NaBloPoMo 29:

Even for me, I have gotten an impressive amount of nothing done for the past few days. That 900-item to-do list I jotted down on Tuesday night didn’t even get looked at once. I did pay bills today (which wasn’t on the list, ha) and got all freaked out and worried about money since they’re muttering that our likely strike that will likely happen sometime after February 10 will likely go on for a month. I just don’t see how my life can handle that and still have enough money to get through the summer (which is of course unpaid time off, just like Wednesday was an unpaid day off).
Inside the harbor
I didn’t even do my usual Sunday lunch food cooking! I’m going to eat out of the freezer this week. 😉

NaBloPoMo 27: took a real camera out with me today and took the long way home

Must be kinda warm in there.
Waitin'
Definitely a future crime scene
Lots of closed signs round about these days
Saw “Brooklyn” this afternoon. Still pondering it. Not so much a story as in a plot but more a story of a moment of a time and a place. All the old people around me were muttering things about the “immigrant experience” as the credits rolled past. I saw “Spotlight” a few days ago. That was wonderful although very upsetting. A bit in the same vein as “Truth”. Movies based on real events that lay out in excruciating detail how crap our world is and how crappily humans treat each other are always going to be pretty upsetting though, aren’t they. And “Spectre” which I sadly did not think much of. Could’ve been my mood going in but it was a real downer.

NaBloPoMo 8: tunage

Enjoy this lovely Beatles-esque ditty by a band called Quilt. Hello.
Or how about this lovely sepia-toned video of Adele’s new single. I probably like the visuals more than the song–her hair blowing in the wind, OMG yes–but, hey.
You may know I am a huge fan of covers. I have this ongoing theory about why covers are always awesome whereas movie remakes often suck: a good song is a good song. It’s harder to ruin a good song even with bad singing than it is to ruin a good story with bad acting, bad directing, etc. Do ya see what I’m sayin’? No? Here’s this James Blake cover of Sounds of Silence for you. Not wildly different than the original. Loooooove the rustling sound underneath. Rain? Leaves? Dunno, but it’s lovely.
I bought it a little while ago but I finally spent some serious time listening to the Hamilton soundtrack. It’s just gorgeous. SO many different styles, so many awesome lyrics, beats, melodies. It’s magical.
And this, this song, Low’s “What Part of Me”, I have been OBSESSED with this song since the first time I heard it, sometime this summer. Here they sound awesome playing it and here is a more visually pleasing video (yet slightly less awesome sounding). I canNOT stop with this one. The lyrics! The beat! The yearning! Oh my.
In other news, 1) tonight I’m going to see David Mitchell read and apparently he and Lana Wachowski (formerly a Wachowski brother, I think?) are doing a Q&A afterward and 2) I get to introduce my students to the mystery of Roanoke on Wednesday. Busy finding spooky videos to show them. Heh.
Sorry I have no photo for you today. Smooches.

NaBloPoMo 7:

