Dave is Put on the Spot and Answers the Ultimate Question (with a Question)

I was reviewing the structure of a synthesis body paragraph in my College Writing class, and I told them they really needed to explain the connection between the different texts, between the different sources they are using to support their argument-- because kids like to just say "similarly" and leave it at that-- and so I reminded them to look at the sample paragraph that I wrote and how it took me 25-plus words to get from one text to the next:

"The Citadel, a self-designated military academy once known for violent hazing traditions, followed a similar historical pattern, adopting a system that seems absurd from the outside but resists mitigation"

and one of my most diligent students, who loves to pepper me with questions, asked, "Well, which words should I use?" and this struck me as a funny thing to ask, because that's essentially the ultimate question not only in English class but also in life-- I said to her, "Use the best words to say what you need to say . . . think of it this way: maybe you're going to ask a special someone on a date for Valentine's Day . . . which words should you use to ask them out? . . . I don't know the answer to that; every situation is different-- you just have to try some words and see if they work!"

Although . . . There Are a Lot of Days Off in December

February . . . the best month if you get paid bimonthly, because it has fewer days, and therefore, you get paid more per hour!

Over the (Metaphorical) Hump

Today was our last midterm, and tomorrow begins the third quarter, so though it seems we are in the dead of winter and there is no end to school in sight, if you think of the school year as a work week we are "over the hump" -- and I do indeed thinko f the school year as a work week-- so therefore we are trudging through the snow towards Spring Break, which represents Thursday night (and when I was hiking around th epark yesterday witht he dog, literally trudging through the snow, I realized that what I needed were a pair of snow shoes).

Definitely NOT the Bee's Knees

My right knee hurts-- pretty much all the time-- so either the cortisone shot has worn off, or the cold weather has made my synovial fluid less viscous and thus less able to lubricate my knee joint . . . but whatever the reason, my knee has been hurting, and it does hurt and I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt in the future-- whether I'm exercising or not exercising, sedentary or walking, on naproxen or off naproxen-- and especially when I'm driving-- so I think I have to suck it up and get the gel shots.

Dave Gets It Done in the (Relatively) Balmy Weather

I didn't have to proctor any midterms today-- which is a wonderful day to take off from school because you don't have to leave any plans-- and I am proud to say that I've had a fairly productive day, here are the things I've ALREADY accomplished . . . and it's only 3:30 PM:

1) I went to TWO, count them, TWO grocery stores— SuperFresh for cheap produce and ShopRite for everything else, including some weird shit that my wife requested: protein pancake mix? coconut water coffee creamer?

2) I got some audio recorded for my top secret audio project;

3) I took Lola, who was going stir crazy, for a hike in the Ecological Preserve-- I now realize the key is to drive her to wherever we want to walk; she can't walk on the salt-covered roads-- the salt, or whatever chemical is used to melt the ice-- lowers the temperature of water below freezing and then it gets into her paws, even if they are waxed, and makes them hurt (plus I heard from a couple people that when your dog licks this stuff off their paws, it can give them the liquid squirting shits)

4) I shoveled off our back porch and liberated our grill from a snowbank;

5) I went to FedEx and shipped my son's broken laptop somewhere for reapirs;

6) I took a nap;

7) I made lunch instead of going out for food because . . .

8) I've started Vasily Grossman's epic masterpiece, Stalingrad, and I was trying to read the paperback, but the font is too small, so instead of getting a massage today or going out to lunch, I treated myself and bought the Kindle version of the book so I can enlarge the font . . . this is a good book to read in the cold weather, but not the paperback version (which is all the library had).

 

Crokinole!

Last night, I introduced the Canadian game "crokinole" to some friends, and while much fun was had by all, there was also some complaints of finger soreness and lack of flicking power, which kind of boggled my mind-- but I guess I've been training my pointer finger for over a month and now it's got crokinole strength . . . which I'm taking for granted.

