Quit +/or Fight

Image Dump

2011-08-15T12:40:00.003-04:00

image repository.

2010-08-04T14:45:00.008-04:00

it's time, butch

2007-09-03T21:39:00.000-04:00

round 2.

armed with almost no idea what i'm doing (an improvement over having absolutely no idea last year), it's time to lace the gloves back up and step back into the ring.

on the bill for this contest:

in the red corner: hailing from the sovereign nation of dismerica, weighing in at 200 lbs., mr. november.

in the blue corner: hailing from puerto rico, dominican republic, haiti, jamaica, honduras, trinidad, the bronx, harlem, and likely a few other places, weighing in at about 23,000 lbs., 150 high school students.

the stats are as follows:

2 classrooms (an improvement)
only teaching until 8th, rather than 10th, period (also a bonus)
2 classes of freshmen (one of which is a special ed. inclusion class)
2 classes of intermediate esl (this will be interesting)
1 class of regents prep for juniors (the only thing on the list i feel prepared for)

should be a hard fought bout.

--november

it was all a dream...

2007-08-30T07:21:00.001-04:00

summer is over.

back to school.

in about ten minutes i'll be dragging my drowsy ass out the door, down the steps, around the corner, and on the train straight up to the boogie down, and year two of this teaching gig. were today the fourth and i'd be seeing students in my room(s), i'd be much less ambivalent about the prospect of rolling into the hallowed halls of blackhole high. as it stands, i've got two action-packed days of sitting in the auditorium and, maybe, some "team building" retreat upstate tomorrow. i don't know, i don't know if we'll have enough time.

all told, i am excited about getting back into it, just a bit melancholy looking back at the summer.

pens and pencils packed. shoe laces double knotted. lunch money in pocket.
...i'm off.

--november

OH SHIT, A STORM IN MAH BRAIN!

2007-07-16T09:53:00.000-04:00

we were just handed a series of, well, handouts that are intended to aid us in vocabulary and broad content instruction.

my joy overflows.

anyway, one of them is titled, "A B C Brainstorm." this particular gem asks students to place a topic in a box at the top of the paper and then has all 26 letters of the alphabet organized in columns with a short line following. students are expected to come up with a statement for each letter of the alphabet for whatever topic they have been assigned, say...bitches and/or hos.

a sample:

A- all bitches are hos
B- but not all hos are bitches
C- cunts are often, but not necessarily hos and/or bitches
D- despite often being female, neither hos nor bitches must be. it is equally possible for a man to be a "bitch." although, the attendant misogyny of this construct, as it does require a concept of stereotypical and female "bitchiness," might render the argument that "bitch" can apply fully, and independent of that female referent, to a man laughable at best. this situation is, in essence, making the male female, bitch by proxy.

okay, you get the point. i might have taken it a bit further than necessary at the end there.

peace, bitches.

education: taste the flavor...

2007-07-16T09:30:00.000-04:00

there is, without qualification, something soulcrushing and dead about education education. yeah, that's right, education education.

i'm sitting in a classroom with round about 30 highly educated, mostly motivated, and entirely bored teachers. being taught in the loosest definition of the word.

in theory, or at least according to the course catalog and class title, i'm supposed to be learning about how to teach english language learners right now. what is really happening looks more like this:

-eleven people sitting at their laptops banging the keys or playing minesweeper.
-six or seven dedicated doodlers.
-two or three thinking about how many ways they could kill themselves with a coffee cup.
-four or so shameless brown-nosers asking the sort of inane questions that thrill the sort of simp represented by the...
-one adjunct faculty member who is...
-flogging the room through a powerpoint slideshow for three hours.

oh my fucking pain.

at least it's air-conditioned and i can pick up an internet connection. small victories.

now back to contemplating the many ways i might violently employ my styrofoam coffee cup....

'round these parts...

2007-07-02T07:41:00.000-04:00

back to summer-long ed. ma grad school shenanigans. happily, this will not be the week-long eight hour slugfest that was last summer's experience...but i'll still have to interrupt my drinking, reading, playing, passing out on my roof, to show up for this nonsense from 8:30am to 4pm twice a week.

almost feels like punishment for being bad.

at least i'm not grounded.

and ain't nobody taking my bike away for the summer.

to summer.

--november

distance: trying to get some.

2007-06-18T20:20:00.000-04:00

with the school year over (yes, school is still technically in session, but rich people eat foie gras and that shit is technically bird liver...how's that for a nonsensical, non-sequitur dismissal?), i'm still too close to the thing to really get any cogent thought about it together.

i miss the kids.

shit, damn, do i miss the kids?

i don't like adults. seriously.

okay. yeah.

anyway, rest assured, i'll write some nonsense about this whole thing, if only to try and give shape to an amazingly unwieldy experience. for now, however, as i sit daily in the school library grading regents exams, i am struck by one, unquestionable truth.

set of truths.
series of truths?
battery of truth missiles?

phalanx of ten thousand armored truth-bears with very pointy swords coming to fuck my day right up?

yeah, that one.

big teeth, too.

i fucked up this year. oh shit, did i fuck up.

and those bears are pissed. hells yes, they are furious bears. FURIOUS.

looking back with, as of right now, beer-colored glasses, i have trouble figuring out how i taught anything between september and now. did i teach? was i a teacher? where have i been for the last nine months?

i can see now how i made more mistakes than i had any business making. how i missed the point over and over again. how i taught the wrong things at the right time and the right things at the wrong time. and how, more often than i'd like to admit, what i did wasn't teaching them a goddamn thing.

now, i can anticipate the response of family and friend alike: yeah, but you recognize where you can get better, that's a good thing. recognizing it shows you give a shit, and you can do it right next time.

there are two problems there, both of which have the armored truth-bears a-callin'.

first, and the lesser of the two: there is no "right" way. this shit is as subjective and wily as any art. you have to have a feel for the thing and an intuition to make it work, along with some severely fucked-up focus and want for said thing to work. what is "right" is about as easy to grab as water out of a spigot.

second, and infinitely more important: these kids can't just be my lab. if i fucked up, it isn't like they get to do it over (yeah, some if them will do it over...i know). i get to do it over next year, they don't. they move on having missed stuff they should have learned. this will, i repeat, will be an issue for them.

i'm starting to see how i can be "not bad" at this job. note that i didn't say "good." good is still a while off.

that said, it still doesn't excuse me from being responsible for what i should have been all along. what they deserved.

being a yeoman is just not acceptable. hopefully, i'm getting better. i just hope that i can get better enough for the next crew to get what they need.

apologies that this was a bit down, just knocking the toys out of the attic, as it were.

perspective and distance.

admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it...or so my friends who don't drink so well tell me.

--november

haywire

2007-06-08T22:03:00.001-04:00

sometimes, when needed the most, music can salvage your completely wrecked little soul.

i'll post more about the end of this year in the soon, but for now i'm busy finding some lost things.

yeah.

-november

6'20", fucking killing for fun...

2007-05-21T21:15:00.000-04:00

it's about time that i put this up here.

i was alerted to this perfect nugget of awesome by my comrade at murder by baltimore, rob, and have been watching it no fewer than five times a week since then.

seriously.

if you aren't amazed by the awesome might of this song, you have no soul.

period.

behold (just click the "behold" if the embedded video won't load...the internet is a confusing place):

a spoonful weighs a ton

2007-05-21T20:38:00.000-04:00

okay, so the soft bulletin by the flaming lips is, likely, near the very top of the list of records i'd take with me on the space station when this rock eventually gets too fucked for life.

that it is a game-show-theme inflected (listen to "race for the prize" to get the full effect) concept record about, wait for it, scientists trying to save the world, only makes it exponentially better.

that the magical answer is "love," and is so without it being cheesy or lame at all (from someone who can no longer stomach most of the hippie love-in that accompanies this sort of sentiment, this is high praise) is a testament to how incredible a record this is.

the line "putting all the vegetables away" will take on entirely new, heavy, emotional resonance after spending some time with the track "suddenly everything has changed." i wouldn't lie to you.

point is, as i see the last 14 days of school laid out before me, i kind of feel like the scientists on the record.

and though they were sad
they rescued everyone
they lifted up the sun
a spoonful weighs a ton

giving more than they had
the process had begun
a million came from one
the limits now were none
being drunk on their plan, they lifted up the sun

"a spoonful weighs a ton" ...talking about how dense the sun is and the mass of something like it is a pretty great lil' metaphor.

this last spoonful of school weighs a ton.

