two roads

:: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 :: At School Before Students Arrive

District and campus staff development started Monday. There are many more staff members at campus this year as there will be one more grade level. Many new faces.

Last year, many people called me Diana but equally as likely were my nicknames of Wu-Tang and Wu (and to a limited extent Wuhoo). From the first day of staff development now, these nicknames were established to the new staff. Many now call me Wu, which is fine and doesn't bother me, but is awkward. I find it weird for people who don't know me and whom I don't know to call me Wu. I feel that in the past, the people who call me Wu do so because we know each other and my last name is apparently fun; they do not call me Wu because others call me Wu. My team teacher from last year noticed it too - how everyone calls me Wu already. She says, with a smile, it's "like you have to earn the privelege to call [me] 'Wu'."

Another "stereotype" from last year is that I am really tech-savvy. Hilarious for those who know exactly how un-tech-savvy I am. My sister laughed and wondered why as well when I told her about this. So today, everyone anonymously wrote on index cards what they would be doing if they weren't at the school. We taped these index cards to a board and then guessed who each belonged to. There was a particular card on which someone wrote something along the lines of "I would be looking at an excel spreadsheet [and I forget what else." My table in the back was isolated and only had 3 returning staff and 1 pseudo-returner. Everyone at the table thought it was me, even when I told them it wasn't. When the reveal happened, the majority of the room's returners shouted "Wu" to indicate they thought it was me too! I laughed and kind of pounded the table with a weird look and asked everyone why, not expecting an answer. Turns out the person who wrote the card was the returning admin to my left, who had bluffed quite well.

Anyway, this year's staff seems really good. Good community and inclusive. Excited for next week to start. It will be pre-term, before we have to teach content. The focus is culture and systems. Great to get this established so it is less of a problem in the future and we can use the saved time for actual instruction.

:: posted by diana.7:35 PM :: (0) comments ::

While out, my mom found a mother duck and three ducklings stranded! They were hiding under the bushes - no doubt from the scorching heat - and the ducklings were wandering around. Unfortunately, my mom didn't have anything to catch the ducks with and feared the mother duck becoming protective and using her beak for attacks. Anyway, when we went back later, the ducks and ducklings were gone. I can only hope that some good samaritan rescued the poor ducks. There was a pond not more than 50 yards away...

Reminded me of a few years ago when my dad rescued a giant turtle that we found crawling along the side of the road. I am shocked that it was not run over. My dad scooped it into a bucket and we drove it to a pond area. Not knowing whether it was a land or sea turtle, we let it go on the grass near the water, allowing it to choose.

In completely unrelated news, I am looking forward to the first official all-site get together of the new school year this afternoon, followed by grilling and more fun at one of the teacher's houoses, followed by even more fun and the possibility of karaoke apparently.

That is all.

:: posted by diana.2:23 PM :: (0) comments ::

Went to Victoria Seafood near Boston College. Twin Lobster deal is great but flavor was better last time. At the end, we got the usual fortune cookies. Jennifer's read "To teach is to learn twice." She was nice to let me keep it. My fortune cookie read "Pick another fortune cookie." -_-

That is all.

:: posted by diana.11:14 PM :: (0) comments ::

I have, in general, not been as happy at this summer site as I was at my 2006 and 2007 site. For more on that, see my July 10 post entitled "A Taste of Convection." Part of this, I am sure, is due to the heat here, also mentioned in said previous post, which I feel probably made me more irritable. I am almost certain I was dehydrated at one point or another, especially since for a few days and nights, I had shooting pains in my outer left thigh muscle. They have since gone away.

Anyway, the heat has since dissipated, at least temporarily, and tonight, after hanging out with the awesome Office Manager in the office (con air conditioning) for a while, I headed outside to the green and while watching a group of students play kickball to my left and a group of instructional staff play soccer to my right, a car pulled up and two instructors invited me to join them for ice cream.

The windows were open, the temperature nice, and the breeze blissful. It was a nice evening.


This is the sunset as seen from the back of Flayvors Farm in Western Massachusetts. Flayvors Farms make ice cream fresh on site. Those cows you see in the picture - they live behind the shop - and yep, they supplied the milk.

That is all.

