2002-02-15
Valentine's Day Reflections, Getting observed, posted at 8:39 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com For years, I've always been bitter on Valentine's Day - you know, the sort to wear all black and bitch about it being a Hallmark holiday. But this year, I was oddly content. My life is in a good place right now, and I am satisfied with my singledom. I look at Jeremy right now - in the throws of a two-week relationship - and feel no envy whatsoever. Maybe the sex part, but that's it. I feel like I'm in a good place at this moment.Of course, I tend to veer quickly from content to neurotic, and this three-day weekend has been approaching rather ominously. Almost all of the friends I've made here are doing something out of town, so it may be a very slow weekend. In this case, slow will probably mean lonely. With Jeremy in a burgeoning relationship, I'm sure I'll be left to my own devices much of the weekend.
That'll probably be okay, though. I can catch up on my movies, perhaps tackling a film like Monster's Ball or Black Hawk Down. I need to make a trip to Trader Joe's. Perhaps I can finish up The Sportswriter, which I have neglected the last few days. I need to have some good workouts, because I haven't had a good one since Tuesday. I'll also have plenty of grading to do.
Nonetheless, I had thoughts of driving back to Michigan right after school today. I probably won't do it, unless the inspiration hits me again as it did yesterday. Driving ten hours each way to spend a couple days at home doesn't seem worth it, even if I do want to show off my new car to them. Plus, I'm fighting with my parents right now over money, and I don't have the cash to pay them back at the moment. Life seems too short to be in those dumb fights, but it seems unavoidable right now.
That's not the primary reason, though. Really, I just don't have the time nor money to make the trip. I really should spend a couple of days on time just for myself. I taught Thoreau last semester, and remember trying to hammer home his point that being alone does not necessarily mean a person is lonely; rather, it was Thoreau's stance that solitude was a person's best company. Perhaps I need to look at his position on the point before I start worrying about the weekend.
Ah, back to Valentine's Day. As I said earlier, I wasn't depressed or bitter this year. I watched the Charlie Brown Valentine's Day Special, and chuckled at its charmingly old-fashioned themes and Charlie's neurotic tendencies. I reminisced about what I had done the last few Feb. 14th's. Two years ago, I was just starting a ill-advised relationship with X (to borrow from Richard Ford... he wrote two books about her, but only called her X), but was dragging my feet a bit. By the next Feb 14th, we were hanging onto what was only ever there fleetingly in the first place, at least for me. I remember watching "The Vagina Monologues" the last two years as well, at the Common Grounds. Kibibi starred in one of them. Nothing else really comes up, of note. I just remember having a bad attitude - one that thankfully didn't pay me a visit again today.
My students are currently writing an in-class ECR (Extended Constructed Response) detailing the foreshadowing used in Of Mice and Men. It's a five paragraph essay that we worked all week on preparing for. The kids have to use textual evidence, and I hope they do well with it. To try to improve my students' test scores this year, I am trying to incorporate more in-class timed writing. This of course makes for a rather easy day in the classroom (they're writing for 60 minutes straight in silence), but will make for a torrential amount of grading this weekend (90 essays... ugh). It all balances out, I guess.
My observation 7th period yesterday went okay. If I were to have written that last night, the answer would have been a lot less decisive, because I just wasn't sure. A conversation with my observing department head this morning confirmed that it went well, though. Still, it was weird. She had wanted to see the beginning of a class, to see how my classroom management strategies were going. All the kids were in their desks silently working on their drill over underlining vs. quoting (things like song titles are put in quotation marks, things like films are underlined) by 90 seconds into the period. I was pleased with this, as was she. We were both walking around the room, watching the kids work. Then, suddenly, she asked me if she could go over the drill with them. It was a shocker. Why was she doing this? Was it something I had done? She then proceeded to take 45 minutes to go over the drill (I had budgeted 15 minutes for it). It was nice to sit back and watch someone else teach my students, but it certainly left me weirded out. She left immediately after finishing, without saying anything to me and without watching me teach at all.
She just told me this morning, however, that she was very pleased with what she had seen while she was there. She had just wanted me to see a way to teach mechanics. I thought she took way too long, but still it was nice to see. She really is a great teacher; I have tons of respect for her.
Well, I better get to doing some grading. I'm afraid the clicks of the keyboard are disturbing my brilliant students' essay writing.