hadag nachash

Close our eyes to what's happening under our noses
and pretend everything is Sababa.

summer 2011

open
travel (california, vegas, new jersey, new york city, israel, toronto, montreal, quebec city)
journal
read: poems, newspapers, new books
conversation: anyone, everyone
volunteer, make random money.
acquire bike, make paintings, fill fireplace, adorn walls.
ice cream, always
coffee, quality
parks and sun.
guitar and song.
live music, fresh food.
move, be moved.

to do, summer 2010

overambitious and delicious:

resume/cover letter
guitar

words:
-internship, newspapers, submissions, letters
-edit/send plays
-begin novel
-poems! (fall term)

job(s)
drown in novels, movies, music
travel (cali, nyc, montreal, boston, hamptons, philly)

RE: Buidling a Better Teacher, NY Times

On developing a new curriculum, a different caliber of person.

Teachers are magicians whose red pens, imparting knowledge, experience and creative potential on awed spectators, perform instructive wonders.

"Can educators be educated about how to educate?" Yes. Everything we know we have learned.

Merit pay would pin pupil against professional.
Test scores, though somewhat indicative of intelligence, eliminate the profession of magic.

"Technique in disguise" is genius... does genius need to be premeditated?

Simply put, "no one wants incompetent teachers in the classroom."

"A belief in some people," *all people, "that good teaching must be purely instinctive, a kind of magic performed by born superstars."

Everything is a science of something, has a science to it. Only when the intimidating connotations of the "Science" are eliminated can one embrace and study it.

Classroom=experiment. Control the classroom, controlled experiment. Control the crowd, the audience, perform magic, stun the students, engage your viewers, forcibly pique their interest: deception, distraction, magic, and they've been fooled into learning, tricked into creating and conspicuously educated.

TBC

doubting those benefits

In the scuzzy bathroom at PNC bank theater, where the Blink 182 comeback concert took place, a 38 (benefit of the doubt) year old woman was decked out in attempts to look young: she knocked down the unemployment rate with the amount of jobs her body's undergone. She was ranting, she was shitfaced, she was a spectacle and she said to my innocently stoned friend, "YOU MARRAY SUMWON WHO TAKES CAREOF YA HUNNAY," and proceeded to grab onto my friends natural blonde locks as a reassuring gesture, at which point I had to interject: "Please, woman, do not manhandle my friends hair.. she grew it all by herself." This was a sad time sandwiched by the most epic concert of my life. Usually that's where sad times most often find themselves, amidst happy ones, I mean. They are much more recognizable this way. Thank you, faux-young woman, for giving us sick advice at that Blink 182 concert... Who knew, ten years later I wouldn't listen.

take a walk down

memory lane can be a wonderful place.
i read my blog posts from a while back and i think i used to be a lot more contemplative on the surface than i am now. what i meaaannnn by that is i made it really obvious that i was always thinking about something peculiar or interesting or even ordinary -- but i communicated whatever it was.. often.
im so much more internal, partially because i dont have friends like julia jen and danielle etc to listen to me rahrahrahhhh on and on.. but also i think i push those thoughts away to just be.
i miss those crazy thoughts
i cant tell if i am happier now or then
i feel a little dumber actually.

i miss english class.

night one

the first night here in montreal (first official night that i stayed in rez) the dorm was meeting in the lobby around 915 to go to Les Saint Sulpice- a hugeeee bar in the what i believe is the latin quarter of montreal i could be totally wrong but thats what our cab driver, francois, told us.. anyway my roommate and i - still newly acquianted - had a beer or two, both lightweights, and headed over to the bar in a huge mob of froshies. unfortunately it was downpouring and we couldnt tolerate it anymore so we stopped at prviigo, the supermarket, to get an umbrella which was $11 btw wtf and a shitty one too.. anyway we lost the group and ended up in a much smaller crew of about 5 people and we somehow found our way to the bar and they were checking id's .. my roommate forgot her id. sooooooo we cabbed back to the dorm (thats when we met franciois who told us all about what a great city montreal is) and we got her id, peed, and went back to the bar - we got a few drinks - rum and coke - and mingled a bit - odd first night wanderings.. mimi, my roomie, and i tried to get a group of kids to buy us tequila shots but they were too drunk to notice our attempt- there was a special at the bar on mohito shots so we got those and we were foreal robbed - it was basically a shot of a mohito drink, aduh, so it went down like juice and didnt fuck us up at all - hahaha woops. anyway we met some kids - matthew from toronto and political debates with david and liver cancer lying tyler. . we somehow found our way back home and that was that. night one in montreal.