another one, I know...
Sorry, that entry was written earlier today and then my computer died before I was able to post. My power adaptor decided to poop out on me last night and I didn't notice until the computer was still dead after an hours worth of supposed charging. I went to get a new one today and ended up putting down $87 FRICKIN' DOLLARS to get a new one. Oh, apple, I love you so... but WHY THE FUCK SO EXPENSIVE??? He had a generic brand for about half the price, but at the last minute I remembered my dad had already gotten me the word traveller converter pack of plugs, specific to the computer/ipod adaptors. So no cheapter immitation was possible.
That was one $87 bucks I was NOT planning on spending before France. *trying not to be bitter*
First of all, at about 11 AM there was a random knocking at the door and I happened to hear it from up in my room. Go down, look through the peep hole, and MY GOD, IT'S JOSH! I hadn't seen the boy in ages... well, that's a lie. I saw him briefly and awkwardly when his mom paid me to help her pack up her house to move this last summer. He shook my hand before grunting goodbye and leaving. I seriously didn't expect to hear from him ever again, after that. But today, he happened to be walking back from Barnes and Noble in the plaza (getting books like "Stocks for Dummies"... he's always had that money fixation), and decided to stop by.
We ended up catching up for about an hour, and it was really... enjoyable. Not awkward, we joked, caught up, even broached the whole alternative genders subject (READ: Melia going off on a tangent, spouting off the definitions and differences of gay, trans, intersex (no longer hermaphordite), trying to educate the masses, while josh just shook his head, saying he had a hard time understanding all that stuff, didn't get it). That topic was broached after he asked me if I'd seen Brokeback Mountain... and I expected him to crack some joke, but he just looked at me and said I needed to see it, it was one of the best movies he'd seen in a long time... "And I watch a lot of movies...!" (just in case i needed a valid reason to take his advice). I was surprised, to say the least. He did mention that he'd never be able to sit through any movie like that if it was about "stereotypical" gay guys ("Man I hate those guys!... i mean... you know, not hate, it's just...it can be annoying..." yeah josh, i know, watch your mouth around me). But he said he really liked how the characters seemed genuine, how they were so different and it was such a different kind of story than you usually associate with "gay." Well damn skippy! The fact that JOSH recommended the movie strengthened my resolve to see it in the next five days before hopping on the plane. I think I may go with my parents...
After catching up with Josh, I walked on up to the high school -- in a tanktop, mind you. god, i'm going to miss the sun in strasbourg... -- to catch Mde. Selvin before she left and get her address in France so I can visit this summer. I wasn't expecting to chat long, but she was excited to see me, and we ended up talking for over an hour after her last class filed out.
Let me just say... that woman rocks my world!! Totally one of a kind, wry humor, no-nonsense, no-mercy, tells it like it is, and isn't afraid to make students cry. She kind of laughed, telling me some of her AP students said they'd been to a party with AHS grads and they'd spent the entire time talking about her, after one grad mentioned he'd had nightmares about her.
"Er, boy... I sometimes wonder about that. I mean, there can't be THAT many stories about me... I hope I don't give too many students nightmares... I can't bare to think about what they talk about..." Oh, Madame, if only you knew... And she just laughs and laughs.
Some quotes of the conversation (paraphrased to the best of my Mde Selvin capabilities):
"I got my first 2 on the A.P. exam this year! The first time one of my students didn't pass... that was disappointing. First in 13 years! A spot on my record!. She was a skipper, and frankly, she didn't know up from down. I mean, her papers were like these... empty bubbles, coming at you, as if trying to get something across, but failing miserably... i mean, SAY SOMETHING HERE! I gave her a few C-'s out of pity... she did end up improving, but not enough obviously..."
(This is the woman I had to face on my first day of high school french as one of the few "skippers" --i.e. skipped a year of language-- and she SCARED THE FUCK out of me... I HATED her that year, cried at the amount of work she gave us, agonized over her blunt, often painful remarks... before I realized that she was amazing and crazy and taught me more than any other language teacher, as well as teaching me the importance of PROCESS in order to come at a good product. She made high school worth it. And frankly, french at LC doesn't live up. At all. Save for the fact that we *speak* more french at LC...)
"Well, I've taken over French 4 you know... this other woman they hired didn't know a thing..." [we talk more about this woman for a while, about how Mde. Selvin took her to meetings w/ the principle to complain about her total lack of teaching ability... her kids got Ds and Fs when they moved up to Selvin] "... and then she said, in the meeting, 'Well, give me five or six years and I'll be as good as Johnny'... [highly stressed skepticism:] Um, NO... YOU WON'T... because you're NOT me..."
