Magic Jewball

I’m on the second of of the three certification exams I must take for New York State to declare that I’m fit for a school setting (I passed the first one, yay me and yay sad exam) and have been taking practice tests to prepare myself. The first exam was SAT/GREish and tested things like math, science, English, history, etc. while this one tests pedagogy (i.e. how to teach) and state policy. Now, coming from the music business or even the private sector in general, where what I do doesn’t effect children (unless you count gangsta rap), I have a sort of fractured view on what the requirements are for the job. It colors how I answer some of these questions, none more than this one:

When deciding upon the fitness of a teacher providing instructional services to serve as a New York State public school teacher, a district:

a. must use as the sole basis for its decision the teacher’s conduct and competence in the classroom
b. may include the teacher’s personal behavior outside the classroom as part of its evaluation

(there were two more, but they were irrelevant and clearly red herrings)

Huh.

Yes, I got this one wrong. Oh dear.

Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)

Yes, I’ve been too tired to write for over a week and all I have is this Seinfeldesque line: what’s the deal with fire drills? I suck. See, I really would like to tell you the nicknames I have in my head for all the people at my placement school and the famous people who attended it and the tours that go through every hour while the kids go on with their lessons, not even noticing or how I am dealing with the small portions they give you in the cafeteria and who I should sit with or how I am busy whittling down the many routes and transfers I could take to get there to which is the quickest, but I’d hate to give anything away until I’m done. You see, I have fallen a bit in love with the place and its staff. Maybe later.

But, anyway, it can’t just be me because I’ve worked at five or six different companies and institutions over my career and they helpfully e-mailed you in advance to send out the fire drill schedule. The 4th floor will be at 11am… the fifth floor will be at 12pm, and so forth. At my new job it’s by building (and fortunately, my building was an hour I wasn’t scheduled to be there). I almost forgot that it wasn’t always this way, that in school, you’d be sitting in class wishing Calgon would take you away when suddenly that alarm would go off and everyone would jump. But now I’m back! Back in the theater of my childhood, the K-12 school. Twice in one week this has happened. The first time, I was meeting with a teacher in an empty classroom when a light somewhere in my periphery started to blink and suddenly the teacher jumped up and said, “fire drill! I have to go get my kids.” And she ran out of the room. About three seconds later, the alarm went off. I just followed the herd out to a nearby park and contemplated the re-emergence of the surprise fire drill.

I wasn’t any better clued in the second time, when I was observing a class, and behind the teacher’s head a light began to blink and… you can guess the rest. A kid yelled out joyfully, “fire drill!,” the teacher groaned, and off we went to the park. Along the way, I heard one of the little kids say that immortal standard of fire drills to another child, “do you think it’s a real fire?” Adults never seem to say that. And you don’t get to go to the park, either. At the Record Company, we met in a central hallway where they checked to make sure the “searchers” were still employed there. That’s always a risk in the music business.

But, well, now I have it down. I know all the escape routes to the park and how the blinking light is the first tell-tale sign. Because, let’s face it, if a fire breaks out at my “real” job’s workplace (you know, the one where they pay me), I’ll probably think, “but I didn’t get an e-mail!” Then I’ll e-mail someone and ask them if they think it’s a real fire. Somehow, I think the preparation with the element of surprise and the moving to the exits in an orderly fashion is probably a wee bit more conducive to your chances of survival. But what do I know? I can’t even figure out where to sit at lunch.

Interpol – All Fired Up

A few housekeeping items, both personally and bloggily. First, bittersweetly, I am putting my bake shop on hiatus for the moment. Although I can’t see opening it back up again, I also don’t want to take the site down and “closed” is such an ugly word, so let’s stick with hiatus. Right now, I can barely keep my head above water with a job, fieldwork, an off-site project, classes, three standardized exams, and the thesis. I remember eight hours of sleep fondly… those were good times! So there isn’t really room on the schedule to also be baking. It worked great last year when I had a ten hour a week job (mostly from home) and classes which began at 4pm. Now, unless I eliminate sleep entirely (really, it’s a possibility anyway), there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Still, if there is a particular need for rugelach and you give me enough notice, I may be able to work it in occasionally, just let me know. Hopefully, you’ll be able to anticipate your pastry needs several weeks in advance. Thanks to everyone for making it such a successful baking year! I kept a careful spreadsheet (duh) and I cleared quite a bit all in spare hours between readings, so it worked out beyond my greatest hopes. You all rock!

