June 29, 2002
If I had known how
If I had known how much everything weighed, I would never have chosen to be a math geek. With this Teaching Fellows Math Immersion program, I quickly discovered that my trusty 1980's solar calculator clearly wasn't up to the task of calculating probabilities. Because they give geeky math teachers discounts, I ordered a Texas Instruments 83PlusAV. Without even seeing it, I already knew it was going to be frightening, plus it cost me 90 bucks!
When the box arrived, I knew that my future profession is going to isolate me from the world of sparkling conversation and social interaction. It weighs five pounds easily. I open it up, and it has more attachments and manuals than my laptop purchase of a year ago. The "Getting Started" booklet is SIXTY PAGES. This isn't the actual manual, this is the "Barely touching the surface" booklet. This monster has video output, this huge screen, and more buttons than an engineer has dates. I'm not the kind of person to read a manual, so I guess I won't be able to take over the world with it, unless I find that one key.
Posted by G at 08:42 PM
June 28, 2002
The first time it happened,
The first time it happened, it was like a swift kick to the groin. I had no idea that watching all my transfer credits be ripped out of my academic gut would be so searingly painful. Admissions offices never use anaesthetic. My early twenties were not spent in any one place for any amount of time, but I occasionally forked over the cash for another semester of goofy classes. By the time I settled down at Texas Tech in Lubbock, I had probably 70 hours of classes, only half transferring. The obnoxious admissions woman sneered at me, telling me that moving from college to college never pays off.
Laugh now, you office troglodyte! My years of undecided, undeclared, unprofitable slacker classes will actually give me thousands of extra dollars over my teaching career. Yes, we are talking about things like my scuba class, music appreciation, even my alcohol class. The NY teachers have a complex series of pay raises, and one series gives you a bonus for any college hours over a bachelors minimum requirements, even if they aren't masters level. I have over 35 hours of excessive college, euphemistically speaking, which entitles me to recoup all the thousands I spent on useless school over the years.
Being a slacker is great, I have no idea why anyone wouldn't want to be one.
Posted by G at 11:10 PM
June 26, 2002
A week ago, I'd been
A week ago, I'd been sweating and cursing at math like some recalcitrant mental mule inside my head. As much as I tried to get my old math up and working, it just sat in my skull, making incoherent ramblings and mutterings. In addition to the mutterings of all the other personalities up there, I could hardly get any homework done. Today was especially gratifying, because I've really been challenging my own limits, and I made a breakthrough on some calculus problems. I felt like whooping in class. Actually, I did, doing a cowboy yeehaw in joy. As people in my class are overwhelmingly aware of my constant brain farting, this didn't even turn heads.
The long hours spent in class, commuting, and doing homework sure do take their toll. At night I'm dreaming about lesson plans, although clowns keep smashing down the doors and eating the kids, which I watch in bemused slo-mo.Yesterday was an exceptional caffeine and sugar circus. I've been steadily increasing my coffee intake, plus my group constantly contributes donuts and goodies, which I gratefully consume. I get sleepy, then wired, then tired, then wired, then drowsy, then I head home. Yesterday I increased the dosage by having a huge cup of coffee at Java & Jazz, then the Big Vagina show, then Krispy Kreme. Nothing compares to those little gems of sugar, flour, fat and love. I almost shrieked when I discovered the feature donut, Triple Chocolate. Not only is it Krispy Kreme, but they fill it with chocolatey something, then top it with chocolate icing and chocolate dough crumbles. If an orgasm could be mixed with flour and sugar and deep fried, they've done it. I have never tried heroin, but it can't be this good, plus they have to use needles for delivery.
Posted by G at 09:14 PM
I joined Dan and his
I joined Dan and his posse to see the Big Vagina Monologues, performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Homework was minimal, so I could afford to have some quality entertainment time. I was quite excited, as this playhouse is home to Amy Sedaris, sister of one of my favorite authors. There were two performances, and it wasn't quite what I expected. It was still hilarious, but somewhat alarming. Both were quite autobiographical, and sometimes the humor traveled along the painful vein. The first was about a slacker with details eerily similar to my last year, and the second performance was from a girl's truly twisted family life. As she revealed details of her life, I just kept thinking, "I could do this better..."
