New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast recently published a book detailing the things in life she hates, or at the very least make her uncomfortable. Hearing this I thought...Gee, I could do that. I hate things too! Not a whole lot of things. But surely at least one thing for every letter of the alphabet. Right? Well, I thought I might find out. So here goes my list...
A - ABBA. This one almost seems too easy. Bjorn Ulvaeus, before forming ABBA, played in a group called the Hootenanny Singers. Benny Andersson played keyboards in a band called the Hep Stars. During a time when the US music scene was exploring sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll Sweden was falling in love with groups called the Hootenanny Singers and the Hep Stars. What a bunch of squares! I'm tempted to put Sweden on my list.
Other contenders: abacuses, abstract art, accordions, airports, allergies, alpacas, ammunition, armpits, and the entire American Pie movie franchise.
B - BALLET. I once worked in a district where every third grade classroom had to attend a performance of The Nutcracker as performed by a local ballet company. It was terrible. It was slow, made no sense, and really long. The kid next to me fell asleep less than half way through. I was tempted to do the same but felt that, as the teacher, it would be inappropriate.
Other contenders: baboons, barbed wire, barking, Bassett Hounds, baths, billboards, baby blue, and the Boston Red Sox.
C - CANADA. First, it's really cold in Canada. I once heard a comedian complain about all the Canadians who visit California and say "I really love it here but I could never stay because I love the seasons too much." His response? "Yeah, I love the seasons too. That's why I live somewhere that skips all the shitty ones!" More reasons to hate Canada? Dan Aykroyd, Justin Bieber, Tom Greene, Corey Haim, Norm MacDonald, Alan Thicke, and William Shatner.
Other contenders: Conway Twitty,cancer, croutons, camels, cellulite, Chevelles, camouflage, cannibalism, and Celtic dance.
...to be continued.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Driveway Moments
NPR introduces you to all kinds of stories, books, people, movies, and
musicians you'd probably never hear about otherwise. I don't really
listen all that often anymore. It's too risky when the kids are in the van because every once in a while they'll drop a story in there that isn't really fit for young ears. And when driving alone, a true rarity, I find that, more than not, I prefer the sound of silence. Between teaching and home there aren't all that many quiet moments to be found. My drive to and from USC on Monday and Tuesday nights are pretty much it. These two drives account for the two hours each week when I don't have to solve a problem, move children from one place to the next, answer a question, or correct a behavior. It's not that I mind any of these things - I don't - but it is refreshing to enjoy a moment of absolute silence and not worry about whether or not I should be making plans, reading assigned texts, writing newsletters, researching articles, writing papers, or assessing student work.
That's not to say I never turn on the radio anymore. In fact, while I avoid auditory stimulus on the way to class I actually look forward to it on the way home. That's because I know when I get into the car around 7:20 Terry Gross will be on. Fresh Air is my favorite of all the NPR programs. Terry Gross is far from being a great interviewer - in fact, she can be quite awkward at times. Still, she brings in people I rarely, if ever, hear about anywhere else and I somehow find myself becoming completely engrossed in their story.
This past week she interviewed Tom Waits about his new CD, Bad as Me. I'm no Tom Waits fan. I can't even begin to imagine how others can stomach his gravelly voice. As I got into the car Terry was introducing a track in which Waits uses a falsetto voice. I'm not sure if this was better or worse than his natural growling. Yet I still listened the whole way home.
The week before, I listened to an interview with Tom Irwin who found a diary written in 1893 hidden away in his Pleasant Plains, Illinois farmhouse and set the words he found inside it to music. He created an entire album of these songs (hear it here). It was an odd story but, again, I didn't want it to end. It was fascinating.
About a month ago I learned of chef Grant Achatz who charges diners at his Chicago restaurant, Alinea, more than $200 to enjoy an ambitious 23-course meal. Achatz is one of the "leading members of the molecular gastronomy movement, which uses unexpected flavor combinations and exotic laboratory tools to create foods based on the molecular compatibility of ingredients." He has a machine that can capture the aroma of an item. He places this gas into a bag, pricks tiny holes in it, slides it into a pillowcase, and puts it under the plate just before it is sent out into the dining room. The weight of the plate pushes down onto the bag, slowly forcing out the aromatic gas. It's the combination of this aroma (say, leather or grass) and the food that helps to elicit memories and feelings in the diner never before imagined in a dining experience. The hook on this piece was the fact that Chef Achatz has lost his ability to taste after being diagnosed with stage four tongue cancer. How ironic.