the amount of material i have to cover is, at best, daunting. i have 14 days to tie an entire year together into something coherent.

i did not plan well.

this is to say nothing of the emotional weirdness that is plaguing me.

i can already feel myself missing some of these kids.

granted, i'll see some of them in the halls, but there are many of them that i've taken as a consistent and necessary part of the day.

play fighting with daniel ending with the kid bear hugging me, looking up, and saying "i love you, november." i then respond with "you suck, daniel." or the other way around. all depends on the day, really.

junissa and maria tackling me at the beginning of sixth period every day, early for that class, but late for the eighth period class they are scheduled for.

walking down the hall to round up my ninth period class, all of whom are standing 40 feet away at the stairwell talking to their friends and waiting for me to come get them.

trading jabs with jason during fourth period until he, inevitably, draws a giant dick on the chalkboard.

watching robert, in the same class, express his approval with a thumbs up and an "ok mistah!" or shaking his head and saying "oh mah gahd...." some of the only english he knows. also among the coolest human beings on the planet.

having tyrell ask me, every day, "why's it gotta be black?" and responding "because i'm a racist." then both of us laughing and him clapping my back. this kid also writes really funny poems about how he hates the elderly. a future onion writer...seriously.

watching, and being completely annoyed by, justin and barbara breaking up or hooking up in my class, EVERY FUCKING DAY! but also knowing that they are two of the best kids in the building.

being greeted, daily, by george with a firm handshake and a "how are you today?" ...then me inevitably screwing up the eleven-part long-distance handshake he taught me in january as he gets to his seat.

these are just the first few things to come to mind.

they feel like family.

i never knew that it would end up feeling like this.

i had no idea.

yelling as hard as they can
the doubters all were stunned
heard louder than a gun
the sound they made was love

these kids have their own fucking gravity. a spoonful, most certainly, weighs a ton.

home stretch...southahn style

2007-05-20T20:19:00.000-04:00

sitting here, sipping a mint julep, affecting a caricatured accent of southern aristocracy, thinking about the fact that i will be entering my last full 5-day week with students in the classroom on monday.

first, and most importantly really, the mint julep is a fine drink. fine.

second, what the fuck?

nearly impossible to believe that i only have fifteen days left with kids in my classroom.

truly impossible to believe how bizarre an experience the past ten months or so have been, beginning with the fellows camp last summer.

completely insane to see how brutally, beautifully, slow, and mercifully, maddeningly fast it has gone by.

weird trip here at the end, and there's still the last 90 seconds of clock left. long field. it's all about clock control. seven point to win. anything can happen.

season's nearly over.

i'm nearly in june.

--mr. november

let's not try to figure out everything at once...

2007-05-17T19:44:00.000-04:00

stay out super-late tonight
picking apples, making pie
put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us
we're half awake in a fake empire
--"fake empire", boxer, the national

summer is here.

i'm starting to feel the pull of a little something in my lemonade.

here's to late nights with all manner of apples.

look out, BABY!

2007-05-17T19:19:00.000-04:00

heh.

oh shit.

heh.

file under: JUSTICE, BITCHES!

2007-05-16T18:22:00.000-04:00

so, about the opera...there are a few things to report:

-i made it clear to both the liaison from the met and her superiors that the treatment received by my students was beyond unacceptable and that if steps weren't taken to address what had happened i would be writing a letter to the editorial page of the times (not sure if i would have, but they didn't call my bluff) explaining my concerns about the way that minority students were being treated by the people who run this city's cultural assets.

steps were taken.

when we went back for the backstage tour, the guides had clearly been both briefed on the sort of students that would be coming in and also chosen for their ability to relate in a direct manner to my kids (our guide was a rather straight-talking, jovial, easy-going gentleman who grew up in the bronx and refuses to pay for anything but the 15 dollar standing room seats for any opera...great guy). this was a win.

beyond this, at the second professional development meeting, i was informed that the issue had crawled its way up the chain through various levels of incompetence and crippling inertia to actually reach some of the directors of the guild and the opera.

they were not pleased, and it seems that pressure was placed on the whole organization to straighten that shit out. this was, no doubt, facilitated somewhat by another teacher in my building with personal connections to the met.

-there is, as a part of this poorly planned and abysmally mismanaged program, also a "culminating event" that is to take place at the end of this month. this event is supposed to incorporate my students' experiences in the classroom, at the opera, and with our teaching artist (who is, above all, good people and is in no way included in the bile i spit at this whole thing). sounds fine, i can whip this together, no problem.

there were problems.

for a number of reasons, the day that our teaching artist, let's call him corey, was supposed to be there things got complicated.

the liaison from the met, we'll call her stacey, lost her shit.

first, there was an assembly that was unannounced and which kept corey from meeting with my fourth period class. second, the music teacher had changed the plan to include a song that was not "directly related to opera" (not my words, don't ask me what that even means) and stacey was unhappy.

stacey decided that since an assembly had interrupted corey's time with my class it was important that she go to the principal, register her dissatisfaction, and ask the school for money to pay corey to come back an extra day.

this is fucking hilarious.

we don't have enough books to send copies of anything home with kids to read.
we don't have projector screens in most rooms, and the ones that have them usually don't have them mounted on the wall (those screws have fallen out long ago).
we don't have pencil sharpeners in more than three rooms i've been in all year.
we don't hire substitutes because it's cheaper to force teachers to cover classes during their free periods.

on the long list of things that are going to happen in this lifetime (note that this list includes me sleeping with jennifer connelly:

among other things you would imagine unlikely) my principal is not going to spend money on bringing corey in for another day because stacey's uptight, white ass is all in a tizzy.

after their meeting, corey, stacey, the music teacher, and i all sat down to meet about how the program was going. stacey told us both that we were failing her expectations, that she could not believe how we had completely dropped the ball with this program, and how she had let our principal know how she felt.

she did all of this in front of a classroom full of students.

the meeting ended, stacey left the building, i spent the rest of the day spewing obscenities and trying not to take it out on the kids.

fast forward to today...the assistant principal for social studies, through whom i became involved in this debacle, let me know that the principal had filed a formal complaint against stacey with both the board of education and the met.

this made my day.

justice.

the only thing that could put me in a better mood would be stacey losing her job.

tomorrow.

and...just because:

go here now...

2007-05-16T18:14:00.000-04:00

the new record from the national, due out this coming tuesday, can be streamed from their myspace page.

it's good.

really good.

for your own good, go listen.

things i must have: ZOMBIES!! edition.

2007-05-12T22:22:00.000-04:00

on friday i ended up involved in a conversation about various possibilities for the apocalypse, as i am wont to do, and eventually ended up talking about the inevitable zombie plague.

if george romero and 28 days later have taught me anything, it's that this shit is only a matter of time.

i've often gotten into extended discussions about how we would handle a breakout of rampant zombie-ism with my friends, and we usually come up with some pretty solid plans, but threadless.com has boiled down all of the necessary survival information into one, convenient, 100% cotton artifact:

click the picture to see the nine excellent suggestions they give for handling the plague of walking dead.

don't laugh...it's science.

things i must have:

2007-05-12T22:16:00.000-04:00

Run R2 t-shirt design @ © SplitReason.com

singin' and dancin' for the death of romancin'

2007-05-12T21:34:00.000-04:00

i've a weird jones on for juvenile lyrics and catchy guitars this eve and an equally juvenile, though much less catchy, desire to bang on a keyboard for a bit.

so, imma flood this thing with commentary on what i'm listening to. if anything tickles your fancy, check it out.

my taste isn't terrible...

mostly.

"quit," "que shiraz," and "eleven to your seven" - hey mercedes.

really nothing to this thing. there's the temptation to call it "emo," but i'd avoid that. truth is, emo is not a genre, so i advise we all stop using that shit as a way to describe music.

what i mean to say is that any category that is supposed to include entries as disparate as weezer and bright eyes is not, in fact, a valid category. i propose we just call it rock music and describe the tone, tempo, arrangement and instrumentation rather than misusing the term emo (originally standing for "emotional hardcore") as a catchall for everything that isn't hip-hop, dance, country or metal.

okay...off of my soapbox.

hey mercedes is kind of what happens when hardcore gets lame. the angular guitar riffs stick around, and the volume stays pretty high, but the whole thing starts sounding more like the soundtrack to an american eagle clothing store than something that came out of the washington d.c. punk scene.

all of that disparaging commentary aside, this record, every night fireworks, definitely ranks among my guilty pleasures.

it's good enough for now

2007-04-30T20:32:00.000-04:00

trying to affect a nice shade of relaxed, listening to the new wilco record due out on the 15th of may.

you can stream it here.

pissing in the sink, i think...

