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October 31, 2007
Word Verification
I don't get to read many blogs right now, much less write my own. However, that word verification feature is just awful. I can't even imagine how bad it must be for someone who is seriously dyslexic.
Posted by G at 08:51 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 30, 2007
65 Candles
So today would have been my mom's 65th birthday. The thought kept periodically popping up in my head during the day. I wish I could call her, tell her I love her, tell her how much I miss her, maybe get a grimace when I told her that her youngest child was OLD.
At a less depressing moment, this made me laugh.
Posted by G at 06:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 29, 2007
Math boy in a sea of artists
The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) features a lot of cool stuff for educators. I was there on a Saturday before last with a bunch of art teachers for a training session specifically for teachers. In exchange for going to the training, I now have a full year membership, which kinda kicks ass.
We did a lot of fun stuff, including a full hour exploring just two paintings. Then things went wrong for me.
We came up to a Picasso statue of a deer. Our trainer handed us pieces of paper and asked us to sketch what we saw, as this is something they often ask students to do.
My palms started to sweat. My blood started to pound in my skull. I frantically looked from side to side, seeing artsy people in artsy clothes sketching beautiful shaded images on their pieces of paper. It was just like those horrifying moments in middle school where I was mocked for my comically bad drawings.
I started drawing, praying nobody was going to look at my sad pathetic stick figure attempt at a drawing. With self mockery, I can defuse my lack of art skills in a math classroom, but there's no such defense when surrounded by artists in an art museum. They weren't exactly impressed, but they still made positive comments.
I then had an epiphany. This is how most people in the US feel about math, especially the students in some of my classes that walk in the door three-five grades below level. I've always been sympathetic to my students who struggle, but I never felt that way myself. The problem with many math teachers is that they were good at math, and don't know how to help those who don't understand math.
I feel like I make my classroom safe for students, and especially over the last few years, I can see kids feeling safe to take chances in math and grow. I sure as hell can't teach them to draw, but I hope I can teach them the beauty I see in math.
Posted by G at 09:03 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
October 22, 2007
What I do when I'm not blogging
I know that my blogging has lagged lately. I just wanted to say that I've been doing a fair amount of stuff off the internet.
My apartment building tore up the back wall of the kitchen, I repaired it, AND the shelving unit. Better than getting rats in the apartment.
Went to Madison Square Garden.
Saw Tori Amos, although she is a bit fuzzy. The camera was fine, she really is fuzzy.
Been taking care of my flowers, bordered by cilantro and rosemary.
Building the Math Clock 2.0. Details in the next post, on why exactly this kicks ass.
Building a scale model of the Coliseum, entirely from paper.
Volunteering for ReadyMade magazine at the Design within Reach store, running the DIY clock making table.
Taking an education class at MOMA. I'll be writing about it on Thursday. This is a piece of dangerous art being carefully moved into the museum.
Now my sister Bonnie just bought me this:
Yep, my new giant metal erection.
See? This is the reason I tape Betty Fea.
Posted by G at 09:01 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
October 21, 2007
Betty Fea
I learned what one of the buttons on the VCR remote control does now.
See, we rented the first season of Ugly Betty on Netflix. We really fell in love with the show, and even better, it caught us up to the new season! I programmed the VCR (I'm way behind, no Tivo) to tape it every week. However, I must have pushed this one button on the remote by accident. The button says SAP.
What is SAP? Well, Derrick and I sat down to watch the show, and just like the soap opera the characters watch on their TV, the whole show was dubbed in Spanish. The tape recorded the spanish rather than the English, and we tried to watch it. We even subtitled it in English, but it was just too weird.
Since the show is based on a telenovela, I think I was subconsciously trying to make our experience as authentic as possible. Yeah, that's it.
Posted by G at 06:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
October 17, 2007
37, 41, 43
Turned 37 yesterday. As I explained to Derrick yesterday morning, I'm actually in my 38th year now, which is at least half way to my own death. Apparently Derrick was not in the mood for my grim reaper behavior, as he kept insisting that I meet him for dinner. I explained very logically that I wanted to wallow in misery and go buy groceries on my birthday. He then told me that I was being really difficult (I wasn't!) and that I should just relax and go to dinner. I then told him that Simon had also suggested a dinner and that I was going to call him and explain that I wanted to wallow in misery in the evening. Derrick's visage shifted to his angry teacher look and he then told me that some of my friends were taking me to dinner and that I was just going to have to deal with it.
Oh. Well then. Oops. I still wallowed a bit in misery, but it was on the subway, so nobody noticed.
He was right, of course. I'm just a wee bit melodramatic because of family history around holidays and celebrations, and I'm really awkward about people celebrating the existence of me. Derrick picked out a fairly intimate spot, and three couples that we're pretty good friends with. The restaurant was called Good, and I had a Goodburger, which is a huge burger with a special patty. The patty is at least 3 inches tall, because it is stuffed with barbequed pulled pork and cheese. In a modern miracle, I was unable to finish it. It was a delicious vegetarian and religious nightmare, and I loved every bite. Dessert was a mocha chocolate cake from Billy's Bakery. I cut the first slice that seemed appropriate to me, and everyone else almost gasped in horror when they saw how big it was. Two of my friends split that one, and I made the other slices smaller. I would just like to mention that I am a sugar professional and can handle large doses of chocolate and sugar, more than a normal human. It takes lot of practice, but I think it's worth the effort.
