I'm not wild enough for the wilderness.

After an amazing Rosh Hashanah celebration with Joseph at my local synagogue, I spent the weekend bracing myself for the Upper School camping trip, which entailed an overnight adventure with sixty high school students.


Over the weekend, I stole the idea from Housing Works to decorate my classroom with lettering. At Housing Works, the sign reads, "You are here," but in my classroom, I decided to modify it to read, "We are here."


Joseph printed vinyl letters and we adhered them to the wall.


And then nature happened.


Roughing it. Emphasis on "rough."


I hiked with the high endurance, power hikers.


Not quite to the top, but getting there.


After about five miles, we reached the top.


Timna celebrates our ascent.


And then we ran back down.


Lost in his dreams.





Don't be fooled by the melancholy; she had fun.




The view from a Taiwanese perspective.


An enigma.


Peter is more of a woodsman kind of teacher than I will ever be. I'm very comfortable with that.


Science can be fun.


We took a brief hike to Kaaterskill Falls before heading back to school today.




A happy faculty member, Courtney took in the beauty.


Rest and reflection.


Give 'em an inch...


Impressionable minds.


The falls.


We survived. Barely.


On the road again.




Drained.

Pandora? I hardly know ya!

Representations of Pandora: A Brief Unit of an Old Story

(A Lesson Plan by Gili)

As a class, summarize the myth, Pandora’s Box.

Look at a collection of visual representations of Pandora’s Box:

1. A Student project (3:25 into it)

2. A collection of artistic representations of Pandora's Box

3. Stop Motion Pandora's Box

4. An artsy animated short

Now let's look at some musical representations (pass out lyrics)

5. OMD

6. Aerosmith

7. Donna Summer

Discuss all of the representations.

Split the class into groups of two. Have each write lyrics to their own version of a song titled, Pandora’s Box.

Each group presents their song to the class.

A little binary-smashing with the youth

Oh! If only I had time to blog.

It's my first full week of teaching and when my workday is over, I can think of nothing better to do than to get into my bed and lesson plan in the supine position.

I am honoring my mother tonight because she brought me up with second-wave feminist values. She read to me from the now out-of-print Stories for Free Children. Today, I used this book in my Writing and Thinking class, which is my 7th Grade group.

I read them X: A Fabulous Child's Story by Lois Gould.

My students just ate it up. This was one of my favorite stories as a child and a great introduction to questioning gender stereotypes/norms.

Thanks, Mom.

a very country weekend

Joseph vs. Larry's Chainsaw.


Taking care of me, Joseph cut wood for my fireplace.


Though it's very early in the season, Joseph and I headed out to Ulster Park for an afternoon of apple picking.


Most of the apple varieties were tasteless, but we finally found a sweet variety.


It didn't take long for me to remember that I don't really like the taste of most apples.


The trees weren't labeled, so I'm not sure which kind we ended up liking best.


Joe ate about ten apples and tried about twenty different varieties.




Tempting him from the tree of knowledge.


Our loot.

"Do you feel the same, am I only dreaming, or is this burning an eternal flame?"

Joseph and I took a drive in the countryside this afternoon.


We noted a myriad of red barns.


We stopped at a local prestigious college, which will remain unnamed to eat some free and delicious raspberries and tomatoes from the local garden, and to steal some firewood for our dinner.


We're SO free that we can eat s'mores for dinner.


The advantage to having a fireplace can be counted on one flaming stick.


"Is this what people who have fireplaces do every night for dessert?" (paraphrasing Joseph)


He's not afraid to throw caution to the wind; he's not afraid of an open flame; he's not even afraid of an eternal flame.


It's finally my turn to rock the s'mores.


I try not to remember that my cottage is made of wood and has been known to go up in smoke.


Joseph beautifully documents The Making of The Sandwich.


Who is the inventor of the s'mores? (Or is a single sandwich called a s'more?) I'd like to shake her hand and thank her for blessing us all with her immaculate creation.


It's the simple pleasures for me!

Contact High (School)

You know you live in a really strange town when the reviews of the local laundromat are this passionate. The whole town seems to be smoking out of the same bowl, or maybe it's in the air.

It's hard to believe this is real, but someone actually wrote this online review, which they titled, "airing our laundry:"

"i've been to a few different places in my life so far... and never have i had a more substantial experience washing my belongings anywhere else in the world... through the crystal clear clarity of four distinct seasons, from the sweltering hot summer days to those frigid moonlit evenings, kept in beautiful balance by the gorgeous ambiguity of a distinctively catskill spring and autumn... loading and unloading, coaxing quarters from the temperamental change machine, playfully answering the pay phone and wondering, 'who now?', all sprinkled with the temporary excitement of the occasional burst of celebrity wandering through the doors... but most heartfelt of all were those times spent talking to the women who were there working, washing and folding along with the rest of us... all of us talking about life, the goings on in town and even offering one another friendly, caring support at times... all of us in the act of doing more than the word 'laundry' could ever imply, though i couldn't really appreciate it for what it was at the time, unwisely rushing through what i'd somehow mistaken for a chore... gratitude, admiration and appreciation to the wonderful women i've met at the laundromat, wishing all of you and your families much love, health and prosperity... though we left in 2000 after having only lived there for an all too brief 5 or 6 years, i miss so many aspects of the town, and unbelievable as it may sound to some, not the least of which was time well spent at this laundromat.... thank you for such fond memories, until i can make my way back to what my heart still considers 'home'..."