Sleeping in on Saturday mornings is pretty blissful even when sleeping in means waking up at 7:30. Such is the ridiculousness of an early morning weekly schedule, I couldn’t sleep any longer even though I tried! Now I’m indulging myself in some Oregon Chai and catching up on some of my weekly TV shows, especially the ones I don’t care too much about so I can play candy crush while I watch them, HA!
How about a review of what I’m watching on TV this fall, albeit I haven’t had cable in four, maybe five? years now, no wait SIX, so I am watching everything a day later on Hulu or CBS All Access or whatever site… or I am watching everything sometime during the week, maybe in a big chunk on Friday night heh.
Sunday:
Brooklyn Nine-Nine : this show is SO on this year. One of my absolute favorites. And I don’t care much for Andy Samberg in other formats but I love him here.
Quantico : I like it. Nice eye candy among the real male/female leads. Silly, sure, but…
The Good Wife : Still solid but I’m finding myself less interested this season.
I need to maybe pay for Showtime so I can get back to Homeland which I do really love. But I can’t decide if I should do it via Hulu or via Showtime on my Roku. Not sure why I can’t make the decision but hello I don’t seem to be able to commit.
Monday:
The Mindy Project : SO good. This show has been solidly laugh out loud funny every episode this season.
Castle : Still mediocre. But watchable. [Candy crush time!]
Jane the Virgin : This show is very uneven for me. Intentionally soap-y but still unbearably stupid at times. Yet I keep watching. [Often while grading.]
Life in Pieces : A great companion piece to Mindy, lots of funny stuff about parenting. But suddenly no new episodes showing up. Did it already get cancelled?
Supergirl : I watched ep 1 and liked it but haven’t made it through ep 2 yet. Calista Flockhart was a nice surprise!
I do want to start watching Fargo but I need to watch season 1 first. I just listened to Kirsten Dunst on Nerdist and season 2 sounds SO fab.
Tuesday:
NCIS : can’t stop, won’t stop.
NCIS New Orleans : pretty bad but, again, a good backdrop for candy crush and grading, oh the never-ending grading.
Chicago Fire : LOVE IT although this season has been pretty heavy so far, not many light moments.
The Grinder : Pretty funny. Rob Lowe’s character is not really as much Chris Trager (sp?) as it seemed at first, perhaps even less self aware HA!
The Flash : silly, fun.
Wednesday:
Nashville : I watch it ONLY for the music, not even kidding. The story lines have gotten BEYOND REPETITIVE. How many times can Will regret being gay? SERIOUSLY. How many times can Scarlet or Deacon completely fall apart. How many times can Maddy be annoying. I mean, good grief. But I still love the arrangements.
Empire : I am about to stop watching this despite the music. Less seasons in and it’s already got all the same problems as Nashville, soapy stupid story lines, I just can’t even stand some of them.
Black-ish : HILARIOUS. Love it. Diane may be my favorite television character OF ALL TIME. She’s so on the money. And Junior’s so unconsciously dopey.
Rosewood : Kinda dumb, but watchable as background. Heh.
Arrow : Better than it was last season. I love Felicity and I’m obsessed with Thea’s hair. Everyone on this show is damn good-lookin’. Still wish this was more like The Flash which it really suffers in comparison with.
Thursday:
Haven : SO dark this season. Mmmmmm, Nathan.
Sleepy Hollow : I really like this show. I love their partnership. I think it’s really well filmed with the right mood / tone. Even though it’s silly, it seems better produced than many other silly shows (particularly when watched in contrast say with Bones that it recently did crossover eps with. The Sleepy Hollow one seemed SO much smarter than the Bones one).
Vampire Diaries : Kinda boring without Elena frankly and this season has gotten so dark and sad. But, AGAIN, background (ha, how boring this post must be for you to read!).
The Player : Kinda stupid.
Things I watch occasionally on my iPad in bed as I fall asleep:
Trevor Noah on the Daily Show
Things I tried but could not even watch:
Stephen Colbert : (I know) and
Blood & Oil : seriously unwatchable.
Things I gave up:
Reign
Yup, I have no spare time at all but SOMEHOW I still watch a lot of TV. Sometimes I do have to rewatch episodes because I watched one while grading and then when I try to watch the next one I can’t figure out what’s going on HA. But you know I don’t feel bad about spending time on TV when it doesn’t mean I’m losing reading time now that I have my transit reading time back (last year, I drove to work with someone which eliminated all my reading time). I’ve been burning through books and SO HAPPY ABOUT IT. Heh.
Coming, going

