She Supposably Won a Pulitzer

I'm a bit of a grammar snob. That's not to say that I have perfect grammar, know how to use a comma properly, or know when to use whom. But I do my best. So, imagine my indignation when I heard a Pulitzer Prize winner say the word supposably on NPR. Supposably. Really? I thought to myself, supposably? I can understand when my high school students mispronounce supposedly, they are neither educated, nor do they care. But a Pulitzer Prize winner?

So, in the midst of judging her for her use of supposably, I got to thinking, I must sound like an idiot with some of the slip ups I make. Glad I'm not on NPR.

If you're interested in the story, you can find it here. It's actually quite good, despite the early slip up. The supposably [tsk, tsk] is in the first four minutes.

The Last Hurdle

Today, November 12, 2009, I jumped the final hurdle into adulthood with the addition of a single card to my wallet: a Sam's Club Advantage Membership card. Not only am I old enough to have one, I'm old enough to care about the price difference when you buy bulk. Sure, there are other things in my wallet that say, "Look at me, I'm not a little girl anymore," credit cards, proof of insurance, money...but there is something distinctly grown up about a Sam's card. Probably the fact that it's not something I will brag about to my friends. Oh, I'll tell them, as I'm telling you, but I won't brag, I'll bemoan its presence in my wallet, adding a fraction of an inch to the thickness and a decade of age to its owner. It's the only card that does that (except for maybe an AARP card, but ignore that, I'm being melodramatic). A credit card says, look at me, I don't even need money! A driver's license says, why yes, I can give you a ride! A learner's permit says, why yes, I can make the car stall in the middle of the road! But a Sam's Card...it says, yes, I can purchase 36 Cup o' Noodles in the same package!

So, if you see me around and I'm leaning on a large mountain of Cup o' Noodles, you know why. Give me a nod, and welcome me to grown-up-hood.

NaBloPoMo

I'm an avid reader of blogs. By 'avid,' I mean that I read 6 or 7 every day via Google Reader (yay Google Reader), and one of the things that starts popping up this time of year is NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month. It's a challenge to write 30 posts in 30 days throughout the month of November. That's one a day. So, when the blogs I read started talking about them (okay, I think there was really only one that mentioned it, but that was enough), I began thinking about participating. I've never posted more than 9 times in a month, so this is going to be a challenge, especially since I've almost failed before even starting (it's currently 11:53 PM, not getting started on the best foot).

Anyway, I have no idea what I'm going to post for the next 30 days, but I'm going to try to do it. Care to join me?

Straight from the Headlines

I have news headlines from the BBC on my iGoogle page, and on occasion the headline can be taken the wrong way. Usually, this taking of things the wrong way results in some kind of funny image popping into my head. I thought I'd share what I see (sort of, in a poorly executed way). Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

The Suffering of Intellect and Gums

In college, I was really good about flossing my teeth. I would do it every night as I was reading whatever I needed to read for the next day of school. It worked really well because I had those big text books that held themselves open and only needed page turning once every 5 minutes. These days, though, I'm really bad about it. Maybe once a week, if my gums are lucky. I don't do as much reading these days. This makes me sad. I like reading, but I find that I'm usually too tired to do any reading that I actually want to do, and it takes me so long to finish a book of any quality that I forget what happened in the beginning, so the entire exercise was almost pointless.

So, less flossing, less reading. My intellect and my gums suffer together.

Gah!

My friend mentioned on her 25 Things About Her list (if you don't know what this is, you're obviously not on Facebook) that she's turning 24 this year. (I am 100% sure there is something stuck under my delete key which is really bad, because I use it all the time. Grrrr...I need a can of compressed air) So, if she's turning 24 this year, then that means I'm turning 24 this year! When did that happen? Somehow I became a person in my mid-20s without noticing it. I can only imagine that the getting old thing only gets worse as I actually get old.

I was thinking the other day about how young my students are. One was born in 1994. I was 9 years old at the time. Freshmen this year have never lived in a world without cell phones or with the USSR. Wow. And then I told my dad this and he put things in perspective. My grandparents found out about my birth via telegram. Telegram! The thing where a guy in a uniform drives up to your house, rings your doorbell and starts singing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling!" hands you a message! He also said something about not having direct dial long distance, but I'm sure they've always had that. I think maybe he was pulling my leg.