These are the types of stories that make you sit in the car for an extra minute or two after you pull into the garage. They're far more interesting than an interview with Russel Crowe, Barack O'bama, or Paul McCartney. They're even worth giving up those coveted moments of silence.
That's not to say I never turn on the radio anymore. In fact, while I avoid auditory stimulus on the way to class I actually look forward to it on the way home. That's because I know when I get into the car around 7:20 Terry Gross will be on. Fresh Air is my favorite of all the NPR programs. Terry Gross is far from being a great interviewer - in fact, she can be quite awkward at times. Still, she brings in people I rarely, if ever, hear about anywhere else and I somehow find myself becoming completely engrossed in their story.
This past week she interviewed Tom Waits about his new CD, Bad as Me. I'm no Tom Waits fan. I can't even begin to imagine how others can stomach his gravelly voice. As I got into the car Terry was introducing a track in which Waits uses a falsetto voice. I'm not sure if this was better or worse than his natural growling. Yet I still listened the whole way home.
The week before, I listened to an interview with Tom Irwin who found a diary written in 1893 hidden away in his Pleasant Plains, Illinois farmhouse and set the words he found inside it to music. He created an entire album of these songs (hear it here). It was an odd story but, again, I didn't want it to end. It was fascinating.
About a month ago I learned of chef Grant Achatz who charges diners at his Chicago restaurant, Alinea, more than $200 to enjoy an ambitious 23-course meal. Achatz is one of the "leading members of the molecular gastronomy movement, which uses unexpected flavor combinations and exotic laboratory tools to create foods based on the molecular compatibility of ingredients." He has a machine that can capture the aroma of an item. He places this gas into a bag, pricks tiny holes in it, slides it into a pillowcase, and puts it under the plate just before it is sent out into the dining room. The weight of the plate pushes down onto the bag, slowly forcing out the aromatic gas. It's the combination of this aroma (say, leather or grass) and the food that helps to elicit memories and feelings in the diner never before imagined in a dining experience. The hook on this piece was the fact that Chef Achatz has lost his ability to taste after being diagnosed with stage four tongue cancer. How ironic.
These are the types of stories that make you sit in the car for an extra minute or two after you pull into the garage. They're far more interesting than an interview with Russel Crowe, Barack O'bama, or Paul McCartney. They're even worth giving up those coveted moments of silence.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Blinded by Science
There was a time I didn't enjoy teaching science. My first few years in the classroom I didn't know what to teach. It's hard to imagine now but at the time I didn't even know what state standards or standardized testing was. For better or worse we were allowed to teach from our interests. In my classroom this meant we did some really cool things with astronomy but once that topic of exploration was exhausted we were left with a few random studies or experiments to fill out the year.
Part of the problem was probably the fact my own experiences with science in the classroom were sub par, at best. While I don't remember a single moment of science instruction in elementary school, I vividly recall six years of middle and high school classes that called for the memorization of terminology, cell parts, and the periodic table of elements. My only positive memories are of dissecting a frog in biology and then later using a strobe light to measure the distance between ripples in a tray of water in physics. That's not a lot.By the time I entered my science methods course as an undergraduate student in the elementary education department I had all but given up on science. Nothing about it held any interest for me. The course surprised me. It was fun. However, I didn't think this was entirely fair because all we did in the class was play with science tools, develop and conduct experiments, and pull apart little foil balls to discover a mouse skeleton inside (we later found these came from owls). All this playing around didn't really seem like teaching. Certainly not the teaching I was accustomed to.
My final course before graduating from college was an earth science class. It would generally have been the type of class you'd take first. Not surprisingly, I had put it off until the bitter end. To save money I took it at the local community college and really didn't expect much. Early on that's about all I got - no much.
However, a few weeks in we began to learn about space. I became really fascinated not just with everything to be found outside the earth's atmosphere but with the incredible predictability of it all. Equipped with a few charts and a little math you could accurately predict where the moon would be and what it would look like next Tuesday at 10:10 pm. You could figure out what time of day Mars would come into view and which constellation it would be hiding in. It wasn't something you just memorized but something you could go out and actually do yourself. Before long I bought my own telescope, sky chart, and red flashlight. After graduating I continued to read books on both physics and astronomy and even went back to college to take a few advanced math courses.And despite this I still walked into my first day of teaching feeling the science blues. This continued after moving to South Carolina. Here in the Palmetto state I was introduced to strict state standards that told me exactly what I should be teaching and sometimes even when I should be teaching them. This would have been a relief except for the fact that half of what I was charged with teaching was topics I knew little to nothing about: states of matter, rocks and minerals, the physics of sound. Fortunately my new school had a science lab equipped with an assistant who would pull together materials for me and even help teach the lessons. There were a lot of experiments. They came from a popular science program and weren't really all that bad. The kids were getting to use all kinds of tools, record data, and make connections. I slowly began to learn that science in a classroom doesn't have to be boring at all.