The Dog Days of Winter

My dog Lola is growing bored-- this cold snap has prevented her from walking the trails, paths, and sidewalks, and she hasn't visited the dog park in over a week . . . and on the one hand, she's catching her frisbee again and playing tug-of-war, activities which she abandoned in her middle age, so it's fun to resume them, but on the other hand, she's obsessed with eating the frozen rabbit feces in our backyard (which are, oddly, identical in shape, size, and color to dog treats) so I'm really looking forward to when it gets into the thrities next week and we can go for a hike again without her paws freezing (even Musher's Secret wax doesn't work when it's near zero!).

Miraculous Coincidental Serendipity Does NOT Save Dave Ten Dollars

 

So it turns out that I DO have the powers of precognitive vocifery and psionic verbal manifestation because when Brady, Strachan, and I were out walking the other day, and we had to dodge a couple of snowplows, and I said: "We'd better be careful we don't get Jeremy Rennered" and then we got back to the school and I noticed that my ID was gone and I said: "I'll bet it got Jeremy Rennered" and it turns out that a college student found my ID on the side of the road while he was sledding and, looking at the state of it, the ID certainly got Jeremy Rennered . . . and, both because it looks to be irreparable and because I already called in the lost ID, I still had to go to the Board Office and pay ten dollars and pick up my new one.

Old Man, New Shit . . .

Not only did I lose my ID and scan-in card yesterday, which caused me difficulty getting in and out of the building and making photocopies (although it shouldn't have caused me so much difficulty making photocopies-- apparently I could have typed my school ID number into the copier, and it would have released and printed my files but I didn't learn this until I had walked back-and-forth from my classroom to the copy room several times) but I also dealt with a new disciplinary issue-- which is saying something because I thought I had dealt with it all-- but I have a student with long dreadlocks, which he likes to hang like a curtain in front of his face and eyes, Cousin It's style—and then sleep in class-- and after months of repeatedly waking him up, I finally got annoyed enough to write him up-- because he slept through a lockdown drill—and then we got into a debate about whether he was allowed to cover his eyes with his hair-- his perspective was "it's my hair," and my perspective was: I need to see your eyes to see if you're sleeping or not and that's why we have a no-hat rule and sometimes you have to deal with hair, such as in shop class you need to tie it back-- and though he complied yesterday and moved his hair out of his face but I have a feeling this is going to be contentious . . . we shall see.

Dave's School ID Does a Jeremy Renner

On "A" days, I usually walk outside during my off period with a couple of other English teachers, and though it was cold today, we decided to brave the elements and get some steps in-- we walked out the back gate and into the neighborhood and hiked through the icy and slushy suburban streets, avoiding several snowplows (we discussed Jeremy Renner's snowplow mishap while doing this) and then, once we made it back into the warmth of the school, I noticed that I lost my school ID and swipe card . . . it must have slipped off my body while we were walking, and I did NOT retrace my steps and try to find it (it probably met a similar fate to Jeremy Renner) so my reward for getting some fresh air is going to be a trip to the Board Office and a ten dollar fee.

Thanks! For Blowing People Up and Perpetuating the Human Race, So We Have More People to Blow Up!

I'm nearly finished with Patrick Ryan's small-town Ohio saga, Buckeye-- and the book features both harrowing tales from WWII and harrowing tales of pregnancy and child-rearing . . . so perhaps we should say "thank you for your service" to both soldiers and moms.

Hey Trump, We're Throwing the Red Flag

A sad and ironic state of affairs: when there is a questionable play during a professional football game, the NFL has a comprehensive Instant Replay Policy, with extensive protocols in place for various scenarios-- and this includes a replay Command Center in New York, with rules experts at the ready-- the goal being to be objective and make the correct call; but when ICE agents shot citizens in Minneapolis (e.g. Renee Good and Alex Pretti) and there was plenty of controversial footage damning the agents involved, the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge the possibility that the film needs review and instead prefers to create a subjective version of reality . . . football fans wouldn't stand for this kind of irrational behavior from a referee but when an FBI supervisor tried to investigate Renee Good's execution, she ended up resigning-- apparently, that film will never go to the Booth for review.

