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February 25, 2007
Blarg Hop 2007
I went to the Blarg Hop. I was feeling much better after the mega dose of antibiotics, so I felt I could handle it. I did have a bit of a headache, but otherwise was good. I enjoy the occasional megagetagether, as it is so hard to connect to friends in a city where subways are like state lines.
Unlike many other events like this, I was quite aware of my surroundings, as I only had two drinks.
Not so, Jeff. He danced. It was cute. He will probably kill me for including this photo.
I fairly consistently misnamed Curly McDimple as Gwendolyn, as I couldn't hear over the music, but otherwise managed to not offend too many people. Gen Ex Tony was a charming and sexy conversationalist, plus check out his smile.
Click here for my other pics from the night.
Posted by G at 03:32 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
February 23, 2007
Jello Wrestling
My friend Jerry has written a great article on women's jello wrestling. If you search that magazine, you'll see I've started doing reviews on things like beer and magazines.
I'm glad they don't use real jello in their wrestling. Wrestling in boiled down hooves is gross.
Posted by G at 01:31 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
February 22, 2007
Numbered lists of things I don't like about being sick
7. Fevers make me dizzy, hot, and well, feverish. Drinking water in the middle of the night to relieve my parched throat makes sense. Falling asleep while still holding the glass does NOT make sense. Spilling the water all over myself, the bed, and Derrick makes sense, but only in a senseless way. The loud bout of cursing afterwards made perfect sense.
6. Fevers make me dizzy and make me forget about leaving the microwave door open, then I walk into it. Now I have a two inch gash on my head.
5. The snorkeling sounds I make at any given time, but especially as I'm just going to sleep. (Probably Derrick's favorite one too)
4. Derrick gets to drink ALL the Brooklyn Chocolate Stout because of the no alcohol rule.
3. The no alcohol rule.
2. The fact that I'm not able to go down to DC. The fact that I didn't get to go anywhere.
1. I'm getting really tired of Charmed and Law & Order marathons.
On the plus side, I went to the cute doctor at Callen Lorde today, and he prescribed me a new antibiotic called Cefuroxime Axetil (ten day treatment). He was a bit alarmed that the Z-pac antibiotics didn't work. I was a bit alarmed, as everyone knows that Cefuroxime Axetil was the Aztec god of beer. When I looked up the specifics, apparently this Aztec god requires the sacrifice of all shirts of any hot men near me for the next ten days.
You know me. I'm all about respecting the gods.
Posted by G at 09:50 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
February 21, 2007
102.6
That would be the peak fever from last night. I've been fighting a cold for the last week, but then it got a lot worse yesterday. I walked Bear in the morning, did the laundry, but was a whiny little drama queen by around 5.
I'm not a nice person to be around when I'm sick.
I was planning on heading to DC on Thursday, but now I have a doctor appointment Thursday morning, and I'll make a decision after that. It would suck llike the cold vacuum of space if I don't get to at least travel once on this vacation.
On the plus side, when I get feverish, my eyes change to a greener color. I noticed this when I was dizzily staring at myself at 3 in the morning in the bathroom.
Posted by G at 10:17 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
February 20, 2007
Boyfriend by candlelight
Posted by G at 11:33 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
February 14, 2007
Disregard post if you have SAD
There is a reason why teachers in NYC get a break in February. WE NEED IT.
Even though my school is a huge jump above my last school, it is still a part of a flawed system. Being a small school has some advantages and some flaws. Advantages include smaller student body, so you know all the students, intimately work with a small group of teachers, and certain situations are more flexible. However, the small school makes certain things extremely inflexible, such as when students fail. Because certain classes can't be offered every semester, schedules are inflexible and have a hard time dealing with failing students. Also, the loss of even one teacher can have major repercussions for coverages. Everyone wears multiple hats, doing things that aren't normally done. This is usually good, as I'm with the best team of teachers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. This is bad when things begin to pile up, you're tired (and sick), and naps were excluded from the schedules back when I was a preschooler.
Personally, I'm battling inner demons. Being a really white teacher in a minority school makes me constantly question my own expectations for my students and my own teaching. Because of my background, I constantly feel I should reeavaluate my teaching methods and attitudes to make sure that insidious cynicism isn't affecting me. Are certain students failing because they feel I have lower expectations from them? After 5 years in the system, I can very quickly recognize signs of missing math in a student's work and adjust my lessons, but have I ever lowered the level of difficulty? I don't think so, but it is hard to find the time to really analyze this.
