Month: November 2013

First things first

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching, Uncategorized1 Comment

2012-07-06 12.40.09The cat (the black one) is home; he appears to be mending nicely. The vet is mostly convinced that he had a nasty pulmonary infection but we have to take him in on Monday for one more follow-up X-ray to make sure the fluid around his lungs isn’t returning.

Other than that, a solid hour of staring at my computer has failed to yield anything resembling inspiration.  I had a mixed day at work today; I lost my temper with fourth hour for a minute but did well otherwise.  I think I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again because it’s still on my mind:  I can’t tell if I’m more frustrated this year than I have been in the past or if the frustration is just getting to me more than it has in the past.  Hell, I’m not even sure that those two scenarios actually describe meaningfully different things, if I’m being honest.  Maybe I need to start meditating or something; I dunno.  Or start drinking.

(No, really:  I don’t drink at all.  There is room to argue that a goddamn glass of wine once in a while could be a good thing.  This is a legitimate theory.)

On my second or third run-through of the Eminem album, and I still have no goddamn idea what the hell is going on with it.

Here’s a thing, I don’t know if you’ll care:  I’ve downloaded Baldur’s Gate on my iPad and it’s been eating a fair share of my time, to the point where I’m looking up leveling strategies on the Internet in between paragraphs here.  I don’t know how the hell I played it when it first came out; it’s balls-hard, for starters, and more than often the best way to get through a situation is… well, a bit opaque.  There’s a dude right away who killed the shit out of me like fifteen times until I had a combination of finely-iterated good strategy and pure luck that got me through without losing any of my characters.  At this point I’m going to start fiddling with the difficulty; I’m too old to give a damn about hardcore mode anymore and I just want to relax and play the game.

I’m thinking about buying the Marvel Lego game.  The Kotaku review made it sound really fun.

Also I’ll easily hit 7500 steps today.  So all the gaming isn’t making me too terribly fat.

The end.

Wednesday grab bag

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music, Reviews, Teaching1 Comment

microwave-etiquette-meme-generator-vaguebooking-that-s-a-paddlin-94d7ad.jpgSorry about the vaguebooking yesterday; one of our cats has been sick for a while, got abruptly really sick yesterday and we spent the whole evening shuttling him around from home to the regular vet to the emergency vet and it really really wasn’t a good evening.  He looks like he’s going to pull through, though; he’s coming home (from the regular vet, who we had to deliver him back to) tonight to spend the night at home where, the thought is, he’ll be more comfortable.  Then he goes back to regular vet again tomorrow for the day.  Assuming there are no disasters tonight.  Cross your fingers; I’ve had enough of medical issues in general lately.

Did my first observation for the probation assistance team today; I have three days, more or less, to get my notes compiled together and sent out to everyone.  I have less to say than I thought I would, honestly; I spent most of the observation musing about what might come from putting the teacher on probation in my classroom.  Because, honestly, there were things working in there that simply don’t work for me, and the lesson plan itself may as well have been ripped directly from corporation paperwork– which is interesting.  Is that a weakness, because there’s none of the teacher in the lesson?  Is a strength, because they presumably recommend that lesson plan for a reason and this teacher is Doing it Right?  Which means, then, that I’m Doing it Wrong?  I dunno.  I didn’t see much that made me think the teacher should be let go, which is a good thing.  I just hope everybody else on the team feels the same way.  Writing up the notes will be interesting.

Day Three of wearing a Fitbit Force:  I walk about seven thousand steps a day, maybe, when I’m not spending the entire evening in my car shuttling a cat around to doctors.  I haven’t tried pairing it with MyFitnessPal or doing any actual exercise yet; I want to take a week or so and get a baseline for how much I move around during a day and then we’ll set some goals and make some adjustments.  One development:  I’m way more into the idea of a smart watch than I’ve been in the past; the idea of notifications being delivered via a vibration to my wrist rather than an an audible tone is wonderful, and I don’t ever want to be awakened by an alarm again.  Seriously, I could completely give up on the idea of fitness– fuck it, I’ll just be fat forever– and I’m still gonna wear this thing to bed.  Silent vibrating wrist alarms are fantastic.

