:: p-dog ::

Is Happy Birthday actually a hard song to sing? Or are most people just absolutely terrible singers? Or is it just impossible to spontaneously coordinate a dozen people singing anything because we all start at different times, in different keys, and spend the whole song warbling up and down as we try to figure out what note everyone else is at?

You'd think if they teach us how to chant the Pledge in unison in school, which we will never say again once we leave the public school system, they should also do some training in the singing of Happy Birthday. Because we inflict that shit on ourselves monthly.

:: Leslie H - 9:42 AM - ::

I made my great return to yoga a couple of weeks ago and have grand plans for class every Monday that will keep me sore for pretty much the entire week. At the moment I'm still pain-free, but it has been less than 24-hours--I expect to wake up partially paralyzed tomorrow morning. The class is at Bryan's climbing gym, which I suspect is why the gender ratio is so close to equal. I'm used to 90% female classes, and last night it was probably 60-40. I heartily approve of this. If Bryan gets to stare at pretty girls, I want equal opportunity to gawk at limber, muscular, sweaty fellows. Preferably under 60.

You may have noticed that I've updated the "Currently ______" sections. That Philip Roth book started a little slow, but now I'm reading it not only on the train, but as I walk to/from the BART station (it's worth looking a little eccentric for.) And the orzo recipe listed is quite tasty, easy and light, and makes excellent leftovers.

:: Leslie H - 4:54 PM - ::

Today one of my policy school classmates launched an Internship Poetry Contest via our email list, so all day I've been delighted by dozens offerings from people I haven't heard from in a while, in all sorts of internships all over the country. This haiku kicked it off:

shiny new intern
silly project, sticky desk
jump! diploma hoop

This one is among my favorite:

Oh, the memos you'll write!

Congratulations!
You're well on your way!
You're authoring memos
and having your say!

You're making a difference...
no, really you are!
Why, you just wrote a memo
on banning all cars!

Oh sure, people vote
and some give lots of cash
But they don't write memos
on importing trash!

So you've got a leg up!
Your power's exciting,
'cause since when have donations
held more sway than your writing?

And how peaceful a job!
Your phone makes no ring!
(despite your twelves messages
to the Director of Housing)

OH THE MEMOS YOU'LL WRITE!

Memos on teachers!
Memos on roads!
Memos on bleachers,
back-scratchers, and toads!

So STOP PENNING VERSES
and write your memo on nurses!
Should their outfits be white,
ivory, eggshell, or bright?

Your electeds are waiting
-- don't let them grow bored --
for thoughtful analysis
which they then can ignore!

So out comes the calculator
(you may have to do math)!
And ready your rolodex
and Eightfold Path!

You've got an assignment:
"Shall we ditch Mardi Gras?"
Aren't you delighted
you didn't do law?


And finally, today's prize for worst nickname goes to the city of Sacramento's unglamorous appellation: "The Sac"
Sounds...sweaty.

:: Leslie H - 5:02 PM - ::

My night out dancing on Friday was bizarre: gay pride weekend in San Francisco, and we somehow managed to locate the straightest, whitest club in the city. The dance floor was full of roving packs of blondes, orbited by guys in button-down shirts and--in some extreme cases--ball caps. As we left, the DJ was playing the Jackson 5.

I also got the worst pick-up line I've yet heard: "What's the worst that could happen." Now, I hate to turn down flat guys with the courage to ask girls to dance. But every time I said no in increasingly emphatic ways, he would just repeat it: "Come on. What's the worst that could happen?"

Is that a serious question? Because I can think of some pretty awful things. And it just gets creepier every time you say it. This all leads me to the conclusion that it's time for me to get my real, big, flashy engagement ring that I can wave in the face of future shady club guys.

:: Leslie H - 6:20 PM - ::

Moderately debauched pictures up on gallery from cousin Michael's visit two weekends ago. All photography credits go to him. I'm going out dancing tonight with some girls--always an ambitious undertaking for a Friday night. But I am determined! And wearing comfortable shoes!

:: Leslie H - 6:06 PM - ::

Re-fenestrated

It's been three years since I've used a Windows computer with any regularity (I'm not counting email-checking and occasional frantic worksheet-making on my computer at X Middle School--plus the Windows 98 on that crapbox didn't do the neat tricks that XP Professional does). It's been sort of fun to see what Microsoft has been up to these last few years. Today, while randomly clicking icons in the taskbar, I discovered the writing pad tool, which allows you to laboriously scrawl words with the mouse that will then be sucked into your email or document or whatever you have open at the time. I have no idea what the purpose of this thing is--though admittedly it would have been useful the time I spilled wine into my keyboard at home--but boy howdy is it fun for about three minutes. It did take a little practice: my first offering, "lo lo lo," it interpreted as "boo to Coos," but then it accurately grabbed "L eslie" and "Yikes!" Here, I'll do one right now:

eat me

Isn't that neat! I wrote that in cursive!


