Cripples

Blind people on the subway are really fucking annoying. They should just stay home with their fucking dogs. Maybe train some monkeys to do their shopping.

Things that can go fuck themselves

TV
YouTube
The Onion
Esquire Magazine
Astrology
Women between the ages of 18 and 25
DreamWorks Entertainment
The Decembrists, Arcade Fire, and all similar whiney shit
Recycling
The MTA
The Obama administration
My dishes
Chinese food
Sex columnists
SUVs and minivans, but not semis and RVs
Sleep
Owning a cat
Failure to signal a turn while driving
Winter
Coupons
Bank of America
Deal 3 Solitaire
Motorcyclists under the age of 27
Babies

You enjoy my twitter

I hate Facebook and MySpace, but, even though it's still evil social networking, I am so far enjoying Twitter. Username = Mu sta pha Mon d. (sans spaces. can you believe I'm getting spam on that shit?)

You know why I don't want to date her?

Because she's got thin lips.

She's clever. Witty, even. Her lips say fun things. And she is otherwise pretty. So how unfair is it to give her these thin, non-inviting lips? My lips would like totally smother her lips. Her lips just aren't competitive in the juicy kissing arena. It's unfair. But it's also my biological imperative to seek out fuller and fleshier playgrounds.

Thus I am stalking the undercover security guard at the Rite Aid around the corner. I was in there to buy intimacy aids from the family planning section, which is arranged awkwardly right beneath the pharmacist's window. She was there as I rounded aisle corner, medium black and stuffed (stuffed) into bedazzled jeans. She was picking through the lubricants, reading the product details on a black and neon bottle of something called Wet.

I did not know she was the undercover security person for the store. I just needed condoms and had to maneuver around her to get them. Things were immediately awkward and intriguing. She did not shuffle away immediately, and hung around even as I had to reorganize the condom boxes in order to get the brand I was looking for.

We glanced at each other a few times. In retrospect, she was just wondering if I was a thief. I, however, was wondering if cosmic irony allowed one to ask out one girl while very obviously buying condoms to go have sex with another. I decided no and paid for my stuff.

That's when cosmic irony set off the alarms as I was leaving the store. She came rushing over and revealed herself as the security person. She asked to see my receipt and inside my bag and had to take out the box of condoms and and examine the security tag and began mumbling awkwardly about how those things never work right and thanks and sorry for the inconvenience, to which I responded, "No problem. See you tomorrow." And then I left, thinking, See you tomorrow? What?

So I went back the next day, caught her eye as she pretended to be a customer at the end of the greeting card aisle, and then conspicuously stuffed my pockets full of Happy Bat Mitzvah cards. I got out of the store scott free, and I don't even know any Jews of age for the cards. Tonight I am going back to steal something more useful, probably AstroGlide, in the hopes that this time she'll catch me.

The Teaching

People have said, Say something about the teaching! In response, I have so far said nothing about the teaching. It is a mixed bag, the teaching, and I don't want to talk about it, except to say that it is consuming my brain since grades are due Friday and I have procrastinated so much on them that the anxiety of facing the mountain of papers that must be read has become a nearly physical barrier to doing the work that must be done.

One of my students was handcuffed outside my classroom during 7th period this Tuesday. Again. Another of my students is a sexual predator, doing horrible things to the girls, and nobody will do anything about it. Suspensions of students -- in my classes alone -- for bringing knives to school = 2 so far this year. My students have started their own YouTube channel for fights they record in the playground. An entire fucking channel.

The administration has begun witch hunts to get rid of senior staff members because anyone with more than 6 or 7 years is apparently too expensive to keep on. At the same time, inexpensive teachers are getting cheap praise (i.e. "encouragement to come back next year") even when we're doing a fuck all job of things.

According to many people, my school is one of the best middle schools in the city. Seriously.

The Shit 4 Grains Vegan Cafe...

is the name of the business I would start if I were vegan or in the food industry.