A Very Bad Dream

I dreamt last night that there was a serial killer (something akin to the guy in "Silence of the Lambs") that marked people walking into bookstores for slaughter later. In this dream I was unfortunate enough to walk into said bookstore. I don't remember how exactly it happened, but somehow I ended up going to this guy's house (it had something to do with one of my students saying something like, "Come on, Miss, he's really not that scary"). I found myself lying on the floor behind a bed with the serial killers feet clearly visible on the other side. Just as his knee touched the ground, Bard ran across my legs and woke me up. My heart was pounding as I jolted out of bed, and I was disoriented until I remembered where I was, and that there wasn't actually a serial killer after me. That was the worst nightmare I can remember since I was six and I dreamt that the entire house was covered in snakes.

Point being: I haven't been sleeping well lately. The bad dreams are just kind of adding to it. I blame it on the stress. Kind of reminds me of the Nightmare Island in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

In Which I Wonder Whether Netflix Is Worth It During the School Year

I got Netflix last summer, and boy did I use it. I watch a new movie almost every single day and loved nearly every minute of it (there were a few duds). But recently, I've been wondering if it's worth getting the three movies at a time package. On evenings such as this when I am busy working on grading papers convincing myself that I will work on grading papers very soon, the movies, in conjunction with whatever is on TV that evening, only provide another excuse to not do what I'm supposed to. I have contemplated doing my work in front of the TV, but I find that I just get annoyed after a while and end up watching TV and not grading things; how dare work infringe on mindless entertainment.

Anyway, I do like having numerous options on the weekends (especially since college football will be over in 24 hours), so maybe I'll hold on to it. Besides, I'm a drama teacher, watching movies is part of my job. Right? Right?

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.

Death to Squishy

My friend gave me one of those squishy pillows for Christmas during my freshman year of college, and it has been on my bed ever since. I studied on that pillow, slept on it, drooled on it, took it on vacations with me. That is, until last week. I began noticing tiny beads in my bed. At first I thought it was just balled up cat hair, but soon the sheer number told me that they weren't the follicles of my feline friend. Upon closer examination, I found the culprit. A small hole at one end of the pillow, no doubt the work of that same feline whose fur initially threw me off the track of the tiny beads.

It is with sadness that I've removed the squishy pillow from my bed. I miss it dearly.

A Birthday Resolution

I bought my own point-and-shoot camera right after Christmas last year and went through several weeks of taking pictures at every chance I got. But as the novelty of having a camera wore off, I quit wearing it on my belt, or throwing it in my pocket, now I seldom think of it. This summer I anticipated taking picture after picture as I went sight seeing around San Francisco and southern California, but being a Floridian, and even more, an Orlandonian, I have a distinct distaste for anything touristy. In my aversion to looking like a visitor, I didn't take many pictures at all. Sure, there was Alcatraz, and pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge from Paul's roof, but other than that the camera stayed in its cozy holder tucked away in the bottom of my purse.

I would like to change this. I find it surprising that I take so few pictures considering how visually oriented I am. It would seem that pictures would be an excellent way for me to document things, rather than writing them down. Somehow, I've never been comfortable taking pictures of things. It feels like an intrusion. Anyway, I'd like to take more pictures. Maybe one day I'll actually become good at it.

What Are You Afraid Of?

Ever since I was a little girl, I've had an overactive imagination. I used to hate going to the bathroom at night because there was a shadow in the back stairs which looked, to my childish eye, like the Egyptian god Anubis. Eventually I grew out of my fear of the shadow monsters, but I still find myself falling prey to the unseen terrors in my life. Sometimes it stops me from writing what I want to write on this blog (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to work). Other times it just raises my blood pressure and begins hours of useless worry.

This evening, the end of a particularly bad day, I ask myself, "What are you afraid of?" And perhaps more importantly, why?

On the bright side, I passed my General Knowledge Exam. Whoo hoo.

Paper Chandelier

Last weekend I found myself in the Neiman Marcus at the Mall at Millenia. This venture into the foreign world of the modern shopping mall lead me to one of the most brilliant things I've seen in quite a while; an idea which I intend to plagiarize in my classroom. It was a chandelier of sorts, although that might stretch the definition thereof, consisting of sheets of paper, wire and binder clips. Visitors from all over the world had written messages in their native tongues, drawn a flag, created a picture from words, whatever came over them at the time. I love this idea. I love how individual it is, and how it is in essence a cloud of thought which is ever changing. I think I will attempt to make something similar for my classroom at school and give the students the opportunity to share their art work or thoughts in a relatively anonymous way. There is, however, the danger of getting a lot of profanity and vulgarity if placed in a high school classroom. I think I'll try it anyway, and trust that they can be mature about it. Yeah, right.

