Buh

So I taught a lesson on eye color to my peers today which I might like enough to turn into a powerpoint online and post it here. While I was doing it, I was giving my "students" specific time limits.

"You have exactly one minute. Go! Thirty seconds! Okay, stop!"

Afterward, Manfessor comments:

"You know Wren, I didn't see you as a task manager."
Me: "...what?"
Manfessor: "I didn't see you as someone who'd be so dead on with time and keeping people focused!"
Classmate: *stares at me, stares at Manfessor* "Hell, I did!" *walks out of class*

Do you see! Do you see what I have to put up with!

"Good lord, are they always like this?"

Oh. My. God.

I teach my first lesson tomorrow. As in, like, I have control of the class for the entire day, from start to finish.

High and Low

At my new school, they start out every Friday with a "temperature check," and share with the class one "high" experience, and one "low" experience. I'm gonna try that out.

---

High
My new placement is amazing. My mentor teachers care and are taking an active role in our training. They want us to have an active place in the classroom, teach, attend staff meetings, the whole nine yards.

It's euphoric.

Low
Being yelled at for missing a class due to uncontrollable vomiting. (What was I supposed to do, bring a bucket?) I have to meet with two of my professors on Wednesday to "discuss my goals so they can help support my growth as a teacher." That line may be saccharine enough to rot teeth, but my personal favorite from the correspondence is the following:

"I understand that you have legitimate reasons for missing class; my concern is that you understand the professional expectations of schools. Missing four days in the first month and a half of the public school year would not be well received by a school principal. In all the schools I’ve worked in more than four absences in a school year was considered excessive."

That's right. I was just told that I am too sickly to teach. I love it! I can't be a zookeeper because my hands are too fucked up, but I can't do anything else, either, because I won't be able to hold down a job. Forget that two of those absences were for doctor's appointments that were scheduled eight months in advance and with the intention of making me healthy again! What am I supposed to do with my degree, then? They're insinuating I have three options:

1) Welfare
2) Kept woman
3) Rot

Fuck that. I am sick of fighting with people over this. My teachers keep forgetting I have a disability (after all, I don't "look" sick!), and I've had several assignments in class where I have been essentially useless and been give no other alternative to complete my task. This is just the icing on a very embittering cake. Reminding them doesn't seem to have changed a thing.

So what am I doing? It's time to go back on the warpath.

1) Contacting the campus disabilities office. She'll send out an e-mail politely reminding my professors that I am, despite my deceptive appearance, disabled.
2) If that does not work? Talk to the Ron Thom (President). He'll throw a royal fit over this. Last resort, since professors will likely become resentful.
3) Getting a referral so I can finally be officially diagnosed with fibro so I can legally claim disability. Also, hopefully this will lead to effective pain therapy so I can, oh, you know, use my fucking hands and left leg again.

[Filter]

Professor One to Professor Two: "So, you weren't an English Major, you were a Religion Major. How did you get into English?"
Me: "Public Schools."
Ad: "...*snerk* You're on point today..."
Professors: o.o; O.-;

This is your brain on grad school

A fake lesson plan's fake assessment that I have every intention of turning in tomorrow. Enjoy!

---

Unit Review: Now stop asking me what will be on the test.

The assessment will cover what we have learned in Unit 6 concerning friction. You will use the data collected during the three labs we performed to create a poster outlining your results for the class. As a reminder, here is a brief run-down of the labs performed along with the questions I want you to consider in your poster presentation:

LAB ONE: What is friction?

• In this lab we paired up and dragged each other over one of three assigned surfaces: tile, carpet, and grass. (Think about what the cardboard was used for—why didn't we just drag each other by the pants? Answers concerning laundry are NOT correct! Think about this as an experiment! What were we controlling for?)

• These data were then plugged into the work equation to see how our amount of work changed per surface.

LAB TWO: Adding simple machines

• Instead of the cardboard, we used skateboards on the same three surfaces and compared the work necessary to the results of the first lab. How much did the addition of a simple machine reduce the work done on each surface?

• What general conclusions can be drawn concerning friction (yes, this is general—that should make it easy for you to think up more than one!)

LAB THREE: Surface area and friction

• In this lab we changed the surface area of the cardboard and repeated the tests outlined in Lab One on our assigned surface.

• How did this affect the work done? When seen in the context of lab two, does this explain why skateboards are so useful for travel? Explain how, and describe two other simple vehicles this applies to. If you feel it doesn't, support your reasoning with data.

These presentations will be graded in pairs—this means you AND your partner will be receiving the same grade.

After the presentations, we will get together as a class and draw some conclusions based on the data we have collected. TAKE NOTES.

