Cute like the smart girl

I’ve spent a lot of the past few days thinking and talking about relationships. All kinds of relationships – some friends I have passed time gossiping, I’ve chatted with various people about student relations, and even other blogs have talked about relationship-building.

One thing that strikes me is how much happens in the subtext, in the way we communicate. Two examples:

1. I nearly always write the daily agenda on the board, and then I sit in front of the board. I still have students who come in and ask “what are we doing today?” I used to snap at them to read the board, until I figured out that they’re really saying, “hi. Notice me.” So now I do.
2. A friend called me yesterday and left a voice mail that was basically, “I need to ask you something. Call me back at work or on my cell.” When I called back, he wanted me to pass along a message to someone else that she should call him because he needed to ask her a question. Okay, so first, why did he call me? (Answer: presumably he doesn’t have her cell number, though he does have the number of at least one other person he could have tried.) Second, why not just leave a message that said, “Can you ask Jane to call me?” Why specifically ask me to call back? It finally occurred to me (and I do kind of hope he doesn’t read this blog) that perhaps it was something like #1. “Call me, I want to talk to you.” Of course the reason that occurred to me is…

I was walking around the airport with a couple of hours to kill due to a delayed flight. I have plenty to entertain me (I’m sure my students would be thrilled if I graded some of their work that I downloaded!) but I really wanted to talk to someone. I ended up calling that same friend and he didn’t answer. I did leave a complete message. (“I didn’t see Jane, so I couldn’t pass on your message.”) but what I really wanted was to talk to him. I almost called various other friends just to have a conversation. (Instead I ruminated on relationships. Aren't you lucky?)

( other things )

According to a LibraryThing survey, these 106 works are the ones most often marked as “unread”, That is, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones read solely as a curriculum requirement, italicize the ones you started, but didn’t finish.

Final touch: denote (*) the ones you liked, and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you did read them for school in the first place.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
*Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
*1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
*Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
*The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

95 words

Speed test

I created two schedules for my school for next year so that there could be choice. I spend a gazillion hours creating one. The other one was a brainstorm of something simple by a coworker and only took about 16 hours to pull together. With the gazillion hours one, I could either end up feeling like I worked so hard on it that we MUST use it or feeling that I hate it so much I never want to see it again. Much like the music for the annual slide show, I hate it. I spent every spare hour for two weeks on it and couldn't make anything reasonable or decent. It is awful. Fortunately (thank heavens) everyone else hated it too. I am so thankful.

Among other things, I stayed up until 3 am, largely finishing it. Then got up at 7 so I could photocopy it before our meeting this morning. Tomorrow I am considering attending a workshop that starts at 8 am.

I'm reasonably sure I had some thought that had more value than these two, but at this point I have no idea what it was. Oh, in fixing the problem where my phone won't synchronize my calendar, I somehow deleted ALL my contacts. I don't even have my home phone number programmed in anymore. I am going to try to resurrect from old, not-Apple-compliant backups tomorrow. Tonight, I am just going to bed.

I normally don't make NY resolutions. Too arbitrary - I'd rather make resolutions when I'm ready to make change. As it happens, however, I appear ready to make change at the moment. How convenient.

I decided before we left to spend the Christmas holiday with my parents that I would try to run every day. If I skipped a day, I would make it up by going farther the next day. So far I've only gotten in one day, but it was a reasonably long run, so I'm feeling optimistic.

So after my run, I thought this would be a good resolution for the forseeable future - why stop after this break? So my goal is 2 miles per day, every day. If I skip a day, then I have to make it up. This seems very reasonable - I usually (always) go longer than 2 miles, but not daily. So making it up or actually going 4 miles every other day is very possible.

For Christmas, my brother gave me a coupon for a personal training session. Hopefully he'll teach me stuff I can do at home.

I am insanely tired. This is probably in part due to catching a 7 am flight, which necessitated getting up long before o'dark early.

Last night was a lovely dinner at Siam House, Chuck's favorite. Poor Tim - I haven't seen him in at least 7 years, he gave me a hug and a kiss, during which my utter lack of poker face gave away that I couldn't figure out who this person was, who was kissing me. I figured it out quickly, fortunately, and it was truly wonderful to see him.

