Teaching: Not the Job I Signed Up For . . .

I have been pretty down about education and teaching English lately: the majority of kids don't read; if possible, kids use AI to offload critical thinking; kids are not as interactive as they once were; it's impossible to tell when kids are cheating; any time a kid has a computer, they might be distracted by 1000 things other than what they are supposed to be doing; teachers are just interrupting kids digital lives-- they can't wait to get back on their cell-phones; etcetera, etcetera . . . so I just ordered one hundred composition notebooks from Amazon and-- with my seniors at least-- I'm going to go back to basics . . . I'm going to give them a notebook at the start of class, they're going to write shit down in the notebook, and then I'm going to collect it at the end of class-- and I guess I'll occasionally check if they're writing things down-- and then if I do want them to type something (handwriting is generally abysmal these days) then they can type it from the notebook and make basic revisions-- but if it turns into a professionally written piece loaded with odd metaphors and parallel structure, I'll knwo they used AI because it won't resemble what's in the notebook . . . it's not foolproof, but I don't know what else to do.

The Winds are Dark

My wife and I just finished the third season of Dark Winds, the AMC show based on the Tony Hillerman novels, and the show lives up to the title.

A Physicist Would Think Those Wings Need to Be Bigger, But It Was the 1970s and Everyone Was on Drugs

 

You may be familiar with Roger Dean's artwork from the various Yes album covers, but I also learned (from the fabulous book The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by David Weigel) that Dean designed album covers for the Caribbean-African funk band Osibisa, and Dean's flying elephants are much groovier than Dumbo.

Feeling Like Garfield

There are Mondays, and then there are dark, damp, rainy Mondays when your lunch consists of two hard-boiled eggs and some honey-roasted peanuts.

A Bad Day at Pickleball is Better than a Good Day at Work

I suppose getting thumped in a pickleball match is better than not playing at all (but at least we won a few games this time —last week against this team, they shut us out).

I Thought Last Year Was Well Organized?

 

My cousin Kim pronounced last year's Easter Pizza resurrection as "total chaos" with no "quality control," and so this year things were much more organized, and generally the experts did the delicate work of folding dough and making the "toes"-- so my wife had to work all afternoon (and so did some small children) while I only had to cut some sausage and then got to watch basketball and drink beer-- and this year's pizzagaina were notably more uniform and delicious than last year's batch-- and I am certainly better at eating them than making them.

Daddy Needs a New Computer for Audio Processing

My iMac-- which is now over a decade old-- is laboring under the duress of the large audio project I am working on . . . but VCU gutted it out in overtime last night, netting me 11 points in the "select 8 and get the points for the seed" pool and Kentucky pulled it out in overtime today (7 points my way!) and Louisville and Illinois and Vanderbilt all won . . . so if Hofstra steals a miracle win over Alabama and St John's wins tonight, I might have the cash to buy myself a new-ish Mac Mini. 

The Allure of the Underdog

I've got Duke, you've got Duke-- so why are we rooting against Duke?

Menacing Ladybugs?

Today is my favorite lesson in Creative Writing class: we read James Wright's lovely meditation on nature, "A Blessing," and then my students attempted to draw the scene:

two beautiful horses in a twilit pasture and a man so awed by their pastoral serenity that he feels he might "break into blossom," but the lesson is that it's not so easy to draw a beautiful horse (as evidenced by the student examples) 

and we read a few other poems that convey tone, including "The Second Coming" by Yeats-- and with this apocalyptic poem, I always ask them what animals would contribute to the arid anarchy of the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born, the giant Sphinx stomping across the desert surrounded by indignant desert birds-- so what animals would fit with this scene?-- snakes and spiders and crocodiles and vultures and ravens, creatures of that ilk-- 

and then I ask them to list animals that would ruin the tone-- bunnies and kittens and panda bears and such-- and this led to some interesting discussions from the students as to what animals they are scared of . . . one girl is petrified of ladybugs?-- and another girl said, "ants are attracted to me" and then launched into several ant-freak-out anecdotes, and another girl said she hides indoors whenever she sees a bee, and she is also scared of moths, butterflies, lanternflies, and mice . . . and this really led me to wonder how these children are going to survive in the world.

Dave is Well Appointed

I medically overbooked myself after school this week: I got my first hyaluronic acid shot in my knee yesterday—ouch; I went to the dentist today for a cleaning-- yuck; and tomorrow I'm getting acupuncture-- but perhaps all this preemptive medical care will pay off in the long run (or the medium run, in the long run, I'll have shuffled off this mortal coil, or-- more likely-- limped off it).

Can Chinese AI Predict American Madness?

I probably shouldn't reveal this, but I'm using DeepSeek—the cheap, knock-off AI—to craft the perfect NCAA bracket. However, I'm sure someone else is using it to cure cancer.

Pickleball Weekend

Two away Cross Club Pickleball matches in one weekend is one too many-- I played well yesterday at the Pickle House down in Robbinsville (I was lucky enough to have a fan club-- my brother and his buddy Craig came and drank beers and watched me play, and I always play better at any sport when my brother is around . . . family confidence) but today our team got spanked at the Pickle Palace up in Whippany-- I think we were a bit tired from yesterday's match (and we had a few subs playing, who were not ready for this level) but losing at pickleball is still more fun that not playing at all.

We Used to Hang Out in There!

The Corner Tavern—the bar in New Brunswick where I met my wife (actually, I met her just outside the bar, when I exited—because she was only 20 at the time—this was 1992, and I was with my best buddy Rob, and she was with her best buddy Tammy—and we married the two of them eight years later) and now this bar seems to be some kind of Superfund site, in a perpetual state of industrial decontamination.

Enough of This Shit

By the end of parent-teacher conference week, the contrast between the demeanor of the English teachers with the parents and the demeanor of the English teachers in the English Office had reached such a stark contradiction that if I detailed this phenomenon further, it might be detrimental to our employment.

March: In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion?

82°F earlier in the week, and now it's snowing-- when the fuck is the porridge going to be just right?

Will I Ever Escape From Stalingrad?

I thought it would be a good idea to read Vasily Grossman's epic WWII novel Stalingrad, but now that I'm 700 pages deep and trapped in the mines of the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine, I'm wishing that I had decided to read something a bit shorter-- like another Tony Hillerman novel (we just finished watching two seasons of Dark Winds-- an adaption of Hillerman's Leaphorn and Chee novels: 1970s crime and mysticism on the Navaho lands in New Mexico . . . good stuff).

Into the Bath!

While I don't like the fact that it got THIS hot this quickly, the unseasonably warm weather is great for airing out smelly things, whether furry or footwear.

Let's Never Do the Time Warp Again

I was very happy yesterday, after the Knicks threw up another airball in a messy game against the Lakers, when the announcer blamed Daylight Saving Time for the poor, rhythmless play by both teams.

Time for a Nap

Great weekend: a lot of old friends; a lot of rugby on the telly; a lot of Guinness consumed; a fair amount of Z played; and a fabulous Hoboken get-together.

Meet Us at the Shepherd and the Knucklehead?

Yesterday,  after riding a slow local and very full train to Newark Penn, and then a crowded PATH train to Jersey City, I then walked over an hour to a bar with an absurd name in north Hoboken, The Shepherd and the Knucklehead, and despite the crowds on the way, the bar was empty aside from a bunch of knuckleheads watching rugby, and I believe a good time was had by all and we finished a keg of Guiness.