In which student teaching begins

As those of you on the facebook know, it has been a really good week; I started student teaching, I received passing scores on my Spanish CSETs and I got accepted to the APLE grant, which is a loan assumption program for up to $11,000 if I agree to teach foreign language classes in California for four years.

Student teaching has been good so far. I think I'm really going to enjoy working with my master teacher because we have fairly similar attitudes and approaches to teaching. She's a really awesome teacher and I hope I can learn a lot from her. The classes I'm in are ELD (English Language Development, also known as ESL or English as a Second Language). I probably would have been student teaching for Spanish, but I didn't pass my CSETs early enough, but I did pass the English CSETs in November. It's actually pretty lucky to be teaching in ELD, something I'm actually interested in, rather than in a regular old English class. I'm pretty sure I would hate teaching regular English.

I love working with the kids in the ELD classes, but it is hard. The hardest part right now is figuring out what proportion of foreign language to English to use (legally, 100% English, but whatever). Obviously, I don't speak every language, so this really applies only to our Spanish and Arabic speakers in my case. But considering that the lowest level class is more than half native Spanish speakers, this is coming up a lot for me. It's also difficult because different kids need or want different amounts of Spanish. I had one kid tell me, "I speak English, you know." Kid, I know you speak English, but you need to respond when I speak to you in English. Also, I really like to speak Spanish, so that makes it hard as well.

It's also kind of weird student teaching at the high school that I graduated from because I'm working with a totally different class of kids. When I was in high school, I was in all AP/honors classes and I basically only interacted with the same. The ELD students are basically disenfranchised from most school things. The only AP classes any of them are allowed to take is AP Spanish or AP math classes. Technically, it's illegal to not even let ELD students try the tests, but the unfortunate part is that none of their parents are going to do anything about it since they're immigrants who don't speak much English themselves and they aren't familiar with the system. That's really depressing for me. The other thing I noticed during this week's rally is that the "big" organizations like student government and cheerleading are overwhelmingly blond. There were a couple of students from the ELD classes who performed in the rally; they were in the hip  hop dance club. Again, super depressing to see these kids not being able to/not being welcome to participate in a lot of the other aspects of school life. The good news is that the ELD students really have a tight community. My master teacher leaves her class open at lunch and there are always 30 or more kids in there everyday and they're all really nice to each other.

I'm still not sure if I will want to be an ELD teacher myself. I wouldn't be opposed to it necessarily, but rather I think it is just a huge time and emotional investment and I don't know that I could/would want to do that. Teaching Spanish or something seems a lot easier (not that I've ever taught a Spanish class). But I do think I'm really going to enjoy teaching ELD for student teaching.

The other depressing aspect of ELD teaching is that my master teacher is, in theory supposed to keep to the same scope and sequence schedule as all the regular English classes. That is insane. Luckily, the principal at the school is sympathetic to the cause, since she is familiar with ELD teaching, so we aren't really expected to do it, but the idea is to keep along as much as possible. Essentially, the state expects magic from ELD teachers.

In other things: I rode my bike to school four days this week. It doesn't even take that long: about 10 minutes including traffic lights, etc. It takes about 15 to get home since I have to ride uphill (wah womp). I've been trying to keep up on my Arabic studying (CSETs in May, ugh), but I think it's going to be difficult to maintain it what with circus and lesson planing and what I call my social life. I got a book of Nizar Qabbani poems, which is pretty awesome. They're short poems so it's basically like bite-sized pieces of Arabic that I can look at for a few minutes when I have some downtime. Whereas when I read a book or something, I need to know I have at least an hour or so to do it, otherwise I won't even get started.  Apropos of nothing, my new favorite phrase is "Japanese bondage festive." The combination of the words (and I suppose surrounding context that will remain secret) just makes me chuckle.

I think I'm going to try to blog at least once a week, in part so I can think about/share my thoughts on student teaching and because I don't think I have more time to blog than that.

In which technology is buggy

Since I've started biking around town (I've ridden 17 miles/27 kilometers this week!), I've been using a handy android (and other platforms) app called RunKeeper. It's great--when it works right. I'd say it's been working for me between 50-65% of the time. The other times, it gives me hilarious results. For example, this happened when I was riding from my house to the University, about 2.5 miles.

 What's truly hilarious about this to me, is not so much that I rode from Salinas to Palm Springs in under 20 minutes, but that I only used 117 calories doing so. I should find a way to market myself as a "green" energy source and get "energy star" certified. Damn.

The good thing about this app is that when I get home, I can get on the website and edit it to show what I actually rode, which was rather less impressive, but still worthwhile.