Posts that are percolating;  reviews of the new Eminem and Latyrx CDs, as soon as I find the time to listen to the damn things, and that reminds me I never really wrote about the new Pearl Jam album, and probably a post on theology based on this piece at the Atlantic, which quotes people who I know from grad school.  Who somehow teach at Oxford now.

Yeah.  I know Oxford professors.  I think that probably confers nerd baller status, but maybe not.

I’m not writing that last piece unless I can do it in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m gleefully tossing grenades and lit torches around; I’d like to participate in a conversation and not just be an asshole. We’ll see how well it works.   In the meantime, click on the link; it’s worth the read.

On dinner

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking1 Comment

The egg drop soup was delicious.

The rest of the evening sucked.

I can’t see at all

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music, Reviews, TeachingLeave a comment

1027-01I’m four tracks into the new Eminem CD and I have absolutely no goddamn idea what is going on.  The first track is seven minutes long with at least three or four distinct and separate movements.  It’s like Pink Floyd made a rap album.  I really wish I hadn’t used “What is this I don’t even” as yesterday’s post title; it would be more appropriate for how I’m feeling right now.   There will, I expect, be a fuller review once I’ve had the time to listen to this a few dozen times (it’s an hour and a half long!) and absorb it a bit.

Also released today:  a new Latyrx album, which I was expecting to be eating up most of my listen-to-music energy today until listening to the first track of Marshall Mathers 2.  I’ll… uh… get to it when I have time.

(About halfway through the album.  He’s gotta be back on drugs again.)

Today was actually a pretty good day at work; good enough that I’m struggling right now with coming up with anything terribly interesting to say about it.  The new BEST kid apparently walked into her classroom, saw a student she’d had issues with in a previous building, shouted “fuck this” and left the building.  So, uh, not so much with her coming to class?  And they’ve put her in my homeroom for some reason now, because the universe hates me and I’m losing another of my favorite kids on Friday so it’s clearly time to fill the gaps with assholes.

Then again, I haven’t met her yet– granted, because she started shrieking swear words and fled the building— but maybe I’ll like her, who the fuck knows.

I think I’m gonna make egg drop soup for dinner.   Need to go get some green onions.  Maybe I’ll post a picture later if it ends up looking neat.

what is this i don’t even

On By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Sitting on the couch in the living room right now, watching Hank Azaria do his impressions of Grover and Cookie Monster and Elmo, and really really hoping that as the Jimmy Johns in my belly digests it’s going to take some of the stress away. I don’t know how likely that’s going to be.

Things that happened today, or in the last few days: (this will format poorly. I will fix it later when I’m on a computer.)