I've since moved to a school that is about as science-oriented as any school could possibly be. In the place of the old programs are lots of time spent exploring, playing, asking, reading, and experimenting. I've had the incredible fortune to teach next door to my buddy Tim who has taught me that teaching science isn't as much about memorizing or conducting a series of set experiments as it is about living in wonder of the world. I've learned to be amazed by a caterpillar building its chrysalis, curious about grass seed growing in pencil shavings, and inspired by the many artifacts and creatures brought in each day by seven and eight year olds who have learned already how cool science really is. More than anything, I learned that to be a good science teacher you just have to spark an interest and get out of the way.
I've been thinking about all this over the past few weeks. The kids have been observing animals, studying seeds, designing and conducting experiments, inquiring into fruits and vegetables, learning about nutrition, and mucking through non-fiction books in search of really cool facts to delight their friends with. Their excitement and curiosity has no limits. What was once a disappointment has turned into a highlight of the day. Here's a few pics from our studies...
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| An opportunity to observe flamingos in an unnatural setting - the zoo. |
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| Setting up an experiment with seeds from home. |
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| These apples came from New Zealand. We actually grow apples in SC. |
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| Thousands of heads of lettuce grown in downtown Columbia. |
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| These microgreens are grown completely chemical free. |
 |
| Feeding the fish in our pond. |
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| A visit from the executive chef of Richland 2 schools. |
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| We found out our school lunches are INCREDIBLY healthy. |
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| The chef told us you can plant the top of a pineapple and it will grow. We're making sure. |
I'll end this post with a big thank you to Tim for helping me to see how much fun science is. If that thing takes off we'll send the first pineapple your way!
Monday, October 10, 2011
Reading the Signs
There were a number of things I didn't particularly care for when we lived in Lake Carolina. Cookie-cutter houses, neighborhood gossip, and community by-laws, to name a few. But perhaps my biggest beef was with the silly street names.
There were street names designed to make you believe you were living near the beach:
Harborside Lane...Nautique Circle...Shoreline Drive...Mariner's Cove Drive...Windjammer Lane...Sailing Club Drive...Penninsula Way...Marsh Pointe Drive (I particularly love the use of a fancy silent-e).
There were other street names designed to make you think this was some sort of elite community:
Ashton Hill Drive...Laurel Bluff Court...Avington Lane...Wescott Place...Austree Drive...Granbury Lane
I think you could throw the words Way, Court, Place, or Lane on just about anything and make it sound uppity.
"After you pass through the security gate you'll want to make a right turn on Weepy Colon Court and then an immediate left on Dingleberry Lane. It's a cobblestone. You'll probably see our Porsche parked out front."
When we were in Lake Carolina we lived on Berkeley Ridge Drive. The fact that we were neither on a ridge or anywhere near California obviously escaped the developers. However, as pompous as the street name was what bothered me even more was having to constantly spell Berkeley for everyone. Two e's, not one.
I guess you at least have to give credit to the developers in Lake Carolina for using a bit of imagination. My sister-in-law lives in a St. Louis neighborhood that consists of streets named Clear Meadows, Cool Meadows, Dear Meadows, High Meadows, Lea Meadows, and Shady Meadows. And as you can probably guess...there's no meadow to be found anywhere near this collection of single-story ranches.
Our new address is on Stone Ridge Court. A bit pretentious sounding, perhaps, but at least there are thousands of stones and it's actually located on a ridge. If not modest, it's at least accurate.
On my way to the recycle center yesterday I found myself paying close attention to the names of the streets I passed along the way. They weren't suburb names. No, they sounded like names you'd expect to find in the country...
Broom Mill
Cowhorn
Winesap
Peach
Hungry Hollow
Gum Springs
Roddy
Old Ruff
These are names with character - and probably a story.
But of all the roads I passed, my favorite by far was a gravel road winding away from US 331 into a stand of trees. It's name?
Devil's Racetrack
Now, how cool would it be to have that printed on your driver's license?
There were street names designed to make you believe you were living near the beach:
Harborside Lane...Nautique Circle...Shoreline Drive...Mariner's Cove Drive...Windjammer Lane...Sailing Club Drive...Penninsula Way...Marsh Pointe Drive (I particularly love the use of a fancy silent-e).
