Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Fame

There's nothing like teaching to make you feel like a rock star. No matter how angry your kids get with you at school, no matter how many times they shout "I hate you!" or "I ain't doing it!" in class ... if they see you walking down the street outside of school, you are Miley Cirus or (insert other appropriate "tween" star here).

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Some vacation photographs

After my last post, my Monday continued with a 4.5-mile walk to the grocery store (turns out the buses here don't run as regularly as they do in NYC), a delicious home-made pizza dinner, lots of wine, a hot tub, a sauna, and, of course, Scrabble.

Here are some pictures:


As Becca and I were walking (for about 1.5 hours) to the grocery store, we came upon a small playground covered in snow. So we took some time to see saw and swing. Smart Becca injured her ankle jumping off the swing into the snow. Our activities since this moment have been a little limited.


This is the resort where we're staying.



Some lovely scenic Massachusetts photos along our long, long walk.


Becca and me trekking it along the mini-highway.


Our delicious pancetta and arugula pizza. Yes, folks, that's home made!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Happy Vacation!

It's only vacation day 3 and I've already seen many new places, eaten very new things and experienced something quite ... strange. Here's a recap:

Saturday:
I spent my Saturday hanging out with a new friend and traveling to new places in the city. First we went to the most magical place on earth: Economy Candy, a deliciously exciting candy store with many of my favorites (like a 5-lb bag of Sour Patch Kids) and several interesting new delights. (I tried these space ship-shaped wafers full of sour dust ... quite strange. I still can't decide if I like them or not, and I've already eaten most of the bag.)
After hopping up on sugar we traveled to the 5 Pointz in Queens, several giant walls of graffiti on the outside of seemingly abandoned buildings. Very cool. I unfortunately didn't have my camera on hand to take pictures, but here's the official web site's photo gallery: http://www.5ptz.com/5pointzgallery.html

Sunday:
My roommate Becca and I hopped a train to Massachusetts. Actually, several trains. We changed trains in New Haven, Conn., and Springfield, Mass.
We had about two hours before our next train in Springfield, so we decided to grab a bite to eat. However, it turns out that NOTHING is open in Springfield on Sunday. The one place we did find was called the Student Prince, and it turned out to be amazing German food. Yes! After a stein of beer, a bratwurst and an alligator tail cutlet (an extremely unique texture, by the way),
we stumbled back to the train, and I took the most glorious nap before arriving at our ULTIMATE destination: Pittsfield, Mass.
We came to Pittsfield because Becca's parents had an extra time share, and there is a lodge up here that is part of that. We walked into the lodge at about 4:30 p.m. and very quickly realized that we are the ONLY people here without children. How do I know this? We walked right into the recreation room in time to see dozens of families filling the tables in preparation of BINGO hour. Oh, and the recreation room is attached to an arcade. It took me nearly an hour of annoyance at the kids running around and screaming to realize that this is actually a GOOD thing. An on-site movie theater? A Dance Dance Revolution machine? Skee Ball?! Best vacation EVER.

Monday:
So far today all I've done is slept late, watched TV, ate an incredibly cheesey quesadilla, and checked the news online. But who knows what else is in store? The Skee Ball machine is just yards away, and my pocket is full of quarters.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

One Week To Go!

Only one more school week until our mid-winter break. YES!

It's reaching that point at school where I'm tired, the kids are tired, the administration is tired, and so everyone is just cranky. This break coming up is just what we need.

On the upper side of things, this last week was full of some good stuff, too. I started an after-school math club to help students pass the state test that's coming up in a few weeks. It's by invitation only, and the students who weren't invited are so jealous. They ALL want to be in the math club. How cool is that?

The weather has also been warming up (to a low in the 30s rather than a high in the 30s), so I spent a good portion of my time yesterday walking around the south end of Central Park, somewhere I haven't really been before. It was fun! But now I have so much work to do since I ignored it yesterday.

When's that break again?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Ice Skating in Central Park

It's been a pretty crazy week since I last posted. One of my students locked me and the rest of the kids INSIDE the classroom for about 30 minutes by ripping off the door handles. The next day, another student got into quite a bit of trouble for a different incident. And on Friday we had quite the freak-out when a mouse, that had been living underneath my radiator, decided to make an appearance during math workshop. There must've been something in the water this week.

But it all ended on a high note, because I had the opportunity to take four of my scholars ice skating in Central Park for the afternoon on Saturday.

Here's the lucky winners: Daniel, Darilis, Davita and Jesslyn.


Darilis falling on the ice ... for probably about the fifth time.


Out of all the students, Daniel was the one who was glued to the wall the whole time.


Jesslyn enjoyed the skating so much, it was hard to get her off the ice.


Have I mentioned how much I love Darilis? She once told me that she wished I would adopt her.



This is just one of the outdoor rinks in Central Park. It's at the north end, about 10 blocks from my apartment. Here it is from a look-out point above it. It was VERY crowded on Saturday.


We had enough time at the end of the day to take a little stroll through the park before heading back to the subway. What we found was awesome: not only was the lake frozen, but there were still geese just walking around on top.


We also had time to take a bunch of extremely silly pictures. In each one, they decided to yell something else, ranging from "CENTRAL PARK!" to "HEY HO LET'S GO!" I wonder if they know that's a Ramones song ...


Waiting for the 2 train on our way home after a very fun day.


There's just two weeks (10 school days) before our week-long February break. My roommate, Becca, and I are heading to Massachusetts for the first part of the week. Her parents have a time-share at a ski lodge with an indoor pool and a hot tub. So we're going to leave our school work at home and just relax. I'm counting down the days.