A Cold Day in Jersey is a Temperate Day in Minnesota

It's freezing cold here, and we got slammed with snow all day, but after three shoveling sessions, we have removed most of it-- the only problem is that now (because New Jersey sucks) it's sleeting or something and it's supposed to continue for hours, and it's 14 degrees-- so we're not going back to school for a couple days . . . but it's all relative: I'm drinking hot coffee, there's chili in the crockpot, we haven't lost power yet (fingers crossed) and there's football on TV, so it could be worse . . . I could be in Minneapolis, protesting in the freezing cold, because our government has become a dystopian shitshow.

Crokinole , Primetime

My wife and I were watching the wonderful Australian show Colin from Accounts, and Gordon and Gene were having some incomprehensible, awkward conversation that we couldn't quite parse because of the Aussie accent, but then we realized that they were saying "crokinole," the fantastic Canadian game that I bought our household for Christmas-- apparently, the game is growing more popular by the minute!

 

Little Girl With a Big Voice

 Last night's "battle of the bands' was very entertaining, but I did not realize that part of the responsibility of judging the contest was that I had to offer feedback to the bands after each song, American Idol style-- luckily, though there were three judges, I was the first to speak each time so I could grab the low hanging fruit and comment on it . . . and while all the bands were talented and fun, it wasn't really a contest, because the sophomore who was on The Voice had assembled an incredible band and she can REALLY sing, she just belted out her songs-- including Toto's "Hold the Line"-- very impressive, so much sound coming out of a little kid!

The Opera Isn't Over Until Dave Says a Bunch of Annoying Shit

I am judging a "battle of the bands" tonight at my high school, and apparently, there is a rubric to help us judge each band, but as the official English 12: Music and the Arts teacher, I feel it might be necessary to point out to whoever is running this event that musical taste is extremely subjective and depends upon how you perceive and value certain musical elements-- such as rhythm, melody, lyrics, authenticity, and timbre-- I'm all about timbre . . . but someone else might not value timbre the way I value timbre-- and then there's is how much novelty you can tolerate-- Ornette Coleman's free jazz isn't for everyone-- so in a sense it's almost impossible to judge music from a variety of genres-- you've got a better chance of making a qualified aesthetic assessment if you are only focusing on one particular genre: prog rock or hip-hop or boom-bap or UK trap . . . but I'm probably just going to keep my mouth shut and just check off the boxes.

Looming Precipative Dread

How can I concentrate on writing a sentence when an impending cataclysmic snowpocalypse is headed our way?-- especially when my wife's district budgeted ZERO snow days into the Edison school calendar (someone needs to tell her school board that the mandatory SEC warning applies for winter weather as well as stocks: past performance is not indicative of future results) and so she will most certainly lose days off her Spring Break-- and my district budgeted one measly snow day . . . I'll go out on a limb here (out on an icicle) and predict we will have three days off due to this storm . . . and it's not even February.

Headlines Fit for the Onion (If Only They Were Fictitious)

I don't know whether to laugh or cry lately when I read the Times . . . absurdity is hard to reckon with-- but I'm going to record a few actual updates and headlines for posterity:

Six Prosecutors Quit Over Push to Investigate ICE Shooting Victim's Widow

U.S. Stocks and Bonds Fall as Trump Ramps Up His Threats Over Greenland

Trump Wanted a Nobel, Now It's Greenland

and, of course, the only fitting place for our dickweed of a POTUS in Greenland . . . unemployed.

Winter Verse

It is cold (and growing colder) and I have a cold (which is growing bolder).

Teenagers, They're (Coco) Nuts

Last Tuesday night, just before bed-- after a long day of fitness: I played basketball in the morning and then went to PT for my hamstring in the afternoon-- I suffered something new, a hamstring cramp-- I've had calf cramps in the night, but never a hamstring cramp-- it was a painful and frightening two minutes-- and when I told my senior English this news, two bros, Frankie and Nico-- a wrestler and a weight-lifter-- insisted that I needed to drink Vita Coco coconut water because it contains lots of potassium and keeps you from cramping-- and I always like to take the advice of teenagers, more for the humor than the sagacity, so I bought a bottle and drank some today before playing pickleball and I am going to give those two students a firm talking-to because Vita Coco is disgusting in both consistency and flavor (and I love coconut) so I guess I'll have to stick to eating bananas (and this incident, as zman cleverly pointed out, is nearly a mirror image of a previous, rather awkward moment of Dave).