2007-04-19T17:51:00.000-04:00

none of my students did, but they were treated as if they had.

some background:

i had taken a monday off to deal with some diabetic nonsense (calibrating the outboard pancreas), and was enjoying, in my own way, the day of fasting and close bodily attentiveness. around 3pm i was called by one of the assistant principals at the school:

"november, what do you think about opera?"

"well, i'm about as interested in it as i can be interested in a dying art form. opera could be interesting."

"okay, well there's this project centered on getting our kids to go see an opera, and your ap [the man on the phone was the assistant principal of the social studies department] said that you were into music and didn't get out of the building enough, so i thought i'd see if you were interested."

"yeah, definitely. could be cool. what's the score?"

"well, there is a professional development meeting tomorrow at lincoln center and you need to be there at 8am."

"okay. yeah. i'm in."

black hole high was tagged to be a part of a pet project of the metropolitan opera that involved teaching opera to the students, the kids going on two field trips (one to see the opera, another to see what goes on backstage), and then producing some sort of performative artifact related to the whole process.

initially, this seems like it could be cool. these students are not generally in a position to consume opera as a medium, don't spend a lot of time in manhattan, and have never been in a place of opulent grandeur on par with the metropolitan opera house in lincoln center.

i was kind of psyched.

the professional development meeting was, entirely and without reservation, fucked. the program had no direction, the people running it were blind enthusiasts of the art form, and most of the "teaching artists" we were to be saddled with were hopelessly disconnected, lame, and corny. happily, the guy assigned to black hole high was a solid cat who was fully aware of how broken this whole project was from the word "go."

so, i sat, with the music teacher from my school, marveling at how completely unrealistic and poorly planned the whole scenario was. they expected us to set aside our curricula (which at this point in the year, at least for core subject teachers, is focused on prep for the ever-looming regents exam) so that we could teach our kids to not just sit through and take, but love opera. on top of this, they expected us to cobble together an opera of our own for the kids to perform in front of their parents and schoolmates at an assembly we were supposed to organize and run.

their idea of "teaching" opera was to sit kids down with the libretto and walk them through the standout pieces from the work they would see, citing the musical intricacies and the convergence between melody, rhythm, tone, texture, voice type, character, plot and theme. we were walked through this process by a man in his early 60s, poorly hammering out the melodies of the music on a shitty keyboard.

were i to try any of the things suggested at this meeting my students would erupt in homophobic overtures and incite the beginning of a thirty person riot.

all of this aside, i was willing to soldier on. i could turn this into an extended writing prompt, having my students translate the opera into a prose text in their own speech and register and set in the present.

this could work. i could shoehorn this into my classroom and make it somehow fruitful for my students as they march to the gallows of the english regents exam.

yeah.

nope.

the truly hateful woman who is the liaison between black hole high and the program informed me that just having their reinterpretation present and presented at the "culminating event" would not be good enough, and that i would have to guarantee full attendance and participation of my students at said event, along with a promise of their parents showing up.

unfuckinglikely. but, willing as ever to roll with the punches, i worked with her and tried to find a way to make it work.

all of this bad blood continued up until our trip to the opera on this past tuesday.

i had prepared my students with the plots, character names, and major musical themes for the opera we would be seeing: puccini's il trittico. i had conned the kids into thinking that this was going to be a day of art full of high passion, violence, and comedy...which the plots of the three acts do offer.

at 38 students, we managed a reasonable group, and arrived at the opera house.

i was immediately chastised for not having brought between 60 and 70 students.

i took my licks, not wanting to incite the territorial nature of my kids with the perception that we were being "told," and hoping that none of the kids would respond with "stop sucking me!"

thing is, my kids kicked ass.

they were quiet (mostly), paid as much attention as they could, and after spending 4 and 3/4 hours in the met opera house did not start burning the place to the ground. in fact, it was other schools that had the most embarrassing incidents, while we were relatively tame.

problem: my students were treated by the staff of the opera house, the opera guild members, and the organizers of the program and other random patrons as if they were groundlings being let into the coveted balcony. it was as if the haughty pricks were allowing my students to enter this world through an act of unimaginable and christ-like charity. the false piety and disdain that these people held just beneath the surface was palpable and disgusting.

some specific examples of outright bullshit:

-one of my students was accused of taking pills during one of the operas. a horribly uptight, waspy house attendee took him aside and, without giving a moment's consideration to alternative possibilities, accused him of taking drugs during the performance. truth was, he was playing with and, this is kind of gross, eating little pieces of a tissue that had come from:

-a situation during an intermission (which ran far over the time we had been told, leading the already antsy kids to near disastrous frustration) when, in conversation, this same student laughed and clapped his hands. important to note, the rest of the balcony was as loud as his minor explosion of mirth. the moment he made his slight noise, an older woman came over and began to chastise him for his unacceptable behavior. she said that he needed to leave that kind of thing "outside of the house" and that this place "required him to realign his behavior."

now, davon is not generally what you might call a "good" kid. but in this position he knew to defer, and he did. he nodded appropriately and attempted to let it go.

old lady was not satisfied.

he returned to a now muted conversation with his friends while old lady pulled a tissue out of her pocket and unfolded it. she carefully tore off half of it and held it in front of his face.

davon looked at her, understandably confused. she was quiet for a moment, just widening her already frighteningly large eyes, and then just said "gum."

she held the fucking thing in front of him, demanding that his spit it into the tissue, and then handed it back to him once he had. then, she had the gall to turn to the row behind, where i was sitting, and say, "these children need to learn to behave because they obviously don't get it elsewhere."

these two specific examples that i was involved with were compounded by the same pompous prick who had poorly played the shitty keyboard at the professional development screaming at a teacher from another school in the following exchange:

"you need to handle your students! they are snapping their gum!" [this was also during an intermission]

"sir, i haven't seen any students blowing bubbles, but i will address any that i see."

"they do it when your back is turned! they're mocking me!"

"i don't think that's the intention, but i will pay closer attention and speak to all of my students."

"that's not good enough, i'm going to speak to your supervisor!"

this set the tone for my students. they told me later that they felt, and were, unwelcome there.

what cemented this sense for them was the last moments of our stay in the opera house. at the end of the dress rehearsal the orchestra does corrections, where they play 5 to 50 second chunks of music that were not quite up to par. i had warned my students about this, but was aware that this was going to be a rough time for them after having sit through 3 hour-long acts of the opera in silence. they behaved admirably, and i kept reminding them that every school had to sit through this and that we needed to behave appropriately.

until the accompanying teacher from the wealthy, white private school that was sitting in the row in front of us got up and moved to the back of the balcony. about 45 seconds later, he came back and guided his students to the back and out of the auditorium.

my students were ready to pop.

i had to keep explaining, in a strained whisper, that we needed to wait because everyone leaving at once would disturb the orchestra.

happily, about five minutes later, we were instructed by the staff that we could also file out, silently, and leave the auditorium.

i'm not convinced, entirely, that if i had asked before the prep-school teacher i would have been denied...although it seems highly likely. for my students, however, the message was clear: they belong here and we will do what we can to make it more comfortable for them.

i am not making claims at overt or systemic racism in this specific instance, but under the already difficult circumstance my students saw it as such and told me so.

these are savvy people, my students. maybe not in the ways that most people value, but they have a pretty intense bullshit detector and it was going off all fucking day. they felt like slaves getting to eat at the master's house, and there were five kids who told me so the next morning in school.

if the goal of this thing was to interest the next generation in your preferred art, then you failed. if your goal was to give students a positive experience with what is clearly a part of the culture of power, you failed miserably.

if your goal was to show these kids that they are as valuable as every other person in that auditorium on any given day...well fuck you.

i will take my kids over you on any day.

i wouldn't cross the street to piss on your head if your hair was on fire.

