Adventures in Teaching

Most of my current teaching is in a middle school. If you ask anyone in the know about teaching, most of them, upon hearing you teach in a middle school, usually say some variant of "I'm sorry." And I've found that to be true. Many of these kids are sweet as can be, but many are evil, soulless, and miserable excuses for human beings.

Case in point: I teach music as part of a set of cycle courses. I see a part of the school for eight weeks, then those kids move on and I get a new group. Yesterday was the last day of the first cycle. One kid slipped a note onto my cart (yep, I'm one of those teachers) before she left that said "You are the best mucie teacher ever." Awwww. In another class, some kids had these parting words for me: "You'll last here. We never made you cry!"

To change the subject slightly, I also spend a half hour each week with a handicapped pre-k class. This week, when the class was close to ending, I didn't turn off the CD of children's music I was using fast enough, and the song "Skinnamarink" came on. Instead of turning it off, I kept the kids in their circle and had them follow along in the song with me while I did the arm movements, which I don't think I've done in 20 years. If I did them wrong, I thought, I'll change it next week and the kids won't even remember. Imagine my surprise to go to YouTube and find out that I had them right. Woo!

Intentional or not?

I watched the beginning of last night's hockey game between the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers at Jarret's house. Jarret lives in that part of New Jersey that gets New York and Philly stations, so the game was beign covered on two channels.

The interesting thing about this game, the Flyers' home opener of the season, was that the ceremonial first puck was going to be dropped by "America's favorite hockey mom," Sarah Palin. Jarret and I were eagerly glued to the tv, waiting for the crowd's reaction.

On the Philly station, there were no mics picking up crowd noise. You just heard the ceremonial music as she walked out. On the New York station, you heard what we were waiting for: Booing. Lots of it.

The question is - did Comcast (who owns the Flyers and the tv station that broadcasts their games) intentionally mean to block the sound?

It's official: The entire country's been RickRoll'D.

Ever since the RickRoll meme has become popular, more radio stations have been adding the song to their rotation. At least the ones I listen to anyway. More people are becoming reacquainted with the two decades old Rick Astley pop tune, but I think we're feeling a little more exuberant about it this time around.

Last weekend, Jarret and I were wandering around CVS, waiting for the nearby Chinese takeout place to complete our order, when that familiar drum machine beat kicked in over the speakers. We turned to each other, giggling, whispering "hey, we're getting RickRoll'D." Then we looked around us and realized that everyone in the store, men and women of all ages, had stopped what they were doing to dance in the aisles. And I am not kidding.

A middle couple were undertaking some ballroom swing by the still-too-early-to-be-on-shelves Halloween candy, while some teenagers were bouncing up and down by the cash registers. My boyfriend and I stood by the tissue boxes, confused as hell.

(The second presidential debate is going to start in about fifteen minutes, in a town hall style format. If one of the questioners manages to start with "We're no strangers to love. You know the rules, and so do I," they'll be my new hero.)

Politics, Celebrity Style.

Sometimes, you need to be clear and concise with your words for people to respect you and your opinions. Compare and contrast these two YouTube videos. The first is Matt Damon, the second is Diddy. Both have the same things to say about Sarah Palin, but I think one gets his point across a little better than the other. You be the judge.

Sorry Jerry. Sorry Bill. Your new commercial is creepy.

Sigh. Will there ever be a Microsoft commercial that doesn't confuse me?

Short Updates

• Jonathan got rejected from Millionaire.

• Jarret knows all the words to MacArthur Park.

• And, um...I'm starting a new job in a new district tomorrow. It's a thing.
  

What I did on my summer vacation, part four

So what did my dad and I do for our five remaining days?

On Saturday, we did a bus tour. We took the train from Dublin to Limerick, where we caught the bus. From there we toured Bunratty Castle, the Cliffs of Moher, and the Burren before ending up in Galway. We didn’t go back to Dublin with the tour, and stayed overnight in Galway before heading back to Dublin Sunday afternoon.

In short on that trip:

The tour guide talked about Angela’s Ashes the entire time we rode through Limerick, even though it was painfully obvious he hadn’t read the book. (“John” McCourt. Yeesh.)

While standing on top of Bunratty castle, my dad told me, “If we hung you upside down by your ankles over the edge, that’s what it’s like to kiss the Blarney stone.” (We never made it to Blarney castle.)

The Cliffs of Moher were so windy that I had to pull back my hair, pull up the hood on my sweatshirt, and knot the drawstrings tight. And no one told me that the parking lot was at the bottom and you had to walk up!

