Sightseeing
I went to the Royal Dockyards today. They refer to themselves as the "most visited sight in Bermuda." The place was completely deserted. I wonder how the second most visited sight was doing. There was even a huge cruise ship in the harbor.
The Dockyards are a former British fortress, abandoned relatively recently. A big chunk is a museum and the rest is, you guessed, shopping! I walked around the grounds of the museum without entering any of the buildings. In spite of this approach, I can tell you with absolute certainty that inside the buildings are models of ships, photographs of ships, pieces of ships, things that used to be on ships, paintings of ships, and pictures of and stories about people who used to work on ships. There, I've saved you the same kind of time I saved myself.
My favorite thing I saw was in the bathroom. The electric had dryer had a sign on it that said, "This hand dryer is censored. Place hands under dryer to start blower." I've very much against censorship, but here I'll make an exception.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Just One, Please
I think it takes a certain, peculiar type of person to enjoy traveling alone. I don't have any illusions about my own peculiarity, but it's interesting that it works well with traveling.
Traveling by itself involves getting lots of curious looks from people. Restaurants obviously would rather fill a table for two with 2 people, not one. Last night I sat in the restaurant where I was the only solo diner and the only person at a table with an odd number of people (you have time to notice this kind of stuff when you're alone). You have to not feel uncomfortable in a situation like that, because it happens all the time. When I arrived here, the customs guy sent me to get my bags searched, rather than just waving me through. I asked him, "What did I do to deserve this?" but I know the answer, I didn't have my family with me. Who's gonna check a 52 year-old schoolteacher traveling with a wife and 2 kids? But the same guy by himself, and not on business, stands out enough to get noticed.
Business travel is the best preparation for that kind of treatment, and I have plenty of experience with that. In fact, a business hotel, weekdays in a busy downtown area or at an airport, is the only place you can be by yourself and not feel out of place.
I'll talk more about the kinds of feelings this evokes later- I've only been away for 24 hours.
I think it takes a certain, peculiar type of person to enjoy traveling alone. I don't have any illusions about my own peculiarity, but it's interesting that it works well with traveling.
Traveling by itself involves getting lots of curious looks from people. Restaurants obviously would rather fill a table for two with 2 people, not one. Last night I sat in the restaurant where I was the only solo diner and the only person at a table with an odd number of people (you have time to notice this kind of stuff when you're alone). You have to not feel uncomfortable in a situation like that, because it happens all the time. When I arrived here, the customs guy sent me to get my bags searched, rather than just waving me through. I asked him, "What did I do to deserve this?" but I know the answer, I didn't have my family with me. Who's gonna check a 52 year-old schoolteacher traveling with a wife and 2 kids? But the same guy by himself, and not on business, stands out enough to get noticed.
Business travel is the best preparation for that kind of treatment, and I have plenty of experience with that. In fact, a business hotel, weekdays in a busy downtown area or at an airport, is the only place you can be by yourself and not feel out of place.
I'll talk more about the kinds of feelings this evokes later- I've only been away for 24 hours.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Ow, It Hurts!
Painful as it may be to admit, US Airways was right. I'm in Bermuda right now to get a little bit of the rest I never got over the summer. The forecast yesterday was for the weather to be terrible here- 50+ mph winds and rain, and I thought I might like to change my flight to tomorrow, but US Airways said they weren't ready to waive their penalty, so I decided to wait and see, and it all worked out okay.
Go Phillies!
Painful as it may be to admit, US Airways was right. I'm in Bermuda right now to get a little bit of the rest I never got over the summer. The forecast yesterday was for the weather to be terrible here- 50+ mph winds and rain, and I thought I might like to change my flight to tomorrow, but US Airways said they weren't ready to waive their penalty, so I decided to wait and see, and it all worked out okay.
Go Phillies!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Back to some school or another
We're a 3 school family, including the one where I work, and so I have the privilege this week of doing 3 so-called back-to-school nights in 4 days. I've never been quite sure to whom the "back-to-school" part is referring, the students or the parents, but I guess that's not important.
This is an exhausting experience by any measure, but it will put me in the unique position of comparing the highs and lows of parent communication at three of the area's finest independent schools. I'll check back in later.
We're a 3 school family, including the one where I work, and so I have the privilege this week of doing 3 so-called back-to-school nights in 4 days. I've never been quite sure to whom the "back-to-school" part is referring, the students or the parents, but I guess that's not important.
