Thursday, April 26, 2007

on being a school kid

for the last month or so i've been volunteering at a berkeley public school as a classroom helper. i'm considering becoming a school teacher (come on, you get summers off!), but really i was curious to know what it was like in public schools. as a kid, i lucked out--i was able to attend private schools k-12, though i'm not sure how my parents finagled it.

some of what i'm seeing is inspiring. there are conscientious teachers, there are smart, earnest students, there is a city that really cares about their kids. unlike other school districts, berkeley unified is funded, except for the admin section (and don't quote me on this without doing your own research), on local city props, not state money. berkeley is the home of the edible schoolyard, thanks to alice waters, and has one of the highest number of volunteers out of the state school system.

but, of course, there's the days when the teacher is frustrated, because year after year it feels like trying to elevate cement. i was taken aback my first day in class at how he spoke to some of the students, disrespectfully. since then i've seen his good side, where he really strives to help these kids, and i understand some of his frustration, because some kids you could bonk on the head and they won't get it, and they won't even try. they've checked out, at least for now. he says sometimes he's seen remarkable turnarounds, when the kids come back to visit years later.

the biggest struggle for public schools seems to be huge disparity in kids' abilities. some kids can already read and write decently for their grade level. others probably shouldn't have graduated 2nd grade. it's heart breaking, and i see what the teachers have to do: do their best, and hope it's enough. to a certain extent, society is cutting their losses on the bottom-of-the-barrel kids. it hurts, but it's the reality. public school is their last stop.

i know oakland has it much, much rougher, and if i were really brave, i'd go volunteer there. i knew a woman who taught in oakland for two years before she felt her spirit was broken. she's an incredible activist, someone who tries so hard to work for her ideals, but she said it was too depressing. oakland, apparently, has very strict rules on what you teach and when. according to her, every oakland school must be on the same page of the same curriculum on the same day (again, don't quote me on this!). berkeley, at least, doesn't seem to matter how you teach, as long as you get the required material across.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

ranting

i hate cover letters, i hate having to find a job, i hate trying to couch every i've done in positive terms, i hate trying to sell myself, and i f*cking hate reducing everything i've done in my life to a few lines.

okay, i'm done.

Friday, April 13, 2007

subtle flaws

How how how, oh Juliet Barker, can you write such an excellent book about Agincourt and not include a single bloody map???

Maybe it's me. I love maps. Have loved them since I was a kid. My sister and I used to draw maps of far away countries and countries that never were.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

argh

general frustration... sometimes i just feel like checking out, sometimes the bay area just pisses me off.

on the other hand, a really good friend, as i discovered today, is one you can nap with. i guess i really am a cat. except for my poikilothermic tendencies.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

oy, what a night!

Last night I woke up around 2 a.m. The night was still quiet, somewhere a kitty was snoozing away. Gradually I became aware of the distant sound of sirens approaching. A second later there's a terrible screech, the crash of metal on metal, and then a car zooming by. The sirens get louder, our bedroom lights up with red, blue, and white. Car doors slam and I hear an urgent voice: "Get out of the car! Get your hands in the air!"

They stopped whomever it was on the street just outside our house. We listened quietly to the scratch of their radios, their voices rising with the uneasy bravado of a crisis just avoided. I lay thinking for a long time how lucky we were to be in bed, holding each other close, only observers, and thank goodness the kitties were all inside, safe.

I thought about the last time I was woken up in the middle of the night to a loud bang. I was seventeen, and my mom and I rushed outside to find a giant boat of a station wagon in our driveway. My mom's little two door was punted ten feet ahead and had crashed into the fence. We called the police, they arrested the woman driver, who they told us was high as a kite. "She kept saying she was going on a trip," the officer said. "Yeah, I told her, you're on a trip all right."

It wasn't until the police had taken her away and prepared to impound the car when one of them spotted the boy crammed into the small space between the back seat and the passenger seat. I remember vaguely one of the officers gave him a snickers bar, but I'll never forget that wide-eyed face, not frightened, but wary.

