The whirl of the past few days started on Wednesday the 27th. I got up for my first Anthro recitation…in fact, my first recitation in my college career. Our TA signed off on our fieldwork proposals; I was thinking about looking at flower shops. There seem to be a lot of places in the city to buy plants, but where do people put them? Does this speak to mankind’s need for contact with nature? Regardless, that’s what I THOUGHT I was going to do. The idea lasted until Thursday… but first!
Wednesday I started seriously looking at how to get cleared for classroom observation at a school within walking distance. I only need 15 hours for my class, but since I’m not sure yet what grade I want to teach I’m trying to find hours at both a high school and at an elementary school. I sent out a few emails, but then I found an advertisement for something called a portfolio round-table at East Side Community High School. Picturing something akin to a science fair, I signed up to go to a section of 10th grade English students. I walked to the school and waited to sign in with the security guard. She was busy with a couple of students who showed up 36 minutes late for their Regents Exams which, if I understand correctly, they need to graduate to the next grade. The couple didn’t look too worried. They got their room numbers from the guard and then strolled upstairs. I know so little about the New York City School District. Sometimes it’s frightening.
When I got into the classroom, I noticed first that the students were at their desks and divided into groups of four. The teacher introduced herself; she goes by her first name even among her students. On the walls were comic-strip style posters that the students had made dealing with bullying, standardized testing, socio-economic tensions. Next to those posters was one clearly listing the teacher’s classroom rules and expectations. I was directed to a table with three boys, one Chinese, one Polish, and one Dominican. What happens in a portfolio round-table is this: the students have been writing all year and keeping track of books they read. The guest at the table, me, is the facilitator. Each student takes a turn presenting his or her personal essay (a statement on the use of reading and the definition of a sophisticated reader), reading and analyzing a short paragraph, presenting his or her other essays and reading log, and answering any questions that the group might have. There are rubrics for each student filled out by the facilitator and other students in the group.
I apologized to the boys in my group up front; I had no idea what I was doing! It worked out pretty well though. The first boy was only on his second year of English, but he talked about how Catcher In The Rye (rest in peace J.D. Salinger) was his favorite book and how he wanted to master English because it would give him the power to succeed in the US. He also wrote a piece on water conservation in which he rebukes a friend who likes to take long showers for warmth. “Showers are for cleaning yourself,” he insists, “Not for getting warm.” The second boy had been in the states longer. He might even have been born here; I couldn’t tell if he had an accent or if he was just speaking very softly because he was shy. Again I was amazed. While his writing was impatient, simple paragraphs formed by simple sentences, his ideas and ability to comprehend text were advanced. He talked about The Things They Carried, his favorite book. He also wrote about watching his dad watch a fight once. I didn’t know quite what to say. The third boy either is very new to English or is new to typing. He wrote about Perfume and The Summer of the Butterflies, both long sad books. He mentioned, though, that he read a lot in Spanish. The one boy expressed envy at that point because he said the school didn’t have any Chinese books. I wonder if being forced to read English helped him pick it up faster. His writing was more advanced than his friend’s.
I asked at the office when I left about how I could get cleared for classroom observation. They gave me an email address and I sent out a note, but I haven’t heard back yet. That evening I had Myths and Folktales, which was great. I really wish the rest of my books would get here though. I’m getting behind! After the class, Gallatin was having their eco-friendly fashion show downstairs, so I hung around to see that. I’m glad I did! Two of the designers were friends from Gallatin, and one was this crazy brilliant Tisch senior who made her whole line using found umbrellas.
Thursday was quietly disturbing. I connected with my Ed as a Social Institution professor when I followed up after class on a topic he mentioned in passing: the New York rubber rooms. I mentioned having to do a fieldwork project for Anthro and he suggested looking into it. My research led me to these:
A radio broadcast including stories from inside the rubber room
The start of a documentary on the rubber room
A NY Times article sort-of covering the rubber room
A video of neighborhood people protesting the closing of their old school
Have I mentioned that sometimes it hits me just how little I know about the NYC School District? Those are terrifying moments.
After being so thrown off-balance, I packed up and headed to tutoring orientation at a program curiously close the community garden I found last weekend. I’ll probably end up working on English and standardized test prep. Hopefully. The students range from 6th to 8th graders, and most of them live in Chinatown. I’m excited to be working with kids, although this age group is going to be a challenge. Wish me luck!
Friday was strange. I spent most of the day reading and writing. At some point in the evening, Shizuyo came over and we skyped with Cass and Miranda. Video-chat is such a funny thing. They sort-of met, but not really, but they were able to pick up on each others’ mannerisms and speaking patterns… but there was no hugging. Oh technology. After she left, I worked until around 4am and then went to bed only to be woken up at 5am by the fire alarm. Mel and I threw on shoes and jackets, I grabbed my ID/phone/keys, and we shut both doors behind us as we left. There wasn’t any smoke or anything, but they don’t exactly run drills at that hour so we were pretty nervous. As the fire trucks pulled up, my friend Michelle and I walked to one of the other dorms so we could wait inside where it wasn’t 14 degrees. When we got back we learned that the fire had been in one of the other towers and that it somehow connected back to someone smoking indoors. If you’re going to insist on smoking cigarettes, you have to accept that your addiction isn’t going to go on vacation just because it’s cold outside. You’re going to get cravings when its below freezing out. If you put yourself in that position, suck it up and go smoke outside! Instead of forcing the 900-some other people in the building (some of who are not having cravings because they don’t smoke) out into the cold and annoying the fire department. I hope that was one damn good cigarette. Hope it was worth it. Ugh.
Saturday I woke up late because my phone had died during the drill (i.e. no alarm). As such, I missed getting to the garden this week. However, I did wake up in time to pull off a trip to the beach! I love the beach in the winter. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I love the cold sea breeze. And the beach is just so peaceful when it’s empty and when the grey sky meets the green-grey ocean at the horizon. It’s so refreshing. 
Rhoen and Alex and I hopped on the subway to Coney Island/Brighton Beach and enjoyed walking on the sand, collecting shells, climbing on a playground, and trying to keep feeling in our fingers despite the cold. We admired a mural about the history of Coney Island, mosaics of eggs and koi, and Cyrillic signs in shop windows. 
After the beach, we were supposed to meet up with a group of people to go stargazing at Inwood Hill Park. There’s an astronomy program there that has free stargazing nights where they provide telescopes and constellation guides. It looked really cool (and it’s free). However, you’re supposed to always call their hotline the day-of to make sure that they’re going up that day. I called while on the subway back from the beach, and the automated voicemail informed me that there were too many clouds so the program was cancelled for the night. But, he continued in the same voice frequently used on car commercials when describing limited time offers, on TuEsDaY there would be another chance to ExPlOrE the ExTrAgAlAcTiC UnIvErSe!!! It was such a good message that Alex and Rhoen each called to listen to it too. Then we came up with plan B for the evening.
Plan B included Rhoen, Alex, Shizuyo, Cindy and Sophie mixed with cheese, bread, ice cream, blueberry-apple gallette, and warm spiced cider. 
Once we were all enjoying food-comas, Rhoen left and the girls were left discussing which movie to put in. That was, of course, until the fire alarm went off. Again. So at 2 am we were taking our time collecting our things. Coats, IDs, phones, keys, boots, hats… we were moving, but we weren’t terribly alarmed after Friday’s evacuation. We just wanted to make sure we were actually warm tonight. This relaxed state lasted until the first person opened the door and saw the hall filled with…well… it was cloudy and white and thick. We found out later that it was the chemical from the dry extinguishers, but at the time it had all the qualities of smoke- save that it didn’t smell like anything was burning. We peaced out pretty quickly when we saw that.
Ready for this? We found out later that THAT evacuation was the result of some genius pulling the alarm as a prank. 2 am on an icy Saturday (Sunday by then I guess) and that somehow seemed like a good idea. Great. We strolled around and then came back once things were clearing up. Everyone else was able to go back in, but Sophie was signed in at the security desk so she and I waited in this line that wrapped around to the front of the building (which isn’t terribly far but it seems it when your toes are numb from the cold) and had to sign back in. Which was highly efficient once we got to the desk. I have to hand it to our security folks: the procedures can be a pain but these men and women sure are good at what they do when it comes down to it.
So we pulled out blankets and pillows when we got back up to my room. We put in the movie 500 Days of Summer and started warming up. The cinematography in that film is beautiful at points, but I couldn’t really get into it. The story is a kind-of romance. The main male isn’t satisfied with his life and is waiting for “the one” when the main girl comes to work at the greeting card company where he works. She doesn’t believe in “the one” and has no interest in a steady relationship. They get together and start getting serious…and then she dumps him. And the rest of the story is him feeling sorry for himself, finding out that she’s engaged, and feeling even worse. He confronts her at one point; says he doesn’t believe in true love or fate or anything anymore. She says that he was right all along about such things being real. “You were right,” she says, “just not about me.” He quits his job and becomes an architect. She gets married. The ending is really sappy, but I won’t give it away. Let’s just say that I thought we were deviating from the “happily ever after” ending, and I was disappointed. There was one scene in which he draws a city on her arm, and that made me smile because it reminded me of a coffee date I had once. Other than that though, I really wasn’t too impressed.
Sunday was the last day of January. Can you believe it? One month of 2010 already gone. Cue Sondheim: “One midnight gone!” Sunday was fairly relaxed. Another fire, this time a real fire… something in the dining hall kitchen. I hid in Rhoen’s room with Kim, Hahna, and Shizuyo before returning to clean and read GIG (which is fabulous and which I will review in full upon completion). At some point, my whole suite was in front of the tv watching Lady Gaga sing with Elton John on the Grammy’s. Then Beyonce covered Alanis Morrissette, Stevie Nicks lowered herself to sing with Taylor Swift (I’m not anti-Taylor, but she sounded like such a little girl singing with such a full-voiced woman), the Black Eyed Peas couldn’t keep up with their music, Slash blamed it on the alcohol, Pink sang while hanging from the ceiling, and the crew from the Green Day musical blew my mind while I was wondering how Green Day’s album beat AC/DC’s for best new rock album. Can those bands really be compared?
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