Daily JPG 115

This is one of my students. As part of a research project she wore a burqa for four days, following all of the rules and customs associated with it.

Daily JPG 100

In celebration of my 100th Daily JPG, I give you…

…myself. In class, a while back. Captured via webcam.

Hey, this is kind of fun. Let’s do some more!

Hooray, late nights in the library grading and crap.

Daily JPG 60

Today is Leap Day, which means that it was the day of the Poetry Slam. Here’s a photo taken before it started, of the audience – or rather, the audience that had arrived thus far. It was a totally standing-room only show!

Such a total success. Such a natural high.

Daily JPG 53

On my way into high school this morning, there was a hot air balloon flying.I caught this picture of the balloon over the school building…

Daily JPG 49

I’m going through and taking pictures of each of my students while writing or reading poetry. This is probably my favorite picture that I’ve taken so far. His name is Sam.

Daily JPGs 37-40

I are a slackr.

And at this rate, I’m going to use up all of my “backup” Daily JPGs. Gonna have to start taking some photos, no?

For Wednesday’s Daily JPG, I present the following shot. I have titled it “What the Heck am I Thinking?” It depicts my place in the world from 5:15-6:45 on Wednesday afternoons. Note to general public: I am not a percussionist.

Thursday was the first day I taught as the “real” teacher. It didn’t go particularly well. (There’s a blog entry in the works over at FOB, but I haven’t finished it yet.) In honor of that, I present a photo of my classroom’s new setup. It’s a subtle change, but it’s there.

Friday seemed like a good day to share a picture stolen from Cute Overload (taken by a rooftop webcam) instead of one of my own:

And finally, Saturday. Uhm… someone let the cat out of the bag? Or into the bag? One of those things…

(That’s Sophie. She’s in a bag.)

Panoramic Daily JPG 19

This is kind of strange picture, but lemme explain. It’s a panoramic photomerge (hence the big empty spot – I didn’t think to take a picture of the ground at my feet) of my classroom, Room 228.

This is kind of strange picture, but lemme explain. It’s a panoramic photomerge (hence the big empty spot – I didn’t think to take a picture of the ground at my feet) of my classroom, Room 228. You’ll definitely want to click for clarity; I saved it as a GIF (sshhhhh!) in an attempt to minimize the ookiness of the missing floor but that makes the preview quite grainy.

The most exciting part of this picture, to me, is the desk you see at the far left. That desk right there is suspiciously clear and clean, and why, you ask? Because it JUST ARRIVED because it is MINE ALL MINE. You heard me right, ladies and germs: I have my own desk!

(Trust me, this is exciting.)

Also exciting: the black bulletin board to the right? Also mine to play with. I can rearrange the kids’ desks if I want (but I don’t think I do). I get to do posters around the room. I can rearrange the teachers’ desks if I choose. The room is going to be practically mine, starting as soon as the start of February, and – well, I’m inequal parts dying of excitement and quivering with fear.

Mostly, I’m trying to remind myself to stop being so happy about this, because it means a helluva lot of work for me in the next week. But it’s hard when you’re geeking out on your unit as much as I am. I’m putting together a poetry unit – I know, right? How awful! – but it’s going to be SO FRICKIN’ COOL that you will all be astonished and will petition the school district to let you take my class. There’s room; we only have 11 kids in our second period.

/so excited
//just can’t hide it

The most exciting part of this picture, to me, is the desk you see at the far left. That desk right there is suspiciously clear and clean, and why, you ask? Because it JUST ARRIVED because it is MINE ALL MINE. You heard me right, ladies and germs: I have my own desk!

(Trust me, this is exciting.)

Also exciting: the black bulletin board to the right? Also mine to play with. I can rearrange the kids’ desks if I want (but I don’t think I do). I get to do posters around the room. I can rearrange the teachers’ desks if I choose. The room is going to be practically mine, starting as soon as the start of February, and – well, I’m inequal parts dying of excitement and quivering with fear.

Mostly, I’m trying to remind myself to stop being so happy about this, because it means a helluva lot of work for me in the next week. But it’s hard when you’re geeking out on your unit as much as I am. I’m putting together a poetry unit – I know, right? How awful! – but it’s going to be SO FRICKIN’ COOL that you will all be astonished and will petition the school district to let you take my class. There’s room; we only have 11 kids in our second period.

/so excited
//just can’t hide it

In Which I Make My Apologies

I really am going to write a substantive post at some point here. Honest.

This is my first week back student teaching, and I’m trying to reset my internal clock. I’m close. But not quite in “creative writing” mode yet.

Daily JPG 14

Is it really January 14 already? That’s nutsberg.

I slept poorly last night, got up painfully early, and hung around high schools all day. Am exhausted beyond words, and am not going to go looking far for today’s (tonight’s?) Daily JPG. Brought to you straight from the “daily JPG backup file,” I present to you:

“I Feel the Need for Seed”

Going  to sleep now. Zzzzzz.

In Which It’s Now September

My laptop finally arrived! Thoughts:

• I hate Dell. I really do.
• I love my computer, though.
• Even though it isn’t anywhere near as brown as I was led to believe.
• But it’s this really gorgeous copper-brown subtle color.
• The inside? With the keys and stuff? SO pretty. Everything’s silver, no black.
• I’m a real keyboard snob, and this keyboard is AWESOME. The touchpad mouse is actually usable, too! I can get by on this without a wireless mouse for quite a while, I think.
• Can’t quite figure out how to make the webcam work.
• Vista is weird, but I think I like it.
• Office 2007 is REALLY weird. But I think I’m (going to) like it.
• Oh, man, it is SO nice to have a laptop again. I feel like I might actually catch up on my e-Life again. You know how long it’s been since I posted on this blog, but did you know how long it’s been since I read any of my sites/comics/etc. or caught up on email? Ye gourds.
• Dell didn’t send my laptop case, but it should be here Monday. That’ll be nice; the bag I’m using right now is not designed for a computer, and really hurts my shoulders.
• Note to self: check out the speakers.
• Came with nice headphones.
• Still hate Dell.

I’m working at the high school as an “intern teacher” and have been steadily getting more integrated into the classroom. I’ve had the chance to lead the class a little, and I’ve had a few amazing adventures in other peoples’ classes that you can read on my teaching journal. (If you’re reading this, and don’t know where my teaching journal is, contact me…)

The football season is off and running. I have no comment on the Washington game, except BLAH. However, this does mean that my job at the band office is also off and running, and that’s its usual mixed bag. I LOVE working with the kids, but there are other aspects that are rather challenging for me. I think that the good things will continue to outweigh the bad for the short semester ahead of me, and then I’ll have another set of problems when I can’t work at all! Hooray.

Ooo! I got my hair cut. Feels GREAT.

This is so stupid – I never intended for this to be a newsletter blog. I’m going to make a really earnest attempt to write decent posts for this site again – in fact, I may go to my “private” journal and see what I’ve written recently (not much) that might could be recycled. I haven’t had time to write ANYTHING lately, but I can do better.