The D&D

I forget who, but someone pointed me to meetup.com, which is a cool place for finding groups of people in the city to, uh, meetup with and do stuff. So today I met up with some peeps doing a demo of the new D&D 4E rules.

The meetup was held at this cool store in Brooklyn called King Games. The place runs on a clever business plan: provide a huge space full of tables for D&D and MtG and other nerd table-top hobbies; provide huge TVs and video game consoles; and provide a bunch of PCs for networked gaming and net surfing; let people use it all for no to low cost; then sell shit loads of junk food to all the hungry nerds who come in.

Today, while we were doing the D&D, King Games was hosting a MtG tournament. Probably close to a hundred people showed up to compete. (I think 4 winners were splitting a $!000 prize!) The garbage cans were overflowing with soda bottles, empty bags of chips, and ice cream wrappers (including pints of Haagen Daas [which I'm not going to look up to bother to spell correctly]). Based on the setting and the food selection, you can imagine what the crowd looked like. It was weird for me to be among so many people and find that I'm in the top tiers of fitness, personal hygiene, and social skills.

Anyway, the 4E demo was lots of fun. The combat felt really streamlined, the classes more useful, flexible, and customizable, and the game overall had a more cinematic feel. Some players were concerned that the changes to skills and whatnot will weaken the roleplaying aspect of the game, but I don't see that happening. (The demo was designed to showcase the new combat rules, so there wasn't much actual "role" playing involved.)

Everyone at the meetup was friendly and inviting, and it was well worth the long trip to get there. But I still miss the old D&D Krew. I'm trying to find some local Queens people to get together a group with, but somehow it just won't be the same.

If I were an art teacher...

I'd use these two sites in a lesson: (1) Classics in LEGO ; (2) Far Side made real.

Since I'm not an art teacher, I can't offer a sound pedagogical justification for why I'd use those in a lesson except to say that I think "imitation by variation" is a great way to start learning stuff. I guess you can think of it as the equivalent of an English lesson where students rip off Holden Caulfield's voice while writing their own stories. Also, I just think those sites are pretty cool.

Badass at the Bar: The Rules (and Suggestions)

Arrive alone. Do not make eye contact with anyone except the bartender. If the bartender is female, smile at her, but never smile at anybody else.

Order whiskey. But do not order "whiskey" -- order by name. For example, say to the bartender, "Maker's Mark." Order it neat. No water on the side. No soda within five feet of you.

Do not answer your cell phone. The ringer should be off. Do not check your PDA. Do not send text messages. Do not have a fake tan. Do not wear big ass gold rings or other jewelry. All of these things will make you look like a douche bag.

Do not talk to anybody but the bartender. You drink alone, with nobody else. And when you drink alone, you prefer to be by yourself. Also: George Thorogood is your idol, but he is your silent idol, living only in the back of your head, and you never quote him, sing him, or, worse, play him on the jukebox.

Of particular importance is to not talk to girls who are ten or more years younger than you. If such a girl initiates a conversation with you, you must finish your whiskey ("Maker's Mark") immediately, gently but firmly place the glass on the bar, slide (using the pinky and ring finger of your right hand) money in the direction of the bartender, stand up and leave.

However, if you see some jackhole flirting with girls ten or more years younger than him -- if, for example, you see him passing her his business card for her to write her number on it and then pass it BACK to him so he can be some creepy old fuck calling her the next night -- you are honor bound to cock-block him. Say, "You look like the kind of guy who likes piña coladas." Then buy around for him and his friends and the girl(s) he/they are hitting on. When the umbrella drinks show up, toast to "Makin' love at midnight," finish your whiskey ("Maker's Mark"), then get up and leave.

If the cock-blocked jackhole gets in your face, unzip your fly and show him your junk. Because no one is more badass at the bar than you.

Lazy Sunday

What to do with my lazy day? I have not showered and I have not been out of the apartment yet today. I'm also low on food, so at least one of those two things is likely to change before long.