Unrelated to cycling, but I didn't want to make a new post for it. I was idling the OKCupid chat, then this happened.
Anonymous Asshole: hi sexy

Me: that's no way to start a conversation

Anonymous Asshole: Uh yes it is. I said hi and think your sexy. Nothing wrong with that unless there is something seriously wrong with you

Me: well, you better call a psychiatrist for me then because I think that's a bullshit way to start a conversation

Anonymous Asshole: Dumbass 

And then I blocked him. Obviously, I'm the dumbass in that situation. I laughed and laughed.

In which fitness is discussed

Unfortunately, this is a post about exercise and fitness that I'm writing in January. I expect that gives the impression of relating it to New Year's Resolutions and the mass fixation on swearing to lose weight in time for summer. That said, this isn't a post about New Year's or weight loss. It's a post about exercise and fitness and it just happens that I've been getting interested in that over the last few months. Anyway:

I'm not totally sure how to introduce this topic. I think my recent interest in having a certain degree of exercise competence is because I want to be the badass that I imagine I have the potential to be. I want to be able to nonchalantly do handstands (much the way I bunnyhop on a unicycle, I suppose) and that sort of thing. I also like the idea of being strong, I guess there's a sort of prestige in that and also it's not a "feminine" thing to be strong, so I guess I like that aspect of it. But I also really like the flexibility aspect. I keep thinking I am going to ask some of the contortionists I know what sort of stretches they do (I keep forgetting/not seeing them) because I think contortion is awesome. I like the idea of exploring the flexibility limits of the human body. Sort of related to that, last month I decided to start going to yoga.

I've been doing yoga for about a month now; I only go a couple times a week because that is all the time I have. I had no idea it was so push-up intensive. Probably not all yoga is but this style,
Vinyasa, seems to be. This shit is hard. I do pretty okay at some stuff because I'm more flexible than the average bear (not more flexible than the average yogi though), but I am not really strong. A lot of the poses require a ton of arm strength and I just don't have it. Crow pose, for example, is totally fucking ridiculous.

Additionally, I find myself wanting to lose some weight just so I can be more flexible at yoga. There are a number of stretches that I know I could reach farther on, but fat is in the way. That's kind of awkward to share with the inernet, but whatever, there it is. The problem with that is I am just not willing to go out of my way to lose weight. As the douchebag doctor I saw the other day told me, "You will not lose weight from exercise." That's too bad, since that's they way I'm most amenable to it. Ugh, discussion of that is for another time.

I've also had my interest piqued by a few other little things. The 100 push-ups challenge (or whatever it is) seems cool. Essentially, it eases you into being great at push-ups with the goal of doing 100 after six weeks. Doing 100 pushups sounds like something impossible, which is kind of why I want to try it, I suppose. I also appreciate that it takes zero equipment and only takes a few minutes a day. Related to that, I keep hearing about people having success with the Couch to 5k program. I hate running, but I like the idea of being able to run if I had to (what if I was at the zoo and a bear escaped and started chasing me? I feel the need to be ready for anything). I doubt I am going to do this in the immediate future, but I am keeping it in mind for when I am ready to drink the running kool-aid.

Finally, I bought a bike about two weeks ago, with the intent of commuting around town on it. This one is definitely more of a practical consideration than anything. I am hoping that I'll be student teaching at the high school that's about 2 miles from my house so I can bike and save some money. That's some serious savings since gas is at $3.30 right now. It will have the added bonus of giving me thighs of steel, since it doesn't have gears. I sacrificed gears for cool-lookingness: I bought a used beach cruiser with fenders. Also, my bike has this sweet basket on the front that you can just lift off and use as a shopping basket. I can't wait to bike more. The only sad part is that I wanted to just start biking everywhere immediately, but I am not that fit, so I'm trying to slowly ease into it, which is way less fun.

I feel like this is the yeah when all my shit is going to come together and I'd like being awesome at exercise is a bit of a part of that. I don't really care if I lose weight doing it, but just to be like "hey, I can do 100 push-ups" and not be being a sarcastic asshole as I say it has a certain appeal.