This is an exhausting experience by any measure, but it will put me in the unique position of comparing the highs and lows of parent communication at three of the area's finest independent schools. I'll check back in later.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
What Happened to the Bloom on that Rose?
One of the first things I train my students to do is to not just raise their hand and call out, "I don't understand." My response to that is always, "What is it that you don't understand?" They are expected to think through and formulate a question. "Why does it equal 3?" for example. That's a question that can be answered and it's not one that's beyond the ability of a middle-schooler to ask.
It's a mindset of who's primarily responsible for a child's education and what are the goals of a school. Clearly, the ultimate responsibility is with the child. The teacher is there to facilitate and to help the student learn to learn. Obviously, more is expected of a 12th grader than a 7th grader, but the earlier good expectations and goals are established, the more sense the whole process makes to the students when they're required to learn new skills. That's why, when students ask the old "what I am I ever going to need this for?" question, I often respond "Nothing, but your life will be better in many ways if you understand math."
So we're in the second week in the new school and people are kind of settling in. This is a process that seems to repeat for people at various points in their life. A major change takes place and is met with some level of giddiness and dread and optimism and curiosity and adrenaline. Then there's a stage where information begins to overtake infatuation and people begin to make adjustments. Many of us have had experiences like this with personal relationships and we're in that stage here at the new school.
The most obvious example is the behavior of the seniors. In the old building, there was a senior lounge of sorts. Some of the lockers were in there and there were a couple of couches where the students often lounged in inappropriate proximity to each other. There's nothing like that in the new building. So the seniors appropriated this odd area underneath two crossing staircases and turned it into a lounge. The administration keeps threatening to take it away, but so far it's still there.
On a less picturesque basis, there are all sorts of petty annoyances here. They really are petty, so we all overlooked them for the first week and eventually they'll either be taken care of or we'll internalize them and won't notice anymore. But for the moment, the lack of copiers and available computers and the transsoundancy (? whatever the sound version of transparency is) of the walls in the Athletic Building and the tightness of some of the classrooms are getting on people's (students and teachers alike) nerves.
This brings me back to my point about how people respond to major change. Permanent infatuation is not an option. The only way for a new relationship to endure is if you want it to. As you gather information, there are always plenty of reasons to reject and turn away, but if you want to make something succeed, you can learn to sort out what's important and what's not, to formulate questions and seek solutions rather than complaining, and to keep your ultimate goals in mind. The new school building isn't perfect, but nothing is. If we keep our minds on the ultimate goal of creating a first class educational institution, a lot of the annoyances become just background noise. I make it a point, especially with the students, to truly listen to their concerns, to empathize with them, but to never be negative about the way things are and where we're headed.
One of the first things I train my students to do is to not just raise their hand and call out, "I don't understand." My response to that is always, "What is it that you don't understand?" They are expected to think through and formulate a question. "Why does it equal 3?" for example. That's a question that can be answered and it's not one that's beyond the ability of a middle-schooler to ask.
It's a mindset of who's primarily responsible for a child's education and what are the goals of a school. Clearly, the ultimate responsibility is with the child. The teacher is there to facilitate and to help the student learn to learn. Obviously, more is expected of a 12th grader than a 7th grader, but the earlier good expectations and goals are established, the more sense the whole process makes to the students when they're required to learn new skills. That's why, when students ask the old "what I am I ever going to need this for?" question, I often respond "Nothing, but your life will be better in many ways if you understand math."
So we're in the second week in the new school and people are kind of settling in. This is a process that seems to repeat for people at various points in their life. A major change takes place and is met with some level of giddiness and dread and optimism and curiosity and adrenaline. Then there's a stage where information begins to overtake infatuation and people begin to make adjustments. Many of us have had experiences like this with personal relationships and we're in that stage here at the new school.
The most obvious example is the behavior of the seniors. In the old building, there was a senior lounge of sorts. Some of the lockers were in there and there were a couple of couches where the students often lounged in inappropriate proximity to each other. There's nothing like that in the new building. So the seniors appropriated this odd area underneath two crossing staircases and turned it into a lounge. The administration keeps threatening to take it away, but so far it's still there.