School Report:

Last week was my first week at the Middle School. My cooperating teacher has only 7th graders. They're awesome. They don't hate everything yet, and they still do goofy shit (like sneaking around the classroom pretending they're secret agents). I haven't officially started teaching them yet -- I've just been the "classroom helper" while establishing my relationship with them -- but I'm trying to keep hope that I'll still like them once I have to get them to start working for me. One thing I find interesting is that the worst 7th graders behave about the same as the average 9th graders at the last school. I'd love to know if this is a result of their age or of their environment. One thing that I'm sure helps is that there's about 10 fewer students per class here. Everyone gets a lot more attention, and nobody feels like they can just hide in the crowd.

Book Report:

Finished Tarzan and Beyond Discipline. 30-ish pages to go in the Choice Theory book. I can only partially recommend the Choice Theory book. It makes a lot of the same points as other books about what motivates students, and it offers some cool cooperative learning ideas, but it rationalizes all of this with a bunch of psychology talk that is counterintuitive and, as far as I can tell, completely unresearched and unsupported.

Sex report:

I'm saving myself until marriage.

Dating report:

I'm also not dating anymore until I get married.

Phone report:

Thanks to my mom, I'm the first person in the world to have a hand-me-down iPhone. Her complaints about it were, to me, silly. But whatever. It's a sweet little gadget and I didn't have to pay for it. It's also much better than my Motorola POS. And I no longer have to carry around a separate iPod, which is great for when I'm jogging.

It's too bad I'm refusing to take calls anymore until I'm married.

Marriage report:

When has a running gag gone too far?

The 11-year-ex got engaged in February. This is completely surreal to me. I can't believe she's marrying a LARPer -- a druid, no less. And I mean not only is he a druid when he LARPs, but his real-world religious affiliation is to Wicca and Druidism and other weird pagan-ness. It's all terrifyingly nerdy. Like the worst of social awkwardness. But the 11-year-ex finally seems genuinely happy, so I am happy for her and will go to the wedding. In 2010. Which is a long-ass engagement, but whatever.

Long long long long long long overdue update

Five minutes ago I finished commenting on the last of the papers for my half-semester of student teaching at a high school. Ninth graders. What a fucking nightmare. I now know what it's like to teach in a school where the teachers and administrators have no idea how to handle the students. No rules are enforced and there are no consequences for anything. Everything is punishment oriented, and the teachers grade more out of spite than intellectual accomplishment (or lack their of), but none of the punishments or harsh grading have any impact on student motivation. Which is not surprising since, if you ask the students themselves (which I did), they will tell you that punishments just make them spiteful and so the behave even worse. The solution would seem to be, then, to try to forge a different sort of relationship with the students and their parents.

In any case, I digress. The moral of my story is that my experience was bad. A lot of it was my own doing. I wildly overestimated my ability to influence an entrenched and fucked up school culture, and this immediately got me off on the wrong foot with a bunch of the students, and then I never fully recovered. At the same time, my cooperating teacher has basically no classroom management skills of her own, nor does she seem to do anything to make sure she's actually teaching anything worth knowing. So I wasn't receiving any support in regard to making effective lessons or in getting the class involved in their own learning.

Right now, I consider my student teaching experience to be a failure. I didn't get to put together a work sample that I feel good about, and mostly experienced what not to do, without getting much of a taste of things that work, which has basically left me feeling helpless and ineffective as a teacher.

The upside is that on Monday I start at a new school (this time a middle school) with a new cooperating teacher and a new batch of kids. I'm praying for a better experience. Not that I'm ready to quit on the teaching thing -- not by a long shot. It just might turn me into an asshole.

In other news:

Books I've read since January:

Fast Food Nation
Freakonomics
Frankenstein
World War Z
From the Earth to the Moon
Dune

And I will shortly be finished reading:

Tarzan
Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community
Choice Theory in the Classroom

And I started but don't feel like finishing:

Great Expectations

And now the dating update:

I have been on a few dates. Mostly ones that don't go anywhere except for Mexican food. There is a girl from the past who is back on the scene, and I've decided I never should have broken up with her, but I'm confident she is not interested in restarting the old relationship. Live and learn, that's my motto!