I also have a hard time balancing being tough/being nice, and my lessons suffer for it. My lessons are a little more organic/chaotic, as I really do make lessons where my students are supposed to develop their own rules. This definitely does not have me in a traditional front of the class, writing on the blackboard. Rather, the kids work in groups, find rules that work, apply them, and present them to the rest of the class. However, I really struggle with certain seriously disengaged students, and some boys view kindness as weakness. Around February/March, I begin to question my own effectiveness in a high-needs school.
This is why the break is necessary. Like I've said before, a hot sandy beach sounds really good right now.
Posted by G at 09:20 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 13, 2007
The D o C
Am I going to Tucson, Palm Springs, San Diego and the Southwest? Nope. Too expensive right now. Still in the cards for April, though.
Am I going to Boston and Rhode Island? Nope, they were right about blizzards, and not the yummy kinds from Dairy Queen.
Am I going to Florida? Nope, too Republican.
So where am I going?
DC, at least February 22-25. I figure that I'll be able to do lots of culture on the cheap, hang with numberious friends, and drink Shiner Bock beer. I'll find some artificial sun or something, take lots of pics, and photoshop a tan on me.
Quick nerd note. You can tell the phases of the moon using DOC. If the moon looks like D, it is waxing. O is obviously the full moon, and the C is waning. Wax on, whacks off.
Posted by G at 09:13 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
February 10, 2007
Worshiping false idols
So I don't offend TOO many people, I won't worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I'll just build her. I've built tons of kits from this company, and I use their kits in the math classes, as students can learn a lot about probability from a codex, or scale from models. Looks cool, right?
Posted by G at 11:43 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
February 07, 2007
The answer to the problem
is not 42, as the giant Earth computer predicted from Hitchhiker's Guide.
The correct answer is 1665. Winner of dinner is the lovely, talented, and persistent internationally renowned LongStory, followed by bookish sexy non-blogger JP (I'll buy him a beer), then Mike Prov, who when not solving math problems also shows nekkid pics of himself on his blog.
What I love as a math teacher is HOW someone solves a problem. Long Story solved it by making multiple copies of the puzzle and isolating specific shapes until she had a solution. JP made an excel spreadsheet that extended the iterations. I started with a manual table, figured out the pattern, then used a line of best fit correlation to find the algebraic solution for any size triangle. I saw at least three other strategies (some flawed, yet still creative).
I love math. I love watching students who believe they are not that good at math actually do well at math, because math is just finding strategies that work for you. I can multiply very large numbers in my head, but my strategy is entirely different from another math teacher. Example: to multiply 699x450, I say 7x4, then 7x5 (but shifted one place, so now 3150). Add 2 zeroes. Subtract 450, so 314,550. To me, this is easy, as I constantly am calculating answers on the fly.
Oops. I think I lost some readers there. Sorry.
Posted by G at 08:21 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
February 04, 2007
Cold/Cold
Just like going to weather. com, I could feel something nasty coming in from the north. My head was filled with something cloudy, my body was aching, and by the end of Wednesday, I was coughing on my way home. During the middle of the first night, I was having a hard time breathing in between all of the coughing. No teaching for me.
This tied in nicely with the real weather, so I haven't been outside in 4 days. I've slept about ten-twelve hours a day, and I'm feeling about 95% better. I'm also about 100% stir crazy.
Posted by G at 07:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
I'm a nerd in many dimensions
I am just a high school teacher, so while I can nod sagely at many scientific discussions, I really have no idea what they're talking about. Thank goodness for my skill of nodding sagely. Superstring theory is one of those topics, which is why I'm happy that one of my fellow furry nerds found a site that explains the ten dimensions without being too childish or technical.
Posted by G at 10:01 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
February 03, 2007
What a degree in Russian gets you
When Napoleon invaded Russia, he learned what every other invader learns. The winters SUCK in Russia. He lost 98 percent of his army to Russian hospitality.
The blessed Cossacks followed him all the way back to Paris. Remember that Russians weren't the most cultured group of this time, and they surely offended the sensitivities of Parisian restaurateurs, who were famous for quality food served VERY slowly. They would pound on the tables of the restaurants, screaming "Bistro, bistro" or "Quickly, Quickly" in Russian. The Parisians, ever accomodating of occupying armies, quickly put tables outside of the restaurants and began to serve faster, simpler fare.
And now the French have bistros.
Posted by G at 09:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack