Dave Does NOT Break New Educational Ground (But He Thought He Did)

I've been reading three classes worth of Rutgers Expos synthesis essays-- the kids can take the class at my high school and I made the mistake of teaching three sections-- and it's brutal, most of the first attempts are awful, mainly because they don't synthesize-- they don't use evidence from BOTH texts to support an argument-- they summarize one text and then summarize the other text and then call it a day-- so I reminded them that to pass the Rutgers Rubric, EVERY synthesis paragraph needs evidence from BOTH texts and a kid asked me if you could get an NP (Not Passing) if you DID use text from both sources in every paragraph and I said, "Yes you could" because I had a student alternate summaries of the texts within the same paragraph-- no connections or argument-- and then I saw some dry erase markers on the ledge of my whiteboard and I had a brilliant idea-- and it worked out perfectly . . . there was a red marker, and I said this represented the Jia Tolentino text and there was a blue marker and I said this represented the Anand Giridharadas text-- and I did not not mean to assign stereotypical gendered colors, but subliminally I did just that-- and then there was also-- serendiptously, miraculously- a PURPLE marker-- so I drew an essay that had a blue paragraph and a red paragraph-- and then I drew an essay that had alternating blue and red sentences and then I told them that those essays would not pass and to do synthesis, the paragraph had to be purple-- you had to blend the texts and make a new color of your own-- and you could control the darkness or lightness of the purple by how much of each text you used-- that was the artistry of the synthesis and then I felt quite accomplished with my spur-of-the-moment color-coded metaphor so I told the ladies (Stacey and O'Grady) and they laughed and laughed and laughed and told me they had been doing this activity for years-- and they had been telling ME to do it for years-- but I had ignored them-- they always had their kids color code their essays so they could see how much text they were using and then I told them I didn't do it as an activity-- I showed them after they finished and I was grading and they both concurred that I was an idiot (and they also said that telling the kids about shades of purple right after the first essay was way beyond them) and so I am going to pay more attention to the ladies because it seems they have some good ideas (but I still had a really good time in class, especially when I saw that there was one purple dry erase marker and I remembered that red and blue make purple and I still think my diagrams were spot-on).

Watch Your Step

Two teachers I know have fallen and broken limbs (both elbows, I think?) at school this year and I've heard these things come in threes so I'm watching my step (unlike Arvin and Josh, who hit the deck hard several times this morning during pickleball-- I'm of the mind that there's no reason to dive in pickleball unless you're going to hit a winner-- which rarely happens-- because the speed of play is so much faster than tennis . . . you're not going to have a chance to get back up and hit another shot, so why bother diving in the first place?)

Do You Know Your Dog's Date of Birth?

Another beautiful day in the Catskills-- and we ended where we began our vacation, at the Mud Puddle Coffee Roasters & Cafe-- we took a hike out of New Paltz and then got some delicious coffee and breakfast sandwiches (I recommend The James: 2 EGGS, BALSAMIC ONIONS, BACON, GOUDA, ON FRENCH PEASANT ROLL . . . it's the best fucking breakfast sandwich I've ever eaten) and then we hauled it on home because Lola has a UTI and she needed some antibiotics but to save time we had our vet call the prescription in to our local pharmacy so we didn't have to drive to Sayreville but it turns out that in this ever-changing world in which we're living when you try to save time, you might well create a chaotic imbroglio-- so I ended up spending a good hour at our pharmacy today, calling the vet, pacing the vitamin aisles, trying to recall my dog's birthday?-- because you need to give the date of birth to pick up a prescription-- but our vet couldn't get through because they called the wrong number but then when they called the right number-- which I provided-- it was busy and then-- after many phone calls to the vet by me . . . and-- I'm proud to say-- no losing of the patience-- I never lost my patience, I kept it on my person the whole time because my pharmacy was doing a great job and the ladies at the vet, well . . . they were far away and on the phone and I had to be very diplomatic with them-- but in the end, after the pharmacy had to call the vet office to confirm some handwriting and some other shit-- I finally got my ten dollars worth of Sulfamethoxazole and I also had a lovely conversation with the fourth pharmacist I spoke with-- because I spoke with all the pharmacists-- about how to get dogs to swallow pills . . . but seriously, do you know your dog's birthday?

Diet Soda, Beer . . . It's All the Same in the Catskills

We did several scenic hikes today and had a good meal at the Truss and Trestle but my favorite moment was when we were having a beer at the Creekside Bistro and a lady came in and sat adjacent to us at the bar and asked for a menu-- this was around 1 PM-- and when the bartender asked what she wanted to drink the lady said "a diet soda" and then, without skipping a beat, she said, "but what do you have on tap? Any Oktoberfest? Actually, I'll have a Smuttynose brown ale" and it made me wonder what turn her day was going to take because she switched from diet soda to beer.

 

Must Have Made a Wrong Turn at Albuquerque

This morning, my wife and I drove on some winding mountain roads to a winding hiking trail that looped around Onteora Lake-- and along the trail, we stumbled on an old car wreck-- there really should be a plaque explaining exactly what the hell happened.

Self-aware Dave Distracts Annoying Dave

I'm writing this sentence so I don't stress my wife out while she's packing for our trip to the Catskills . . . I tend to pack fast and loose and finish well before her and then I want to get in the car and get going! traffic is building up! I don't want to eat lunch at 2 PM! I want to go on a hike! it gets dark early now!-- but she's a bit more methodical than me (which is why we make a great team).

Dave Redefines Refrigerator Blindness

Like many men, I have difficulty finding things in the refrigerator and on our pantry shelves and I often require assistance from my wife to locate what I'm looking for-- but today at school, I took "refrigerator blindness" to an unprecedented level-- on my off period, I drove over to Mancini's and got two slices of pizza to-go and by the time I had driven back to the school-- the two slices riding shotgun, filling my car with delicious scents of brick-oven baked crust and sweet marinara sauce-- I was salivating and ravenous (I played 6:30 AM pickleball this morning and probably showered in raw sewage-- because did they really flush out the shower in the coach's room?) and so I entered the school with my slices and made a beeline for the English Office, grabbed a seat, and inhaled my pizza-- and then I heard someone mention the word "fridge," which is a sore subject because the administration confiscated all of our department mini-fridges and microwaves over the summer (because of a toaster fire) and I said, "Are we getting a fridge soon?" and the other five teachers in the room stared at me in disbelief and then I followed their collective stare to the utterly gigantic white refrigerator looming right next to the doorway that I had recently barged through with my pizza slices and my boss Jess said: "You know how men can't find stuff in the refrigerator? Dave can't even find the refrigerator!" and she was right.

Things I Learned After It Was Too Late Volume 427

When you're making a pizza, you need to inspect the cheese for mold before you enthusiastically toss it all over the sauce-covered crust-- tragic loss of a pizza-- but here's something I learned late in life (today, actually) but not too late . . . I just read on the internet that when you have a light coating of dry fallen leaves on your lawn, you should mulch them with the lawnmower instead of raking them-- and shredding leaves with an electric mower is far more fun than raking and bagging them.

90% Pleasant Bike Ride

Yesterday, to end our week of virtual teaching with something joyful, a few of us decided to head over to On the Border, a cheesy Mexican chain on Route 1 that offers a happy hour of cheap beer and free chips (no pay) and it was such a beautiful day that I decided to bike over-- and as the crow flies (if I had a kayak and some cliff-climbing gear) the restaurant is right across the Raritan River from my house-- less than a mile-- but to bike there I had to do a more circuitous three mile trip: I biked across the Albany Street Bridge to New Brunswick, then through Boyd Park-- along the river and south on Route 18-- and that section of the ride was quite lovely, then up the big hill to the Route 19 crossing into the Cook/Douglass section of Rutgers, where things got a little dicier-- there was the usual "you're not driving? fuck you" section of road where the sidewalk and the bike path disappeared-- but on the whole, it wasn't too bad-- there were a fair amount of college kids around, so plenty of pedestrians, and the cars weren't going too fast because of this-- but then things took a turn-- I wanted to head across the old Sears parking lot-- the quickest way to the restaurant, but I had forgotten that this was now a massive construction zone-- they are building an enormous mixed-use complex of town-homes, apartments, a grocery store, and shops-- but that was my only way to get to On the Border-- unless I looped around and biked on Route 1-- which would be suicidal-- so I followed a dump truck down a dirt road into a chaotic maelstrom of dirt piles, concrete and steel building frames, and construction equipment-- to my right an enormous metal plate floated in mid-air, held there by an enormous crane, and to my left were some completed town-homes . . . I was able to make my way across this site without being forcibly removed and then I went over a little temporary bridge that spanned a culvert and took my son's bike (a commuter bike, not a mountain bike) across a jagged rock field and finally I was able to enter the back of the On the Border parking lot-- I locked up my bike with a U-lock . . . I figured I might leave it there and pick it up the next morning because there was no way I was biking drunk through that site in the dark-- but luckily Catherine came to meet us, so I was able to throw the bike into the back of the Mazda and get it home safely-- and happy hour was a blast, it was nice to see Chantal, Terry, Liz and Stacey in the flesh and we all talked about how we had COVID-school flashbacks and would forget that the rest of the world was open while we were virtual teaching-- then once you got off the computer you'd realize . . . oh, the gym is open and we're not in a pandemic, our school is just a decrepit shithole.

Breaking Nose!

I know many of you have been following my attempts to turn off my phone alarm using my nose with bated breath-- wondering if my Android screen could disregard the "grease, sweat, and snot" on the tip of my nose and register an intentional touch-- and the answer is a resounding and miraculous YES! . . . but you can't "bop" the phone with your nose, you've got to squish your nose into the STOP button-- but that's not the big news of the day . . . the big news of the day is that black is white, up is down, and the deer in my neighborhood no longer behave like deer; on my way back up the hill from Donaldson, just after I successfully turned off my phone alarm with my nose, I noticed a few deer standing halfway down the hill-- and this is always the perfect scenario for my dog Lola-- I let her loose and she chases the deer down the hill into the park and then loops back up the hill to me and we walk home-- and she's always quite proud of herself for driving off the deer-- but we've had so many weird encounters with intractable and obdurate deer blocking our path that when I let her loose, she jogged ten yards up the sidewalk, towards our house . . . in the opposite direction of the deer . . .  she was like: no fucking way am I dealing with these insane creatures-- so that is the big news: the deer, they have no fear and they have effectively reversed the order of the natural world.

A Proboscis Endeavor

If you're walking the dog in the cold-- with lightweight cotton gloves on-- and your phone alarm goes off, if you press the "STOP" button while wearing your gloves the phone won't recognize your fingertip . . . and, as I found out this morning, the phone also won't acknowledge the tip of your nose-- and I must have looked pretty stupid, repeatedly bonking my phone into my nose, trying to press that button-- before I finally took my damn glove off and silenced the stupid thing (maybe Apple phones recognize nose tips?)

Virtual School + Halloween Candy = Nap Time

Another wonderful day of online teaching-- accompanied by a proliferation of Halloween candy, which is an unavoidable temptation when you're talking to a screen-- but there was one highlight and I thank my colleagues (and the candid and comical WhatsApp English teacher chat) because they warned me that admin was popping into virtual classes . . . and they weren't popping in at the beginning of class, when they could catch us setting up creative lessons; making Channels and break-out rooms and other virtual groups; communicating instructions clearly, and all that good stuff-- they were popping in for the last five minutes to see if teachers were ending early or teaching online until the bitter end of class . . . so I was prepared and told my students, that had some work to do in the Channels, to come back to the General meeting with five minutes left and-- lo and behold-- an administrator showed up in the waiting room and I let him in while I was teaching the most English teacher thing in the universe in the chat-- MLA format citations and punctuation-- and kids were asking questions on how to cite oddball situations-- quotes within quotes and all that-- and I was demonstrating all this in the chat . . . it was a great moment in American education-- because generally, whenever an administrator walks in your room, virtual or not, even if you've just executed the best lesson in the world, they come in at some weird awkward moment and you get all pissed off that no one ever sees you teaching properly . . . anyway, virtual school still sucked but at least there was one nice moment, and once it was over, I ate a bunch of Halloween candy and took a nap, and now I'm off to the pickelball scouts for my third day in a row-- I miss early morning basketball and I can't believe we did this kind of shit for over a year, I think I've erased most of it from my memory (but luckily it lives on the blog!)

Scary School Day . . .

Not the most impressive day of virtual school for me: while most of my students managed to give speeches in Public Speaking, one kid had to do his with his camera off-- it was blocked-- and so I told him "Pretend you're on the radio!"-- which dated me considerably-- I probably should have said, "Pretend you're on a podcast!"-- but whatever-- and then ten minutes into the second period, my school-issued device took control of itself and turned off the cursor and any sort of track-pad control-- but I could use the touch screen, which turned into a comical sequence of me touching windows and tabs and essentially screwing up the entire Teams meeting-- then the computer decided it needed an update and shut itself down-- I hope no parents heard me cursing it out-- but I was able to boot up the meeting on my iMac-- though Teams has gotten markedly slower since the pandemic-- which is weird and dumb-- and it really slows to a crawl if you share your screen-- so for my final period, instead of doing my slideshow lecture (with loads of musical and artistic examples!) about Modernism and Post-Modernism and then giving the kids a digital quiz, I had the kids do a goofy and barely educational group project that they could present next class . . . I really hope they fix our building soon-- for the sake of the children and the sake of me (and the sake of my podcast-- it's the last thing I feel like doing after a day of talking to a screen).

Suits Don't Suit Me

Several people have recommended the show Suits to me, so my wife and I gave it a shot but I couldn't make it through the pilot-- too many slick-talking good-looking people in silly scenes like the one I posted-- when Mike Ross tells Harvey Specter about his eidetic memory: 

"I like to read and once I read something I understand it, and once I understand it I never forget it"

yuck, how annoying and boring-- and I'll bet that's going to help out in a lot of clutch plot situations-- not that I'm ever going to find out . . . how about a character that says something a little more realistic: 

"I like to read but most of the time while I'm reading something, I fall fast asleep, but sometimes I stay awake and make it through a few pages and then I probably understand 30 percent, forget 30 percent, and misunderstand 30 percent . . . and what happens to the other ten percent? if you look up your ass, you'll find out."

Fuck Driving

My wife and I don't drive much-- we both work close to where we live; we bought a house in a walking town; and we hate being in the car . . . but the past few days have given us a taste of what many Americans do on a daily basis-- my wife drove out to Muhlenberg and back on Thursday evening, so Ian could see his friends and go to some Halloween parties with his girlfriend (apparently kids now wear a different costume for each party . . . I'll try to post some pics, but Alex and his girlfriend were Elvis and Priscilla and then characters from Ratatouille and Ian and Layla were a deer and a hunter, two superheroes, and then Shaggy and Scooby . . . absurd) and then on Friday, Cat and I drove out past Trenton to go to an Italian place for my brother's birthday-- it took an hour to get there-- and then we drove Ian back to school on Saturday (with Layla) and we all did some parent's weekend stuff-- saw some football-- going to a Muhlenberg football game is very low key-- and we watched some Sex Education style a capella singing and then we went to a really good restaurant (Union and Fitch) with Layla and Ian for dinner and then they went out and Cat and I crashed at the Holiday Inn, then I took Ian for an x-ray on his weird ankle injury-- no information, he needs an MRI-- and then we drove the hour-plus home . . . way too much fucking driving, I hate being in the car, it stresses me out, makes me sick--I have to drive and chew gum-- and when I get out my knees and hips hurt . . . but I don't even have to do my twelve-minute commute this week because I'm on virtual school because of the water main break in my high school, so I won't have to drive anywhere this week, which will be wonderful.

Back to Not Normal

East Brunswick High School is going to be virtual all next week-- apparently, fixing the water main break is going to be complicated-- rumor has it the pipe is eight feet underground and there may be an old oil tank involved as well . . . but all this is hearsay, the main thing is that we're going to try to do this virtual school thing again, which is annoying-- and this makes me wonder what would have happened twenty years ago . . . would they have crammed us into the middle school or something? or would we have had to make up the days in the summer? who knows-- but this is the best alternative to that stuff, though I hate staring at a screen all day.

We're in the Shit Again

Apparently, a shit pipe broke in our rapidly decaying high school, flooding the 1500 hall with sewage, so we're enduring the inanity of virtual instruction today (and perhaps tomorrow) because we can't go into the building . . . and I definitely have PTSD from the bonging sounds of people entering the Teams meeting; I've completely forgotten how to share my screen, run break-out rooms, and generally teach online; and there's a dude in my neighbor's yard with a gas-powered leaf blower making it impossible to hear anything-- the only up side is we get to do parent/teacher conferences on the phone, and not in the building.

Our Hero: Pickleball

A priest, a bunch of med students, some frat guys, the requisite old dudes and ladies of various races and ethnicities, and a guy with a mullet walk onto a pickleball court . . . and everyone gets along and plays pickleball-- this sport may just save America from polarization, tribalism, fake news, misinformation, income inequality, obesity, and reality TV.

A Basketball Pickle

I raced around like a lunatic, badly stubbing my toe in the process, trying to get to 6:30 AM basketball on time this morning . . . and then we couldn't get the hoops to descend-- the internet was out and apparently the internet is required to send the signal to the motor which lowers the baskets (although we learned-- far too late-- that there is a back-up switch in the equipment closet) but the morning wasn't a total loss-- Jeff and I impressed two willing basketball players into a pickleball match and we got some exercise in that manner and now I'm stuck in class forever-- it's a half-day so there's no lunch and I teach the first three periods, which amounts to being in a room with teenagers from 7:50 AM until 11:32 AM so I'm hangry and tired and hating whoever designed this stupid block schedule . . . and I have to be back at school at 5 PM for three hours of parent/teacher conferences-- which should be abolished at the high school level-- so I can't wait until I retire, because I will still show up for AM sports, and then head home to drink coffee on the porch.

We Defy Augury Episode Fifty!

The universe did NOT want me to finish the fiftieth episode of We Defy Augury: I had to re-record audio because an unshielded XLR cable allowed electromagnetic radiation to produce an unbearable hum and then a bunch of inexplicable five-second "holes" appeared in this audio when I was nearly done mixing things down, so I had to patch in little bits and pieces of my voice-- I was also a bit ambitious and wove in audio clips and clips of me playing the guitar-- and it was hard to record simultaneous vocal audio and guitar audio . . . basically, this one was a nightmare but I patiently pieced it together and I think it turned out pretty well, despite all the weird obstacles . . . the episode is called "Let's Talk About Celine Dion: Does Your Taste Stand on Solid Ground?" and my thoughts and ruminations are (loosely) based on Carl Wilson's music criticism masterpiece Let's Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste . . . and there are plenty of special guests: Celine Dion, Huey Lewis and the News, New Found Glory, Robert Johnson, Greensky Bluegrass, The Easy Star All Stars, Bas Gaakeer & Mireille Bittar, Joey Satriani, David Berman, Pavement, Beavis and Butthead, David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, greasetruck, and Pythagoras.