This Must Be the Place

I have recently come to the conclusion that whatever I do with my life, there is only the smallest probability that I will ever feel satisfied. No matter how cool my job is, no matter how smart and attractive my significant other is, no matter how many friends invite me to hang out on the weekend and no matter how many tricks I can do on my unicycle I am not certain that I am ever going to be content. This problem has been difficult to identify because throughout my life I have had many reasons to be discontented, to look forward to the next. But I think I have reached the point where I should be reasonably satisfied with what it is and not keep saying "but I'm going to be doing X soon," whenever someone asks me what I'm doing. I recently articulated this life plan to my dad, "Work this shit job for a couple years, unicycle for Cirque du Soleil, then get my Ph.D." When I think about it, I'm sure when I'm in the circus I'll be like "yeah, I'm a professional unicyclist, but I'm getting ready for my Phd." And I'll constantly complain that there are no intellectuals around. And then when I do my PhD I'll be like "This is boring as fuck compared to being in the circus."

The secondary problem is that recognizing a lack of satisfaction does not automatically make me satisfied. It just makes me realize that I have a fucking problem. I don't really know from where this problem stems. Maybe it's just that I can imagine doing so much awesome shit and I know I'll never be able to do it all/have it all at once? Maybe I need prescription medication for my brain and this is actually a symptom of a larger psychological issue? I have no fucking idea.

By rights, I should be reasonably happy right now. Even though I am living in my dad's house, I have a decent if boring job, the immediate prospect of a more decent, probably-still-as-boring job, circus all afternoon and books to read, etc. I have a social life like never before. But all I think about is how I could be teaching english abroad or getting graduate degrees or whatever. Actually, it's not that I'm unhappy, but life never quite reaches that level of awesomeness that I expect it to.

Goals for 2010

I am aware that there are still two weeks left for 2009, but I am pretty ready to put this year behind me and I already have thoughts about next year. I am going to refer to my intentions for next year as "goals" rather than "resolutions" because when people set resolutions, they tend to not be serious, and New Year's resolutions have the connotation of something that you don't actually do. Without further ado, my goals for 2010. (oh-ten? twenty ten? ten? one-oh? How will we call this year?)

• Arabic. I need to keep up on what I already know plus I want to work on reading faster and learning more words for reading the news. This will probably mean reading several books, keeping up on the news and possibly memorizing all the words in "1000 words of media arabic"
• Spanish. Generally keeping up on it, and I want to expand my vocabulary.
• Farsi. If I feel like I'm keeping up on my Arabic and Spanish, I need to get that party started again.
  
• Juggling. By the end of the year, I intend to be able to juggle 5 balls. Maybe more. Like 7.
• Unicycling. Firstly, get my skills back up to where they were. After that, work on wheel walking and expand my jump roping into double dutch, assuming I can get some competent assistants.
  
• Reading. I think I'm going to set my goal at 50 books again for this year, since that seems like the amount I can read without reading to the exclusion of other activities (I'll post how this year's reading has gone soon). Also, 4 books in Arabic, 6 in Spanish and I'm not going to make any genre specific numbers because I never know which way my reading tastes will go over the year.
  
• Apply to grad school. Even if I'm not totally sure I want to go, I at least need to get in some apps so I have the option. This would be applying to start fall 2011.
  
• Get a real job. Seriously, I need a proper job.
  

Uppgrades

I've stabilized a bit here in Seattle, so I feel much less upset than I felt last week, when I was kind of freaking out. That said, here is good stuff that happened

The director of the Arabic department is allowing me to do a sort-of independent study with the 422 class. So I have to do all the work and go to class on Fridays and meet with the TA/prof now and again. Also take the final or all tests? I'm not sure which. This is an extremely good thing. All the work and none of the credit! haha...yeah

I am the new newsletter guru of glowsticking.com. This is pretty exciting becuase I get to write/delegate writing/completely re-do the newsletter becuase it's current existence is pretty minimal. This also gets me forum admin powers, which I haven't used yet, but are cool to have.

After 2.5 years of college in cold places, I have finally stopped being a total pussy about the cold. It snowed today and I did not panic! rather, I was just surprised. I've also stopped thinking that i'm going to get hypothermia if it's 50 degrees (10 c) outside.

My apartment is still really nice. And it's dry. And things work. It's so much better than my last palce.

School is going pretty well. Except for the annoying people in my ling classes. Let's elaborate.
Contrary guy: aka asshole. He insists on contradicting everything or clarifying useless topics in minute detail
androgenous person: there's this guy/girl and we (being one of the people i befriended in linguistics) can't tell
blonde twins: these two are just really creepy. same double major. same backpack. same everything. Why do they do that?

Other things of awesomeness:
Season two of The Venture Brothers comes out on DVD April 17th. It's my favourite tv show that's actually on TV at the moment.

And this is far away, but of course I am excited all the same. The last installment of Dune called Sandworms of Dune is coming out on August 21. Hopefully it's a little better written and less predictable than the last book from the Andersen/Herbert duo (unlikely but I'm going to pretend anyway).