There were other street names designed to make you think this was some sort of elite community:
Ashton Hill Drive...Laurel Bluff Court...Avington Lane...Wescott Place...Austree Drive...Granbury Lane
I think you could throw the words Way, Court, Place, or Lane on just about anything and make it sound uppity.
"After you pass through the security gate you'll want to make a right turn on Weepy Colon Court and then an immediate left on Dingleberry Lane. It's a cobblestone. You'll probably see our Porsche parked out front."
When we were in Lake Carolina we lived on Berkeley Ridge Drive. The fact that we were neither on a ridge or anywhere near California obviously escaped the developers. However, as pompous as the street name was what bothered me even more was having to constantly spell Berkeley for everyone. Two e's, not one.
I guess you at least have to give credit to the developers in Lake Carolina for using a bit of imagination. My sister-in-law lives in a St. Louis neighborhood that consists of streets named Clear Meadows, Cool Meadows, Dear Meadows, High Meadows, Lea Meadows, and Shady Meadows. And as you can probably guess...there's no meadow to be found anywhere near this collection of single-story ranches.
Our new address is on Stone Ridge Court. A bit pretentious sounding, perhaps, but at least there are thousands of stones and it's actually located on a ridge. If not modest, it's at least accurate.
On my way to the recycle center yesterday I found myself paying close attention to the names of the streets I passed along the way. They weren't suburb names. No, they sounded like names you'd expect to find in the country...
Broom Mill
Cowhorn
Winesap
Peach
Hungry Hollow
Gum Springs
Roddy
Old Ruff
These are names with character - and probably a story.
But of all the roads I passed, my favorite by far was a gravel road winding away from US 331 into a stand of trees. It's name?
Devil's Racetrack
Now, how cool would it be to have that printed on your driver's license?
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Waste Not...
Our new house does not have trash pick-up service. Given that our driveway is a two hundred foot gravel incline to the street above I'm not really that disappointed. I can't even imagine hauling a can or two up there each week. Instead, we load our trash and recyclables into the van and take it seven miles down the road to the trash and recycling center.
The trash and recycling center is about the coolest place on earth if you really love organization - and I do. There are different bays for house waste, yard waste, and appliances. There are also recycling bays for cardboard and paper, plastics and glass, batteries, electronics, tires, steel, and more. I couldn't wait to get home and tell Tricia all about it after my first trip. I guess I'm easily amused.
Hauling your own trash really helps you to be more aware of the amount of waste you create in a week. Because it took us a week or two to figure out how and where to get rid of our trash our first haul was a pretty big one. We had to put all the seats in the van down and cram everything in.
My last trip to the center was last Sunday. A few days ago, maybe Thursday, I was walking around the side of the house and opened up one of the trash cans to drop in a scrap of trash I found lying in the woods. When I lifted the lid I noticed there weren't any bags of trash inside. Confused, I opened up the other trash can and found it, too, had no bags. I went inside and checked the kitchen trash can. It was mostly full but still had a bit of room left. Wow, in five or so days we hadn't filled even a single bag yet. I was amazed. Knowing this changed my trashy habits. I began avoiding making trash and crushing what I did make down to the size of nothingness.
Finally on Saturday the kitchen trash was on the verge of overflowing and had to be taken out. We almost made it a whole week. Almost. Though it wasn't on purpose I was proud to see we were somehow minimizing our waste. I say it wasn't on purpose but we do try to avoid things that are heavily packaged and single serving items. Last week I was on a trip where more than two hundred Capri Suns were handed out to a group of kids. Now that's wasteful.
A great way to avoid creating waste is to fix broken things rather than buying new ones. Or fighting the temptation to have the newest version of something that works perfectly. Or finding a new home for unwanted things. There's actually a website for giving your old stuff away. It's called Freecycle and can be found at www.freecycle.org.
We joined Freecycle for the first time in St. Louis. We used it to get rid of our treadmill after we realized how miserable it is to walk inside. After listing it on the site we had about eight or nine interested parties contact us within a few hours. We chose one randomly and it was picked up from our driveway the following Saturday.
A few weeks after getting rid of the treadmill our new dog jumped on our new mattress and made a new deposit right in the center of the pillow top. She completely saturated it. Thinking the mattress was a lost cause I jumped on Freecycle and placed a "Wanted" ad for a queen sized mattress. Someone replied and a few days later my buddy Tim and I drove to their house to pick it up. Standing at their front door we looked down behind the bushes and saw a whole army of cigarette butts. It might be reasonable to believe these people only smoked out on the front porch and that the mattress wouldn't smell like cigarette smoke but I wasn't about to find out. We high-tailed out of there before anyone could answer the door.