On a less picturesque basis, there are all sorts of petty annoyances here. They really are petty, so we all overlooked them for the first week and eventually they'll either be taken care of or we'll internalize them and won't notice anymore. But for the moment, the lack of copiers and available computers and the transsoundancy (? whatever the sound version of transparency is) of the walls in the Athletic Building and the tightness of some of the classrooms are getting on people's (students and teachers alike) nerves.
This brings me back to my point about how people respond to major change. Permanent infatuation is not an option. The only way for a new relationship to endure is if you want it to. As you gather information, there are always plenty of reasons to reject and turn away, but if you want to make something succeed, you can learn to sort out what's important and what's not, to formulate questions and seek solutions rather than complaining, and to keep your ultimate goals in mind. The new school building isn't perfect, but nothing is. If we keep our minds on the ultimate goal of creating a first class educational institution, a lot of the annoyances become just background noise. I make it a point, especially with the students, to truly listen to their concerns, to empathize with them, but to never be negative about the way things are and where we're headed.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Getting Ready For The Second Week
When I think about going back to school this week, the first thing I think of is that I have to bend down to unlock the door. I'm not very tall, so either the card reader's too low or the shoelace holding my card is too short. We have these funny little ID cards that have our heads peering out of a white background. They're supposed to open the doors, take attendance for the kids, and debit our meal accounts. We found out quickly that they meal part doesn't work, so now our cards are actually two cards pasted together. I'm not sure I know anyone else who has this kind of thing.
For me, the biggest problem, if you can call it that, is that I don't see everyone every day the way I used to. When there were only 2 floors in the main wing and only 2 staircases, I saw pretty much every student multiple times each day and most of the teachers as well. Now, I'm not even sure how many staircases there are, and the classes are on 3 floors in one building and 3 in another, so it's become less certain that I'll see all the people I like.
My only other complaint, and I promise I'll stop here, is getting there. I've been incredibly spoiled. When I ran my own little advertising shop, my office was 1.1 miles from home. The old school was 1.1 miles in the opposite direction, so I haven't had a commute of more than 4 minutes since 1993. Even when I lived in LA, my commute was 3 miles through a beautiful canyon and then 5 miles down Pacific Coast Highway. How do people do this every day for years? It's awful. And I'm only going about 6 miles on reasonable attractive suburban roads. I hope I can get used to it. The nice thing is that I have every important shopping spot on the Main Line right on my way home. I look forward to stimulating my area's economy.
Things I really like, aside from the obvious things like beautiful grounds (a 'duck' pond, sans ducks) and air conditioning, are, in no particular order, free coffee for teachers at Starbucks, bells that don't make me cringe and/or jump 3 feet in the air when I hear them, matching desks in our office (we're now on our second set of desktops, but they still all match each other), which used to be a workout room (and we have a mirror wall to prove it), 2 mezuzas in the classrooms with 2 doors, all kinds of unfinished high tech looking things that promise all sorts of excitement, and of course, the kids, who are just as great in the new place as they were in the old.
I'm sure there will be plenty to report on in the days to come, so stay tuned.
When I think about going back to school this week, the first thing I think of is that I have to bend down to unlock the door. I'm not very tall, so either the card reader's too low or the shoelace holding my card is too short. We have these funny little ID cards that have our heads peering out of a white background. They're supposed to open the doors, take attendance for the kids, and debit our meal accounts. We found out quickly that they meal part doesn't work, so now our cards are actually two cards pasted together. I'm not sure I know anyone else who has this kind of thing.
For me, the biggest problem, if you can call it that, is that I don't see everyone every day the way I used to. When there were only 2 floors in the main wing and only 2 staircases, I saw pretty much every student multiple times each day and most of the teachers as well. Now, I'm not even sure how many staircases there are, and the classes are on 3 floors in one building and 3 in another, so it's become less certain that I'll see all the people I like.
My only other complaint, and I promise I'll stop here, is getting there. I've been incredibly spoiled. When I ran my own little advertising shop, my office was 1.1 miles from home. The old school was 1.1 miles in the opposite direction, so I haven't had a commute of more than 4 minutes since 1993. Even when I lived in LA, my commute was 3 miles through a beautiful canyon and then 5 miles down Pacific Coast Highway. How do people do this every day for years? It's awful. And I'm only going about 6 miles on reasonable attractive suburban roads. I hope I can get used to it. The nice thing is that I have every important shopping spot on the Main Line right on my way home. I look forward to stimulating my area's economy.