My sister Bonnie and I have always had the skill of turning painful stories into humorous stories. I think that pain, hurt, and rejection become a lot more manageable once I can laugh at it. Everything has a funny side, unfortunately. I am most definitely not the person to confide a tragedy, especially if you need sympathy. I do sympathize, but I feel the best way to deal with something terrible is to laugh at it. Last week, I noticed a friend of mine was down and moping, so my attempt to perk him up consisted of constant joking and goosing him in the ribs. Members of my family respond well to goosing, although I am discovering that goosing, like my family's use of electric cattle prodders as communication/entertainment, doesn't adapt well to the urban environment. It's the same with dropping off of ledges or trees onto people to surprise them, they never seem amused, although my family members do things like this without a second thought.
The girl in the Big Vagina Monologues described her most embarrassing moment. Apparently she decided that the best way to deal with her grandfather's death was an interpretive dance at his funeral, which she then performed for us. Apparently all the relatives were horrified. I have been in her shoes on a fairly regular schedule my whole life. Personally, I hope two things will happen at my own funeral. One, people will laugh and have fun and act ridiculous. Spontaneous karaoke would be perfect, as would a food fight. Statistically a funeral is one of the triggers for people to have sex, so maybe some of my really horny friends will have the opportunity for sex, although not in front of everyone, please. Two, nobody notices that my ashes were baked into the cake they are eating.
Posted by G at 12:01 AM
June 24, 2002
I really like some of
I really like some of the adverts on the subway trains. My favorites at the moment are the Bronx Zoo ads, showing various baby things for animals. I also like the CBS ads that simulate their stars peeking through the train windows. I'm also trying to learn Spanish from the lawsuit ads. Considering how many times ads have saved me from staring at some horrifying bit of hygiene maintenance, I value the creative ones.
Not so the Remy Red promotion. Sure, the colors reach out and grab you, but the copywriter should be shot. I'm not sure which is worse, the gasping women reaching for the throbbing red phallic imagery, or the slogan "Stir your senses, on the inside!" Exactly HOW is one going to use this bottle to stir their insides? The mind boggles. Plus their reference points, like the one about 'like the time you decided to be a redhead...' Wasn't that a disaster for my sister? I could swear that it involved her hair falling out, gnashing of teeth, and some vow of revenge. Their captions should say something more realistic like "Remember the time you got wasted on this super-sweet stuff? No? You stirred your senses, on the inside, in front of everyone else!"
Posted by G at 08:13 PM
June 23, 2002
Who ever knew that life
Who ever knew that life in NY could be so complex? All the movies promised that if I stood against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline, I would end up being some movie director or Wall Street guru. I simply assumed that once I got here, I would go through some unknown transformation, maybe a transmogrifier box, and come out the other side a hipster, or at bare minimum a cool intellectual. All that angst (I'm merely stressed occasionally), all that artistic/musical talent (I'm Pavarotti in the shower, drugged Ethyl Merman in the real world), and that look! Hipsters have that 'just had fun sex' look, the perfectly mussed hair, the rumpled yet perfectly coordinated outfit, the cool shoes, the man-purse. Even after four months here, I don't have that look. I don't even have hair, my ability to match clothes remains highly suspect, my shoes are clunky ass-kicking boots, and I don't like my new man-purse.
Some people have issues with man-purse nomenclature. For those with purse issues, feel free to call them courier bags. I wanted to call my new one a man-sack, but everyone kept looking at me oddly. I have a backpack, but I discovered that I keep accidentally killing smaller people on the subway when I turn around. However, I really don't like the new man-purse. With all the books I have to haul around for my math classes, the man-purse is around ten million pounds. My spine is beginning to curve, my wallet is rubbing apart, and I end up racking myself going down stairs.
