The Odd Couple

Here's the info on the bottom if you don't want to click on the image and read it in the pretty font:

The Odd Couple (Female Version) by Neil Simon
Colonial High School Performing Arts Center
November 13, 14 & 15 @ 7:00PM
November 16 @ 2:30PM
House opens 30 minutes before curtain
Tickets $5

Be there! Or just give me $5 bucks!

Oh, and 6 posts in October! Whohoo!

Pet Peeves

I didn't think I had pet peeves. Sure, there were things that bugged me a little bit, but nothing that drove me really insane. Then I became a teacher. I now have several. The most prevalent is the mispronunciation of words/use of words that don't exist.

Here are the top three, with plenty of snark on the side:
Anyways. It's not a word (okay, maybe it was in the 13th Century, but it's not standard today). But somewhere along the line, teenagers must have decided that since there are multiple 'ways' there must be multiple 'anyways,' which is, of course, not the case. Somehow, it wormed itself into even the smartest of students' vocabulary and frequently rears its ugly S-shaped head. I do my best to battle the unnecessary 'S' wherever I may find it. I am slightly ashamed to admit that I too have on occasion succumbed to its awful powers. But thankfully, the light of proper grammar always shines through, and I return to the singular 'anyway.'

Supposably. This, I'm guessing, comes from the lack of written word in teenagers' lives. They heard the word 'supposedly' but have never seen it written, so their brain didn't have anything to connect it to. I believe the term for a misheard word is mondegreen, but I could be wrong. Anyway, we now have supposably, a bane of my existence. And now, a short anecdote: I once was lecturing about Greek theatre history and used the word 'supposedly.' A hand shot up in the back row. Ah, I thought, an eager young mind! and nodded for the student to speak. I was simultaneously amused and appalled by what I heard. "Miss," the student said, "don't you mean 'supposably?'"

Ax. No, not the tool used to chop wood, the verb meaning 'to inquire of'. That's right, fair reader, medieval weaponry has been confused with the simple, harmless verb 'ask'. I'd heard this mispronunciation many times before I began teaching, but the frequency since has driven me to the edge of frustration, so much that I've even created a sign. It reads, "No! You may not AX me a question. You may, however, ASK me a question." One of my students read the sign yesterday, tilted his head to one side and said, "I don't get it." I hope that means he's never heard the wonderful word 'ask' slandered in this manner.

So, one year of teaching and I now have pet peeves. Oh, and I hate being called 'Miss'. I have name, thanks.

So-and-so Squabbling

Well, October is threatening to go by with only a few blog posts to its name, so I figured I'd better get cracking if I'm to meet my goal of 75 posts this year. At this point, methinks it is a lost cause, but I'll still try to get as close as possible.

I was posting quite a bit in September when I had a little more free time, but in the last couple of weeks free time seems to have been sucked out of my life and replaced with unavoidable sleep (falling asleep before I intend), and work. Always work.

As far as work goes, I've been inundated with stupid high school drama in the last few weeks. So-and-so 1 is mad at So-and-so 2 because So-and-so 3 was talking to So-and-so 1 about an ex who is a... you get the picture. Somehow, So-and-so thinks it's part of my job to sort out their stupid squabbles which are really all about their inability to stop talking about each other. So, So-and-so asks to speak to me before rehearsal one day and starts spilling the beans all over my bright and shiny day. I stop So-and-so mid story and ask, "Why, So-and-so, is this my problem? This seems like something you and So-and-so need to sort out between yourselves. And frankly, I refuse to be inserted into your juvenile bickering." Perhaps I shouldn't have called So-and-so juvenile because it then forced me to explain that I said nothing about prison and had simply called them immature. Anyway, that and a few other things have resulted in So-and-so being angry with me. There's also an issue about pizza...

I really want to just tell them, stop taking life so seriously. Have fun, let stuff go. You're in high school! RELAX!

One Year

Here's an excerpt from my personal journal from October 8th, the one year anniversary of my first day as a teacher.