Reader challenge: My own note is up there, see if you can guess which one it is! (No fair if I already showed you...) Post your guesses in the comments.

On Exams

I've finally kicked my butt into gear and looked into the registration process for the Florida General Knowledge Exam which I must complete before the beginning of October if I want to keep my job. The act of looking it up and filling out the registration forms online brings back memories of high school and registration for the SATs, IB and AP exams. There is this distinct feeling I get when I think about exams. I dread them in general, but at the same time look at it with a fairly large ego. I've never done horrible on a general knowledge test. The FCAT was remarkably easy in my memory, and the SATs, while a good deal harder than the FCAT, presented only things I had seen and studied before.

In fact, I don't think I've ever had a horrible experience in an exam. There was the ACT, which I took on the morning after our second performance of "Les Miserables" for which I was only half awake. But even then, my score was better than average; I didn't get the score I wanted, but it was still better than many. Incidentally, I took that exam at the school where I now teach. I recall the first day of IB Chemistry being difficult, but I attribute that to the unfortunate schedule which placed it after IB History, thus my brain was already fried. In hindsight, spending the lunch break at the bowling alley thinking of anything but chemistry was perhaps not the best choice. The AP Calculus AB exam was absolutely atrocious. Since our main focus was the IB Calculus exam, we hadn't really prepared for the AP. Also, I had missed a few important days because of Drama (go figure) and could not for the life of me find the volume of a shape rotated around the x-axis (or the y-axis for that matter). I spent most of that exam doodling and drawing fish in a cylinder.

Yes, my senior year of high school was full of exams, some fairly easy, other decidedly not. My main memory is going in with confidence. Never nervous, always a little unsure, but confident. Hopefully this time around it will be the same.

What I Miss About Tallahassee

My trip up to Tallahassee this past weekend reminded me what I miss about it as a city. I'm refer not to the people, relationships, or student life, but the city itself, things that are unique to our state's capital. Tallahassee has an abundance of really good homegrown restaurants, Tallahassee originals, small shops that have grown enough to have one or two locations in the city, but nowhere else. Hopkins Eatery, Cool Grindz (I ignore the tacky Z at the end for the sake of their White Chocolate Mochas, Cafe Con Leche and Chai Lattes), The Coffee Pub, The Pitaria, and One Fresh Stir-Fry are some of my favorites. Even better, I have memories tied to each and every one of these.

I used to go the the Pitaria during a break after some of my theatre classes because it was right down the street. It was also the last place I ate in Tallahassee before moving back to Orlando. I used to have D-Group at the Cool Grindz downtown when we got tired of the ever busy Starbucks. C. and I used to chat with the baristas while they made our drinks at the one on Monroe and Tharpe. One Fresh was an after-church favorite. They also have amusing signs in the dining area.I took a picture of this one for Dad. If you can't read it through the glare, it says "Did You Close Your Garage Door?" Sound Familiar?

The Coffee Pub was probably my favorite study spot, especially in the mid-afternoon before all of the college kids got there. They had these really comfortable chairs in the corner by the window which allowed for copious amounts of people watching and a good deal of studying as well. That's where I studied for my Modern British Lit exam, and where I wrote the first few pages of a Senior Seminar paper. On one occasion, I was surprised to find non-college students in a very college-type coffee shop. I had grown accustomed to the evening hours when every seat was occupied by laptop laden students. So, one Wednesday morning I was surprised to see a few older ladies walk in with their knitting to sit, drink coffee and chat.

Layers of Shirts and other Randomness

I'm a fan of layering shirts. For one thing, it makes me look a little more teacher-ish, which given my age and maturity is always a good thing. It gives me an excuse to wear t-shirts, and it also covers the fact that, due to some severe laziness, I didn't iron any of my nice shirts this week.

In other news, I'm toying with the possibility of getting Wii Fit in the next few weeks. It will definitely have to be after school is over, because I'm slacking enough as it is without further distractions.

I graduated from high school five years ago Monday (May 20, 2003). Yikes! Where did the time go? Today was the last day for seniors, and it was hard to see them go. I'll miss some of them immensely. Others, not so much. I've been thinking of my own last days in high school and the fun and sadness. The long series of lasts. Last show (Les Mis!), last class, last test, last year book, last drive home, last AP Exam, last IB exam. And then there was that blasted song, "Friends Forever," and the swaying, hugging melody that somehow succeeded in bringing tears to every Senior's face at some point in time whether they want to admit it or not.