A little bit of brilliance from our refrigerator this weekend. Give drunk people magnet letters, and see what happens: Pewbie Snizm, and Pusky Flart. Pure magic.
Posted by G at 05:25 PM
June 20, 2002
I love how weeks of
I love how weeks of relentless math education can really smack me up the side of the head. I became giddy today after the Board of Education failed me in the schedule. Due to conflicts, inefficiencies, and probably the confluence of some astrological thingies, I have the morning off Friday. Because I have so much mental tunnel vision, I really had no idea what to do with the extra time. I'm going to wash the dog, drink a full pot of coffee, maybe make some breakfast. Laundry sounds exciting.
I get stressed about my capabilities in math every damned day. My brain is somewhat overloaded, and my laughing has a slight hysterical tinge. I think incontinence is just one equation away. I made a resolution quite a few years ago to not quit something out of fear of the unknown, but I'm discovering how much math I simply don't understand. Today was a great discussion, but for sections of the formulas, I could have sworn I was listening to a Peanuts teacher. We were figuring out the equation for optimum area for soda cans, and all I could hear was "mwah, mwahmwah mwah mwah." I am that round headed kid, just waiting for someone to pull away the football.
Writing about my worries gives me a perspective on how silly it is. My classmates are great, my brain hasn't been this stretched since I first started learning Russian, and I have donuts every day. My dog can hold it in for over twelve hours, and we're having the housewarming party this weekend. I will make it through the training, I will plunge into teaching, and I will laugh about this time later on in life, regardless of the outcome.
Posted by G at 11:08 PM
June 19, 2002
With the new commute every
With the new commute every day to Brooklyn College, I'm definitely becoming intimately familiar with trains and their quirks. It takes me between an hour and occasionally ninety minutes to get to classes. I now automatically check the seat for liquid, and I don't even think about trying to identify the liquid if I see it sloshing about like some mini-ocean. I am wildly fascinated by the single advertisement above my head, or the pattern on the floor, or the freckles on my arms. I am not even remotely interested in the man fishing around in his cavernous left nostril for some magic nose goblin that continues to elude him. Maybe he's discovered the sinus passage that leads directly to the pleasure center of his brain, maybe he is attempting to widen it to allow easier access for foreign objects.
I get this silly little rush whenever one of the new subway trains pulls up to the station. The bright LED display of the number, the charming voice of the man announcing "please stand clear of the closing doors!", the hand grips everywhere, the quiet air conditioning, it's pleasant. Even the beggars seem better dressed. One time whatever mechanism triggers the voice malfunctioned and his voice started rapping. PPPPPPLeaassssee Sttttttannnnnndddd grblemishericky. The fluorescent lighting in the new trains makes everyone look less pallid, something that New Yorkers need badly.
That was something I noticed in the new Spiderman film. I really enjoyed it, but everyone in the film is too tan.There are some tan people in the city, but if you want to blend in, I recommend the jaundiced look. Try to also be sixty pounds underweight. I saw the film with Nick, and Sam Raimi's creation was as enjoyable on my second viewing. I was able to watch the background this time, the buildings that I've learned to recognize in my wanderings about town. I've lived in famous cities like London, Moscow, and Lubbock (the home of Buddy Holly!), but the film reflects my feelings about this city. Every day, something happens that makes me feel like I'm living in a movie. I'm waiting for someone off stage to tell me the scene is done, I need to clear the stage. The people I meet, the conversations I share, the food I try, it all seems to be some scene in a thriller. I'm waiting for the sex scenes, but I guess my show must be G-rated.
Posted by G at 09:54 PM
June 17, 2002
I have certain urges, certain...
I have certain urges, certain... needs. In Texas, I could satisfy those primal needs when they got too strong. Here in NYC, I hadn't found an outlet, until last night. I made quite a spectacle satisfying it, at Chili's. One would think that cream gravy and country fried steak, being two of the four basic food groups, would be easily available in this culinary city. BUT NO! I've been searching every borough. Sure, I can find Thai food, Ethiopian food, Uzbek food, Peruvian food, Meckaleckahimeckahineyho food. When it comes to deep frying every item and covering it with flour, grease, and pepper, I'm just out of luck. Thank god for faceless chain restaurants in the horrifying crowded tacky tourist center of Manhattan.
