(no subject)
The past week has been really unusual.
Teaching high school is bizarre. At time it is just really really boring. My teacher is very relaxed about having kids actually do work and stuff. My schedule is like this:
Mod 1- chorus every other day
Mod 2- theory 1 - there are 7 kids in this class. i actually like this class.
Mod 3- Music In Our Lives- New York requires that this class exist and I think that is kind of stupid. It's for kids who arent in any other art/performing art class, so you kind of have to find things to fill the time about like rap music and stuff like that. boo.
Mod 4- Theory 2/3- there are like 7 kids in Theory 2 and 3 kids in Theory 3 so they put them together. I have yet to see her teach these kids anything.
Then we have planning, then lunch. We eat in the cafeteria with my teacher's teacher friends. They may be the funniest people I have ever met, but I kind of feel out of the loop most of the time.
Then we have 3 periods of voice lessons. I started teaching voice lessons on my first day and I really like it. Some of the kids are really not good, but some of them are promising.
Wednesday night I went to the basketball game, 1st round of the NIT, with Malcolm. We pregamed at my house first and I had a really good time. We sat up in the 3rd teir. I had never not been in the band at a basketball game so it was a really different experience.
Thursday we had a half day of classes and then a half day of "staff development". First we had a meeting, from 10:30-11:30 about block scheduling. The principal wants to go to block scheduling and the faculty were getting really upset about it. I thought a fight was going to break out at the meeting. One of the guys we were sitting with started quietly singing Kumbaya during the meeting. This other teacher, Ben, had his phone ring and he was like "sorry, i can't talk, i'm doing NOTHING." It was just really funny to be in a teacher meeting like that. Then I went to lunch with my teacher, her husband, and two other teachers, Ben and Jason (the funniest man ever). I hardly got 2 words in during lunch, except to tell them that I got drunk the night before. Jason said that when he started teaching he went out drinking every Thursday night. I never thought of my teachers doing that when I was in high school. It's just too funny. We had to be back at school after lunch for a meeting in "self inflicted behaviors". It was all about cutting and stuff and lasted an hour and a half and was just ridiculous because basically all we got out of it was to tell the counselor.
Friday we had another half day, with just the 2nd half of classes so it was just lessons for us. Only one kid showed up so I had lots of time to catch up on work and FINALLY handed in my assignments from my last placement. I feel kind of good about that. All I have left is the SLA. yay. Katherine and I made the kind of bad call to drive to New Jersey despite the Nor'easter that was coming through. We left at 4:00 and for about 20 minutes it was fine and then the bad weather hit. The roads got worse and worse through the 6 and a half hours that we were on the road. The total count of accidents we saw was 8. 2 of those 8 were cars right in front of me. At one point, the car in front of me just swerved over to the left, then went right across to the right and off the road and got stuck on top of a gaurd rail. That was still pretty early in the trip. Later, this guy was swerving for like a couple of miles and the truck right in front of me had to swerve to avoid him and he spun out and went off the road. He was okay too, but Katherine called 911 to tell them to get that guy off the road because we thought he might be drunk because even with the bad weather there is no way anyone could be driving that badly and now he was causing accidents. For portions of the ride I could not see out of the windshield in front of me because ice had collected on my wipers so I was leaning over on Katherine's side to even see where I was driving. It was pretty ridiculous. Eventually when there were no other cars on the road with us, I pulled over and Katherine got out and cleared off my wipers so I could see again. We were going like 15-20 mph at times. We never got over 45 after the weather got bad and that was way back in New York. The last like 15 miles were much much better. New Jersey does an excellent job of plowing, and lights were turning green just as we were approaching, and the plow was coming up my street just before we got there (it's a steep hill and it would have been bad if it hadn't been plowed recently). It was just amazing that we made it to New Jersey in one piece.
This morning we left my house at 8:30ish I guess and drove to Summit to take the train to New York. About halfway through the train ride, the girl sitting next to me and I realized that we lived on the same floor freshman year. It was Alice, the girl who taught me how to knit. She was facing the window when I sat down and so I didn't see her face until she turned and asked me what time it was. So we chatted for the rest of the ride. That was a fun coincidence. When we got to the City, we stopped by the super-fun stamp show at MSG to say hi to James and make plans to meet him for lunch. Then Katherine and I started walking toward the parade. Every crosswalk had a little moat of slushy water around it and it was quite difficult to navigate our way there, but we ended up getting to 49th and 5th and watched the parade there for several minutes then decided that we had enough. After a couple of Irish dancing groups, bagpipers, a marching band and some random people, it didn't seem that exciting anymore. There were definitely a lot of people though, which was cool. Then we went to a few stores, the NBC store, the M&M store, Toys R Us, and then met James for lunch. We went to Borders and I bought a DVD of Rusalka because I'm a big dork. Then we started walking uptown and I stepped in a lot of water and so when we came across a Payless I bought new shoes. After that we went to FAO Schwarz, but on the way I went in Build-a-bear and got a teddy bear Rangers jersey and iceskates. It's the cutest thing ever. We played the super big piano at FAO Schwarz and then it was time fore me to leave. I was hoping to make the 5:11 train but I got there at 5:15 so I had to wait until 6:03. Luckily it was the midtown direct so it just stopped in newark and then summit was the next stop. I got home in time to see almost all of the Ranger game, where they destroyed the Bruins 7-0. It was super fun to watch. I am in the best mood EVER! :)
Teaching high school is bizarre. At time it is just really really boring. My teacher is very relaxed about having kids actually do work and stuff. My schedule is like this:
Mod 1- chorus every other day
Mod 2- theory 1 - there are 7 kids in this class. i actually like this class.