.5 day, sort of

Today was our first day of school, a half-day, which meant that we didn’t hold classes, but the students were on the campus all morning. I met more students than I can remember; all of them filled with personality and many of them were ready to speak their minds. They’re cool kids, surprisingly well-behaved, but don’t tell them that.

After morning meeting, which is when the upper school gathers together before starting the school day, we broke into advisory groups. Along with other faculty members, I have been assigned a group of seven or eight students, with whom I will meet on a weekly basis to provide guidance and support. I love my advisory group and I’m excited for the opportunity to be a consistent source of care and dependability. Plus, this will be a good way for me to know if I’d like to continue to work in guidance counseling.

I was at school for a little over ten hours, and when I got back to the cottage, I still had one more lesson plan to write.

I’m teaching six classes:

Literature of Diversity
Writing and Thinking
Dystopia/Utopia
Myth, Metaphor, and Meaning
Creative Writing 1
Creative Writing 2

My goal is to let go of some of my perfectionism, so that I can sleep and not get into the habit of overworking myself. There will always be more to do; I just have to learn to let some of it wait. Luckily, this is a great place to work on my self-improvement goals, since I am much more relaxed outside of the city.

Now I need to do just a little more lesson planning before I put my work (and myself) to bed.

Developments

Slowly, my room is coming together.


New paint, new tables, new plants, new couches. The advantage of living in New York is that I'm used to fitting a lot into small spaces. It's all about keeping it minimal.


Now I just need students. Tomorrow, they'll be on campus for a half-day, but we won't hold classes until our first full day, which is Thursday.

Tonight I'm headed up the hill for my first Aikido class at the local dojo. I'm nervous about being prepared since I haven't practiced in a while, and I'm hoping the members will be friendly.

city things

So far, on my vacation in the city:

*I've watched one of the best films of the year, Headless Woman
*Biked to Astoria for brunch with Kim at Ovelia
*Written three-out-of-four syllabi (Jim, I will email you copies of my syllabi once I've finished editing them.)
*Visited the rooftop farm two buildings down from Joe's apartment

*And...


taken a break from planning with two other teachers for some collective anxiety-release bowling at Gutter.


Kasey at bowl.


As usual, I lost all four games; I don't think I allow myself to be the bowling champion I truly am.


Joseph won three and Kasey won one.

What will happen next? Nobody knows.

present day history

Last night I arrived back in the city for a long weekend before school begins. Joseph and I visited Yogurt Station, the new self-serve yogurt cafe on St. Marks.


Joseph and I added a column to our yogurt chart. Yogurt Station is giving its two competitors a run for their money. The biggest downside of the new restaurant is its horrible location on the heavily trafficked street with drunk NYU students, stumbling off the sidewalk. On the plus side, Yogurt Station only charges 35 cents an ounce, which is the cheapest of the three shops.


Remember Kaleidoscope? Well, Joe and I visited my old block in the East Village and it seems that the restaurant has finally declared itself a failure, morphing into another aesthetic nightmare, this one called Iron Sushi, a local chain. I've never eaten at Kaleidoscope and there is little chance I'm going to try Iron Sushi. We sat on the steps on my old building, eating yogurt, observing the new eyesore, and talking to Rob. Good old Rob.

It was a night mixed with nostalgia and change.

balancing worlds

Joseph came to town yesterday afternoon for the faculty-plus-partners-and-children potluck. I thought we were going to have a BBQ, but strangely enough, the school doesn't own a grill. The school does have a pool and it was warm enough to swim though Joseph and I abstained.

I was nervous that ambrosia salad wouldn't go over well with healthy hippies, but they gobbled it up, more so than the hippies of Brooklyn to whom we served the same recipe in May.

It's so good to have Joseph's company up here in my isolated existence. (Here's where you feel really sorry for me.) This long weekend, I'm headed back to Brooklyn before the students start school. Trying to get the best of all worlds is going to be a challenge.

Little Red

Here's the outside of the school building where I'm teaching.


My classroom is through the open door to the left of my car's hood.


The view from inside my classroom.

firsts

I made ambrosia salad for tomorrow's potluck and built a fire all by myself tonight. Living on the land here, people. Living on the land.

Who knows, Tammie, maybe I will start churning my own butter.

I will not be boxed in! (Unless of course, you're boxing me in my cottage.)

Fixer Upper (School)

Though much work still needs to be done by me and by the builders, this is my classroom where I'll be teaching.


The right wall is the new Upper School Library, which is a small room, sectioned off from the rest of my classroom.

By the end of the holiday weekend, all the walls will be painted and the books will be more organized. I'm still in the process of determining the reading lists for each of my classes, and then I'll need to order another big batch of books. I've also been promised couches.

So much to do, but I'm thinking we can pull it off with a little focus and determination.