Today on the plane I was surrounded by teachers who are doing some kind of Fulbright thing where they go to Japan for 3 weeks. They were from all over the country, though the woman who was sitting next to me was from Bloomington. It is a small, small world.

I was melancholy when I got home, so I went to the Harker School fall picnic, which was lovely. I got to geek out with my friend Phil and his friend Brian, hang out briefly with my friend Dave, and hug Robb, who was leaving when I saw him. I didn't see Heather at all, which might be because there were approximately 10 million people there. By the time the exhaustion hit, I was feeling much better.

Now I am home, have had nap, grocery trip, dinner, Perl homework and quiz dispensed with, relaxed, and partly unpacked. There were some other things that were to be done, but they will have to wait. (Note to mrcozy: Didn't have the soup, but did have yummy dinner.)

There was a moment on the plane when I regretted leaving, but for the most part I feel like I made the right choice. I regret missing out on tonight's reminiscence and I was thinking through people I never see who are likely to be at the funeral, such as Doug Grover, whom I'll miss. I'm sad I didn't get to see Sasha and Kevin. But my experience of Chuck was also unlike many others and my feelings are muddled in some ways by being with everyone else - I'm doing more processing on my own than I would if I were there. The greatest factor, of course, is that I'm learning I just can't do everything. Not for the world would I give up hosting Shari's shower on Thursday and being there for her in the days leading up to her wedding on Saturday. I feel about Shari the way others feel about Chuck and there isn't enough time to meet both commitments.

This is the first time I've ever stayed overnight in this house alone. It is weird. Not scary, but there are all these things I don't know. How much coffee is the appropriate amount for one person? How do I set the coffee on a timer? I hope to have figured both of these out.

One of the weird things about the blogosphere is the intersections of people. Many people who read this list are friends of mine from way back when I lived in Indiana. Some are friends from California. One or two are "professional friends" (hi Alfred!) Some are more friends-of-friends than people I'm close with. One is someone I knew from high school.

So a number of the people here already know about, well, what's going on. The short version, for those of you who don't know, is that a friend of ours died on Thursday. We'd known for a while (by which I mean since sometime in September) that he was sick, but last we'd heard he was on the mend. Then on Tuesday night we found out he was in the ICU. Wednesday morning we booked tickets to leave Thursday. During our layover we got news he'd died.

loosestrife is on her way here now; we'll pick her up at the airport in the morning. We spent the afternoon and night with various friends and will do the same tomorrow. The funeral is on Monday; I'm not sure if I will stay or not. On the one hand, staying would not be impossible and the statement it makes seems like the right one. On the other hand, one of my closest friends is getting married in one week, I am throwing her a wedding shower on Thursday night, and I'm more than a little concerned about the stress of trying to do it all.

I was not as close to him as many people here and do not have as many memories as they do. He was one of the worst bosses I've ever had, though in recent years he was also a good friend.

I have now said several times that if I'd had to predict last Thanksgiving - which on some level I did - I would never have guessed that my father would live and Chuck would die.

I was all dedicated to post this weekend after being in Bloomington and being reminded that my friends would like to know what is going on with my life. The problem is having time to actually create anything to say - whole sentences just seem overwhelming sometimes.

It isn't that I'm not being reflective, it is just that all my reflection is happening offline. For example, I've had tons of conversations about the workshop I was at, but haven't written a thing about it. All my writing time is going into crazy other projects, like two presentation proposals due tomorrow and one award nomination due yesterday. I'm pessimistic that we'll win because I think the competition will be stiff, but I feel okay about the nomination. Especially since I ultimately pulled it together in something like 4 hours. (Significantly self-plagiarized.)

Another whirlwind week ahead where I won't have time to respond to enough e-mail messages and won't get home earlier than 7 pm any day. Oh well, next week is a four-day week. And maybe this will start a new habit of posting occasionally!

loosestrife will appreciate that I'm experiencing periodic bouts with PTSD. I am obsessively NOT overpromising or underdelivering. Well, possibly underdelivering, depending on your expectations. My expectations are higher than anyone else's, which is reasonably good. My level of OCD is also higher than everyone else's. I am striving not to have my OCD impact anyone else. And yet, it comforts me, so I nurture it.

Approximately 3 computers done, 125 to go.

I really, really, really want Chinese food for dinner.

