learnteach

Then my friends would not be (and I would not be) so fat.  And I'd have those kickin' Red Elvis shoes!

Dinner tonight (some guests, but I failed to re-iterate the invite.  One person said we never ever talked about it.)  Starters: Lavosh Pizza, one cheddar and one TJ blue/pear.   First: Salad with Fresh herbs (salad mix from farmer's market, herbs from garden, nasturtiums.)  TJ's organic buttermilk soup served in a pumpkin, with sour cream and sage leaves for garnish.   Main: Pork Loin in Mustard Seeds with Fall veggies (potatoes, parsnips, carrots.) and asparagus dressed in lemon.   Dessert: Berries with Whipped cream, chocolate.   This was fondue style.

Hmm.  Not _that_ bad. I'll give myself three letters: THN!  Yeah, that's it, I want to be THN!  That leaves him to be a CAY though....

<lj-cut>
1. Radio Shack has a surprisingly good selection of component parts (resistors, transistors, etc.) and while the staff aren't engineers, they will look up a part NOT in the drawer and find out what store locally has it, then offer to have it transferred over so you can buy it.  I am impressed.
2. I'm beginning to think I want to enter a Science Fair.   Trifold!
3. Stained glass ideas:  Dragon panel, l to r scales etched, painted, soldered.  Good curve cutting practice.    Hummingbird round.  Jack O' Lantern.  Arms (of many people.)  Finally, a St. Teresa window.
4. I want to barter a vest I can put thermo wire in that still looks good, flat across the bottom, lapelled and pocketed.  http://www.gentlemansemporium.com/store/001569.php perhaps.  
5. Electro-etch.  Practice: Badges. Name plates.   Work up to furnishings. 

1. Spring cleaning begun, including a new filter for the wet/dry--gotta love Sears (positive!)  they now offer .3 micron anti-fungal HEPA filters for their Wet/Dry vacs, AND use the same filter in over 100 models.  No, really.   AND it's easy to change.
2. Spring seed porn got to me, but in a good way.  Basil seed in pots.  Plans for various sunflowers and tomatoes and pickles and all, AND a Native American Three Sisters garden in the front yard--Renee's Garden sells for $7 all the seeds and plans for a corn/bean/pumpkin patch.   It's too cold yet to plant, but after I measure out the plot, I may plant more than one packet.  "Earth Tones Indian Dent Corn", Scarlet Runner Vine Beans, and Sugar Pie Pumpkins.   W00T!
3. Have slightly re-hooked myself on Magic.  All my favorite 9-12 year olds are playing it, and there is a very active community doing it.  I just want to have a few decks...but sigh...new cards.
4. Walked a bit today, in Big Basin (thanks shutt3rg33k for the ride and inspiration).  Boy, am I out of shape.  My, it was nice to get moving.  Gotta do that again ASAP. 
5. Oh, and in researching weather, found out that www.weatherunderground.com has local weather station reporting.   MICROCLIMATE!

6. REALLY digging the new music.   RED ELVISES ROCK!  (Siberian, even.)

Well, no, really, crafts.   Three quick experiments:
1. As C. Virtue has said, you don't need shaving cream.  Nope.  Don't even miss it.  Been a year.
2. Wireless Game converters are useful wireless internet pirate devices. Thanks K. Schmidt!
3. It really works to have a light shade and a dark curtain on your windows.   If it's warm, leave the shade down and the curtain open.  If it's cold, leave the shade up and the curtain closed, and it will warm the room.  If it's night, both closed for insulation.  From the AEZ list.

Simple things.

Oh, and:
4. Trader Joe's + Farmer's Market makes for good easy food.  In this case, 17 bean soup with ham hocks and mushrooms, with spices and onions out of the garden.  Soup mix 1.69, ham hocks $6 (2 lbs at $3/lb, lotsa pork, roasted it with garlic) and shiitake mushrooms $3/lb (again with the $3).   Simmering on the stove now.

Y'know, I'm wimpin', but I just don't want to go out in the cold wet on the bike.  Not going to get any outside things done today (like work, drat it all!) but my intuition says don't ride, and I trust that.   Gotta get the car fixed. 

4 more days according to the forecast.   Need a frog icon!

I stole that from a friend's LJ.   I'm not suffering from such; instead, I have a catlike desire to NOT go out in the rain.  And an uncatlike desire to go run around with NnK, the borrowed dog.    As for this getting things done thing, I think cleaning the stuff out of the kitchen back onto the repositioned living room shelves, and fixing the cage so I'm not feeling raindrops falling on my motohelm, are at the tops of the list.

Students are taking benchmarks today.  I don't know why we bother; the teachers have given up respecting the benchmarks (they don't sync with the teaching guides if you have them, so in most cases the tests are worthless.)   Last year I fought the battle all year, finding problems in the tests, commenting on them, etc.   This year, the person in charge of them is new and hasn't fixed any of the problems (the last guy just ran from the job.   Did great meeting (not, but thought he did) but not at all good on delivery.)

WHY am I wasting my time?  The students know the test doesn't count, and the ones who are having a hard time caring just bubble it in and hand it up.  This is supposed to prepare for the NCLB testing at the end of the year, but it's truly bad practice.   The students just learn again that authority doesn't have a clue, and I'm left babysitting the remainders.  

Doesn't help that I came in to do Physics, but the security guard switched classes around on me because the other sub is known to be weak and the physics classes better behaved.   Oh wonderful.


