Summer Lists

Haribo sur La Loire

 The end of summer is coming and it puts me in a vaguely melancholy mood.  The things that loom in my imagination are the unaccomplished tasks that I put off during the school year and are still putting off.

Things to keep putting off
Put more art on the walls.
Write some comics.
Do some mail art.
Clean the closets
Write lesson plans (Not that I really thought this one would ever happen)

Now that I have been able to vent those lanudry items, I can turn my attention to more positive things.

Things I accomplished
Lost 10 lbs of San Francisco Fat
Bought a new bike and rode it every day (including today)
Learned how to bake bread that requires kneading
Returned safely from Europe (I am scanning my travel journal right now)
Slept in
Went on walks with friends.
Spent time with family
Camped
Picnicked
Read a lot of cookbooks


Things I learned
How to survive any sort of strange European toilet arrangement, including what that "shelf" is for.  According to J, a German civil engineer, it is to prevent splashing, so your patootie stays dry--tho' the Eleven's theory is more interesting (see below).
How fabulous wet wipes are (see above).
Dutch and a sleeping bag are a magic combination.
The Berlin bus drivers don't check the bus tickets very closely but the ones in Amsterdam do.
German food and American food are nearly the same thing.  (meat potatoes meat potatoes potato salad)
Don't depend on hairy hippy men to help you out in the airplane.
Get to the airport on time.
You CAN travel with a passport that only has your maiden name on it.


Transitions
Looking at these lists I realize that my artistic practice has changed profoundly in the last few years.  At first, when my output of comic books and drawings completely dried up, I thought that I should just hang up the beret and call it quits and at the same time I beat myself up for not doing anything (which wasn't true at all, I worked full-time at my creative job, started a family, moved to a new city...).

I'll be posting my travel journal soon.

Fourth Day of School

This has been a tough week.

I have had to hold the hands of 20 or so middle schoolers who have never written an email, or had an account before (on very slow, cranky computers). I guess I should be proud to be with them during this very important rite of passage into being a 21st century citizen. Last year all the students signed up for gmail accounts, but this year, gmail blocked us so I switched to yahoo. I had a yahoo account for five minutes in 1998, and that was the last time I used it. I discovered the yahoo spam machine is so hair-trigger that it sent about half my kids emails into the spam folder. So then I was hounding the poor dears for email and they kept insisting the sent one and it wasn't until I discovered this that they were vindicated.

I had a personal tutorial from a English Learner student about how to use yahoo's "stationary." Something ol' gmail doesn't have. I always try to find non-English ways of connecting with the EL students, so this was an unexpected blessing on two levels.

At least a dozen of my students have dropped my class for band. (I am not taking it personally).

I lost my wallet for a little while yesterday. It was AWOL while I was trying to buy groceries. They wouldn't take my check without an ID! (imagine that!) The hardest thing was coming home and thinking I had a bag of lemons when I actually didn't (they were in my hand! I remember taking them to the check out line!). Removing a whole grocery bag of phantom supplies from my mental inventories is much harder than I thought.

I tried to go swimming, but the pool is closed for repairs. We are entering into the Sunny-Warm season right now in the city, and I was disappointed to not be able to cool off in the pool. A cold shower after a time in the sauna is the next best thing (oh how I love the Y!).

I am finally caught up enough with things that I can think about revamping the seventh grade curriculum. I have a bunch of students who have take the course before and need something new to do. I was hoping they'd all be amnesiacs, but, unfortunately, they remember the stuff we did last year. I got to start tackling new curriculum this morning.