--mr. november.

third down back

2007-04-07T17:53:00.000-04:00

my brother, who is in all ways the wiser and more together of the two of us, has a habit of coining truly exceptional metaphors for his experiences. i, inevitably, steal these and pawn them off as my own in an attempt to seem erudite and clever. sometimes it even works...i'm a great liar.

anyway, my brother is also a teacher. his circumstances are a bit different: teaches elementary school, lives in arizona, got there by way of teach for america. regardless, he and i enjoy slinging stories back and forth about our respective students and schools.

in one such conversation, he casually mentioned that what he is is a "third down back."

for those of you unfamiliar with football, the third down back is a running back whose job it is to gain whatever yardage necessary, by whatever means, so that the team does not have to punt the ball away on fourth down and lose possession of the ball.

this is a clutch job, often one in which the odds, yardage, size of the opposing team's defensive line, and a history of injuries can make covering those remaining yards seem nearly impossible. if the back does his job, he might make it. if he's great he might pull it off 6/10 times he tries. even then, it's not likely to be pretty.

this is what my brother was saying about what we do every day.

we are third down backs.

the odds and yards are long, the defensive lineup makes us look like leprechauns, and we are all playing injured...but we need to cross the first down marker, otherwise we have to punt.

punting is unacceptable.

the metaphor seems pretty clear, so i'll not waste your time with my indelicate explanation, but i really find the image powerful.

stakes are high, and just being "great" is not good enough.

time to start running suicide sprints and working on my speed off the line, there's a lot of yardage to gain before the end of june.

--mr. november

hi, how are you?

2007-04-02T22:41:00.000-04:00

yes, i'm aware that it's been nearly a month since i've dropped any of my verbal refuse on this thing. thing is, i'm still pretty bad at this job. other thing is, even just being bad at this job takes an insane amount of my time...so all two of you who read will have to wait. i still like to drink, read a few books, and occasionally sleep.

okay.

my renewed writing is prompted by two things: 1.) i am now a few days into an eleven straight day stretch of schoollessness. not a word, but ya'll can go fuck yourselves...it is now. 2.) an email i received from a former student of mine.

neil (name changed for all of the obvious reasons).

neil is a gangly, thinly mustached, talkative and clever puerto rican kid who was (until he transferred this past january) in my junior english class.

neil was, if nothing else, precocious. he liked to talk, liked to challenge, and liked to get me off topic with talk of the national football league and my beloved steelers.

he was my kind of people.

in addition to this, he was an almost slavish devotee to the man we've all come to know as 50 cent. the kid wore a flak jacket (minus the protective plates), endorsed by said performer, on top of his usual garb, which consisted of an undersized wife-beater and a hoodie, daily. he took a day off of school (and informed me of this) so that he could be at a book signing for 50's book. he was proud in every way of his fandom.

i was largely disgusted.

of all of the people a kid could choose to idolize, and i am not even beginning to take exception to the lyrical content of the man's songs here, why would you choose someone whose music is as fucking boring as 50 cent?

all of this aside, neil was a great kid. enthusiastic, intuitive, and bright beyond the myriad ways he had been under-served by his circumstances.

neil was also a budding mc/dj.

he informed me of this in the essay i had each of my classes write about the one thing i wouldn't know about them when i first met them (a gross oversimplification, as i later learned i would know nothing about them from my first impressions...it was my first day teaching, i knew nothing). over the course of the next few months neil and i traded mix discs. he gave me discs full of him awkwardly matching beats on top of eminem, biggie, and 50 songs with a touch of his own rhymes, and me trading discs with mos def, talb kweli, blackalicious, jurassic 5, and common tracks.

he was nonplussed.

where i was, genuinely, impressed with what he was doing with outdated programs and a pc that couldn't even begin to handle the realtime editing he wanted to do, he found most of my offerings wanting in every way.

despite my tastes in hip-hop being less than adequate in his eyes, when he left black hole high after my first 3.5 months of teaching he asked for my email address so that we could keep in touch.

i gave him my personal email and my full name. i told him that he needed to send me every new track he banged out, as i wanted to pass on my critique (we had some really good conversations about where he needed to tighten up his sound in the time he was at my school). we traded a few early emails and he sent on a few tracks, all of which were showing growth in his ear and ability to find something beyond the hook in a song.

last night he sent me something that made me smile ear to ear.

yo november! this lupe fiasco cd is nice!!
it makes me think of that stuff you burnd me. i get why you like that shit now. commons pretty hot. hes pretty soft when he talkes about his kid so much but the beats is nice. yea ill keep you posted on on my work both school n music.

i love that kid.

he's wrong about common talking about his daughter, but it's unassailably cool to see him start to grow up in the space of a few months.

yeah.

my job is awesome, every day i get to meet the most interesting people on the planet...sometimes for the first time.

i like the part where the traders get chased out of the temple

2007-03-08T17:15:00.000-05:00

this shit comes in waves.

coming off of the february break i was garbage. there is no nice way to put it, i was in a funk of truly magnificent proportions. my lessons were frozen shit on a stick, my classes were barely contained exercises in pandemonium, and i left work feeling like trash every day.

this was not what i signed up for.

i was feeling run down, at best, and burnt the fuck out if i were to be honest with myself.

motivation was sorely lacking, my practice as a teacher was lax, and my personal shit was all manner of retarded. i needed to find my feet again and get back into this thing.

so i cut grad school class (missing nothing, i'm sure) and went to the varsity basketball game. it seemed like the right call.

it was.

i walked into the gym about 2 minutes into the first quarter and the game was tight. the game remained tight with the exception of a brief period when we maintained a 12-14 point lead for about 2 minutes of clock. we won by four points in a clock-control shootout that was the single most stressful sports experience of my life that did not include either steelers or penn state football. shit was intense.

what was important was not just that i got to watch some of my students pull it out against a much more affluent (and academically revered) institution, or that our fans scared the piss out of the ten white folks meekly chanting "defense" from behind their team's bench (although it was certainly a bonus), but that i was reminded of why i love teaching where i teach and the kids i teach.

the little fuckers have heart, balls, and bravado.

i don't mean to appropriate their success and make it about me.

oh hell, yes, i do.

however, it does not, for even a second, take away from how phenomenal what went down in that poorly-lit, overcrowded gymnasium was. thing is, turned out that it wasn't just the varsity boys team that needed a win last night.

we both got exactly what we needed.

again, i was reminded that i get to hang out with the coolest people in the universe every day. i had taken it for granted...again. likely, it will happen a few more times before the year is out.

luckily, boy's baseball and girl's softball are right around the corner.

go panthers.

--mr. november.

HOLY SHIT!

2007-03-06T17:56:00.000-05:00

Robotic Beer Launching Refrigerator -

i need this.

there is nothing else to say.

the fuck?

2007-02-22T00:38:00.000-05:00

my brother took this picture at the grand canyon. initially, the intent of the sign seemed clear.

okay, i get it. don't feed the wildlife. right? right.

there are, however, a few lingering questions raised by this sign.

1.) what is that small mammal in the coyote's mouth?
2.) did that child just throw the coyote the small mammal that is now in its mouth?
3.) WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT KID DOING CARRYING DEAD ANIMALS AROUND WITH HIM?

i realize that we need to do our best to safeguard the habitat and habits of the wild animals that call our national parks home. really, i do.

but what fucking twelve-year-old tourist is running around with cargo shorts full of dead fucking bunnies to toss to the wild dogs?

lastly:

4.) is it possible that the coyote caught the small mammal himself and that this sign is actually intended to warn against youth bowling?

food for thought, right there.

--mr. november

dinosaurs!

2007-02-15T20:11:00.000-05:00

you should be reading qwantz.

the same art, every time. give it a few strips, start at the beginning, and you will not be disappointed.

a recent favorite (click for larger original version):

give it a go.

ninja turtles!

--mr. november

you wrote this?

2007-02-09T17:54:00.000-05:00

just a quick note.

one of my sophomores, while everyone else was doing (or not doing, depending on the kid) their journal entries, called me over with a "yo, november!"

i was, at first, annoyed that he wasn't even pretending to do the work, so i responded with something to the effect of, "i wasn't aware that responding to the prompt required speaking as well."

then he motioned for me to come over as if he we were about to engage in some illicit exchange of either drugs or highly confidential information. happily it was more the latter than the former.

once i had made my way over to his desk, he began frantically tearing through his bag and whispering, "you gotta see this. you'll love this shit!"

i was, understandably, intrigued.

he produced a largely virgin notebook, and flipped past some doodles and attempts at designing his own tag, finally landing on the fifth page.

he asked me to read what he'd written.

at first i just glossed over the thing, not expecting a whole lot from the three stanzas he'd presented me with. until i saw a nebulous reference to a "white lady" and "fire on the window."

he asked me what i thought it was about.

i looked back at him, puzzled, and reread it.

"cocaine." i responded. "this is about someone who is a coke addict and can't shake it."

he smiled.

"that's some good shit, huh?"

"yes, james, that is definitely some good shit. do you write like this often?"

