the guests, just to give them something to do. Then again, one employee told me he gets paid $7 an hour and at that rate, who really cares?
The bathrooms require a couple of comments. First of all, I always appreciate it when bathrooms are labeled "Ladies" and "Mens." Life already has far too may apostrophes. Second, they have these high powered hand dryers in some of the bathrooms that all but peel the skin off your hands. Much more entertaining than drying your hand ought to be and completely underutilized as toys.
The resort has the usual complement of snack bar, coffee shop, pizza place at the beach and nice restaurant, although the nice restaurant may be mythical. The snack bar is very dark and looks closed even when it's open. The pizza place looks open even when it's closed, which seems to be almost all the time. The coffee shop has decent food and what may be the slowest service I've ever experienced. I guess I'm used to business hotels where the management figures that time is important to the patrons and staffs accordingly. The average wait time for breakfast, 30 minutes. For lunch, 40 minutes. This does not factor in the people who were there for shorter periods but left because nobody came to take their order. I had a sandwich called an SOB. This stands for "South of the Border," but it's odd in that there is nothing else in the hotel that even hints at a sense of humor.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Senior Trip, Day One
The day divided neatly into 3 parts. Paintball, pre-dinner, and post-dinner. I like to do many things and paintball is one of the few things I have never had even the slightest desire to do. I wasn't alone in this inclination so the bunch of us sat around a little pond doing ain'tball for what seemed like hours but was in fact, well, hours. Finally, after we'd been sitting around for about 3 hours we talked the bus driver to drive us into the adorable little town of Jim Thorpe, PA, a few miles back. We had ice cream (I had a root beer float, though one of the students reminded me it's the ice cream that floats). On the way back one resident overheard our conversations about Jim Thorpe and went on a tirade about how horrible it was, that the town had nothing to do with Jim Thorpe himself, that his wife "bought" the town and made them change the name (from its much more attractive name, Mauch Chunk) and then became a kind of out of control trollop. Then, a driver yelled at a bunch of us for crossing not at a crosswalk, so the town was dubbed Angry Town.
After a not-too-long bus ride, we arrived at Split Rock Lodge in Lake Harmony, PA. I've been in places like this before. It's a full-service resort on a huge plot of land with a bunch of condo complexes around a main lodge/activities building. The condos are usually time shares and people rent a condo or a room in the lodge and partake of the myriad activities available. In tune with my prior experiences with this kind of place, the lodge is reasonably pleasant, slightly run down and functional, and the activities are mostly second-rate, but they're there. They have a way of looking like they were built in some bygone era, whether it's the 50's the 70's or the 90's. I'm sharing a suite with another teacher and we have 2 little bedrooms and a not-unpleasant living room with a kitchenette. In the entire suite we have 2 windows, one is a skylight in the living room that I just figured out how to open and the other is in my bedroom and opens into a 25 foot wide hallway.
The hallway is a natural gathering place for the kids, which is kind of nice. After dinner, all of us chaperones (I'll touch on the whole chaperone thing later) went for a walk around the property until we realized that we'd managed to get every chaperone 1/2 mile away from the lodge at the same time, so we toddled back. Some kids swam, others played ping pong, and whatever else. Eventually, some went to sleep (paintball is apparently very draining, and so, I can say with certainty, is ain'tball), and the rest of us hung out in the hallway, watched baseball or a seemingly endless hockey game on tv, or some combination thereof.
As chaperones, we have to go to bed last, which in this case means 1:00 AM. So we all participated in the hallway activities. It was kind of like a coffee house without tables and chairs. Or coffee. I can't speak for the other faculty, but I played Apples to Apples, listened to and played guitar, told kids to stop picking up other kids and whirling them around, and talked talked talked. Let me be honest and say that as a species I don't think teenagers are the most interesting of people. I agree with my grandmother-in-law who proclaimed teenagers to be inherently the most conservative people in the world because they all dress alike and act alike, but with this particular group I have to diverge. I think it's because the school is so accepting of different kinds of kids, and the kids are generally nice to each other, there's a terrific diversity here and I'm never bored talking with the kids in this school.
We got the last stragglers into their room at around 1 and left them in the charge of an unusually serious security guard, who was ultimately rewarded for his efforts by having his chair stolen while he was making his rounds.
More to come...
The day divided neatly into 3 parts. Paintball, pre-dinner, and post-dinner. I like to do many things and paintball is one of the few things I have never had even the slightest desire to do. I wasn't alone in this inclination so the bunch of us sat around a little pond doing ain'tball for what seemed like hours but was in fact, well, hours. Finally, after we'd been sitting around for about 3 hours we talked the bus driver to drive us into the adorable little town of Jim Thorpe, PA, a few miles back. We had ice cream (I had a root beer float, though one of the students reminded me it's the ice cream that floats). On the way back one resident overheard our conversations about Jim Thorpe and went on a tirade about how horrible it was, that the town had nothing to do with Jim Thorpe himself, that his wife "bought" the town and made them change the name (from its much more attractive name, Mauch Chunk) and then became a kind of out of control trollop. Then, a driver yelled at a bunch of us for crossing not at a crosswalk, so the town was dubbed Angry Town.
After a not-too-long bus ride, we arrived at Split Rock Lodge in Lake Harmony, PA. I've been in places like this before. It's a full-service resort on a huge plot of land with a bunch of condo complexes around a main lodge/activities building. The condos are usually time shares and people rent a condo or a room in the lodge and partake of the myriad activities available. In tune with my prior experiences with this kind of place, the lodge is reasonably pleasant, slightly run down and functional, and the activities are mostly second-rate, but they're there. They have a way of looking like they were built in some bygone era, whether it's the 50's the 70's or the 90's. I'm sharing a suite with another teacher and we have 2 little bedrooms and a not-unpleasant living room with a kitchenette. In the entire suite we have 2 windows, one is a skylight in the living room that I just figured out how to open and the other is in my bedroom and opens into a 25 foot wide hallway.
The hallway is a natural gathering place for the kids, which is kind of nice. After dinner, all of us chaperones (I'll touch on the whole chaperone thing later) went for a walk around the property until we realized that we'd managed to get every chaperone 1/2 mile away from the lodge at the same time, so we toddled back. Some kids swam, others played ping pong, and whatever else. Eventually, some went to sleep (paintball is apparently very draining, and so, I can say with certainty, is ain'tball), and the rest of us hung out in the hallway, watched baseball or a seemingly endless hockey game on tv, or some combination thereof.
As chaperones, we have to go to bed last, which in this case means 1:00 AM. So we all participated in the hallway activities. It was kind of like a coffee house without tables and chairs. Or coffee. I can't speak for the other faculty, but I played Apples to Apples, listened to and played guitar, told kids to stop picking up other kids and whirling them around, and talked talked talked. Let me be honest and say that as a species I don't think teenagers are the most interesting of people. I agree with my grandmother-in-law who proclaimed teenagers to be inherently the most conservative people in the world because they all dress alike and act alike, but with this particular group I have to diverge. I think it's because the school is so accepting of different kinds of kids, and the kids are generally nice to each other, there's a terrific diversity here and I'm never bored talking with the kids in this school.
We got the last stragglers into their room at around 1 and left them in the charge of an unusually serious security guard, who was ultimately rewarded for his efforts by having his chair stolen while he was making his rounds.
More to come...
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