Trying to Focus on the Positive

1. There was actually toilet paper in the teacher’s bathroom.

2. There were paper towels too.

3. Nobody defecated in my classroom.

Thanks Randi Weingarten

The good part: several weeks off in the summer. The bad part: the dread of the furlough ending.

I’ve been alternating between ignoring the looming date of my reincarceration (August 31 instead of September 5, thanks to Ms. Weingarten) and being depressed by it.

On Thursday and Friday I go in for meetings. For some reason our hours even on these two non-teaching days are 7:47-2:37. Why not the relatively round 8:00 to 2:50? I imagine it’s because that would be less absurd, and where’s the fun in that?

I Wanna Go Back

It was a little dizzying:

Venice-Livorno-Pisa-Livorno-Florence-Livorno-Lucca-Rome-Palermo-Alcamo/

San Gaetano-Ischia-Rome-Home. In twenty days.
(I have family in Livorno). I’m still exhausted but I wish I’d seen more. And that I’d spent longer in each place. Ahhh…endless summer…

New York: Stop Reading My Old Diaries!

The first rule of happiness, according to an article in the current New York Magazine:

“Decide where to go to college by picking two decent schools and flipping a coin.
The relatively unexamined life is worth living. Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice documents numerous studies in which thinking too hard about multiple choices leads people to preemptively regret the options they’re going to miss out on. This triggers a stress reaction that tends to focus narrowly on random variables—producing unwise decisions, paralysis, and superfluous law degrees. Those who seize the first option that meets their standards (which don’t have to be low, just defined) are happier than those who insist on finding the perfect solution.”

A bonus of my own personal coin toss: I avoided being at Lewis and Clark with pre-b.j. Monica Lewinsky.

What I See

1. Empty 8 oz. water bottle I've been filling and refilling all week.
2. Olive green pashmina I bought at Conway the other day because it was a cold June morning.
3. My June timecard – I worked overtime three days.
4. Small translucent garbage can that is always full.
5. Two laminated signs on yellow paper: "Dear Teachers Please Sort Your Trash," and "Paper".
6. A printer I have never known to work.
7. Lime green and black Ikea chairs that pull apart all too easily.
8. Another Mac.
9. The corner marble-top table and chair that I like to sit at when I'm doing work.
10. Six dark-brown, five-drawer file cabinets, labeled with teachers' names.

11. A care package for a soldier in Afghanistan.

12. A broken-down end table.
13. A linen pillow.
14. A modish black pleather couch.
15. Framed pictures.
16. A dirty, glued-down carpet.
17. A free-standing coat rack – white, with a gauzy white curtain.
18. The door.
19. A green-capped pen.
20. Acoustic ceiling tile, white with a large rusty patch.

21. Fake sunflowers.
22. A mostly empty seltzer bottle.

23. A clock – it's five to four.

24. A silver cookie tin that says "Tai Pan Cookies".
25. Red and white fake flowers.
26. A bag from Crate and Barrel.
27. The Bible.
28. Goldbeck's Guide to Good Food.

29. A crowded bulletin board.

30. A plaque that says "TEACHERS 440G".

31. Freshly emptied recycling bins.
32. The Newview Almanac.
33. Two mostly spent bottles of Fantastik.

34. A desklamp we never turn on.

35. An oval wood-veneer table.
36. Four mirrors glued to the wall in a checkerboard pattern.
37. A fire extinguisher wearing an orange nylon sarong and a green and white wool cap and scarf.
38. A flyer for last night's Bergtraum night at Otto's Shrunken Head.
39. A figurine of Stitch from Lilo and Stitch.
40. The sign-up sheets for seeing the movie about a suicidal gay teen, Trevor.

41. Another clock – it's 4:05 now.
42. A broken phone.
43. A working phone.
44. A pin-up of Jeter and A-Rod, side-by-side, without the "Who's Cuter?" vote underneath. (Jeter won.)
45. A broken built-in clock with a mint-green sheet of typing paper taped over it.
46. A short silver refrigerator.
47. A microwave.
48. A red vacuum noone uses.
49. Two big tote bags on the floor.
50. One of the pen and pencil carousels we got for teacher appreciaton week.

One Blockbuster Does Not a Summer Make

And yet, despite the somewhat chilly temperature today, I feel as if we're well on our way to my favorite season.