Things I really like, aside from the obvious things like beautiful grounds (a 'duck' pond, sans ducks) and air conditioning, are, in no particular order, free coffee for teachers at Starbucks, bells that don't make me cringe and/or jump 3 feet in the air when I hear them, matching desks in our office (we're now on our second set of desktops, but they still all match each other), which used to be a workout room (and we have a mirror wall to prove it), 2 mezuzas in the classrooms with 2 doors, all kinds of unfinished high tech looking things that promise all sorts of excitement, and of course, the kids, who are just as great in the new place as they were in the old.
I'm sure there will be plenty to report on in the days to come, so stay tuned.
David Foster Wallace, R.I.P.
I'm not really an avid reader of great writers. It's too much work and I possess too much of that impossible combination of laziness and freneticness that dogs many people in my generation to sit down and read a 1000+ page novel, half of which is written in 6 point type footnotes. But just reading two collections of his essays was enough to establish David Foster Wallace in my mind as one of the great living writers. He had an unsurpassed command of all aspects of the English language and displayed such sharp wit and observational skill that it is a huge pleasure to read any sentence he's written. I can't do him any justice by writing about him. I'm just terribly sad he's gone. Here's an overly lengthy excerpt from E Unibus Pluram, an essay he wrote about how totally wrong writers are when they think they are voyeurs gathering observations of humanity by watching television:
I'm not really an avid reader of great writers. It's too much work and I possess too much of that impossible combination of laziness and freneticness that dogs many people in my generation to sit down and read a 1000+ page novel, half of which is written in 6 point type footnotes. But just reading two collections of his essays was enough to establish David Foster Wallace in my mind as one of the great living writers. He had an unsurpassed command of all aspects of the English language and displayed such sharp wit and observational skill that it is a huge pleasure to read any sentence he's written. I can't do him any justice by writing about him. I'm just terribly sad he's gone. Here's an overly lengthy excerpt from E Unibus Pluram, an essay he wrote about how totally wrong writers are when they think they are voyeurs gathering observations of humanity by watching television:
Illusion (1) is that we're voyeurs at all: the "voyees" behind the screen's glass are only pretending ignorance. They know perfectly well we're out there...What we see is far from stolen; it's proffered- illusion (2). And, illusion (3)...what young writers are scanning for data on some reality to fictionalize is already formed composed of fictional characters in highly formalized narratives. And, (4), we're not even seeing "characters" at all: it's not Major Frank Burns, pathetic self-important putz from Ft. Wayne, Indiana; it's Larry Linville of Ojai, California, actor stoic enough to endure thousands of letters from pseudo-voyeurs berating him for being a putz from Ft. Wayne. And then (5) it's not even actors we're espying, not even people; it's electromagnetic-propelled analog waves and ion streams...throwing off phosphenes in grids of dots not much more lifelike than Seurat's own post-Impressionist commentaries on perceptual illusion. Good Lord, and (6) the dots are coming out of our furniture, all we're really spying on is our own furniture, and our very own chairs and lamps sit visible but unseen...Many of his essays, describing everything from luxury Caribbean cruised or getting caught in a tornado while playing tennis, are funny. But it's his quest for truth and insight and his ability to translate that into written words that made him exceptional. I'm really saddened by his death. And I will finally get around to reading his 1000+ page novel.
Friday, September 12, 2008
The First Week of School
I know that some of you will want some help in describing the first week of school, so I'm here to give you a hand.
Let's start with the building. The building is beautiful. It still looks kind of like a conference center, albeit a conference center for small people carrying books around and cramming lots of stuff into little metal compartments. I think that will change over time, though it may take longer than we'd expect, given the administration's insistence on keeping it clean. We'll see. The laws of nature are pretty insistent on everything approaching a state of entropy, or complete disorder, but at least we can try.
For me personally, there are a few things that stick out. First, my office is on the ground floor, which is arguable a basement but I won't quibble. Most of my classes are on the 3rd floor. There's an elevator but I refuse to use it, and I am already developing quads of steel. Our department head had the inspiration to refuse to have our room carpeted, which makes my nice new chair with wheels much more fun than I would have anticipated. There's a large gap in the wall that separates my desk from the guidance office, but I haven't heard anything exciting yet.