Secondly, about that whole thesis. Originally, when I was studying how we live on the Internet in general, it was a fabulous excuse to do an ethnographic study on an online forum of which I have been a longtime member. Now that I have switched up my program a bit to be more education-minded, it’s no longer a good fit for the work I’m doing. Instead, I am pondering (with the help of my advisor) a study of iPads in the classroom. Since I’ve been assigned to work on that project for and by my placement school anyway, and I love gadgets, that also seems an attractive option for me. But either way, it means I will not be doing the online community study. Don’t cry! I did complete a project for a class last year on that site and it was fairly extensive and turned out beautifully. In fact, I kid you not, people have stopped me in the hallway to say they saw it and loved it. I am considering getting it published somewhere but, well, we’ll see how that goes. The professor who originally suggested that to me is extremely busy and there’s only so much prodding I can do. So whether you will see it or not remains an open question. Still, I was able to get the desire to analyze this community out of my system and in a way, it’s a relief. Now I can just be a participant without worrying about tainting my data.

And, lastly, on the iPad tip, now that I have my loaner, I was able to test this site’s mobile theme on it and it works fine. It’s not exactly optimized for the device, but the plugin authors say they are working on that for the next version so hopefully it will have more bells and whistles, and maybe even more extensive excerpts of each post on the home page, which is my biggest complaint. Because seriously, my opening lines seem to have not much to do with the actual posts and it makes things appear kind of comical. Sort of like those songs which have titles seemingly plucked out of the ether. Bizarre Love Triangle? Does that song have anything to do with a bizarre love triangle? Sex Type Thing? What is that, even? Man, that should have been my opening line.

Anyway, my posts are like a journey, a journey to a faraway place… in the middle seat of coach. And like that journey, they start with confusion and boredom and end with exhaustion and nausea. But should you be bored waiting on that long, long line to vote today, grab your iPad and give it a whirl. I am at least as entertaining as the ass of the person in front of you.

Anyway, title comes from nowhere – that’s the joke! Oh, I slay me.

INXS – Not Enough Time

It’s funny that soon after I sent this tweet out, I had the evening I did. I ran a program with various speakers and one particularly difficult professor decided to hijack the whole show. Not only is he willful and controlling, he’s about 80 years old and can talk until we’re all 80 years old. When I insisted on getting the two speakers he had skipped up on the stage he gave me the look of death. And the speakers looked like they’d rather die than contradict him. But it had been promised and so I fended off all his efforts to change the entire planned program. When someone asked me how I could bring myself to do it, all I could say was, “holy Jesus fuck, I have dealt with rock stars more diva-like than this guy.” So, you know, maybe there really isn’t much difference at all.

Speaking of change, just to call attention to two new blogs on my blogroll. My pal Jenny with whom I did the Philly Komen made a similar move to mine, quit her job, and is back to school this semester. I wish her all the joy I have had and none of the broke-assedness. You can follow her adventures at, where else, Hated My Job, Left, Now What?.

Also, the artist formerly known as DuchessJane (no symbol available on my keyboard), is now blogging with no mediating identity at Lambic Pentameter. This is something I know I’ve discussed on this blog many, many times: identity and the Internet. So kudos for making a tough decision and braving the final frontier, blogging under one’s own name.

Lastly but not leastly, as you may have noticed from the tweet, I have an iPad to play with, but it is the property of the school where I’m interning. While I haven’t been able to put porn on personalize it, I have noticed once again how assy this blog looks on this thing and maybe now I can figure that all out for those blessed with iPads. By the way, the iPad is awesome for occupying yourself while talky elderly professors go off on long-winded tangents. Don’t ask me how I know.

This title is because there’s no particular theme to this post. The Who were charming to meet and not diva-like at all. Of course, I met them for four seconds. From Odds and Sods:

The Who – Long Live Rock

You know, even though education and private business are two very different places to be employed, there are certain similarities, just as there are in any workplace. The politics, the meetings, the tussle between management and labor. Today, I sat in on a departmental meeting at my placement school and there was the usual conference table and onscreen projection and agenda going awry. But as we sat there, through the floor to ceiling window, I saw a child, maybe six years old, walk up, look at us, press his face against the glass, lick it, and then laugh uproariously.

I have to say, that never happened at the record label.