Posted by G at 09:17 PM
June 15, 2002
Had lunch with my math
Had lunch with my math friend Mark at Planet Thailand yesterday. Love that place, as it is cheap and tasty and healthy and fun and bad music is always playing. Mark is the uber-genius of my math group, arguing horrendously complex problems with Al, the other genius. The rest of us are trying to just survive the program, these two are redefining reality or something. I could swear I saw them generating a black hole under the table yesterday. I've looked at the equations they play with, and I start to get dizzy.
Regardless of what you might say about Teaching Fellows organization abilities, or their funding, or ability to kill us in the first two years, they are quite good with naming things. Each group of university students is classified as a 'cohort'. When they first told me I was in the math cohort, I pictured myself wearing a mongolian doppa, riding a horse across the Russian steppes, leading an attack on some fortress. Being a math cohort, we would be able to use sine, cosine, and tangent to precisely launch catapults, or something.
So our group is a cohort. Back to Planet Thailand, and my conversation with Mark. We are observing a group of about fifteen hipsters, and I suddenly ask Mark what a group of hipsters is called. You have a murder of crows, a pod of whales, a short bus of republicans, a cohort of teaching fellows. My immediate ideas were a comb of hipsters, or maybe a thrift of hipsters, but then I had an epiphany- an angst of hipsters. I'm quite proud of that.
Posted by G at 12:52 PM
June 14, 2002
Damn. I've had one of
Damn. I've had one of those no good, horrible, everything is wrong kind of days. Come to think of it, more like a week. My organizational abilities are shot. I had no idea my ass was genetically bred to be spanked by math. I looked in the mirror to see where I had the math lobotomy, but the surgeon skillfully concealed the scars. I keep losing things, like my month-pass for the subway, or the ticket for some teaching event on Monday that I must attend. I would have liked to lose some weight, but that isn't going to happen. My roommate Dan and I both have sweet teeth, and we have a psychic link that coordinates who will buy the Krispy Kreme donuts or the Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. We can't keep unexpired milk in the fridge, but we will never run out of insulin drainers. At our combined rate of contribution, I estimate both of us will be in diabetic comas within six months.
I can summarize it this way: WHINER! I've been a spoiled slacker for the last year, and I'm whining about it. I don't like waking up before 8am, my coffee schedule has been disrupted, and I will never get a tan for the next two years unless our sun goes supernova. I've grown accustomed to instant gratification over the last year, and my first payment stipend won't materialize until July. The donuts seem to be a quick sugar reward, but cash would be even better.
However, I have survived the worst two weeks of the summer program. At least I keep telling myself that. The math immersion program will get better. It's better than huddling in the corner of the room, rocking back and forth. Plus I'd like some hot cocoa.
Posted by G at 07:35 PM
June 12, 2002
Went to Metamorphoses tonight. It
Went to Metamorphoses tonight. It wasn't my first play here, it was simply the first play at full price. Will bought the tickets, as his cash flow is much greater than mine. I had seen an Albee play last summer, but it was simply too odd, and the production was lacking. I was awestruck by the simplicity and elegance of the set tonight, and will never make comments about the expensive tickets again. Well, I won't comment unless the show was crap.
I'm torn about being a gentleman on the subway. I really feel compelled to surrender my seat to women. This is not a sexist issue, it is a shoe issue. I don't rate this on age, merely on cruel shoe status. I observe those poor women with great looking shoes that clash with the grimace of pain on their faces. However, with my own knee problems, I feel less generous , as I didn't choose my knee problems, and they chose their shoes. Plus I see all the guys sitting down, assiduously contemplating their belly buttons. I've swung back and forth on this moral swing, I'll probably make some hideously complex equation that allows me to decide. But I'll do that tomorrow.
Posted by G at 12:08 AM