Posted by G at 04:03 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBack
October 15, 2007
Tori Rawked
Okay, actually, she didn't really rawk, or at least the way I hoped she would rawk. She was still really good, but this tour was more of a rock thing, and she just didn't seem to pull it off for me. I was hoping more for waifish and her signature 'humping the edge of the piano seat' thing, but she had a band and everything, covering a huge stretch of her songs that I never really cared about. Still, she is amazing at the piano, and her voice and persona in concert were mesmerizing.
With her talent and songs, you can see why she has such a devoted and passionate group of fans, especially the large girl with her date at the end of the row behind us. When the guy directly behind us got up halfway through the concert to go to the toilets, she refused to let him pass. Her date looked mortified, but she told him apparently to 'hold it.'
This poor guy stumbles back to his seat, as a guy doesn't get rude with a girl at a Tori Amos concert. There is WAY too much angst in the songs, and it could trigger something crazy. Lots of people are already crying as they provide the chorus to Tori's songs. I tell the guy to step over my seat to use our row to exit, and the large girl says something rude to him as he goes past. He ignored it, but HIS girlfriend was having none of it. A dialogue was opened between the two women, mostly with neutral comments like 'shut the eff up' and other things that normally don't occur in Tori songs.
We switched from the drama behind us back to Tori, and when I looked back again, large girl's date was gone and never came back! She looked like she was having a very special Blossom moment, so I only kept staring back every two or minutes, as I'm a master of subtlety. She was staring straight ahead, ignoring everyone who kept staring. Momentarily, I felt bad for her, as this concert was not going as planned for her. Then I remembered that she had been triggered this by being mean. I'm pretty sure she went back to a house filled with cats.
Posted by G at 09:49 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
October 11, 2007
Free Tori Anus Amos ticket!
Derrick and I purchased some tickets to the Tori Amos concert Friday night, October 12th. One of our friends just fell through on attending, so we now have one delicious FREE ticket to see Tori! If you want to be that special person, comment with valid email! NOW!
**Update**
Goodness! It looks like it will be my lurvely friend David B! He merely likes Tori, so I'm worried, as real toriphiles can sense ambivalence, but we'll see.
Posted by G at 05:15 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
October 04, 2007
Like every other kid, I should not have made it through childhood
A coworker regaled me with a story from their childhood involving cardboard, string, and a roof. Their childhood imagination had the sincerest belief that cardboard wings would create the first flying child. Imagination and optimism had a crash course with reality, of course, but that didn't preclude at least another attempt with more cardboard.
I look at my own childhood with a vague sense of amazement, as I have no broken limbs, besides my skull, and no toxic repercussions immediately evident. A perfect example would be Stretch Armstrong.
I had both Stretch AND Stretch Monster. Like most toys in the 70's, they didn't do much, but I LOVED THEM. What did they do? They stretched, like up to 4 feet. The commercial makes them look great, but I also remember reading all the warnings that came with the toys. You couldn't freeze him. You couldn't boil him. You couldn't puncture him, or if you did, you were supposed to get help immediately. As probably every other kid decided after playing with them for a few months, I froze him, boiled him, and punctured him. The freezing made him, well, less elastic, or at least until I boiled him, which made him a little saggy. When I punctured him, he began to leak RED GOO. Did I seek help? No. I LICKED IT, because it looked like syrup. Oddly enough, it was supersweet (but with a really interesting latex'ish aftertaste), which makes me think that it had a sugar base with maybe propylene glycol. I finished about a third of him before I got sick.
As a proto-nerd, I was also the kid who spent his paper route money on microscopes and chemistry kits. There was the experiment of breaking open mercury-filled thermometers with my sister so we could chemically bond it with pennies (it makes the copper shiny). No gloves, no parental supervision, and no warning in the book I had read from. If I can't remember someone's name now, I think I have an excuse.
Of course, being the little brother to two sisters, I was also the test pilot for any backyard creation. Backyard swings? Get some rope, a tin trash can lid, and let's have baby brother go swinging off the tree house to test it. I clearly remember one time where the trash lid's handle immediately ripped off the lid while I was launching out into open air. There was little me- plummeting to the ground, SCRAPING the inside of my legs clamped around the lid and rope, thrashing in pain. Both my sisters pinned me to the ground, clamping my mouth so my mom wouldn't hear the screams, and they kept chanting that everything was fine, that it was fun. Once the screams had dwindled to tear-choked hiccups, I let them convince me that it WAS FUN, as repetition must make something true. Within a few minutes, I tested again. Right into the tree.
This doesn't even take into account the number of times that working for my dad almost killed me.
Posted by G at 06:02 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack