Career Change: Students Say the Darndest Things!

My students are really, really funny kids! Generally speaking, I spend most of my days in my classroom, laughing my head off!  So I decided to start logging some of my munchkins' best lines!  I'm hoping that the hilarity of their comments will translate to this rather sterile forum. Here are a few of their best comments I heard just this week:

1.  While doing an exercise on 'fate, free will, chaos and the supernatural,' I asked if they agreed with the following statement: "I was born because God wanted me to be born."  One student drolly remarked: "I don't know if God really wanted me to be born."

2.  When one male student decided to repeatedly try to give a female student a pat on the back, female student asked for him to stop touching her. The male student responded that he was "just trying to give her some love."  To which the female student laughingly responded: "I have enough love at home I don't need it from you."  What makes this really funny is that the female student is pregnant.  So yeah, she definitely has enough love to last her awhile.

3.  While going through a vocabulary exercise, I had asked if anyone in the room was "obstinate" and one students threw another under the bus, saying that Juan was.  Funny, yes.  Hilarious was when I asked who in the room was "indolent" and Maria threw herself under the bus and raised her hand high!  She was actually really proud of being "indolent"!!  So now anytime I use the word "indolent", everyone points to Maria.  Well at least they understand the meaning! [Names have been changed.]

4. When I was handing out candy to my juniors (as a reward), one student asked why I didn't eat a piece and I said much as I love candy, my butt doesn't like me eating it.  She said that I should "hang out in the Spanish neighborhoods because Spanish men love big butts."  I'm choosing to believe that she meant that as a compliment.  :-D

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I do adore my students!  Don't forget to check out My First Year of Teaching photo site.  I've added a few new photos.

You Have HOW Many 'Friends'???

Facebook is the weirdest social media site ever!  I think we can all agree on that, but what's stranger yet is how many "friends" people have on Facebook.  I was checking out something on a friend's Facebook page and noticed that they had 3,287 friends and I thought to myself, "Seriously? Are they all really your 'friends'?"  I have 122 friends and I think that's too many! So how many Facebook friends are you actually friends with in real life (i.e., outside of the social media universe)? How many are casual acquaintances that you haven't seen or spoken to eons? Or how many are people you met randomly one time and decided to friend each other thinking you'd be life long pals but haven't spoken to them since? Uh huh. I thought so.

While googling this phenomena, I came across the following article: "5,000 friends on Facebook? Scientists prove 150 is the most we can cope with."  It's scientifically proven that you cannot possibly handle more than 150 friends. So maybe it's time to start deleting some people. Then I came across this other golden nugget article: "The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers." Even though it was written in 2009, it's still applicable today and hilariously accurate! 

Now I like Facebook as much as the next person, but also I believe in keeping a little perspective on it. After making quite a number of mistakes with Facebook, I have some very specific rules and regulations that I follow, which are: (i) keeping my profile private from searches; (ii) I no longer friend people that I work with (students, teachers, principals, TFA staff or corps members, etc.); (iii) I don't friend people that I know for a half a second; (iv) I don't keep being friends with people who are cruel or creepy; (v) I do stay friends with people that I am actually friends with; and finally, I keep my postings to a minimum.

How about you?  Do you have any specific social media rules that you follow?  I'd be interested in hearing other opinions on this subject.

Honeycrisp Apples - Where Have You Been All My Life?!

Today, I was wandering through the Newburyport Farmers' Market (as I do every Sunday) - checking out the local produce - and came across one of my favorite stalls, Applecrest Farm out of Hampton Falls, NH. I love this stall because they sell some of the most amazing fruits (raspberries, peaches, blueberries, apples, etc.). Plus their apple cider donuts are unbelievably delicious!  I know I shouldn't buy the donuts but...  

Anyway, as I was shopping in their stall and deciding on which type of apples to purchase, I saw that they had Honeycrisps for sale. I mentioned to one of the employees that I had never tried Honeycrisps.  In fact, I had never even heard of Honeycrisps before a couple of years ago.  He looked completely taken aback by my ignorance of these little beauties and proceeded to grab a knife from the truck and slice up an apple for me to taste.  Let me just say, my taste buds went wild!  I've always been a bit of an apple fanatic - even though I'm mildly allergic to apples.  Up until today, my favorites were the Royal Galas.  But no more!  These apples have the most amazing flavor and the perfect crispness of the skin as you bite into them is exactly how an apple should feel.  It was just heavenly.  I had to buy some!