I submit the following evidence, in no particular order:

1. The Boyd's annual Kentucky Derby Party, which last year began its residence at Magnetic Field, was a sea of lovely hats, wagering fun, and over-all mint julep-inspired revelry. Once I've been to the Derby party, the days that separate it from the true start of summer (a.k.a the last day of classes: June 29 this year) don't really register. Those juleps are strong, yo.

2. Daltron and I caught our first summer blockbuster: M:I:III. As a big Lost fan, I was psyched that J.J. Abrams co-wrote and directed it. His fingerprints were ALL over it. I swear Tom Cruise was even channeling Matthew Fox in some scenes. It was a fun ride and hopefully a harbinger of a good summer flick crop (Pirates of the Carribean with my new movie beau Johnny Depp!) Philip Seymour Hoffman made a great creepy bad guy, and Cruise's crack team had fun with their supporting roles. Michelle Monaghan, Cruise's movie wife, was fine too, but I could not shake the feeling that someone had put Liv Tyler in a dryer for too long, shrinking her and rendering her slightly less luminous.

3. On Sunday, hungover from our post-derby revelry (Days of Thunder Drinking Game), I alternated between napping and reading/doing the exercises in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I'm not convinced I'm teachable, but what the hell. Everyone needs a self improvement project in the summer.

New Yorkers are so Unhelpful

At least, according to this submission to New York Overheard.

It’s the end of the world as they know it

No longer content to be a place where time stands still, all counties in Indiana are about to adopt that crazy new-fangled idea, Dalight Savings Time.

From infoplease.com:
The Dawning of DST in Indiana

Until April 2005, when Indiana passed a law agreeing to observe daylight saving time, the Hoosier state had its own unique and complex time system. Not only is the state split between two time zones, but until recently, only some parts of the state observed daylight saving time while the majority did not.

Under the old system, 77 of the state's 92 counties were in the Eastern Time Zone but did not change to daylight time in April. Instead they remained on standard time all year. That is, except for two counties near Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Ky., which did use daylight time.

But the counties in the northwest corner of the state (near Chicago) and the southwestern tip (near Evansville), which are in the Central Time Zone, used both standard and daylight time.

The battle between the old system and DST was contentious and hard-won—bills proposing DST had failed more than two dozen times in the past until it squeaked through the state legislature in April 2005. The old, familiar, bewildering system will remain in place for 2005; Indiana will join 47 other states in observing DST in April 2006.

Not to completely distance themselves from all things confusing related to time, the state will still be divided into Central and Eastern Time Zone counties. The federal government recently decided that some previously Eastern Time Zone counties are actually in the Central Time Zone , so this go-round those counties won't have to touch their clocks at all.

I just hope it doesn't cause the students at my alma mater to miss morning meeting.

Tick-tock

Writing from work again. It was so very pleasant walking over the
bridge this morning. Brisk but sunny. I got half-way through Seamus’
new mix, which is fabulous. Looking forward to listening to the rest
of it on the way home.

I am still recovering from the Oscars. Daltron and I went with Micah
to The Zombie Hut Oscar party, and I managed to stay awake way past my
Sunday night bedtime.
Today has been blissfully uneventful, which is a relief after
yesterday. During my first class a girl attacked a boy (allegedly he
called her an idiot) during a discussion of don Quijote. Whenever
anything of the sort happens, I spend the rest of the day with a
stomachache, and suffer exhaustion that spills over into the next day.

So maybe it’s not just the post-Oscar hangover. I feel slower today.
Waiting for the last minute to tick by. (What do you say in place of
“tick” when it’s a digital clock?)

At last!

Tuesday

Mondays I can always manage to sleep walk through with relatively little damage. Even yesterday – the Monday after a week off, after waking up at 2 a.m. and not being able to get back to sleep – was ok.

Well, now it’s Tuesday. I have been a wreck all day. I had to force myself to hold out till 10:30 for my second Dunkin’ Donuts latte (I already have a one-a-day habit, and I’d rather not divert any more funds their way).

Somehow I made it through two classes without falling into a coma.

The little cup of latte did its best, but I was still fairly zombiefied for the rest of the day. I was hoping my walk home would perk me up, but alas it did not. An hour in bed with Love and Other Impossible Pursuits took a little of the dullness away, but I still think staying awake past 8 will be quite a feat tonight.