:: posted by diana.10:07 PM :: (0) comments ::

After a not-so-exciting evening class (for which I am TA-ing, not taking), I really wanted to leave campus for a bit. While in the usual after-class "hangout" near the offices, a few of the instructional staff find out that today, being July 11 (7-11) is free slushie day at 7-Eleven!

It was settled, and a few minutes later, 3 coworkers and I headed to 7-Eleven to claim our free slushies. Now, the size of the slushie (a tiny cup) was to be expected, but what I really did not expect was exactly how unsatisfying this slushie would be. It was basically tasteless. I am glad I did not pay for it. There are no 7-Elevens back home, and I hope that the slushie I had tonight was not in any way representative of 7-Eleven slurpies in general. I am glad that I was able to go out, but to the 7-Eleven that we went to tonight, I say eh!

That is all.

:: posted by diana.11:15 PM :: (0) comments ::

During the spring semester 2010, during the Earth Science unit, my team teacher and I taught our 6th graders the idea of convection. Hot (being less dense) rises while cold sinks. One of the kids even thought of "hot head and cold feet" as a very creative way to remember.

This past week, it has been sweltering here. Now, first off, coming from TX, where summers are almost certainly in the high 90s/low 100s with very high humidity, I never expected it to get so hot in the Northeast. However, this past week, the high was 100 with about 55% humidity - in other words, uck! Now, in TX, this is all fine and good since we typically go from air-conditioned house to AC car to AC destination and so on, rarely staying in the heat for more than minutes at a time. (This lack of "exercise," combined with other factors, of course, is what contributes to much of the obesity seen down south, something which is made very obvious when you come up north.) The problem here, though, is that the dorms are not air-conditioned! That in itself is already quite disgusting in the heat, but couple it with the fact that I am on the 4th (topmost) floor and you see why I talked about "convection" in the above paragraph.

I had already thought of some of the pros and cons of 4th floor prior to this heat. There are only 4 people on this floor, so it has much more privacy. On the flip side, there are no elevators, so we had to haul our luggage up the stairs (luckily, I only had one medium sized suitcase).

Now while the RAs are required to sleep in the same halls as the kiddos, the admin/instructional staff are not so limited. When this heat hit, some of the admin/instructional staff thought about sleeping in our classrooms, which are in buildings that have constant AC. Some of us thought about crashing in the lounge of the office building. Few, if any, of us did either. Luckily, the admin heard the staff and students' voices (whining) and purchased new box fans for each floor. They were also kind enough to give the 4th floor staff keys to lower floor rooms, and I spent Thurs and Fri (and will almost certainly spend tonight) in a 1st floor room. It has been much cooler and you can definitely feel the change in heat as you come down the stairs.

Unfortunately, I must "move out" (I never really moved in - just brought the laptop and some bedding) by Monday. The forecast doesn't expect the heat to hit 100 again, though, just the lower 90s.

That is all.

:: posted by diana.4:21 PM :: (0) comments ::

For the third time, I am rebooting my blog from basically scratch. Old posts have been archived to an extent. I always liked this template, so that's one of the things that's staying.

I doubt many people read this anymore or have it linked via their own blogs.

The reboot stems from multiple reasons. I actually haven't posted in years, probably since around 2006. Well, that isn't true. Actually, since then, I have kept a few side blogs during my time in Australia and China, but I have not posted anything about my general life in the US since 2006.

Herein comes the point where you say that I am ranting. My rants are typical. I blog for myself.

And for myself, I remind myself of the dream from which I just awoke. On a subject matter that I have not dreamt about for some while. I am always curious as to why your brain decides to dream what it does. I have had lucid dreams for a while - that is, I may not always remember my dreams, but if I am having a dream, I am aware of it and am able to choose my own behavior during the dream. I was not expecting this particular subject, and at its conclusion, I wasn't particularly sad, but I am curious why if my brain decided to dream this, then why did it not also decide to rewrite reality and give me a happier ending...

After said dream, I launched AIM Express. I don't think I've used AIM, either downloaded or express mode, since I first got to China, realized the computer my school had provided was riddled with viruses and had no capacity to go beyond simple tasks, got little help from school's IT (though they were friendly), and so just never got on then or since.

I was actually quite surprised how many people still use AIM / were online.

That is all.

:: posted by diana.9:09 PM :: (0) comments ::

two roads diverged in a wood, and i--
i took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.