Interesting tidbit about the Honeycrisp apple: "The Honeycrisp apple was produced from a 1960 cross of Macoun and Honeygold, as part of the University of Minnesota apple breeding program." If you have never tried these little gems, next time you're in your local grocery store, pick up a few.  They are a little more expensive, but I think they are well worth the extra money.  I only bought four apples today and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get more.  I will not make that same mistake next week!

Karma for Users

There's been something stuck in my craw for awhile now and I'm hoping if I blog about it, maybe I'll be able to get rid of this annoyance.  My complaint: People who use others for their own selfish purposes and then leave behind the bitter, broken carcasses of their victims to suffer with feelings of anger, disappointment and mistrust.

I suppose everyone uses someone at one time or another.  I personally am using TFA to career change even though I hate them, but I'm not hurting anyone. In fact, I'm helping.  No, what I'm talking about is someone who goes out of their way to use someone and build up their hopes and feelings and then just walk away once their mission is complete - the purposeful cruelty that people perpetrate on others. 

The type of people to whom I refer are those who seem to be able root out another person's vulnerability and then they take that vulnerability and twist it for their own narcissistic objectives. These people leave a wave of destruction behind them and without even a second glance move on with their lives. Additionally, I'm pretty certain that they don't feel any guilt or remorse over their perfidy.  And while that doesn't rank them in the levels of evil to Hitler or Pol Pot, they will fit in quite nicely into Dante's 9th circle of hell. I'd like to think that these type of people get their comeuppance karmically but I somehow suspect that they don't. Of course, I'm never there to find out, so I can only hope that one day karma catches up with them. As for me, I hope that I will never again come across another one of these types of people in my life, but I don't have high hopes.  There are far too many selfish and self-centered people in this world.

Indeed!

The Career Change: Starting Grad School

Yay for grad school!!!  I know it's crazy to be cheering for additional work to be added to my already overly burdened schedule but let explain why I'm so psyched.  Seriously though...

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My first grad school class began last night at Boston University's School of Education.  As I've mentioned before, I will be attending classes over the next two years in order to get my Masters Degree in Education (with a concentration in English).  I'm extraordinarily excited to be getting some real life, actual useful training that I can utilize in my classroom immediately.  My professor is amazing.  He is a career teacher who still is in the classroom, who has been teaching for about 6 years and who will be giving us some actual tools and training on lesson planning and classroom management. This is exactly the kind of training that TFA should have been giving us, but didn't.  I wish I could have taken this class six months ago to be better prepared for teaching, but that being said, I at least can apply all this knowledge immediately.  My classmates are fellow TFA corps members (15 of us altogether) who are equally thrilled to be finally get some actual useful training from an amazing dedicated, non-TFA educator. 

There are a couple of downsides to this program.  One, I won't be taking classes with my three besties from City College (Raina, Franka and Yolanda) - the wonderful friends who got me through my undergrad with so much love, laughter, and the perfect amount of snarkiness.  People in TFA tend not to be snarky - probably because they're 22 and are still ridiculously wide-eyed optimists.  I'm the only realist in the room - other than the professor. The second problem is that traveling to Boston one night per week is a big and expensive pain in the derriere.  Last night, it took me an hour and twenty minutes to get home from Boston - a full half hour longer than it should. In addition to getting lost in Boston for 10 minutes because I took a wrong turn, the Towbin Bridge which leads out of Boston is having major construction and three lanes had to squeeze down to 1.  Ugh!  But other than those two minor negatives, I am looking forward to this semester.

While I am being slammed with work at the moment and am exhausted beyond belief, it's a good exhaustion. An exhaustion that is brought on my trying to hardest to do my best for my students.  But seriously, I need a good stress relieving massage!  Okay, gotta go do some grading.

Why, Jane Austen? Why?