  • It seems like about a third of my kids are suspended right now for one reason or another. At least one, a kid with a seriously nasty past who was pulling As for most of last quarter, has gone from being a student in pretty good standing to up for expulsion in something like two weeks, for two rapid-fire instances of theft (an iPad from another student and then some food from the cafeteria) and then beating the hell out of the kid who snitched on him for the cafeteria theft and then cussing the assistant principal out when he got busted for it. Note that each of these incidents took place on the day he returned from the previous suspension. He was only at my school because he got expelled from another school last year; it seems highly unlikely that I’ll be seeing him again.
  • A full-scale meltdown from one of my BEST kids (I don’t know what “BEST” stands for and somehow in seven years in this district have never learned; it basically means crazy kids and criminals, and should not be taken to refer to anything positive) involving having to be physically restrained by somebody about four times his size in the hallway and then causing no manner of destruction on his way down the hall– for, apparently, the second time in a row. This happened prior to my class; I don’t know exactly what triggered it.
  • I’m getting another new BEST kid in that same class tomorrow; apparently the two I have aren’t enough and someone downtown figured that if the first kid was getting expelled I deserved another disaster behavior student in that room. Occasionally these kids aren’t actually that bad and I can’t figure out why they’re in the program; this kid is coming to me after being kicked out of another school so I don’t have high hopes.
  • Meanwhile, my favorite student is moving to Arizona on Friday and another top-tenner is transferring to another school, also on Friday.
  • No less than four three-day ISS suspensions for girl drama related stuff; I’ll give you three guesses who might have been involved in that and the first two don’t count. If you said the blowjob-denier from a couple of weeks ago, give yourself a cookie.
  • The two Kids Who Are Suspended All the Fucking Time are both suspended again; note that these two kids aren’t the kids mentioned above. One of the two has still not made it through a single week of school (this is week… eleven?) without at the very least a day of ISS and for most weeks there has been out-of-school suspensions involved. Apparently he grabbed somebody’s tits in ISS. His mother continues to insist he’s a misunderstood angel. This also happened on Friday while I was out. I’m not sure what happened with the other one.
  • I wrote up one of my Algebra kids this morning for a situation that he could have ended at any of half-a-dozen points up until the point where I lost patience with his bullshit and wrote him up. There were something like six or seven other kids involved; all of the rest of them saw the wisdom of managing to go a few minutes in the morning without being idiots until they were no longer under my direct supervision. This one… did not. He spent the day in ISS; I found out from the assistant principal that afternoon that she’d been subject to a long harangue from his father about how all I ever do is pick on the kid and it was my fault he was written up. This student, by the way, is only in my Algebra class because we’re trying to keep him out of trouble; I am overstuffing my Honors class to keep this kid away from the shitheads he hangs out with who would otherwise keep him in trouble even more than he is. I made the point to him, and I’m happy to make the point to his father, that if he wants to transfer to a school where he will be allowed to hit anyone he wants, no one will stop him. If his father is foolish enough to pull this move with me instead of with my AP I’m going to take his damn fool head off.
  • (One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not the same) I bought a Fitbit Force. I’m wearing it right now. Thus far it entertains me but I’m not convinced of its utility in the long run (which is shitty, because it was expensive) and you should expect a longer review after a couple of days.
  • OH RIGHT:  Fleas.  Everywhere.  Mutant apocalypse indomitable indestructible fucking fleas, because I’m a fucking peasant in a hut in the English countryside circa 1658 and not a middle-class twenty-first century American in a goddamn six-figure house.
  • That line came before I added the video.
  • I just found a recipe for egg drop soup.  I didn’t know I wanted egg drop soup.  I’m startled at how happy this makes me.

It’s Thursday, right?

In which I make a request

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking2 Comments

Today’s Despair for the Human Race moment of the day: discovering, among my search results, the term “math calculator,” implying that 1) someone found it necessary to append the word “math” to the word “calculator,” as if there were some other kind; and 2) that the person doing the appending was not aware that the device they were using to search for a “math calculator” almost certainly already had a calculator on it somewhere, and 3) that the person’s search skills led to them clicking on a result that led to a blog, meaning that they were probably just clicking on everything.(*)

Sigh.

But anyway: Are you reading this? (Dumb question; of course you are! Everyone reads me, for I am both Influential and Popular!) Do you use Instagram? (Yes, it’s dumb. You should anyway!)

If the answer is “yes” to both questions, you should go find my Instagram account (same username, http://www.infinitefreetime.com if they let you search by URL) and friend me or connect with me or whatever verbiage they want to use over there. If the answer is “no” to either question, you should either figure out how you got here (if “no” was the answer to Question #1) or get yourself a damn Instagram account already (if the answer to #2 was “no”.)