"nah, mister. i just wrote this last period and knew you'd like the metaphor."

he had compared the addiction to being in love with a woman you can't have. he had also used the concept of windows as both a reference to the mirrors off of which one might snort the substance and transparent barrier between one space and another. addiction and freedom.

this kid can fucking write.

he is, otherwise, a good-natured (if often a bit too social), goofy, moderately popular, and fairly bright kid. never did he indicate that he had this sort of thing in him.

full of surprises, this lot.

full of 'em.

--mr. november

every light on this side of the town

2007-02-02T17:42:00.000-05:00

this week has been insane.

i don't mean to use that term strictly as a pejorative, more that this week has exhibited symptoms of deep psychosis. alternately incredible and awful, i've managed to come out of these five days with a new head about my job.

there were only two days of actual teaching, as the students had monday through wednesday off while the staff was developed, you know, professionally.

that was an odd experience in a number of ways better related in another forum. yesterday and today, however, kicked ass.

i've been thinking a lot about how much agency the students have in the school, how much they think that they have, and in what ways it is offered to/utilized by them. i came to the realization that these students are truly and completely alienated from themselves and their process of learning by the very people who are supposed to be fostering self-discovery and critical engagement in them.

i made a decision. it was time to tell the kids the straight shit. so, i spent all day thursday explaining to the kids how they had been agents in my life. i laid it all out, told them about how i felt when i started this gig, about the person i was before this started, about the person i've become because of and during it, and about the person i can see myself being in the future.

and that it was because, in large part, of the impact they have had on me.

i just don't think that they get to hear how truly fucking important they are. they aren't just numbers to be pressed through standardized tests or flogged through grade levels in order to promote our statistics and ensure the school's continued existence. they know the game. shit, they can tell you the passing percentages for most of their teachers as well as how many kids passed any given regents exam. they need to know their value comes not from the number of quality points their score or grades get the school, but from the fact that they are human beings.

how can i possibly expect that they listen to what i have to say with any seriousness if they don't sense that i am listening to them in the same way. if i don't listen to them with an openness to the fact that the next thing out of that kid's mouth can fundamentally change the way i see the world, how can i expect the same from them? without that, we're all just waiting for our turn to talk (and often, at least in my classroom, not waiting). thing is, i know these things, but they need to know that i do.

every day i get to hang out with about 150 of the coolest people on the fucking planet. it was about time that they knew how much of an honor and a privilege that is.

that was thursday.

today, i had individual meetings with each kid and talked about their grades, how they had done over the past semester, where they want to go next in the class, where they want the class to go, and what i can do to make those things happen.

having a 6 foot tall, deep voiced, macho truant tell me, ever so quietly, that he wanted to work on writing his poetry was among the best moments of my life.

--mr. november

marked

2007-01-30T18:02:00.000-05:00

Readers of the twenty-first chapter must decide for themselves whether it enhances the book they presumably know or is really a discardable limb. I meant the book to end in this way, but my aesthetic judgement may have been faulty. Writers are rarely their own best critics. "Quod scripsi scripsi" said Pontius Pilate when he made Jesus Christ the King of the Jews. "What I have written I have written." We can destroy what we have written but we cannot unwrite it. I leave what I wrote with what Dr. Johnson called frigid indifference to the judgement of that .00000001 of the American population which cares about such things. Eat this sweetish segment or spit it out. You are free.

--Anthony Burgess, from the introduction to the 1986 edition of A Clockwork Orange

Respondit Pilatus quod scripsi scripsi.

--John 19:22

quod scripsi scripsi. i went out today and done got tattooed. it was one of the single coolest experiences of my life to date. the level of constant, mild pain triggers all sorts of chemical responses, floods the brain with endorphins and adds natural, chemical joy to the already surreal experience of permanently marking your body.

for reasons that are too boring and personal to list here, i decided to get a thin, black ring around my forearm (about 2.5 inches beneath the elbow) and have "quod scripsi scripsi" written on the inside of my arm, above the line, with the text facing me. i'm pretty psyched about it.

i've also been thinking a lot about the act of marking oneself and the reasons that people do so. i think it can be a pretty powerful exercise with the right kind of perspective. that's a rant for another time.

point is: newly marked, was a kick-ass experience, happy with the results.

word.

new name

2007-01-30T01:32:00.001-05:00

"this is nothing like it was in my room
in my best clothes
trying to think of you
this is nothing like it was in my room
in my best clothes

the english are waiting
and i don't know what to do
in my best clothes
this is when i need you

the english are waiting
and i don't know what to do
in my best clothes

i wish that i believed in fate
i wish i didn't sleep so late
i used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders

i'm the new blue blood, i'm the great white hope
i'm the new blue blood

i won't fuck this over, i'm mr. november
i'm mr. november, i won't fuck this over"

don't over appreciate any of those lyrics, as i've never been carried in the arms of cheerleaders, and i am (certainly) not the great white hope. i just like the mr. november tag, and agree with the "i won't fuck this over" sentiment.

another track from the national that just happens to resonate.

--mr. november

regents

2007-01-30T01:14:00.001-05:00

the english regents exam was completed on wednesday of last week...

we finished grading the last of the four essays this morning.

tomorrow, rather than going to fuck off at a museum and waste the afternoon, i've volunteered to finish collating these exams.

first, i am still having trouble with the home cooking that is tied into grading these things.

second, i am amazed at how inefficient we have been in that task.

not the home cooking, as that happens all on its own. rather, that a group of ostensibly intelligent people can't get this mess done in a more direct, focused and orderly fashion.

maybe i just ought not drink and think about it.

in vino veritas.

the national

2007-01-30T01:06:00.001-05:00

i have attempted to pimp this record out to any number of people, but here i go again.

listen to alligator by the national.

it is appropriately big and intimate in every way.

by way of evidence, some lyrics from the track "baby, we'll be fine"

baby, come over, i need entertaining

i had a stilted, pretending day

lay me down and say something pretty

lay me back down where i want to stay

just say something perfect, something i can steal

say, look at me

baby, we'll be fine

this record is incredible, and just a quoted lyric does no justice. give it a go, you will not be disappointed.

the good fight

2007-01-30T00:54:00.001-05:00

i've given up on this thing being anything but a hole for me to toss my ramblings down. some may pertain to teaching, others (read: equal or greater in number) will be focused on whatever i find interesting at the time.

in the spirit of "whatever," here is a link to the first single from the new modest mouse record.

i'm pretty split on what i think of the thing.

this is a band i have loved for a long while, and i am still taking issue with the pop aspects of what they are doing as of late. might just be me, but i liked the angrier mouse.

judge for yourselves.

laziness

2007-01-10T07:16:00.000-05:00

i've fallen off considerably in my posting to this thing in the last week and change. things have been moving at a weird pace, but i will be back.

be certain, or be warned, whatever your feelings on the matter are, i will be posting more frequently...just been shaking the rust off after break and getting my water fowl in a row, as it were. the return of aimless rants and inane comments is imminent.

word.

heaven is...

2006-12-27T23:05:00.000-05:00

...spending eternity reading the introductions/first chapters of vonnegut novels with always another to follow.

after finishing each one, the next page is simply another folksy, elegant, funny, and morose mediation on everything all at once.

you'll have to excuse me, i'm busy falling in love with an old friend.

kurt, it had been far too long.

merry christmas to me

2006-12-27T16:02:00.000-05:00

the 8 year old in me has never been happier than he is at this moment.

transformers the movie!

that trailer is one of the most unassailably cool things i have ever seen.

optimus prime, bitches!

mindfulness

2006-12-27T13:44:00.000-05:00

about a week ago, i was talking with a friend over dinner and the concept of mindfulness came up. the discussion grew out of a previous conversation about the difficulties of western (specifically american) buddhism from a metacultural perspective, and also how she had eaten a lot of food that still had a head during time spent abroad.

i've been sort of fixated on the idea of being, broadly, more mindful. not necessarily with food, although taking stock of the externalities of my chicken nachos isn't a bad thing, but with experience in general. i'm nowhere near turning to the bodhisattva trip, and my disbelieving ass is unlikely to start embracing some new level of spirituality, but the concept is something to consider.

so, after having spent saturday through today being largely indolent and gluttonous, celebrating my separation from work and students, i've come to a realization that is pretty cool:

i miss the kids.

i spend more time with a group of 15-17 year olds than i do with anyone else in my life, and i'm beginning to appreciate the ways in which that is changing me for the better. i want to be good at this job because they need me to be. factor into that calculus of connection the extent to which i dig the kids as people (there really isn't a single student who i dislike, regardless of how annoyed i might be by her/him), and i'm starting to get a different handle on the "why" of this gig.

all told, my job is pretty fucking cool. i'll keep it in mind.

of babies and bathwater...