[Updated: 9/5/2012] It's time for me to yell at Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte, and E.M. Forster, and Alexander Dumas, and Victor Hugo, and Charles Dickens, and Dean Koontz, and Charlaine Harris, and...  Well, the list goes on and on.  But mostly I'm annoyed with Jane Austen. Why am I annoyed with my favorite authors? Because they all wrote these amazing and nearly perfect leading men and thereby ruining any chance of literature lovers finding a decent mate. I mean who doesn't want a Mr. Darcy or a Mr. Rochester in their lives?  :-)  Here's a fun, albeit short, list of the most desirable leading men in literature. Only 7, Mental Floss. Really? Anyway, I completely concur with this list and have about another dozen or hundred characters to add to it!

Actually, the reason I bring this up is that I've been having some fairly spirited discussions recently with one of my dear friends over my dating... or rather, my lack of dating... situation. See, she's recently started a new relationship and people who are in new relationships think that everyone should be as happy as they are. But it's kind of annoying for those of us who have made the conscious decision to never get involved with anyone ever again... EVER! I love that she's so happy and am unbelievably thrilled for her - especially since he's a really nice guy and I truly loathed her ex-boyfriend who was a jerk. She definitely deserves to have someone great in her life.  But I just wish that she and everyone else would stop bugging me about my singlehood. I'm fine with it...well, fine is probably too strong... I'm okay with it. Not everyone in this world is supposed to have a grand romance, or love, or a great relationship and it's abundantly clear that I fall into that category.

Besides, I'm...

Also movies and tv shows!

And real life just can't compare. So I'll just have to live vicariously through Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte, and E.M. Forster, and Alexander Dumas, and Victor Hugo, and Charles Dickens, and Dean Koontz, and Charlaine Harris, and... Well, you get the idea! Boys in books are amazing! And I don't have to worry about someone leaving the lid up.  :-)

When Did People Get So Humorless?

In general, I'm talking about any and all special interest groups who take themselves too seriously - equally on the right and the left.  Everyone has gotten so focused on being politically correct and supporting their personal causes these days, that we've gone to the other extreme and have become a nation of humorless gits.

Yesterday, I was watching television and saw a rather amusing commercial for Newcastle Brown Ale. At least, I found it amusing. (BTW, you have to check out Newcastle's website - it's pretty impressive.) Anyway, I googled the commercial to watch it again and instead came across a Ms. Magazine blog post about how this commercial was degrading to women and sexist! Umm...What?!  Before I give you my opinion, take a look:

When you watch the commercial, it's obvious that the "female brewmaster" is a man and therefore can be considered an unattractive woman. What is all the brouhaha over this dumb 30 second commercial? The Ms. Magazine post was not the only complaint. There were a few other blogs which registered some woman's fury about this commercial. Now, I'm an intelligent, well-read, modern woman who believes in feminist causes but I'm not going to go to such an extreme with my beliefs that I lose my sense of humor over things. This commercial is not offensive. It is funny! Maybe these women just don't get British humor, but I personally save my ire for things that actually matter. Oh, like the fact the women's reproductive rights are being whittled away by right-wing extremists (see my Vagina Warriors post). That's something to get angry over, but a beer commercial??  No! I've got way too many other things in my life that are far more worrisome.

Should men get upset every time a commercial shows them as being witless buffoons?  If so, they'll be picketing pretty much every ad agency and corporation on a daily basis. You have to give men credit for that! Or maybe it's just that men recognize that they are witless buffoons, so they just laugh at themselves and move on.  (See what I did there?)

I saw another posting about whether saying "that's so gay" is derogatory. <sigh> Really? Has it come to this? As with everything, it's the context in which these statements are being used that is offensive. In general, most people who use that phrase aren't using it as a homophobic slur.  I know I've used this statement myself and I'm not homophobic. This statement has been around for so many years that it has become completely innocuous, except when some homophobic jerk uses it. Then you have reason to get upset.

Maybe we should all take a word of advice from George Carlin - there are no bad words, just bad context.  [Warning: explicit language - unsurprisingly]

Thank you, George, for once again being the voice of reason and sanity.  RIP!