Point foremost in my mind: Gilmore Girls should never have been made. I realize that this is a point of contention between myself and nearly every female I know, but really, it's hideous. I blame the writers and the people who came up with the thing in general. I realize that in my previous post I claimed to be an idealist, but the relationship between the mother and daughter in this show is far too ideal. I have a great relationship with my mom, but the fictionalized pair make us look like... I don't know, I can't even think of a comparison negative enough.
Meanwhile, my birthday was Tuesday, and as a consequence of this I have acquired LAMBIE SLIPPERS!!!!!!! They are fluffy and adorable.
Today my seminar English class ate at Greenville's latest greatest downtown restaurant: Handi Indian Cuisine. I got entirely addicted to Indian food while I was in England last year, and Handi is the closest approximation to authentic British Indian food I have so far found in America. The food and the service are both appallingly good, and now I have to save up to eat there once a week. Sorry Furman University; no more parking ticket fines going to you!
Meanwhile, if anyone has any favorite very short stories appropriate for reading aloud to ninth-graders, let me know. I'm lesson planning and you'd be amazed how difficult it is to find intelligent literary short stories whose plot does not entirely depend on sex and/or alcohol. I suspect this is due to the fact that most good authors depend on sex and/or alcohol to write. That's probably one of the qualifications for canonization.
I'm going out with friends tonight to celebrate my birthday; we're going to Molina's, a pretty classy (by Laurens standards) Mexican restaurant in TR. Should be exciting.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Friday, November 09, 2007
Pessimism sucks!
No really. I'm so sick of everyone naysaying everything. And this statement is kind of a big deal coming from me, as I would have previously classified myself as an eternal pessimist.
Idealism has fallen prey to a vicious cynicism (some would call it realism) in modern America. No one believes in marriage. Teachers hate their students. And we're all so jaded that we won't even vote because we say you just can't trust politicians. Or maybe we're just lazy.
Believe it or not, it's easier to just not believe. After all, if you don't hope for anything, you won't be disappointed, right? The unspoken side of that philosophy is that you'll never be happy either. In education, we talk a lot about "self-fulfilling prophecy," which, when applied to the classroom, basically says that your students will do what you really expect them to do. Studies have shown that when a teacher believes a student will succeed, he does, but another student of the same ability level fails just because the teacher believes she will. It's an unfortunate situation.
It's even more unfortunate though when you live your whole life expecting to fail. How will you ever succeed? It is our perspective that changes everything.
So now I choose to believe. In my students. In love. In my candidate of choice. In my future. And most importantly, I believe in my friends and my God and myself.
Idealism has fallen prey to a vicious cynicism (some would call it realism) in modern America. No one believes in marriage. Teachers hate their students. And we're all so jaded that we won't even vote because we say you just can't trust politicians. Or maybe we're just lazy.
Believe it or not, it's easier to just not believe. After all, if you don't hope for anything, you won't be disappointed, right? The unspoken side of that philosophy is that you'll never be happy either. In education, we talk a lot about "self-fulfilling prophecy," which, when applied to the classroom, basically says that your students will do what you really expect them to do. Studies have shown that when a teacher believes a student will succeed, he does, but another student of the same ability level fails just because the teacher believes she will. It's an unfortunate situation.
It's even more unfortunate though when you live your whole life expecting to fail. How will you ever succeed? It is our perspective that changes everything.
So now I choose to believe. In my students. In love. In my candidate of choice. In my future. And most importantly, I believe in my friends and my God and myself.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Laundry and assorted nonsense
I have been forced to do laundry today, as I am on my very last pair of underwear, granny panties included. So currently I'm sitting around waiting for that magic moment when I may go transfer my laundry from the two washing machines to the two dryers. I believe I may have to extricate someone else's laundry from the dryers, seeing as how, 20 minutes ago when I put my own laundry in the wash, the dryers still had 87 minutes to go (here at Furman you can set the dryers to run for whatever amount of time you wish, in 15 minute increments). I assume said person is attempting to avoid cooking tonight by having extra crispy tshirts for dinner.
I myself will be dining at the creatively named Business Etiquette Dinner being put on by the formidable Office of Career Services. The OCS is formidable mostly because their incessant emails make me beat my head against the wall multiple times a day. These are very friendly emails attempting to make me go out, get a real job and/or grad school acceptance letter, and make my way in the world. But, SURPRISE! I already KNOW what I'm doing with my life. In fact, I have not only my career planned, but my Master's and Ph.D. programs as well! Therefore, Sandra Clark, Head Honcho of OCS Emails, you may now cease and desist with clogging my inbox with 18 emails a day. Perhaps you could consider compiling all those lovely events and other news into one weekly email, so that I would not get carpel tunnel from hitting the "Delete" key.