2006-12-27T12:43:00.000-05:00

"To fix US schools, panel says, start over"
from the christian science monitor

i had meant to post this about a week ago, but never got around to it.

one of my roommates passed this along, and while i do think there are some solid suggestions (specifically those dealing with tenure and pension structures), i'm not sure of what i think about the recommendations as a whole.

give it a read and let me know what you think.

raining robotic doom

2006-12-27T12:26:00.000-05:00

this guy:

has figured out how to use the remote control from a nintendo wii to control his roomba (one of those little robotic vacuum cleaners). the video is a bit dry, and while this is certainly a cool application of technology, he fails to see its true potential: a tiny robot army.

imma retrofit a bunch of roombas with electronic cattle prods, steal my roommate's wii remote, and then take to the halls of blackhole high with my fighting force.

classroom management will never be a problem again.

i took her to a supermarket

2006-12-26T14:15:00.000-05:00

"common people" - pulp
from the record different class

been sort of tripping out about this song.

[still at home, so there will be much superfluous posting...just be warned]

sweet dreams are made of these

2006-12-26T12:10:00.000-05:00

around 5:30 am i shot awake from a dead sleep because of a dream. thing is, it wasn't a bad dream, per se.

when school reopens on the second of january, i will be picking up a sixth class. this second period class is a ninth grade global history course that is the second (or, alternately, the first) half of a double block for these kids. what this means is that i will have one group of kids three days a week and the other for two.

back to the dream. in the dream i was kicking freshman ass and taking names. i was moving seats around, quieting down the unruly individuals and the general unrest, and shutting down the smartasses with clever retorts and subtle, playful jabs.

i shot awake because somewhere, deep in my subconscious, the success i was having in the dream tripped my bullshit alarm. my conscious mind realized this, closed on the more likely scenario, and booted that dream right out, leaving me sitting upright in a cold sweat.

i spent the rest of the night dreaming about being late for class, being observed with no idea what i was going to teach, and standing on a pyramid while a thousand statuesque, naked and toga-clad women professed their allegiance to my new religion of dionysian asceticism.

that last one might not have been a nightmare. can't rain shit all time.

or that.

2006-12-25T23:54:00.000-05:00

where can i get...

2006-12-25T21:19:00.000-05:00

...this suit?

seriously.

of recklessness and water.

2006-12-25T14:01:00.000-05:00

christmas is here. get your jubilation on.

the itinerary has been as follows:

saturday, 10:50 am., board amtrak train #43 departing for pittsburgh and all points west.

spend 8 hours in the cafe car playing civ. III (the germans are a proud and warlike people...at least under my command), listening to records, writing and swilling overpriced beer.

7 pm. arrive in the little burg. ride in my father's new toy, arrive at dad's house and continue drinking and stumbling through inebriated renditions of such classics as: "folsom prison blues," "teeth like god's shoeshine," "third planet," "louie louie," "wild thing," "beautiful day," and the always awesome brother medley of "sabotage," "4 and 5," "super bon bon" and "99 problems."

sunday, 9 am., wake up feeling like a dog has shit in my brain. do the family thing over there, exchange gifts, see the grandma, dad gets engaged. so it goes.

3:30 pm, arrive at mom's for the christmas eve spectacular. much thumping of backs and chests, talk of "how much i missed you," and other equally predictable banter ensues.

5:00 pm., the drinking begins again in earnest. my mother, in a strategic mistake of epic proportions, bought me a bottle of tullemore dew (an irish whiskey of which i am particularly fond)...

9 pm., i am floating theories about the future of books in print versus digital distribution, the usually composed among us were slurring speech and swearing undying love and allegiance to each other and wine, alternately.

1 am., my 12 year old brother and i are sitting at his piano banging out boozy renditions of "wish you were here," "hallelujah," "poor places," and "our house." i am still drinking.

today, 9:30 am., i am dragged into consciousness by an eleven and a twelve year old bent on getting to the "reason for the season": new stuff. i dig gift giving, so this was pretty great.

12:00 pm., breakfast. scrabble. assembling and configuring all manner of new technology.

2:22 pm., sitting here tapping the keys.

notice i did not mention teaching. my calm is powerful and pure.

be with me on this: the breaks are for the lunatics in front of the class, not the ones in the seats.

merry christmas.

poo-tee-weet?

2006-12-20T18:57:00.001-05:00

I looked through the Gideon Bible in my motel room for tales of great destruction. The sun was risen upon the Earth when Lot entered into Zo-ar, I read. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
So it goes.
Those were vile people in both cities, as is well known. The world was better off without them.
And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.
So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.

People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.
I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun.
This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.

been rereading slaughterhouse-five, and i've been tripping all over the amazing things vonnegut does in those pages.

another quote, and i'll be done.

She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.

Mr. ___ has come unstuck in time.

ok, i'm the asshole here...

2006-12-20T18:45:00.001-05:00

as if there were every any doubt.

my kids dug chasing holden.

see, my flaw was that i had lost sight of what it was like to be fifteen and see this sort of thing. i forgot how much the vague anticipation that comes with physical proximity can excite. i forgot that a cheesy line of dialogue and a slow kiss on the cheek can hit a kid pretty goddamn hard. i forgot that melodrama can matter.

i'm the asshole here.

in the future, i will attempt (and then fail) to put my criticisms in perspective before i pop off about these things. i'm just glad that i didn't let the kids know what i thought about the movie before showing it. i'd feel like an even bigger dick if i'd stomped all over their affection for the thing.

it is still not a good movie, but it went over very well.

and on the "good report" trip, my "imma drink every night this week 'cause christmas is here!" experiment is proceeding with truly positive results.

i'm one happy motherfucker when i roll in in the am. and i'm still getting all of my shit done. seems there is a correlation between enjoying yourself when not working and being sane at work.

heh, who knew?

chasing holden

2006-12-17T21:49:00.001-05:00

it's movie time!

from what i have heard, this week is a non-starter for classes in black hole high. i can, according to reliable sources, expect sparse attendance at best past wednesday and a mediocre showing on monday and tuesday.

this means it is movie time.

the juniors, who have done a kickass job with some stories from tim o'brien's fantastic book, the things they carried, will be watching rambo: first blood.

for this i am exited to an unstoppable degree, and, aside from enjoying stallone's classic turn as a fuckin' crazy 'nam vet, i can justify it with some sound pedagogical reasoning (the impact of war on the individual and all that good noise).

the sophomores are not in the same, enviable, position. there is no movie for the catcher in the rye, thank christ. there is igby goes down, which, while a truly fantastic film, is probably a bit much for the kids...the heroin delivery, abuse and wanton sex might cross a few lines.

but there was hope. i was lent a film titled chasing holden by another teacher in the building who professes that she "looooves teaching catcher," and that it is her "favorite book ever."

anyone who counts it as their favorite novel is automatically suspect (not to impugn the quality of the book, but there are problems and failings there), but i was looking for anything and this was it.

this movie is fucking terrible.

it isn't just bad, no no, much worse than that. the lead is that gangly, white kid from road trip, and he plays the less-than-stable son of the governor of new york. gangly spends a couple of years institutionalized for depression or something similar, gets out, and is promptly carted off to another elite boarding school. oh yeah, and he calls his dad a phoney about nine times in that first fifteen minutes.

miraculously, gangly meets an english teacher who is cool AND edgy...not just cool OR edgy, mind you. mr. slick assigns a paper about what happens to holden after the book ends. gangly gets all hot and bothered about it, salinger refuses to be interviewed by him, and so gangly decides to kill him.

and while this is happening, gangly meets the mousy klepto with whom he decides to run off on his murder mission. did i neglect to mention that she's dying of some poorly defined "predisposition to aneurysms?" she is, by the way.

stack on top of this the wedged in mention of gangly's dead, gay brother and a bunch of creepy, vaguely admiring, references to mark david chapman, and you've got the feel good movie of forever.

this unrelenting, completely humorless, trainwreck of a movie continues as our heroes variously: escape from a swanky manhattan social club by throwing chairs through fourth story windows, save a hooker from a trick gone bad, and then steal the trick's wallet, almost rob a bank...on accident, have a relaxing breakfast with gramps, and steal a car on the way to kill salinger.

mousy klepto bites it with gangly by her side, governor dad shows up, gangly hugs him and then it, mercifully, ends...WITH NO CONSEQUENCES AT ALL FOR THE CRIME SPREE THESE TWO TEENAGERS HAVE GONE ON THAT HAS ENDED WITH ONE OF THEIR DEATHS.

it's okay, his dad is the governor.

still, i might show it to the kids out of spite if they piss me off on monday. who knows?

whose house?