Rain and Driving

It hasn't rained here in ages. At least, it feels like ages. See, we're used to daily afternoon rains this time of year, and they haven't come yet. The grass on the practice field is turning brown. The dust is accumulating its second layer on my poor white car. And it's hot. There is no respite from the sun's onslaught. So we Floridians retreat to our air-conditioned houses, and work places, and cars, not daring to spend too much time in the heat, lest we break a sweat and have to shower twice in one day.

I miss the rain, but I love the crystal clear afternoons. Driving home as the warm sun floods through my rear window. I like driving home in the afternoons. I might go so far as to say it's my favorite part of the day.

News and Notes

I've been slacking as far as writing goes, and work has followed suit. Now that I have time on my hands, I don't quite know what to do with it. I have work that I could and should be doing, especially with the end of the year coming up, but I can't motivate myself to do it. Perhaps I subconsciously believe that I don't have to live by the same rules as everyone else because I'm working more hours than anyone else on campus.

For the first time this year, I think I'm getting a taste of what all the other teachers get to do all year. I have to say, it would take some getting used to. I've grown so accustomed to being there all the time that leaving before the sun sets is a strange sensation. Not that I like leaving that late.

Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say. There are, of course, things to talk about, but well, I don't really feel like it.

News and Notes

'News and Notes,' wasn't that the title a few posts ago? Why, yes, observant reader, it was. In my busyness and abject laziness, I've temporarily given up on writing creative titles for the seemingly endless stream of posts whining about my job and have place in their stead a consistent title. This will no doubt help you in knowing what to skip when surfing through your Google Reader feed in the mornings (or whenever it is that you have the luxury of sitting down and reading the assorted offerings of the world wide web).

Anyway, I have my first official observation tomorrow with my supervising AP. I'm understandably anxious about it. The butterflies currently setting up camp in my stomach are akin to those which took their vacations from the wide open spaces to my gastrointestinal tract on the evenings before a presentation or performance in high school. Pardon me while I go freak out for a moment. All this anxiety stems from my lack of experience (hey, that sounds familiar) with this particular situation. Although I've been teaching for 4 1/2 months, I have yet to be evaluated objectively; I don't generally count the "you suck"s and the "this class is boring"s as objective or accurate feedback.

On the upside, the Grand Poobah himself came into 6th period today, and I thanked my lucky stars that we were for once doing something in the classroom and I actually looked like I was teaching my students something. That's not to say that I don't usually teach my students things, but theatre being what it is, much of our time is spent doing things which frankly don't look very studious or teacherly, like rehearsing, or playing improv games. Anyway, I had the projector on and was writing on the board and everything. It was pretty impressive. I'm sure some of my students were bored out of their minds the moment I picked up the dry erase marker, but I had a good time today, and I think at least a few of them understood what I was trying teach them.

So, tomorrow is a big day. Big day.

Oh, we also finally finished blocking "Arsenic and Old Lace," so we move into run throughs. Let the train wreck begin.

Springtime

It's beginning to feel very Spring-ish in this part of the country. As I locked up my classroom this evening the cool breeze carried the smell of growing things across my face. Grass, freshly churned dirt. I thought of the family of raccoons living under the portables behind the PAC and I wondered if they love this weather as much as I do. It seems odd that I haven't named them yet. I've been too busy to think about that kind of thing, I guess. Anyway, it's feeling Spring-ish. I'm sure that before too long, the Florida weather will turn again, and the heat will beat down on that freshly churned dirt.

This week has been gorgeous, in spite of what promises to follow. Weeks like this make me wish I lived my life in the sunshine, instead of in the deep shadow and bright lights of a theatre, or under the drab fluorescent tubes of my classroom. I can't help but think that I would be happier if I spent more time outdoors.

Today was a day for peaceful airy music played by a string quartet, for long hair left free to dance in the breeze, for jeans, a t-shirt, and a sun-kissed glow. I drove home with the window rolled down (except on the highway because that's not as aerodynamic and therefore less fuel efficient) thinking of the Tallahassee spring and the thick layer of pollen which turned my white car green for a several months in the year, and feeling the wind whip across my shoulders after going up the sleeve covering the arm draped out the window. Yes, I love Spring. It has so many possibilities. Memories, if they felt like anything physical, would feel like a cool breeze caressing my face on a Spring afternoon.