Hah! The woman has a way that only she can get away with. She knows she works kids like dogs, she knows half of them come around to loving her for it, and she's not afraid to acknowledge that she knows she's something special.
She continued... "The principle told me it 'looked like' she was teaching... and i said, you give a chimp a textbook and it can look like it's teaching... and, frankly, it may do a better job...! This woman doesn't know a THING about teaching... of course, she was sitting next to me as I said this... [she catches my look of disbelief]... well, you know, I had to get the blunt eventually... and, having worked in TV, perhaps it comes naturally to me..."
I'll say!! I felt sorry for the new teacher, even if she DID suck! A first encounter with Mde. Selvin like that would make me cry my eyes out (which is supposedly why the principle didn't like meeting with her and Mde., b/c that was the new teacher's reaction). The thing about Mde. is that you had to work fucking hard to earn her respect. And once you got it, you understood and appreciated her for it. This woman, on the other hand, came in supposedly talking about how great she was, and promptly lost her chances of any pity Mde. might have offered if she'd felt she had a reason to respect the woman (who even said in a meeting, "Well, I didn't teach them anything first semester... but SECOND SEMESTER..." Ouch!)
Anyway, it was so much fun talking to her and being reminded of both the hell and the amazing times. It made me excited for french again, b/c she's the one who instilled it in me. And I'm stoked to go visit her. Perhaps I can get Kate to go with me so we can both face her in her element. She is one character.
Oh, and random aside... I was mentioning something about Brian and Jerusha and how they'd been grad students under Zimbardo and she's like "Oh, yeah, Zimbardo... I know him. Good friends of the family, him and his wife. Her family has been friends with mine for ages now. Charming man, he's got that italian way of being..."
Okay. So she went to a thanksgiving party at the Zimbardos. That's normal. WTF??? She never ceases to pull new things out. Today she actually talked a lot more about her personal life than she perhaps ever did when in high school (she was always an intriguing and mysterious woman to us... we still don't really know what her nationality/race/background is...). She even asked me if I had any "love in my life... you know, just because I'm nosy like that..." Then, of course, we got into a whole tangent about people settling down so early these days and so on and so forth.
I'd say it was the best conversation I'd ever had with her. And she even said I'd always reminded her of herself at that age... which is a HUGE compliment, as she does think rather highly of herself... ;)
I think she was just what I needed to jump-start the motivation for this trip. And I can't wait to visit her in the south of france come June/July...
Oy. Looong day. And lots of long entries. Sorry 'bout that.
That was one $87 bucks I was NOT planning on spending before France. *trying not to be bitter*
First of all, at about 11 AM there was a random knocking at the door and I happened to hear it from up in my room. Go down, look through the peep hole, and MY GOD, IT'S JOSH! I hadn't seen the boy in ages... well, that's a lie. I saw him briefly and awkwardly when his mom paid me to help her pack up her house to move this last summer. He shook my hand before grunting goodbye and leaving. I seriously didn't expect to hear from him ever again, after that. But today, he happened to be walking back from Barnes and Noble in the plaza (getting books like "Stocks for Dummies"... he's always had that money fixation), and decided to stop by.
We ended up catching up for about an hour, and it was really... enjoyable. Not awkward, we joked, caught up, even broached the whole alternative genders subject (READ: Melia going off on a tangent, spouting off the definitions and differences of gay, trans, intersex (no longer hermaphordite), trying to educate the masses, while josh just shook his head, saying he had a hard time understanding all that stuff, didn't get it). That topic was broached after he asked me if I'd seen Brokeback Mountain... and I expected him to crack some joke, but he just looked at me and said I needed to see it, it was one of the best movies he'd seen in a long time... "And I watch a lot of movies...!" (just in case i needed a valid reason to take his advice). I was surprised, to say the least. He did mention that he'd never be able to sit through any movie like that if it was about "stereotypical" gay guys ("Man I hate those guys!... i mean... you know, not hate, it's just...it can be annoying..." yeah josh, i know, watch your mouth around me). But he said he really liked how the characters seemed genuine, how they were so different and it was such a different kind of story than you usually associate with "gay." Well damn skippy! The fact that JOSH recommended the movie strengthened my resolve to see it in the next five days before hopping on the plane. I think I may go with my parents...
After catching up with Josh, I walked on up to the high school -- in a tanktop, mind you. god, i'm going to miss the sun in strasbourg... -- to catch Mde. Selvin before she left and get her address in France so I can visit this summer. I wasn't expecting to chat long, but she was excited to see me, and we ended up talking for over an hour after her last class filed out.