2006-12-04T20:47:00.001-05:00

as i sit and will my body into a full recovery i thought i'd tell a cool little story.

i have about one hundred sophomores on my roster, among this horde there are three members of the junior varsity men's basketball team and one member of the varsity team. on the day of every home game i get the same kids asking me if i'm going to come and watch and, inevitably, i am unable to because of some other obligations.

not last friday.

i finished up teaching, dropped off my attendance, took care of some paperwork and wandered into the gym.

as i situated myself at the top of the bleachers (there are only about 4 levels) i watched the opposing team run drills. there were about 17 kids on the team and they were all giants. they had what looked to be brand new uniforms and were running some well-rehearsed tap and passing drills.

this went on for about five minutes before the blackhole high crew took to the court. there were 12 of them. they came out, broke roughly in half, and ran two laps around the court running in opposite directions while the other team continued to warm up.

the home team started doing a truly halfhearted layup tap drill and then shot from around the court, looking about as apathetic as my fourth period class on a monday.

i was concerned.

my students on the team gave me a "whatup" nod and continued to lob balls at the hoop with the energy (and accuracy) of a nursing home resident.

there was the usual pre-game cheering and huddling up on both benches and then they took to the court.

blackhole high wins the tip off...

...and proceeds to kick the living shit out of the visiting team for the next 32 minutes of clock. it wasn't just a beating, it was an embarrassment. highlights included:

one of my students setting up an off the backboard dunk.

another of my kids connecting with a defender in mid-air, laying the little shit out, making his shot, and drawing the foul.

a full-court pass leading to a dunk that brought the lead beyond twenty points in the second half.

they played hard, they played mad, they payed crazy, and they played well. i plan on going to as many games as possible and hitting up the jv women's team next (i have a bunch of kids on that squad as well).

shit is so much better than television.

just when i think i'm out, it pulls me back in

2006-12-04T11:07:00.001-05:00

it all started with a cough...about a month ago.

was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, got myself some antibiotics, took em', and assumed that all was well.

enter bronchitis.

i had assumed that by the end of last week i was really at the end of this thing. even up until yesterday afternoon i was feeling pretty well.

this morning, couldn't breathe.

what has happened, as far as i can tell, is that my apartment has become a vector for disease.

i picked something up from one of the 1,500 kids at school, went ten rounds with it, and in the process passed it on to one of the roommates. he wrestled with it for a bit, knocked it around, but it had learned some new moves and decided to jump back to me.

i'm no epidemiologist, but that sounds plausible, right?

moral of the story: next year take more vitamins, wear bubble-boy costume to work.

here it comes

2006-12-03T18:52:00.001-05:00

on friday i was observed by my assistant principal and, in a feat of unparalleled awesome, my kids kicked ass. they made me look good, which is a difficult thing to do.

this is, when taken alone, a good thing. however, this took a turn for the fucking horrible within fifteen seconds of the class ending.

once the last student had exploded into the hallway i walked over to my a.p. and struck up a brief conversation. it seemed that he was pleased with what he'd seen, and i was pleased with his pleasure and all sorts of pleasedness was afoot.

then the bomb dropped.

on tuesday, the local instructional super intendant (the "list" as he is commonly referred to) will be in the building, and my a.p. thinks that my 4th period class would be a good place to bring him.

well fuck me.

i am clearly less than pleased with this plan, but what compounds it is the other two observations i will have in the first half of the week. on monday i'll be getting a visit from my department of education "mentor" so that she can tell me all about how i should work on board management and inventive seating arrangements, and on wednesday i'll have to put on a dog and pony show for my grad school mentor.

it isn't that i fear people seeing what goes on in my classroom(s) (although there have been some creative uses of language employed that might make a few folks blush), it's more that i inevitably fuck up when i'm being watched. i seize up a bit, the kids see that i'm off and they get all weirded out, then one of them makes a joke that i shouldn't be laughing at (but usually would) and i have to put on my faux-disciplinarian mask.

no fun for anyone, and if i were to include friday this will make four straight days during which i will be observed.

for the record, i desire no more mentoring. no pep talks. no intimate conversations about my feelings. no more disingenuous urging to "take care of yourself."

but a candy cane...well, that would do nicely.

they let me teach children...

2006-11-30T17:12:00.001-05:00

so, i was playing the new zelda game (let's all just move past the image of a grown ass man swinging a remote control around and battling fictional forces of darkness) and i indulged in my habit of giving characters in the game offensive names, in this case naming my horse "whore" and my character "dickus" (after my roommate's namesake, sir dickus mintus).

this was the outcome.

yes, we are full-grown children.

What does the threat of gang violence smell like?

2006-11-30T16:57:00.001-05:00

A DAY OFF OF WORK!

today, about fifteen minutes into my 8th period class, the rapid dismissal bell started to ring.

for the uninitiated, the rapid dismissal bell is just like a fire drill except that it is supposed to indicate either a bomb or some bad ass fucking shit about to happen. there have been some rapid dismissal drills before, but those are usually just engineered to end the day early by spreading the rumor among the inmates that there will be no 9th or 10th period that day (yes, the administration is lazy as hell too).

today was apparently a bad ass fucking shit day.

rumor had it that there was going to be some gang activity happening at the end of 8th period (when the majority of students are dismissed for the day). there is a pretty high level of racial tension between dominican and black students and that can manifest itself through my personal favorite gang: DDP. they are my favorite because the name is retarded. it stands for "dominicans don't play" and is comprised entirely of, wait for it, dominicans. i have theories about the lameness of the name that involve fractured urban slang and the fact that all of the kids in the gang have likely never gone to their fucking english classes, but that is for another time.

the story was that some ddp hoodlums (great word, hoodlums) were going to jump some kids after 8th period and then come in the school and generally fuck all sorts of shit up. this information came from teachers and administrators overhearing students talking about this.

now, i'm not one to complain about being done with work early, but what if the kids start to figure out that a rumor of gang violence means that the day gets shorter?

just asking.

it's a crazy mixed-up world at blackhole high in the south bronx, but don't ask me for insight 'cause i just work here.

wearing a thick protective armor...

2006-11-24T09:55:00.001-05:00

so, i'm now into day two of pure indolence, and i've gotta say, goddamn does it feel good.

i spent the full balance of thanksgiving day doing the following:

-laying on my couch in my apartment

-being glad that i was laying on my couch in my apartment

-laughing at the suckers out in the rain watching a parade when they could be laying on couches in their respective apartments.

i think, this being "black friday" and all, that i might go stomp some holiday shoppers at a best buy, tip over a few salvation army cauldrons, or just break an xbox 360 in front of some snotty upper east side twelve year old.

i love the holidays.

(72 more hours until i have to face a classroom again... this is what i am thankful for.)

are you down with the sickness?

2006-11-13T18:55:00.000-05:00

i have spent both saturday and sunday of the last two weekends being sick as all fuck.

i am tired of this shit.

after sleeping maybe three hours last night, coughing up about 2/3 of a lung and taking enough nyquil to hallucinate, i decided it was prudent to stay home from work today.

here's the thing: i am, undeniably, sick. i am not blowing off work, spending all day sleeping off a hangover, playing video games or watching movies. nope, i spent today drinking cough medicine like a desperate hobo and researching strategies for teaching vocabulary.

yes, strategies for teaching vocabulary.

i remember the halcyon days of high school when a sick day meant hours of laying on the couch, watching the entire star wars trilogy, and rereading a stack of x-men comic books.

no more.

these days i need to figure out how to make learning vocabulary fun and effective.

i miss high school, not teaching it.

ball and chain

2006-11-11T20:10:00.000-05:00

i know, i know... it's been a while. rest assured that i will be posting more in the coming days/weeks/months/millennia.

as i attempt to organize my daily shit into some sort of cogent narrative i'll give you a little slice of life at Blackhole High.

on friday i was sitting in the english department office (read: wedged between a fold-out table, the faculty mailboxes, and a closet) rereading warren ellis' fantastic comic transmetropolitan (check out an issue here) and i happened to look at the bulletin board against which my head had been resting. There are, generally, around thirty suspension notices pinned up, overlapping each other in a manner reminiscent of a university commons building "announcements" board.

usually, there is nothing of interest to be found. friday was the exception.