Meanwhile, my Little Brother (of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island variety), has recently started talking to me about HIS girl troubles. This is both fantastic and hilarious. I won't get into detail because I can barely understand what he's talking about when he gets into it, but it's some seriously emo deep stuff that, in mid conversation will suddenly swing into a discussion of video games or Alien vs. Predator and then back to how this girl won't sit next to him on the bus or something. It's awesome.

Speaking of awesome: You should come see my awesome leather couch. It's so sexy. It's the sex couch. It's impossible to be within five feet of it and not take your clothes off.

Moves & Debt

I am planning to do my student teaching in the city. The paperwork is filled out, I've been accepted to the SUNY Urban Teacher Education Center (SUTEC) program, and all I have left to do is find an apartment. It's the apartment that's killing me. Because I don't live in the city, and because I have shit to do and can't travel into the city every day, I can't successfully do the Craig's List thing and get myself a cheap-ish apartment. Basically, all the CL apartment's are gone before I even make the trip in. So now I'm going through a broker, which means I'm seeing places between $1000-$1200, which means, after fees, security, etc. my school debt is going to go up by at least $7000, moving my total debt into the $80,000 range.

Is this worth it?

If money were not a factor, I would absolutely want to teach in the city. The middle school that I'm likely to do the first half of my student teaching in is one of the best in NYC, and the teaching style there was described to me as "a mix of progressive and traditional methods" that I think will suit me well. So, should I let money get in the way of what I think will be a positive experience? And the other part of the money equation that I have to consider is that, should I stay teaching in NYC, I'll be earning a lower salary than if I'd stayed on Long Island, and I'll have equal or greater living expenses.

Where does the greater happiness come from? The more enjoyable work environment, or the lower-cost/higher-pay living environment?

Favorite Person Award

I was picking up my Little Brother from his group home the other day, and one of the other kids came up to me and said, "You're a good Big Brother, Nick never stops talking about you." I said, "That's great to hear." And then one of the staff who runs the group home said, "You're definitely Nick's favorite person." And it's not even Christmas yet!

School Rebellion

I'm not sure what the deal is, but I'm annoyed with school this semester. Maybe it's from doing so much of it so quickly. I've been drowning in assignments, getting sick every ten seconds, and half-assing my work. My GPA is taking a pounding. I don't think I'll wind up with anything below a B+, put my GPA until now has been 4.0. It would have been nice to keep it up there, but I'm completely disenchanted with the reindeer games. The readings are mostly dull, the teachers don't know how to engage, and nobody knows how to assess students beyond assigning yet another 10-page paper. Of course, I could work harder in spite of all that, and the payoff would be that I'd feel better about my efforts, but... whatever. My focus is on getting ready to student teach, and there are a lot of things for which I feel unprepared. I wish the program offered more classes about teaching and fewer about yet more research papers. Only 4 weeks to go.

The Love Song of ./ Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is one of my favorite poems. But it's not the kind of favorite poem that I really want to tell people is my favorite poem. As favorite poems go, it's unremarkable. So many English teachers assign Prufrock to so many students, so many of whom learn to love Prufrock and then go on to become English teachers assigning Prufrock to their students who become Prufrock lovers and so on until the point (which is now) that liking Prufrock has become pedestrian. The elitist ivory tower has taken one of the world's great elitist poets and turned him into pseudo cultural capitol for the common man. That's fucking awesome.

5K O.K.!

Ran my first 5K this morning. It was pretty awesome. I placed 165 of 303(ish -- I forget the exact number already), with a time of 27:30 (just under a 9 minute mile), 11th place (probably last) for my age group (30-34). Many of the people there were Serious Runners, coming in with times 10 minutes or more faster than me. Still, I'm pleased with my performance. In fact, I think I could have shaved a minute off of my time if I hadn't started near the back of the pack. I didn't know how they were going to arrange us for the start, so I just mixed in with the mob and suddenly the gun went off and there I was stuck at the back with people going much slower than I wanted to. I had to put on some speed to get around them and into a position where I could trot comfortably for the next mile or so, with plans to go all out the last half mile. Turned out getting around the slower group used up that energy. Oh well. Next time I'll know what I'm doing.