Mod 3- Music In Our Lives- New York requires that this class exist and I think that is kind of stupid. It's for kids who arent in any other art/performing art class, so you kind of have to find things to fill the time about like rap music and stuff like that. boo.
Mod 4- Theory 2/3- there are like 7 kids in Theory 2 and 3 kids in Theory 3 so they put them together. I have yet to see her teach these kids anything.
Then we have planning, then lunch. We eat in the cafeteria with my teacher's teacher friends. They may be the funniest people I have ever met, but I kind of feel out of the loop most of the time.
Then we have 3 periods of voice lessons. I started teaching voice lessons on my first day and I really like it. Some of the kids are really not good, but some of them are promising.
Wednesday night I went to the basketball game, 1st round of the NIT, with Malcolm. We pregamed at my house first and I had a really good time. We sat up in the 3rd teir. I had never not been in the band at a basketball game so it was a really different experience.
Thursday we had a half day of classes and then a half day of "staff development". First we had a meeting, from 10:30-11:30 about block scheduling. The principal wants to go to block scheduling and the faculty were getting really upset about it. I thought a fight was going to break out at the meeting. One of the guys we were sitting with started quietly singing Kumbaya during the meeting. This other teacher, Ben, had his phone ring and he was like "sorry, i can't talk, i'm doing NOTHING." It was just really funny to be in a teacher meeting like that. Then I went to lunch with my teacher, her husband, and two other teachers, Ben and Jason (the funniest man ever). I hardly got 2 words in during lunch, except to tell them that I got drunk the night before. Jason said that when he started teaching he went out drinking every Thursday night. I never thought of my teachers doing that when I was in high school. It's just too funny. We had to be back at school after lunch for a meeting in "self inflicted behaviors". It was all about cutting and stuff and lasted an hour and a half and was just ridiculous because basically all we got out of it was to tell the counselor.
Friday we had another half day, with just the 2nd half of classes so it was just lessons for us. Only one kid showed up so I had lots of time to catch up on work and FINALLY handed in my assignments from my last placement. I feel kind of good about that. All I have left is the SLA. yay. Katherine and I made the kind of bad call to drive to New Jersey despite the Nor'easter that was coming through. We left at 4:00 and for about 20 minutes it was fine and then the bad weather hit. The roads got worse and worse through the 6 and a half hours that we were on the road. The total count of accidents we saw was 8. 2 of those 8 were cars right in front of me. At one point, the car in front of me just swerved over to the left, then went right across to the right and off the road and got stuck on top of a gaurd rail. That was still pretty early in the trip. Later, this guy was swerving for like a couple of miles and the truck right in front of me had to swerve to avoid him and he spun out and went off the road. He was okay too, but Katherine called 911 to tell them to get that guy off the road because we thought he might be drunk because even with the bad weather there is no way anyone could be driving that badly and now he was causing accidents. For portions of the ride I could not see out of the windshield in front of me because ice had collected on my wipers so I was leaning over on Katherine's side to even see where I was driving. It was pretty ridiculous. Eventually when there were no other cars on the road with us, I pulled over and Katherine got out and cleared off my wipers so I could see again. We were going like 15-20 mph at times. We never got over 45 after the weather got bad and that was way back in New York. The last like 15 miles were much much better. New Jersey does an excellent job of plowing, and lights were turning green just as we were approaching, and the plow was coming up my street just before we got there (it's a steep hill and it would have been bad if it hadn't been plowed recently). It was just amazing that we made it to New Jersey in one piece.
This morning we left my house at 8:30ish I guess and drove to Summit to take the train to New York. About halfway through the train ride, the girl sitting next to me and I realized that we lived on the same floor freshman year. It was Alice, the girl who taught me how to knit. She was facing the window when I sat down and so I didn't see her face until she turned and asked me what time it was. So we chatted for the rest of the ride. That was a fun coincidence. When we got to the City, we stopped by the super-fun stamp show at MSG to say hi to James and make plans to meet him for lunch. Then Katherine and I started walking toward the parade. Every crosswalk had a little moat of slushy water around it and it was quite difficult to navigate our way there, but we ended up getting to 49th and 5th and watched the parade there for several minutes then decided that we had enough. After a couple of Irish dancing groups, bagpipers, a marching band and some random people, it didn't seem that exciting anymore. There were definitely a lot of people though, which was cool. Then we went to a few stores, the NBC store, the M&M store, Toys R Us, and then met James for lunch. We went to Borders and I bought a DVD of Rusalka because I'm a big dork. Then we started walking uptown and I stepped in a lot of water and so when we came across a Payless I bought new shoes. After that we went to FAO Schwarz, but on the way I went in Build-a-bear and got a teddy bear Rangers jersey and iceskates. It's the cutest thing ever. We played the super big piano at FAO Schwarz and then it was time fore me to leave. I was hoping to make the 5:11 train but I got there at 5:15 so I had to wait until 6:03. Luckily it was the midtown direct so it just stopped in newark and then summit was the next stop. I got home in time to see almost all of the Ranger game, where they destroyed the Bruins 7-0. It was super fun to watch. I am in the best mood EVER! :)