I am a Sunflower What Flower Are You?

"When your friends think smile, they think of you. There is not a day that goes by that you can't find something good about the world and your fellow human."

So, mfh, your LiveJournal reveals...



You are... 3% unique
(blame, for example, your interest in precor elliptical trainers)
and 14% herdlike
(partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy shoes).
When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please.

Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.

Your overall weirdness is: 22

(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 48% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

One of the hard things about being a teacher is that Memorial Day always represents an opportunity to catch up on grading right before the end of the year. Thus, not so relaxing. Of course, until next year, Labor Day has always represented the last opportunity to get everything done before the school year starts. (Next year it'll be the first three day weekend, so hopefully I can actually take off.)

My parents are currently at the race. I am a bad daughter and did not manage to actually talk to them before they left. I did IM with my mom before she left, but by the time I had time to call on the night before they left, it was way too late. That's the biggest downside to living across the country from my parents - the time difference makes things hard.

This has been a relaxing weekend. We've accomplished almost nothing we intended to (like cleaning the house yesterday) but have had a nice time just sitting around, playing games and catching up on Crossing Jordan. Also went on an 8-mile walk yesterday, leading to slight sunburn. I do have two projects that MUST get finished today and I have to head in for a few hours to meet with various people. Nevertheless, a nice time. I'm glad it is almost summer. I could get used to this.

On Saturday, I took three science tests. ( Read if you're interested )

Today I did some (but not enough) grading, watched some TV, read a lot of blogs, and went on a walk. And had a freakout or two. Ah, the joys of Sunday, when I spend my time preparing for Monday.

mrcozy and I went this week to hear Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired talk about "what your kids are doing online". Not that we have kids. I'm not sure why mrcozy wanted to go, though it was nice to have him there. I went because it was a presentation to parents at my school and I wanted to find out what they were being told.

One of the things she talked about is that the New Big Thing online for teens and tweens is avatars. I got coolness points for having heard of Meez (thank you neshura). Club Penguin has made the rounds this year, which is apparently typical for tweens.

I never did take enough time to create a Meez, because the site annoyed me, but after talking to a colleague last night and seeing some today through serendipity, I made a WeeMe.

This weekend has almost nothing scheduled. I'm strongly resisting getting anything scheduled, though I have two different people who wouldn't mind meeting me at work. I need to plan for next week, when I will be gone most of my classes and need sub plans, plus I need to study for my CSET exams next weekend. At the moment, though, I'm enjoying spending the morning in bed surrounded by YA books, laptop, and sunshine.

Super busy. No time to reflect. Time, however, to prove that I am worthy of my job.

I have contemplated a few times lately how unfair it is that I check in and read other people's journals, thus enjoying the fruits of others' labor, without ever updating my own. Yet things are either too private to write or too boring. Then I noticed that after a reasonably pleasant post by dividedbyzero he remarked on it being boring. I love the administrivia of people's lives. Guess that means I'd better post the boring stuff.

This is one of the three most stressful times of the year. Progress reports are coming due and of course I'm wildly behind on grading. I am one of only two teachers who switches classes at the semester in my school, so I have the added burden of starting with a new set of kids. They're not new to me, I had them last year, but it is still important to start the semester off "right" which means planning. I wouldn't be so worried about the reports but we have houseguests this weekend and I'd way rather go play then still be writing.

Consequently, I've had two asthma attacks so far today and I can feel a third one gathering.

The major fundraising breakfast for the school is on Thursday. Everyone is running around like decapitated chickens. I am maintaining a calm about the whole thing which is slightly facade-ish, since I'm supposed to show up with lots of technology at some ungodly hour on Thursday morning.

Lots of nit-picky details and meetings this week that will get in the way of doing my actual job, but whatever, we'll deal.

( Meme one )
( Meme two )

( Click to behold )

No teaching, which definitely helped the re-entry. I continue to find school more stressful than family. I did have a nice day doing some sysadmin tasks. It turns out that I do better work when I can sit and concentrate uninterupted. Who knew? So I fixed at least one problem, which is great. Now I just have to document - always the problem!

Anyway, things back home seem stable and improving very.slowly. I am glad that we stayed through yesterday and I think it is good that we came home when we did. This month is going to be hectic.