(This way to the castle...oh, what's that in the background?)

The Burren looks like a giant stone puzzle, and I hopped along between them humming the theme to Tetris.

Galway is mainly known as the origin of the Claddagh ring. My dad managed to go his entire life before that week not knowing what they were.Also in Galway was a “Spanish” arch, built to welcome the Spanish Armada in 1584, hoping that they would kick some British ass. Um…that didn’t work out too well.

On Monday, we took a half-hour flight to Liverpool.

Yes, you read that right. I made my pilgramage to Mecca. (Would that make my trip to Abbey Road studios in 1999 Medina?)

We were only going to be there until Tuesday morning, so this was going to be my all-out Beatles fangirl day. We landed in John Lennon airport and headed to check in at the Hard Day’s Night hotel. Filled to the brim with Beatles photos, paintings, and memorabilia. The not cool part: You couldn’t take pictures in the lobby. Too many tourist problems, I guess. But I still managed to get a photo of what I thought was the coolest thing there: George Martin’s hand-written string quartet score for “Yesterday.”

We signed up for another bus tour, the Magical Mystery Tour. Dad and I knew from our previous bus tour that we wanted to get on the bus early to secure window seats. We each took a side on the bus so we could get a shot of everything. Fortunately for me, most of the good stuff was on my side of the bus.

We didn’t get out of the bus often, but we got out for George Harrison’s and Paul McCartney’s childhood homes, Strawberry Fields, and Penny Lane. We passed many other things, including the childhood homes of John Lennon and Ringo Starr, and many other things that only a Beatles fangirl like me would be interested in. Just so you know, I won the tour guide’s Beatles trivia quiz. Well, it wasn’t really a game, but the guy was asking questions and I knew the most obscure ones. Getting a round of applause was enough of a win for me.

We were let off by our hotel, because it happened to be around the corner from the Cavern Club. Even though pretty much the whole place was reconstructed, I can still say I stood on its stage. Dad and I walked over to Albert Dock to The Beatles Story exhibition. There happened to be a huge tall ships race leaving the dock the same morning, so while thousands of people were trying to leave the dock, we were trying to enter!

By the way, there were these statues all over the city. Liverpool had been named Europe's capital of culture for 2008, and they decided to put these "Super Lamb Bananas" all over the place. Here's one outside The Beatles Story, dressed up like Ringo.

I cannot express how awesome Monday was.

Tuesday we took the train to Chester, because Dad wanted to visit the cathedral. In there I found a facsimile of Handel’s score for Messiah, which was cool. The town of Chester itself was a neat little place, with lots of Tudor architechture that was actually built while the Tudors reigned. From Chester we took a train through Wales, and caught the ferry in Holyhead to return to Dublin.

Built in 1571

This is the longest place name in the world...couldn't get it all in one shot!

Wednesday was spent walking around Dublin and taking a longer look at things we’d passed while on our way to the National Library or Archives. It’s weird, because I feel like I’ve typed so much, but I still didn’t mention everything we did in Ireland or England. Like, we saw a terrible production of The Three Sisters at the Abbey Theatre. I enjoyed seeing Hancock at the movie theater down the street from the hotel more. And the Cliffs of Moher had suicide prevention signs all over the place. And the famed River Mersey in Liverpool looks terrible from the air, it's brown. And did I mention all the sheep? And cows? And horses? And llamas? Hell, I even found Jesus in a box!

Oh, and did you know that Dublin has a big pointy pole in the middle of it?

When we returned I searched ancestry.com and found Patrick and Margaret in US censuses. Patrick came over in 1885, right after his mother died, leaving his 17-year old brother and two sisters to run the family farm. Margaret came over in 1888, Mary in 1896. If there were letters between her and Thomas, I don’t have them. There must have been, for my grandmother to know that he’d married twice (and have his address in her address book).

Eunice said she had pictures she could scan and send to us, but since she doesn’t have a computer at home (or even her own email address), we haven’t received them yet. We sent them copies of photos of Mary, Margaret and Patrick that my grandmother had had framed on her wall for decades. Dad also included a photo taken at a family gathering in 1995, as it most the only photo he could send with most of all the American cousins in it. There’s a wedding coming up in a few weeks, maybe we could take another one.

Anyway, that’s what I did for ten days in July. Thanks for bringing me with you, Dad. Kind of ironic that I managed to finish this just in time for the end of summer, isn't it?