Why am I wasting my time?

http://www.nbc11.com/news/15215081/detail.html

Rogerio Silva.

Talked with him last Tuesday.  

School not so fun today, Mardi Gras. 

I've been in a slump.   There's a whole buncha stuff going on (or not going on) in my life that I don't talk about much here for various reasons.  So, I've been unmotivated towards the good.   But right now, I feel very motivated.

Amazing what a little anger can do for you.
 
The idea of a "Bucket List" is very interesting, and a good way to ask yourself what you should do next--why wait until you're about to kick the bucket?   Kick it with your ideas and dreams right now.   I've been doing this for a while, though, so I have traveled the world, gone to cooking school in France, traveled the US on a motorcycle, watched a friend carry the Olympic flame, done an ironbutt ride, learned a martial art, won a tournament, etc. etc.

But it's the negative motivation that really can get me moving.   Right now, the situations going on require a lot of presence and patience, and waiting for change to occur.  I have very little control between the constraints of other people's time and energy, and my own conviction that being there, face to face, to lend support and ideas, is very very important.  Thus the clusterfun this morning, where I blew off a church commitment (and isn't that one you should keep!) to wait to be irritated, to meet to have a discussion I had already had, to try and include people who hadn't been present.

I can't be having this.  (Granny Weatherwax mode.)  I may not be able to decide how the world will be, but I can certainly put some elbow grease into how it's not going to be.  

And that breaks the inertia.  There are things that MUST BE DONE.  These things are very, very clear, and take up the top 5 slots on the TO DO list.   No excuses.   No problems.   If I have to reach into a fire, I will.

Of course, I don't have to reach into a fire.  Just either fix a car (and thanks to those who have offered to loan their vehicles) or survive motorcycling in the rain.  It's warm at 50 degrees, compared to Indiana.  And the new wool pants don't lose their crease, so that's cool.   There are times when I am thankful for fat ankles.

So, the top five list (in flux, and no particular order):
1. Clean up the environment I live in, so I can react quickly, and not bog down in my own distractions.  Get Rid Of Stuff.
2.  Contact  people more with presence; don't just read their livejournals, call them up.  Cook them fondue.  Wash their cars .*
3. Get back involved with volunteering.
4. Get a job that pays some money; do any other jobs with complete passion.
5. Be there for these situations (which I am not elaborating on.)  This will require a lot of flexibility.  And fixing some wheels, because mountain passes and February and motorcycles just don't mix.

Ok, off to stomp on some things. 

 

"Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of the day that I signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law. And since that day we've come a long way, fewer students are falling behind. People are beginning to get used to the notion that there's accountability in the public school system. Look, I recognize some people don't like accountability. In other words, accountability says if you're failing, we're going to expose that and expect you to change. Accountability also says that when you're succeeding you'll get plenty of praise. "

Sick again, this time the throat cold.   I've been able to medicate and get out, which is good, but it does tend to make me limit my participation with other people due to the desire not to spread germs.
****
Buncha random thoughts.

<lj-cut>

Last night I was playing scrabble with a kick-butt (boot posterior) group, and one of the other players saw me also playing "Bejeweled" on my phone during the game, and coughing behind her hand, said "ADD".   Yeah, so?  My coping mechanism is to allow myself to follow distractions, rather than get frustrated trying to bring all my attention on one thing.  If I preplan a scrabble turn, it's going to be messed up by the next player anyway--the board changes three times--so why be frustrated?   The other side of the ADD is a drive to perfection/competitiveness, which I try not to feed because I don't like the emotional low of losing.  There's no emotional high at winning; just a satisfaction that I've done well. 

So I'll keep my coping mechanisms, thank you very much.

*****
For live improve, the Grateful Dead were suppposed to be the best.  They were unstructured hippies.  The improve inherent in live Pink Floyd is much more subtle and much more satisfying to me.   Probably just my progrock bend.

****

Context.  One of the reasons I found the movie "The Pirates who Never Do Anything" is that I saw many of the references, both overt and implied.   The blind man, from "O Brother" (and therefor The Odessy), the definitive nods to Disney pirates, the internal references to other Veggietales shows--it made the show much funnier for me.

In mentally reviewing the 12th night Commedia by Golden Stag Players, something of the same effect came in.  I know (basically, not in the advanced sense the players know) the personalities of the roles--il Capitano, etc.   I know most of Shakespear.  I'm familiar with Hank Sink.   (Henry V).  And I could see the bones of the original in the clothes of the commedia, but only because I knew those bones so well.  ANd the players knew the bones well too, being theatrical.   But the audience didn't as well, in general, so any bit that required any contrast with the original play was at risk.      Perhaps it would have worked better with less shtick and more straight plot, a bit less slapstick--for instance, why Luxembourg so many times?  Might have been funnier (given the French Princess wanting men) if they went because they wanted women.   Hank Sink's big speech, which was obviously a bit point, was not as strong without the dramatic tension of the buildup of the perception of impending loss--all the scenes in camp the night before, etc. 

*****

Passion, and work.  I reall[y enjoy interacting with people, especially students.   Why can't I find my passion there?   Because I hate interacting with nonsenical systems, and that's what education is now.

*****

Enough.   Basta!  Off to cook chicken soup.  Come by if you want some, but call first, because I'm going to nap somewhere in here.