Monday, April 09, 2007

truth in labeling

okay, i don't care so much *what* you buy, be it organic, from chile, etc, so much as i care that you *know* what you are buying. i'm all about labeling. everything you buy should be labeled to death. apparently in europe you can look up the code on that little sticker on the produce you buy, see what farm its from, and what applications of pesticide/ fertilizer were used (okay, this is all anecdotal info from a guy i worked with. i've never actually tried it). this is the sort of thing i advocate for the u.s.

so in that spirit, i post this message from food and water watch regarding accuracy in labeling for irradiated food. not that i'm against irradiation (though actually i am), but let's not mince words--call it what it is.

For years, the irradiation industry has had a problem convincing consumers to buy irradiated food. The industry solution? Don't tell them it's irradiated.

Right now, food treated with ionizing radiation must be labeled as "Treated with irradiation" or "Treated by radiation." The irradiation industry wants to label these foods as "electronically pasteurized" or "cold pasteurized," which is misleading.

In 2002, Congress passed the Farm Bill that contained several provisions designed to weaken the rules for how irradiated food are labeled, allowing the word "pasteurized" to be used. Now, the FDA is considering a rule that would allow the use of the term "pasteurized" on some types of irradiated food and not require any labeling on others.

Tell the FDA not to weaken the rules for labeling irradiated food!


Thank you,
Audrey Hill
Food & Water Watch

help! stuck in an endless loop

For the last three days I've been listening to the same bloody songs over and over again, first with a little Jethro Tull and Dylan mixed in, but gradually the list was boiled down to two: Fleetwood Mac's Second Hand News and Grateful Dead's Standing on the Moon, which strikes me as a deeply patriotic song though I don't quite know why considering its global perspective (the reference to Old Glory, perhaps? or the mention of good ol' 'Frisco.)

Anyway, I like these songs. I really do, and when I listen to them I like to close my eyes and sing along (which doesn't leave a lot of time for anything else). But really, enough is enough. It's time to move on! But I want to hear those songs, just one more time...

Saturday, April 07, 2007

skating away on the thin ice of a new day

on my third beer here this rainy saturday, struggling to hash out a battle for my book without really being sure of what tactics to use (surprise! i'm not a military strategist) and beginning to feel very sentimental.

what are we to make of our memories? the first time i listened this jethro tull song i was in my first year of college in far away vermont. it was deep winter, our small dormitory in the middle of a snow-drenched field, surrounded by snow-draped cypresses. i think back on those times with wonder. the brightness of the snow now seems impossible, the cold invigorating me into a rebirth. somehow i want to go back to that, but the vermont that i knew, the long, crunching walks through the sugar maples, the quiet of an icy lake, and the moments spent sending tendrils of cigarette smoke into the bracing air are all gone. not just gone, they never truly existed, but are lodged somewhere in the synapses of my brains. false reflexes, imagined pleasures.

but surely, surely they must mean something? i did not live these moments for nothing, did not feel that passion, the heat and joy of life in the cold for no purpose. perhaps it's my mistake for seeking meaning in the humdrum of existence, but i refuse to let them dissipate into time. sometimes i think that when we die we must go back to these foggy depths.

Skating away on the thin ice of a new day

Meanwhile back in the year One --- when you belonged to no-one ---
you didn't stand a chance son, if your pants were undone.
`Cause you were bred for humanity and sold to society ---
one day you'll wake up in the Present Day ---
a million generations removed from expectations
of being who you really want to be.

Skating away ---
skating away ---
skating away on the thin ice of the New Day.

So as you push off from the shore,
won't you turn your head once more --- and make your peace with everyone?
For those who choose to stay,
will live just one more day ---
to do the things they should have done.
And as you cross the wilderness, spinning in your emptiness:
you feel you have to pray.
Looking for a sign
that the Universal Mind (!) has written you into the Passion Play.

Skating away on the thin ice of the New Day.

And as you cross the circle line, the ice-wall creaks behind ---
you're a rabbit on the run.
And the silver splinters fly in the corner of your eye ---
shining in the setting sun.
Well, do you ever get the feeling that the story's
too damn real and in the present tense?
Or that everybody's on the stage, and it seems like
you're the only person sitting in the audience?

Skating away on the thin ice of the New Day.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

client-powered gym is a reality!

Gym powered by clients in Hong Kong. The gym, funnily enough, is called the California Fitness Gym. Hah.

And, apparently, it's not really cost effective. Oh well.

client-powered gym is a reality!

Gym powered by clients in Hong Kong.

yay! apparently, it's not really cost effective.