Let me just say... that woman rocks my world!! Totally one of a kind, wry humor, no-nonsense, no-mercy, tells it like it is, and isn't afraid to make students cry. She kind of laughed, telling me some of her AP students said they'd been to a party with AHS grads and they'd spent the entire time talking about her, after one grad mentioned he'd had nightmares about her.
"Er, boy... I sometimes wonder about that. I mean, there can't be THAT many stories about me... I hope I don't give too many students nightmares... I can't bare to think about what they talk about..." Oh, Madame, if only you knew... And she just laughs and laughs.
Some quotes of the conversation (paraphrased to the best of my Mde Selvin capabilities):
"I got my first 2 on the A.P. exam this year! The first time one of my students didn't pass... that was disappointing. First in 13 years! A spot on my record!. She was a skipper, and frankly, she didn't know up from down. I mean, her papers were like these... empty bubbles, coming at you, as if trying to get something across, but failing miserably... i mean, SAY SOMETHING HERE! I gave her a few C-'s out of pity... she did end up improving, but not enough obviously..."
(This is the woman I had to face on my first day of high school french as one of the few "skippers" --i.e. skipped a year of language-- and she SCARED THE FUCK out of me... I HATED her that year, cried at the amount of work she gave us, agonized over her blunt, often painful remarks... before I realized that she was amazing and crazy and taught me more than any other language teacher, as well as teaching me the importance of PROCESS in order to come at a good product. She made high school worth it. And frankly, french at LC doesn't live up. At all. Save for the fact that we *speak* more french at LC...)
"Well, I've taken over French 4 you know... this other woman they hired didn't know a thing..." [we talk more about this woman for a while, about how Mde. Selvin took her to meetings w/ the principle to complain about her total lack of teaching ability... her kids got Ds and Fs when they moved up to Selvin] "... and then she said, in the meeting, 'Well, give me five or six years and I'll be as good as Johnny'... [highly stressed skepticism:] Um, NO... YOU WON'T... because you're NOT me..."
Hah! The woman has a way that only she can get away with. She knows she works kids like dogs, she knows half of them come around to loving her for it, and she's not afraid to acknowledge that she knows she's something special.
She continued... "The principle told me it 'looked like' she was teaching... and i said, you give a chimp a textbook and it can look like it's teaching... and, frankly, it may do a better job...! This woman doesn't know a THING about teaching... of course, she was sitting next to me as I said this... [she catches my look of disbelief]... well, you know, I had to get the blunt eventually... and, having worked in TV, perhaps it comes naturally to me..."
I'll say!! I felt sorry for the new teacher, even if she DID suck! A first encounter with Mde. Selvin like that would make me cry my eyes out (which is supposedly why the principle didn't like meeting with her and Mde., b/c that was the new teacher's reaction). The thing about Mde. is that you had to work fucking hard to earn her respect. And once you got it, you understood and appreciated her for it. This woman, on the other hand, came in supposedly talking about how great she was, and promptly lost her chances of any pity Mde. might have offered if she'd felt she had a reason to respect the woman (who even said in a meeting, "Well, I didn't teach them anything first semester... but SECOND SEMESTER..." Ouch!)
Anyway, it was so much fun talking to her and being reminded of both the hell and the amazing times. It made me excited for french again, b/c she's the one who instilled it in me. And I'm stoked to go visit her. Perhaps I can get Kate to go with me so we can both face her in her element. She is one character.
Oh, and random aside... I was mentioning something about Brian and Jerusha and how they'd been grad students under Zimbardo and she's like "Oh, yeah, Zimbardo... I know him. Good friends of the family, him and his wife. Her family has been friends with mine for ages now. Charming man, he's got that italian way of being..."
Okay. So she went to a thanksgiving party at the Zimbardos. That's normal. WTF??? She never ceases to pull new things out. Today she actually talked a lot more about her personal life than she perhaps ever did when in high school (she was always an intriguing and mysterious woman to us... we still don't really know what her nationality/race/background is...). She even asked me if I had any "love in my life... you know, just because I'm nosy like that..." Then, of course, we got into a whole tangent about people settling down so early these days and so on and so forth.
I'd say it was the best conversation I'd ever had with her. And she even said I'd always reminded her of herself at that age... which is a HUGE compliment, as she does think rather highly of herself... ;)
I think she was just what I needed to jump-start the motivation for this trip. And I can't wait to visit her in the south of france come June/July...
Oy. Looong day. And lots of long entries. Sorry 'bout that.