My laundry has approximately 2 minutes left in the washer. I am debating whether I should fold the Dryer Fiend's clothes for him/her, or whether it would even matter since I'm not sure that one's t-shirt must be folded to taste like Extra Crispy Tide. Yummy.
I myself will be dining at the creatively named Business Etiquette Dinner being put on by the formidable Office of Career Services. The OCS is formidable mostly because their incessant emails make me beat my head against the wall multiple times a day. These are very friendly emails attempting to make me go out, get a real job and/or grad school acceptance letter, and make my way in the world. But, SURPRISE! I already KNOW what I'm doing with my life. In fact, I have not only my career planned, but my Master's and Ph.D. programs as well! Therefore, Sandra Clark, Head Honcho of OCS Emails, you may now cease and desist with clogging my inbox with 18 emails a day. Perhaps you could consider compiling all those lovely events and other news into one weekly email, so that I would not get carpel tunnel from hitting the "Delete" key.
My laundry has approximately 2 minutes left in the washer. I am debating whether I should fold the Dryer Fiend's clothes for him/her, or whether it would even matter since I'm not sure that one's t-shirt must be folded to taste like Extra Crispy Tide. Yummy.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Oops, my bad
So I realize I promised more blogs back in, oh I don't know, September-ish, but the reality is that life is choking me with a braided rope made of lesson plans, pointless projects, and senior seminar English papers. (Well, the truth is that there is only one major seminar paper, but to make it fit in the series it had to be plural.)
I have no time and therefore no life. It is an unfortunate situation. And parts of it are unpleasant as well.
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the public school system in all its forms, including the way future teachers have to jump through 18 flaming hula hoops to become certified--and we get to pay money for that sort of fun! For example, I will soon have to have an FBI background check and official fingerprinting, which does NOT fit into my schedule at all (I will have to skip my EES lab to go to it), and I will be paying a total of $85 for this, $10 of which goes directly to Furman, as though I haven't handed them enough money over the past 3.5 years. And in a few more months, I will be taking the Praxis battery of standardized tests, which will run me about $350 or so, and to pass these tests, I have have to have satisfactory knowledge of only EVERY MAJOR WORK IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (plus a few originally in other languages). Of course, that wouldn't be so bad if I had time to study for said exams, but I'll be doing my Winter Term Practicum (read: student teaching) around the same time, so I'm pretty much screwed all around. Right now I'm just counting down til Spring Break, after which point I may be able to breathe again.
In somewhat more pleasant news, I am hoping to buy a house next year. Of course, there is the logistic problem of my not getting a paycheck until September (thanks again SC Dept. of Education), which means I can't get a mortgage until September, but I remain optimistic. It is an older home that has real fixer-upper potential, and I'm surprisingly excited about working on it. I think this is partially because if I didn't actually have to work on it, I'm not sure I would, and then I would essentially be living in someone else's house, which I think might be a bit creepy.
One final note: only one more week til my 21st birthday, huzzah!
I have no time and therefore no life. It is an unfortunate situation. And parts of it are unpleasant as well.
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the public school system in all its forms, including the way future teachers have to jump through 18 flaming hula hoops to become certified--and we get to pay money for that sort of fun! For example, I will soon have to have an FBI background check and official fingerprinting, which does NOT fit into my schedule at all (I will have to skip my EES lab to go to it), and I will be paying a total of $85 for this, $10 of which goes directly to Furman, as though I haven't handed them enough money over the past 3.5 years. And in a few more months, I will be taking the Praxis battery of standardized tests, which will run me about $350 or so, and to pass these tests, I have have to have satisfactory knowledge of only EVERY MAJOR WORK IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (plus a few originally in other languages). Of course, that wouldn't be so bad if I had time to study for said exams, but I'll be doing my Winter Term Practicum (read: student teaching) around the same time, so I'm pretty much screwed all around. Right now I'm just counting down til Spring Break, after which point I may be able to breathe again.
In somewhat more pleasant news, I am hoping to buy a house next year. Of course, there is the logistic problem of my not getting a paycheck until September (thanks again SC Dept. of Education), which means I can't get a mortgage until September, but I remain optimistic. It is an older home that has real fixer-upper potential, and I'm surprisingly excited about working on it. I think this is partially because if I didn't actually have to work on it, I'm not sure I would, and then I would essentially be living in someone else's house, which I think might be a bit creepy.
One final note: only one more week til my 21st birthday, huzzah!
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