"I felt that I should write something today because this day, October 8, marks the one year anniversary of my first day as a teacher. The only thing I can say is thank God I survived. There have been more than a few times in the last year in which I thought I would not make it (Christmas Carol show week, Districts, States...), so today, I breathe a sigh of relief and hope for a better year."

I ended up not actually writing much because the power was out, which incidentally is why I didn't write it here in the first place. So, a week later, I'll try to flesh it out a little bit.

I still don't feel like a teacher. When people they walk in, they come up to me and ask where the teacher is. But I have an advantage this year over last, my students knew I was the teacher from day one, rather than assumed I was jut another sub. This year, I'm not telling them that I'm only 23 years old, and that I only graduated from college a year and a half ago, and that some of them have siblings older than me. I am acting like I know what I'm talking about (which I generally do), and that I've been doing this for a while.

The biggest difference, though, is the distinct and wonderful absence of worry pangs. Last year I spent half of my time with a dull feeling in my stomach rooted in the fear that I had done something wrong, or that I'd missed something important. I imagine myself as a little puppy trying so incredibly hard to do everything everyone wanted of me, freaking out whenever I fell short. I've been more relaxed this year, and it certainly feels better.

One year...and counting.

Google 2001

If your favorite search engine hasn't reminded you yet, Google turns 10 years old this month. In celebration, they have put their oldest available archives, from 2001, up for the public to search and reminisce. Try typing in September 11. Apparently, their archive is from before that fateful day; nothing of consequence pops up. It was a different world back then. This article in the Washington Post does an excellent job of walking you down memory lane, pointing out things long forgotten, and some things which are all too familiar.

I Googled this very blog and was disappointed not to find it. Then I realized I didn't start writing it until October of 2002.

So, I searched the archives of my own memory and dug up a few personal highlights of 2001. Here's what I came up with:

- Last year on JV soccer, Jobie teaches me how to run
- Paul graduates high school
- Summer trip to West Virginia. Cold showers for a week. Good times.
- Bud dies
- Meet Amy, one of my best friends, after history class
- September 11th
- Do tech for "The Foreigner" until soccer starts, my first play at UHS
- I make Varsity soccer & split my head open on a teammate's chin in the second week of practice. The scar still hurts sometimes when its cold or rainy.
- "Scenes from a Tuesday in September"
- IB kicks it up a notch
- Pre-Calculus kicks my butt (Mrs. Parrish, round one)
- Klongerbo's class, find out that I LOVE English, I learn how to write a good essay
- TOK with Mr. Boyte, wonder if dragons can fit in tea boxes
- Driver's License...woot (still accident free and only 1 ticket!)

What do you remember from 2001?

An Orchestra of Shapes and Colors

I wonder if anyone imagined anything like this when Vivaldi wrote "The Four Seasons" (if you're wondering, no, I didn't recognize it exactly, but I suspected Vivaldi...). I remember standing in the yard as a child conducting an imaginary orchestra of moving shapes and colors, but never anything so elaborate.



Then I thought back to Advanced Shakespeare class and our study of Falstaff. He is thought of as one of Shakespeare's funniest characters, yet when a class of 21st century college students read his words, none of us found them particularly funny. Our professor went on to explain that we don't find Falstaff all that funny because he is making fun of a life which moves quickly from one thing to another. We modern Americans didn't understand the humor because our lives move so quickly that we hardly notice the speed. They had never seen, for example, a television show that jumped instantly from scene to scene, face to face. The point is, they couldn't imagine a reality where things move quickly from one thing to another, and we now live in that very reality.

So, with that in mind, I got to wondering whether children a hundred or two hundred years ago would have imagined my orchestra of shapes and colors. I live in a world where such things are possible, at least in digital format, and the idea of objects (other than birds) flying and floating through the air has been normal for nearly a century. Perhaps my mind took what it had observed and changed it into something a little more fanciful. Could a mind that never saw an airplane, or a shuttle launch, or fireworks, or pictures of satellites drifting through space imagine that same thing? Or would it be limited by what it had observed?