Also, there was a lady there in the 60+ age group. She ran with her two dogs(!). Actually, several people ran with dogs or baby joggers, which was very cool. But this lady stopped for her dogs to poop, cleaned up after them, and still finished with a time in the mid 30s. I hope I can do that when I'm her age.

Breaking up is getting easier to do

I am planning to break up with the current woman. I am going to wait until a little bit after her birthday (on Monday, the 4th), and then that's going to be it. Reasons for the breakup essentially come down to her cooling off on me way too fast (though things in the beginning were unexpectedly hot, so clichés about candles apply)--she's become non-expressive in terms of both affection and conversation. Frankly, it seems like she's already done dating me, and I don't know why she hasn't called it off herself. Still, it will be nice to be the one doing the breaking up, which never happens with anyone I have more than two dates with. I think this shows an evolution in the judgement and self-esteem departments. The proof will be in how I handle things from here, but right now I am feeling positive about the end of things, which is brand new for me. Three cheers for Ego.

Mucus

Presently, I have a cold. It's an annoying cold because it's not bad enough to keep me drugged up and bedridden, and not tame enough that I can go about my day feeling only minor inconvenience. Instead, it's lingering in this middle zone of distracting illness. Every time I move, my nose runs. If I stand up, my sinuses drain and it runs worse. If I sit down, my sinuses clog and I can't breathe. If I get in bed I have to get turning from side to side so each nostril gets equal opportunity to be clogged and runny. I've used most of a box of tissues and am considering switching over to towels for the sake of the environment.

I am reminded of Yossarian's jaundice: "Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn't quite jaundice. If it became jaundice they could treat it. If it didn't become jaundice and went away they could discharge him. But this just being short of jaundice all the time confused them."

At least, unlike Dunbar, I don't have to keep falling down on my face.

The Office

I'm almost finished with the first disc of the first season of The Office. The show trades a little too heavily on people being stupid, which is what I dislike about Seinfeld. (I blame Seinfeld for all the sins of our current administration. Americans, apparently, love to watch people be mean and idiotic, so no wonder we get 8 years of Dubya -- one year shy of the full Seinfeld run.) Slowly, but surely, however, The Office is starting to charm me. I think if it focused more on Dwight and John and less on Michael Scott, I'd really love it. I'm definitely going to rent the next disc and see how things progress.

The Invasion (of My Car)

Last night I saw The Invasion, which is supposed to be an update of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I saw Body Snatchers when I was a kid, and I found it freaky, creepy, and scary. The Invasion, however, was none of those things. It was dull. No suspense; not even a good "Boo!" It was also a bizarre vehicle for a right-wing political message.

See, what's happening in The Invasion, is that microscopic alien lifeforms are "infecting" humans and turning them into socialists. There is no "other" among them. They all work to help each other out. They've also achieved world peace. Unfortunately, they've done it at the expense of human emotion and individuality. Fortunately, a cure is found, and humanity is restored to its messy, violent, individualistic ways. The message is that we might not like crises like the war in Iraq (mentioned more than once throughout the film), but hey, we're only human. You can practically hear Rumsfeld in the background guffawing “Freedom’s untidy. Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." So, you know, golly, when our governments and other maniacs trigger calamity after calamity at the expense of [i]other[/i] people, we should shrug it off as the untidy business of being free human beings. Phew!

Naturally, this put me in the right frame of mind for wandering into the parking lot and discovering my car had been broken into and about $500 worth of stuff stolen. Under normal circumstances, I might have become angry. Instead, I was able to see that my inconvenience was nothing more than the byproduct of being a free person in a free world. I counted my blessings as I filled out the police report, grateful that I didn't live in a world where people cooperated, looked out for one another, and didn't feel the need to steal from or hurt each other. Because that would be too awful -- too inhuman.

God bless George Bush and the 101st Airborne.