NaBloPoMo 3: oh boy oh boy

Never take a class while you are also full-time teaching (or full-time anything probably!). For a while I had a great system going on, Friday afternoon into evening finish lesson plans for the next week, Saturday morning do all my reading and writing for my Wednesday night class, then move on to grading, blah blah blah etc.
Oh except for how I’m trying to catch up on grades so I COMPLETELY FORGOT that I have this class I have to do homework for and now uh oh my class is tomorrow night and I have 50 pages of reading to do (and a response to write afterward). Oh and I have to interview someone in the BIL program at my school for the paper I have due next week and actually I was supposed to interview her this morning AND I FORGOT because OMG I cannot keep anything together in my personal life right now!
I never know the date, I just know “tomorrow is X day on this set of lesson plans, do I have everything I need? Yup, OK” and move on. So I missed a concert I had tickets to (couldn’t have spared the time to go anyway), I just paid three bills late (OMG WHUT) not because I didn’t have the money but because I just put them in a pile and then FORGOT THEY EXISTED, and now I’ve just gotten my apartment tidied up and I must go do all my own homework before *hopefully* getting more of my students’ work graded although let’s be serious, that’s extremely unlikely to happen tonight.
Where is the personal assistant to keep my own life on track? All I can keep track of is my school stuff (and given that I’m so far behind on grading, how much track am I keeping of that anyway!), everything else is just falling to the wayside. (Does this happen every year? Maybe. But I do think changing to a new grade level has knocked some of my fourth-year teacher stability off its rack.)
#laterpost

NaBloPoMo 2: Some recommendations

I watched a very fun movie while I cooked, washed dishes, and graded last night: Life Partners (streaming on Netflix). It wasn’t an amazingly great movie or an award-winner or a blow your mind movie–but it was a sweet lovely movie about friendships and how to nurture and maintain them and how to repair them when they blow up. It reminded me mood-wise a lot of Imagine Me & You, a dearly loved flick in this house.
I started a great book today: “The Glass Sentence” by S.E. Grove, which so far is pretty spectacular. It all takes place in a different version of our world, a version where there was some sort of disruption that ripped time out of balance and now different parts of the world are in different times. For example, the time the heroine lives in 1891 and has 20-hour days/clocks. Another area is stuck in 1700. There are all kinds of super cool images and ideas in here (the mental maps are SO COOL!). It’s very much about map making and adventure while at the same time it’s about rejecting the “other” and jingoism and immigration and all kinds of issues I’ve been trying to talk with my kiddos (aka students) this year.
I had a rootbeer float tonight with a hastily gulped down Chicken Betty (sandwich) at the world’s tiniest M. Burger when I tried to go to my acupuncture appointment but it turned out my acupuncturist had left early with a family emergency. Sigh. So I’m no less stressed than I was earlier but my float was delicious.
So there you, go: a movie, a book, and go get yourself a root beer float and I feel I’ve added a lot of possibilities to your life this evening. What more could you want? 🙂 #heh
Also, here, this picture:
Lovely evening in Chitown.
Good night!

NaBloPoMo 1: ‘Ello there.

So I’ll probably fall off the wagon on day 2 or 3 but right now I’m claiming I’m going to blog every day in November. What do I have to tell you, my pretties? Well, let’s see. I’m teaching 7th grade and MAN ALIVE it is a tough grade, maybe even moreso after having been teaching 5th graders for two years. I’m used to having one or two students in the room whose goal it is to out sass, out speak, and out anything me, not ALL OF THEM. I’m teaching social studies and writing which has also involved some adjustments as I actually need them to learn specific social studies content (esp as 7th graders in Illinois have to take the constitution test and they cannot graduate from 8th grade unless they’ve passed it) versus just learning to become better readers, although surely they should ALSO be learning to be better readers in my room, not just with their reading teacher. I spent too many weekends getting not enough done and now we are entering week 9 of the 10-week quarter and I’m SO behind on grading so instead of getting to have a single weekend day for my own solitary self as I usually try to do, this is the second weekend in a row that I have spent the entire day Saturday grading, as well as my usual Sunday of doing at least 75% school stuff like preparing all my materials for the week and gathering up all my loose “Oh this might be a fun supplement for that” ideas. I was at work until 6 pm every night this (past) week except Wednesday…when I was at school and didn’t get home until 9 anyway. I’m tired, people. Very very tired.
That said, I have gotten more positive feedback in two months at this school than in three years at my last one and gee doesn’t that tell you something about the toxic environment I left behind (and not of my own choosing, but definitely of my own thanking now looking back). I am back to a public transit hour-long commute so I have been doing a TON of reading, OMG does it ever feel good to have my reading time back, even if I have lost all my gym time right now with being so overwhelmed at school and in life.
And that is all for now. More tomorrow, supposedly. We’ll see. 😉
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