Though we are members, we haven't had the chance to use Freecycle here in Columbia just yet. We generally call the Salvation Army to pick up any large items we're getting rid of and the smaller stuff is delivered to Goodwill. Still, I love the idea of Freecycle and look at their listings from time to time. Looking at it tonight I saw the following items offered or requested: wedding stuff, a dog who barks loudly but listens a little, serving dishes, a lawnmower, and a kitten. But by far my favorite was this...
Wanted: Sandpaper
I need a piece of sandpaper to sand out some scratches on my dining room baseboard. Maybe someone has an extra square or two from a small job they just completed? I'd be able to pick it up tomorrow, if convenient.
Ha. While I love the idea of sharing resources and all, I'm not sure a single square of sandpaper warrants a drive across town. Is it just me or is this a bit fanatical? There's always a crazy to make the rest of us look bad.
The trash and recycling center is about the coolest place on earth if you really love organization - and I do. There are different bays for house waste, yard waste, and appliances. There are also recycling bays for cardboard and paper, plastics and glass, batteries, electronics, tires, steel, and more. I couldn't wait to get home and tell Tricia all about it after my first trip. I guess I'm easily amused.
Hauling your own trash really helps you to be more aware of the amount of waste you create in a week. Because it took us a week or two to figure out how and where to get rid of our trash our first haul was a pretty big one. We had to put all the seats in the van down and cram everything in.
My last trip to the center was last Sunday. A few days ago, maybe Thursday, I was walking around the side of the house and opened up one of the trash cans to drop in a scrap of trash I found lying in the woods. When I lifted the lid I noticed there weren't any bags of trash inside. Confused, I opened up the other trash can and found it, too, had no bags. I went inside and checked the kitchen trash can. It was mostly full but still had a bit of room left. Wow, in five or so days we hadn't filled even a single bag yet. I was amazed. Knowing this changed my trashy habits. I began avoiding making trash and crushing what I did make down to the size of nothingness.
Finally on Saturday the kitchen trash was on the verge of overflowing and had to be taken out. We almost made it a whole week. Almost. Though it wasn't on purpose I was proud to see we were somehow minimizing our waste. I say it wasn't on purpose but we do try to avoid things that are heavily packaged and single serving items. Last week I was on a trip where more than two hundred Capri Suns were handed out to a group of kids. Now that's wasteful.
A great way to avoid creating waste is to fix broken things rather than buying new ones. Or fighting the temptation to have the newest version of something that works perfectly. Or finding a new home for unwanted things. There's actually a website for giving your old stuff away. It's called Freecycle and can be found at www.freecycle.org.
We joined Freecycle for the first time in St. Louis. We used it to get rid of our treadmill after we realized how miserable it is to walk inside. After listing it on the site we had about eight or nine interested parties contact us within a few hours. We chose one randomly and it was picked up from our driveway the following Saturday.
A few weeks after getting rid of the treadmill our new dog jumped on our new mattress and made a new deposit right in the center of the pillow top. She completely saturated it. Thinking the mattress was a lost cause I jumped on Freecycle and placed a "Wanted" ad for a queen sized mattress. Someone replied and a few days later my buddy Tim and I drove to their house to pick it up. Standing at their front door we looked down behind the bushes and saw a whole army of cigarette butts. It might be reasonable to believe these people only smoked out on the front porch and that the mattress wouldn't smell like cigarette smoke but I wasn't about to find out. We high-tailed out of there before anyone could answer the door.
Though we are members, we haven't had the chance to use Freecycle here in Columbia just yet. We generally call the Salvation Army to pick up any large items we're getting rid of and the smaller stuff is delivered to Goodwill. Still, I love the idea of Freecycle and look at their listings from time to time. Looking at it tonight I saw the following items offered or requested: wedding stuff, a dog who barks loudly but listens a little, serving dishes, a lawnmower, and a kitten. But by far my favorite was this...
Wanted: Sandpaper
I need a piece of sandpaper to sand out some scratches on my dining room baseboard. Maybe someone has an extra square or two from a small job they just completed? I'd be able to pick it up tomorrow, if convenient.
Ha. While I love the idea of sharing resources and all, I'm not sure a single square of sandpaper warrants a drive across town. Is it just me or is this a bit fanatical? There's always a crazy to make the rest of us look bad.
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