The door to our office is always locked and they installed the lock wrong so you can't unlock it. So they took the glass pane out of the door and if the door is closed you have to reach through and open it with the inside handle. There are a few classrooms like that. Apparently they installed the cylinders upside down. Now I know all you math people will say, "How can you install a cylinder upside down? That's like saying you drew a circle upside down. It's symmetrical." I don't know, it's a mystery.
The biggest complaint I've heard so far is that the building is big and spacious, but the classrooms are cramped. I guess that's kind of true, but I don't think it's anything that you can't get used to. I really like the rooms that have 2 doors. It adds an element of surprise to things.
The other complaint is that there's a walk between the 2 buildings. I don't think this is unique to the school. In most cases, if there's two separate buildings you must walk to get from one to the other. It's not a long walk, but it's not a short walk either. We have a bunch of umbrellas, but sometimes, if there are lots of people in transit, one building or the other runs out and students are late because they're waiting for an umbrella. I know there's a oke here but I can't put my finger on it. As for finding a way to get the students from one building to the other more quickly, my first suggestion would be to use pressurized pneumatic tubes, like they use at the drive-in tellers. This is how the first subway in New York operated. Huge fans created air pressure to move the trains. (No, I'm not making this up). If that's not practical, a moving sidewalk will do.
People are concerned because kids aren't staying on the crosswalks. This suggests to me that the crosswalks are not placed correctly. Especially in inclement weather, people will always choose the shortest distance to walk. If the crosswalk isn't there, they won't stay on the crosswalk. Some of you may have heard me mention that when the University of California built their new campus in Santa Cruz. At UCSC, home of the Banana Slugs, (not making that one up either. Photo here), they build no paths the fist year. They waited to see where the students walked across the grass and built the paths there.
I know that some of you will want some help in describing the first week of school, so I'm here to give you a hand.
Let's start with the building. The building is beautiful. It still looks kind of like a conference center, albeit a conference center for small people carrying books around and cramming lots of stuff into little metal compartments. I think that will change over time, though it may take longer than we'd expect, given the administration's insistence on keeping it clean. We'll see. The laws of nature are pretty insistent on everything approaching a state of entropy, or complete disorder, but at least we can try.
For me personally, there are a few things that stick out. First, my office is on the ground floor, which is arguable a basement but I won't quibble. Most of my classes are on the 3rd floor. There's an elevator but I refuse to use it, and I am already developing quads of steel. Our department head had the inspiration to refuse to have our room carpeted, which makes my nice new chair with wheels much more fun than I would have anticipated. There's a large gap in the wall that separates my desk from the guidance office, but I haven't heard anything exciting yet.
The door to our office is always locked and they installed the lock wrong so you can't unlock it. So they took the glass pane out of the door and if the door is closed you have to reach through and open it with the inside handle. There are a few classrooms like that. Apparently they installed the cylinders upside down. Now I know all you math people will say, "How can you install a cylinder upside down? That's like saying you drew a circle upside down. It's symmetrical." I don't know, it's a mystery.
The biggest complaint I've heard so far is that the building is big and spacious, but the classrooms are cramped. I guess that's kind of true, but I don't think it's anything that you can't get used to. I really like the rooms that have 2 doors. It adds an element of surprise to things.
The other complaint is that there's a walk between the 2 buildings. I don't think this is unique to the school. In most cases, if there's two separate buildings you must walk to get from one to the other. It's not a long walk, but it's not a short walk either. We have a bunch of umbrellas, but sometimes, if there are lots of people in transit, one building or the other runs out and students are late because they're waiting for an umbrella. I know there's a oke here but I can't put my finger on it. As for finding a way to get the students from one building to the other more quickly, my first suggestion would be to use pressurized pneumatic tubes, like they use at the drive-in tellers. This is how the first subway in New York operated. Huge fans created air pressure to move the trains. (No, I'm not making this up). If that's not practical, a moving sidewalk will do.