The number of people I’m connected to on Instagram has remained stable but people are posting fewer pictures lately for some reason and I want more stuff to look at. The weird thing about Instagram, at least to me, is that looking at pictures turns out to be fun even if I don’t know who the people are in the pictures or even if the pictures, objectively speaking, aren’t actually very good. It doesn’t seem to matter for some reason. So don’t worry about if your pictures Aren’t Good Enough for public consumption; they can’t be worse than mine. I discovered by accident once that I thought the texture of my jeans looked cool through one of the filters, so one of my pictures is literally a picture of my knee. It’s all good.

So, yeah. Go find me. I need more fun stuff to look at.

(*) INTERESTING ADDITIONAL DETAIL: I got two hits from search engines so far today, and while I do usually see the search terms and I see which search angine led to the pageview, I don’t get them combined– in other words, I see that someone used Bing to get to me and that someone used Google, and I see two search terms, but I don’t see which specific term led to a hit through which specific service.

I got curious, and did a search for “math calculator” in both Bing and Google. Nothing in the first ten pages of search results for either service leads to my blog. This isn’t the first time that has happened, either; I’ve often gotten curious about how high I show up on a search results list when I see that something weird has led to a hit and invariably I discover that the person has waded through at least a dozen pages of search results before clicking on my blog.

People use the Internet very differently from how I do.

Anyway, here’s my knee:

20131103-090306.jpg

In which it must be Saturday

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized3 Comments

sleepI have spent the day– part of it, anyway– researching local private schools, which has me deeply depressed for a variety of reasons.  I’m still sick and the book I started yesterday never really got any better and it’s cold and rainy and Man, fuck November already.  Normally fall is my favorite season; I’m not in the mood for some reason.

Also, I’ve still got to go to OtherJob tonight even though between the weather and the football game I’m not going to see anyone, and likely won’t even have an entertaining phone conversation with a jackass like I did yesterday.

Blah.

Somebody, quick, get me excited about something.

Where do they find these idiots? A play in one act.

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

20131101-182321.jpgThe scene: OtherJob. It is cold and rainy outside, and getting darker by the moment. I am still sick and very bored, and the book I have brought to work with me is not very good. I am playing Temple Run on my iPad.

The phone rings.

ME: “OtherJob, how may I help you?”

IDIOT JACKASS WHOSE PHONE NUMBER AND NAME I COULD TOTALLY POST BUT I’M NOT GOING TO: “Yeah, how late is your driving range open?”

I glance outside. It is still cold and raining. And we don’t have a driving range.

ME: “We don’t have a driving range, sir.”

IJWPNANICTPBINGT, suddenly sounding very irritated: “What? Is this OtherJob?”

ME: “Yessir.”

IJWPNANICTPBINGT, ignoring my affirmative answer: “Well, do you have their number, then?”

Sound of teeth grinding. No, I don’t have the number of this place you made up, and why would I give it to you if I did? Who thinks the world works like this, where I can just call one business and have them give me the number of another business?

ME: “This *is* OtherJob, sir. You’ve dialed the right number. We don’t have a driving range.”

Literal, not-shitting-you sputtering sounds from the phone. This guy cannot believe my effrontery.

IJWPNANICTPBINGT: “My friend told me you had a nighttime driving range.”

ME: “We do not.”

IJWPNANICTPBINGT,angry: “You’re serious? You’re not fucking with me right now?”

ME, suddenly much less in the mood for this idiot: “Check Google Maps or something if you don’t believe me, sir. There’s no driving range and nowhere to put one.”

IJWPNANICTPBINGT: “Well, do you know where it is?”

ME: “No, sorry. I don’t know of anywhere around here that does that.” NOTE: This is true. I might not have told him if I had known, because I don’t like people swearing at me on the phone, but I truly don’t have the vaguest idea who he might be referring to. Plus it’s COLD AND RAINING, WHAT THE FUCK.

IJWPNANICTPBINGT, working his way into a huff again: “So my friend’s just lying to me, then, huh? That’s your story?”

ME: “Sir, we close at eight. You come on over. If you can find the driving range, you can play for free.”

The line goes dead.

Exeunt.