The formal write-up for this unit will be in the form of a mini lab paper. Since we've already tackled the introduction in Unit 5, we will be moving on to the experimental section. You will also be expected to include a results section where you formally present your data and explain its trends. We will take a trip to the computer lab and work in Excel to create the graphs and charts necessary, so none of this work will need to be done out of class. However, you WILL be expected to create figure legends and any necessary prose on your own time.

Any questions? See me. This is due in one week.

This is what I do in Grad School

Teacher asked me to make a custom cover for my reflection journal, since mine is a binder and everyone else's is a carefully decorated purple-covered affair. (All flaunting that they can write by hand...)

I obliged.

Really, I wanted it to be THIS.

I didn't do it because I actually like her. <---FILTER IN ACTION.

(In completely unrelated news, it may be bedtime.)

>.<

I am really going to miss my kids.

Why I Don't Think I Can Be a Teacher:

This is Zombies Kid. When he gave me this assignment back, I wanted to cry. He's the class troublemaker out of boredom. He's very smart, very talented, and very impatient. His books of choice are chock full of political and social commentary, and he draws in his sketchbook in his free time. He also acts out to get attention, which does not work well with his teacher. Take the example that earned him his name:

They were compiling a list on the board of types of natural disasters, and ZK suggested "zombies." Teacher gives him the Teacher Look(tm) and says "we're limiting this list to real disasters."
"The revolution is coming!" ZK shrieks in reply. And because he did not get the acknowledgment he wanted, he continued to disrupt the class for the rest of the hour with ever-increasingly silly ideas ("rain of vampiric kittens" is my personal favorite).

I ended up bringing this scenario to my seminar class, and was asked the question "how would you have handled it?" Naturally, being who I am, I had a response ready.

"In all honesty? I would have answered him seriously. 'Now, while I agree that the Zombie Threat is real, ZK, all lore indicates that zombies are a man-made threat, and thus should not be included on our Natural Catastrophes chart. But! If any of you want to be prepared, I suggest reading the following books and webcomics!' *write list up*"

After my class finished giggling at me, they all concluded that ZK would have been more likely to settle down, and thus my small tangent would have kept the class on-task better later as a result.

Obviously, I adore ZK. So it breaks my heart to see how upset he is that the school is going downhill thanks to the horrors wrought upon it by the NCLB. We were half-expecting him to answer our interview question with a sketch of the teacher drowning in a pool of his own blood and zombie parts, or not to take us seriously at all, so the fact he was honest made me even more depressed.

A Study in Finances

A professor in the School of Education is allowed 2000 copies per month.
A teacher at Gray Middle School is allowed 500/semester.

When did I become the class clown?

In undergrad, I never considered myself to be that funny. I'd amuse people, sure, but class clown? Not unless I was on a great deal of medication and wanted the professor's body sweaty and naked and under my own. (You are SO welcome! :D)

But in grad school, everyone else is less funny, and so my antics stand out more. I've been in class just over one week and have been taken to task for my sense of humor three times by two of my teachers. The best part? The teacher who has yelled at me twice "admitted" to having a sarcastic sense of humor. If that is so, then why doesn't she understand it when I do it?

The second time, she asked if we had learned anything this week. There was a good ten-second pause, and everyone kinda grinned at each other sheepishly. "That silences are still awkward?" I giggled. CUE TIRADE. "No, they're not, they are very effective and here is my ten-minute tangent explaining why." Oh, you're sure sarcastic and funny, all right.

The third time, the other professor stepped in.

Girl across room: "Wren, red looks very flattering on you!"
Me: "Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about the cut of your sleeves!"
GAR: "It reminds me of Snow White!"
Me: "What, are you calling me pale?"
Teacher: "Wren, stop. Stop now."

Class had not yet begun. -.-

...Man, grad school sucks.

I wasn't ready for this to actually be adulthood.

Seriously. I thought another year of classes would be about the same as ever. It never occurred to me that the dynamic would change, or that I would be required to dress up in crazy formal clothes four days a week. Or that, you know, I'd be thrown in with a group of people entirely unused to me, my sense of humor, or how I roll.

So now, every time I look in the mirror, I kinda do a double-take. Brown hair? Wearing the real jewelry, and not the lightning bolts? Is that...is that a cleavage-concealing undershirt?! I don't feel like me. I am convinced that someone is going to walk into my room one morning while I am getting ready and ask me "why the hell are you playing dress-up at 6AM?" And as weird as it sounds, it is really killing my confidence.

And I keep getting bizarre compliments. There are people in the cafeteria that love it when they come in "because I am a great dresser and I always have on something snappy!" Or, on Friday, I was told "Wren, you're the most cheerful insomniac I know! You're always so tired, but it never makes you any less pleasant to be around!"

Someone called me cheerful. Did my caustic bitchery go the way of my hair? (Should it have?)

Assignment that's due today

Since I can't draw...I had to Photoshop my Emotional Reaction Chart thingy.
(Don't get me started on the actual merit of this assignment.)Click through for large.