People are concerned because kids aren't staying on the crosswalks. This suggests to me that the crosswalks are not placed correctly. Especially in inclement weather, people will always choose the shortest distance to walk. If the crosswalk isn't there, they won't stay on the crosswalk. Some of you may have heard me mention that when the University of California built their new campus in Santa Cruz. At UCSC, home of the Banana Slugs, (not making that one up either. Photo here), they build no paths the fist year. They waited to see where the students walked across the grass and built the paths there.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Be Afraid
I'm guessing I'm not alone in this, but when I was in my early to mid teens, there was nothing in the world more frightening than a group of pretty girls, walking together and talking very loud and very fast. Though I was, like most boys that age, completely stupid about almost everything, I knew this was something that I was attracted to but could not approach. I didn't need to be told that girls mature faster than boys. I could see it and feel it.
I'll be perfectly honest here and tell you that, even though I have teenage girls of my own and work with teenagers, I still refer to these groups as "scary teenage girls." I'm not in any way afraid of them and would be perfectly comfortable walking up and talking to them if I knew one of them. But somewhere there's still a part of me that remembers being 13 and scared to death.
This has been a long introduction to a short observation. I was at Starbucks this afternoon and as I came out I could hear the sound of one of these groups. Again, I'm around kids all day long, so it's not hard to recognize. But I looked over and these girls could not have been older than 11. But they were wearing makeup and jewelry and cool clothes and talking a mile a minute and they were like a miniature version of the real thing. And I thought, man, I thought it was scary when I was a kid, I have great sympathy in advance for the preteen male of the species.
I'm guessing I'm not alone in this, but when I was in my early to mid teens, there was nothing in the world more frightening than a group of pretty girls, walking together and talking very loud and very fast. Though I was, like most boys that age, completely stupid about almost everything, I knew this was something that I was attracted to but could not approach. I didn't need to be told that girls mature faster than boys. I could see it and feel it.
I'll be perfectly honest here and tell you that, even though I have teenage girls of my own and work with teenagers, I still refer to these groups as "scary teenage girls." I'm not in any way afraid of them and would be perfectly comfortable walking up and talking to them if I knew one of them. But somewhere there's still a part of me that remembers being 13 and scared to death.
This has been a long introduction to a short observation. I was at Starbucks this afternoon and as I came out I could hear the sound of one of these groups. Again, I'm around kids all day long, so it's not hard to recognize. But I looked over and these girls could not have been older than 11. But they were wearing makeup and jewelry and cool clothes and talking a mile a minute and they were like a miniature version of the real thing. And I thought, man, I thought it was scary when I was a kid, I have great sympathy in advance for the preteen male of the species.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Off the Hook
I haven't written much about music lately. I'm sure there's plenty to say, but I simply do not listen to music as much during the baseball season, thanks mostly to that infernal XM radio, which broadcasts every game and has a baseball talk channel with lots of good hosts. But I do have some questions and comments.
First of all, can Rihanna sing? I've probably heard a dozen of her songs and I still don't know the answer. I can't say that she definitely can't sing, but I've heard no proof that she can either.
The next thing worries me, because it runs the risk of throwing me into old fogey territory. I don't understand how people don't get bored with the current pop out there. It's not that it's bad or unpleasant. Don't worry, I won't say "how could you listen to that noise?" which is what my parents (who were actually more tolerant than most) used to say. It just all sounds very similar. Every so-called R&B song has exactly the same beat. Most of the songs that have any real melody use the Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, weird synthesized voice. And whiny-boy rock hasn't changed since the 70's. Why do you need to own more than a couple of these? That's what makes songs like Sweet Escape stay popular for so long, because Gwen Stefani can actually sing and brings a unique personality. The only other things I like are fun novelty songs like "Low."
The number of American Idol finalists lurking around the top 20 is jarring. American Idol has a pernicious effect on pop music, because contestants have figured out that there's a formula for success, (eye contact, slow build, the big flourish). This can translate into actual pop success if the singer has any talent (like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and maybe Jordin Sparks), but Clarkson and Underwood didn't really follow the formula once they left the show. And you can't play to the camera on the radio.
I haven't written much about music lately. I'm sure there's plenty to say, but I simply do not listen to music as much during the baseball season, thanks mostly to that infernal XM radio, which broadcasts every game and has a baseball talk channel with lots of good hosts. But I do have some questions and comments.
First of all, can Rihanna sing? I've probably heard a dozen of her songs and I still don't know the answer. I can't say that she definitely can't sing, but I've heard no proof that she can either.