there is a section of each notice detailing the reasons for suspension, usually something like cutting classes, getting into a fight, or serially terrorizing a teacher. this one was special.

this young man had been caught attempting to bring a homemade mace into class. he'd taken a long gym sock and dropped a cue ball in it, theoretically planning to beat the living fuck out of some kid for scuffing his shoes or some equally retarded offence.

i made a copy of the suspension notice.

it's on my bedroom wall now.

these are the students of Blackhole High.

find a way

2006-10-13T07:54:00.000-04:00

on this, the last day of the first marking period, i'd like to offer up a few of the directives i've been given regarding grading (and as a preface, know that i am not a difficult grader, that i plan on passing a lot of my students, and that i give them many opportunities to earn credit other than tests and essays):

no student in an honors class is to be given less than a 91% - were these students all actually honors students, and not just kids that were misplaced because their teacher last year took a shine to 'em, this might be possible. the reality is, that even by the grading standard i'm using for kids in my regular classes, i have at least one kid who is failing my honors sophomore english class. fuck the administration on this one. that kid ain't gettin' a 91%
no student is to be given below a 50%, and most failing grades should be coded as 55% - what this means, as far as boots on the ground reality, is that a kid who has never shown up for my class gets a 50%, and a kid who i've seen at least once gets a 55%. i am astounded at what constitutes "near failure" for these kids.
find a a way to pass as many students as possible - i shit you not. i am to "find a way" to pass a kid who has shown up maybe half of the time, not done a single piece of homework, never participated in class (has, in fact, caused more problems than not), and responded to every question on his latest quiz with "i don't care." i am supposed to pass along illiterate kids just so that this school and its administrators can inflate the numbers and put lipstick on a rotting pig.

i love the kids, i really do. on most days i even dig this job. however, i will never get used to the soul crushing numbness of a bureaucracy that plays at "serving" the students while criminally underserving them daily.

when they've seen that they can just crawl over the bar for years, what is supposed to motivate them to reach any higher? all answers are welcome.

over what?

2006-10-10T20:55:00.000-04:00

[listening to: the hold steady, boys and girls in america]

regarding the past of the character Miss Rosie from lucille clifton's poem of the same name.

a student of mine had the following to offer the class as an explanation for Miss Rosie's fall from beauty queen in georgia to "wet brown bag of a woman":

see, she used to be bangin! cha-dig-it? then she got dropped by her man. no shit, nigga kicked her sideways. she started eating the haagen dazs, got all fat, started trippin' over her own titties. now that bitch is crazy homeless!

my favorite moments here are as follows:

1.) "cha-dig-it" - i can only assume that this is supposed to represent: "ya dig it?" i'm only aware of the exact spelling because the student in question has used it repeatedly in his homework and journal entries.

2.) "nigga kicked her sideways" - self explanatory.

3.) "haagen dazs" - there are few things better than a kid wearing earrings and a necklace with the face of jesus on them name dropping mass-consumer ice cream brands in the same sentence as the word "titties."

4.) "trippin over her own titties" - i asked what he meant by this and he cleared it up, explaining that he means she got fat and crazy. that is to say that she was both trippin (in the metaphorical sense) and (literally) doing so over her own pendulous breasts.

5.) "crazy homeless" - similar to number four in that "crazy" indicates that she is both nuts and it serves as a substitute for "very."

i am daily astounded by their accidental acuity with language.

judas

2006-10-10T19:41:00.000-04:00

"citrus" by the hold steady from the record boys and girls in america

hey citrus
hey liquor
i love it when you touch each other
hey whiskey
hey ginger
i come to you with rigid fingers

i see judas in the hard eyes of the boys working the corners
i feel jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers

hey barroom
hey tavern
i find hope in all the souls you gather
hey citrus
hey liquor
i love it when we come together

i feel jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers
i feel judas in the long odds of the rackets on the corners
i feel jesus in the tenderness of honest nervous lovers
i feel judas in the pistols and the pagers that come with all the powders

lost in fog and love and faithless fear
i've had kisses that make judas seem sincere
lost in fog and love and faithless fear
i've had kisses that make judas seem sincere

i can't stop listening to this song. a perfect cross between melancholy and hope...kind of how i'm feeling.

get it if you can, it's absolutely worth it.

(future posts will be less lame. seriously.)

fatigue - n.

2006-10-10T19:25:00.000-04:00

there is an odd tired that comes over you at this job.

i've reached a point where i can bang out my lesson plans with relative ease, i can get the kids through a book and gain some (an important qualification) genuine interest, and i've been able to keep some semblance of order in my class.

but holy shit do i feel the grind...

...and i hear tell that november is when it really comes home.

and the lord said: "let the bullshit flow!"

2006-10-06T08:19:00.000-04:00

i think i'm going to start posting to this thing more often.

while i've thrown heaping piles of derision at blogs in general, and am in no way certain that my shitty life is interesting enough to toss up on the internet, writing this thing is somewhat therapeutic.

be prepared...a tidal wave of minutia and inanity is set to follow....

i will hit your kid...

2006-10-06T08:08:00.000-04:00

bernie mac said it, and yeterday one of my student's parents asked me to do it.

seriously.

i called this woman to tell her that her son, who is a bright, but trying, young man, needed to shut his goddamn mouth and start turning in his work.

her response: "you just give that boy a smack."
me: "ma'am, i'm not sure that would be appropriate, but i would be grateful if you could have a word with him."
her: "oh, i will, don't you worry none about that. but just swat him upside his head if he acting up. that's how i do."

if only she had been able to produce a notorized legal document stating that i can hit her kid...i'd be hitting him for shit other kids were doing.

"you stressed?"
"yeah, but i'm gonna smack joshua around next period, so i'll be ok."

...not that i condone corporal punishment...

suffer the little children...

2006-09-20T20:25:00.000-04:00

today my phone was stolen.

i made the horrible mistake of leaving it on the desk for five minutes and turning my back. this happened at the end of my 8th period class, so i went on to teach for another 90 minutes while imagining killing the child who now held my telephone.

i'm still imagining it.

this is only the latest indignity in a week that has felt like a bath in pig shit.

i'm not sure if i've related the whole ESL coverage situation, but here are the important details:

on my first day of school i was asked to "run down to room B7 and cover this class," and handed an attendance envelope.

on the next day i was informed that i would be covering this class for (at least) the rest of the week.

the next day, thursday, i was told that the reason for this is that the actual ESL teacher is hung up somewhere outside the country on visa issues, but that she intends to come back in the beginning of october.

i made it clear to the necessary parties that i would not be able to cover this class until then for the following reasons:

i am a first year teacher who has no idea what he is doing
i am already teaching three different classes, five periods a day
planning three classes is hard enough, a fourth is brutal
I AM NOT AN ESL (english as a second language) TEACHER

i was told that they would try to have someone else take it on monday.

didn't happen.

same thing the next week, i was told that this monday there would be someone new. they had, i was told, hired a long-term substitute teacher to handle the class.

the sub wrecked his car on the way to work on monday.

i still have the ESL class.

this is my life.

meow

2006-09-12T23:13:00.000-04:00

my cat can beat up your dog.

(links to my roommate's write-up of the event)

satisfying

2006-09-12T23:08:00.000-04:00

you know those little loops that are on the top of jansport backpacks and the like?

ever grab a kid by one as he tried to dive, chest first, into an unruly mob of fight-crazed high school students?

best moment of my fucking day.

--mister.

do now

2006-09-04T19:20:00.000-04:00

[listening to: the long winters, putting the days to bed]

there are a little more then twelve hours left before a horde of unruly monsters descend on my classroom (which really isn't my classroom, but just the space i've dragged my teacher cart to for the next 50 minutes).

this is a horrifying prospect.

i have no idea how to teach a book (or even how to appropriately select a text to teach), i have no concept of how to create a simple unit plan, let alone plan a syllabus for a classroom, and i'm not really sure how i might learn these things.

seems like the kind of fundamental information one would expect to get from a boot-camp for new teachers.

you'd think.

on the bright side, i'm capable of making a kick-ass "word wall," a truly instructive bulletin board, and some mean-as-fuck graphic organizers.

my venn diagrams make grown men cry.

t-minus

2006-09-04T19:13:00.000-04:00

school starts tomorrow. all of the anxiety and anticipation that decided to RSVP is here...with friends.

i have a classroom contract, a letter to parents, and an interest survey to give the kids. all of these things are lame.

here i go, into the fray. time to teach me some english.

rave on john donne.