The next thing worries me, because it runs the risk of throwing me into old fogey territory. I don't understand how people don't get bored with the current pop out there. It's not that it's bad or unpleasant. Don't worry, I won't say "how could you listen to that noise?" which is what my parents (who were actually more tolerant than most) used to say. It just all sounds very similar. Every so-called R&B song has exactly the same beat. Most of the songs that have any real melody use the Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, weird synthesized voice. And whiny-boy rock hasn't changed since the 70's. Why do you need to own more than a couple of these? That's what makes songs like Sweet Escape stay popular for so long, because Gwen Stefani can actually sing and brings a unique personality. The only other things I like are fun novelty songs like "Low."
The number of American Idol finalists lurking around the top 20 is jarring. American Idol has a pernicious effect on pop music, because contestants have figured out that there's a formula for success, (eye contact, slow build, the big flourish). This can translate into actual pop success if the singer has any talent (like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and maybe Jordin Sparks), but Clarkson and Underwood didn't really follow the formula once they left the show. And you can't play to the camera on the radio.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Monday, September 01, 2008
Back To School
The words that send a chill up the spine of every self-respecting kid. For adults it's a bit more complicated, and for me even more so because I'm going back to school too.
So let's catch up. I had a lousy summer. No need to elaborate, we'll just stipulate that it was lousy and move on. My kids trickle back into their schools this week. What's with the first day half day thing? My kids go to two different schools and they both do it (on different days yet). T come up with a half day schedule, people have to be thinking, okay, we're going to disrupt everyone's nice summer lives by making them wake up at 6:15, but we don't want to give the parents the benefit of a full 6 hours without their kids. I guess this what we call "child-centered" thinking. To this I say "Bah, humbug." I have two teenagers and they do more than enough child-centered thinking for all of us. I don't need the school doing it too.
One of these schools even has a half day the last day before winter and spring breaks. This to me shows a distinct lack of decisiveness and generally muddled thinking.
Or something like that.
For me personally, the start of school is a prolonged case of the butterflies. My style of teaching is very much dependent on my getting in sync with the class, and having to tune into 4 new classes at the same time is hard work. This year in particular, I'm teaching relatively few students that I've taught previously, and only 2 that I've taught for a full year. Last year, by contrast, I had taught nearly half of my students previously including one entire class. This is not a problem, really, but I'm always a bit on edge until the parents come through for back to school night.
On the other hand, it's exciting to be going to a new building and making a new start in a lot of ways. The first order of business will be to find the bathrooms. After that, anything goes. As teachers, we have either inservice, in service, or in-service, depending on who you talk to. That always seemed kind of gramatically sketchy to me. Should one have in-service or should one be in-service. I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word "in" is.
The words that send a chill up the spine of every self-respecting kid. For adults it's a bit more complicated, and for me even more so because I'm going back to school too.
So let's catch up. I had a lousy summer. No need to elaborate, we'll just stipulate that it was lousy and move on. My kids trickle back into their schools this week. What's with the first day half day thing? My kids go to two different schools and they both do it (on different days yet). T come up with a half day schedule, people have to be thinking, okay, we're going to disrupt everyone's nice summer lives by making them wake up at 6:15, but we don't want to give the parents the benefit of a full 6 hours without their kids. I guess this what we call "child-centered" thinking. To this I say "Bah, humbug." I have two teenagers and they do more than enough child-centered thinking for all of us. I don't need the school doing it too.
One of these schools even has a half day the last day before winter and spring breaks. This to me shows a distinct lack of decisiveness and generally muddled thinking.
"Should we have a day off before the vacation? No, that would be silly, but we don't want to start the vacation when the vacation would naturally start, because that might imply that we haven't been giving it any thought, so let's just make it a half day."
Or something like that.
For me personally, the start of school is a prolonged case of the butterflies. My style of teaching is very much dependent on my getting in sync with the class, and having to tune into 4 new classes at the same time is hard work. This year in particular, I'm teaching relatively few students that I've taught previously, and only 2 that I've taught for a full year. Last year, by contrast, I had taught nearly half of my students previously including one entire class. This is not a problem, really, but I'm always a bit on edge until the parents come through for back to school night.
On the other hand, it's exciting to be going to a new building and making a new start in a lot of ways. The first order of business will be to find the bathrooms. After that, anything goes. As teachers, we have either inservice, in service, or in-service, depending on who you talk to. That always seemed kind of gramatically sketchy to me. Should one have in-service or should one be in-service. I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word "in" is.
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