In other news, things I was not hardcore enough for today include heading to a sports bar at 7am to watch the US lose at a sport the country doesn't care about. Things that I was hardcore enough for include braving the 94-degree heat and certain scalp-burn for some excellent Mexican food on the office tab. Long lunches really do break up the day.

:: Leslie H - 5:07 PM - ::

Third Life Pickle

Today I ate my third pickle ever. After a first grade trauma (being chased around by a classmate waving crinkle-cut slices) I swore them off forever. Ten years after the fright, I would still moan when my innocent sandwich was tainted by the juice of a nearby pickle. So salty! So slimy! So sour!

I don't know what it was that persuaded me to nibble on my accessory pickle last month after years of stoically ignoring their presence on my plate, but as it turns out, I actually rather like salty, sour things. Today the wedge that appeared with my sandwich didn't even look that appealing--a little squashed, none too fresh--but I ate it anyway. It's a world gone mad. I don't know who I am anymore.

This means my only remaining food holdout is brussel sprouts. (Blogger spellcheck doesn't know the word "brussel," which is okay with me as I think this particular vegetable should never be mentioned again.)

It's 88 degrees today in Berkeley. 88 degrees! At least I'm not trapped in a room with 35 sweaty, pissed off 8th graders.

UPDATE: For the record, my previous pickle aversion was nowhere near as extreme as this poor girl's. She was chased around by pickles on Maury. She literally tries to hide under a chair. Who watches this show??

:: Leslie H - 4:39 PM - ::

so TRUE

"Every time I go to Target I'm reminded of how much more I need to buy to complete my collection of everything in the world." - zefrank, The Show

:: Leslie H - 6:06 PM - ::

Things I learned about the World Cup yesterday: it only happens once every four years.

I couldn't figure out why I didn't remember it last year...

:: Leslie H - 8:46 AM - ::

Bryan saw an Anne Geddes book today and flipped the fuck out. He could not believe that such a thing existed. Who would give their baby to that woman? When I expressed surprise that he had never seen any of her pictures before, he got a bit shrill: Do I strike you as a person that would know about this shit?! I would see a cover like this in a bookstore, and subconsciously deflect it. This has no relation to my portion of human existence.

:: Leslie H - 10:31 AM - ::

It's funny because it's a hurtful exaggeration

We went to a comedy club last night with some friends, where you were encouraged to bring your own drinks. The best material is of course jokes about yourself, and since the line-up looked like a diversity ad, we were encouraged to laugh in turn at fat people, gay people, Iranians, the unemployed, blind people, deaf people, retarded people, and Russians.

The Russian guy was one of my favorites. He told a "Communist knock-knock joke," which I'm sure was not just funny because of all the red wine I drank. But maybe you should have a glass before you read it:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Russia.
What do you want?
Western Europe.

:: Leslie H - 9:25 AM - ::

Cali's Superintendent of Public Instruction released this website yesterday that let's kids take quizzes to see what careers match their interests (Assess Yourself) as well as create a monthly budget and see what jobs pay them enough to live in such style (Reality Check). Looks pretty cool to me. Any teachers out there scrambling for end-of-the-year activities?

My cousin Michael is coming in town tomorrow, and Bryan and I are excited. These are some things we have in store for him:
City view here.
Nipple clamps here. (Rumors that I took my parents to this store are totally, well, true.)
Nachos and margaritas here.
Possible further drinking here.

I forgot my lunch today, so I bought a cup of microwave Kraft Mac&cheese. It's amazing what you can do these days with a microwave! I'm telling you, these things are going to catch on.

:: Leslie H - 2:38 PM - ::

What I'm doing in this job anyway

Be careful what you wish for--or ask for, rather--because I now have officially have too many projects. These are the issues I'll be working on this summer. So far, at least.

• The hidden gap in per pupil spending between schools within districts. Schools serving high poverty, high minority populations tend to employ less qualified, less experienced teachers--no surprise there--and teacher experience is one of the few factors consistently linked to student achievement. One result is that these schools receive far fewer funds from the district, often hundreds of thousands of dollars, for teacher salaries. So the per pupil spending that districts reports as averages often hides a large disparity between schools related to teacher quality and experience.
  
• Identifying and recognizing schools with high proportions of minority and low-income students that are performing significantly higher than the state average.
  
• Campaigning for a statewide data system for California that tracks individual students throughout their education (via anonymous ID numbers) with data on scores, demographics characteristics, schools attended, teachers they had, and basically everything else you could want to get a complete picture of what's going on in the schools. There are a lot of problems with the way we analyze this now; basically we just get a snapshot of all students in grade X but no information about how those particular students progress. I feel like I'm (working on) striking a blow for policy analysts everywhere--think of what you could DO with this DATA! Some states have systems like this already (North Carolina, for one), and people are publishing juicy and surprising reports with all the information at their disposal. Example: a study tracking individual students who were enrolled in public schools for five continuous years revealed that while the black-white achievement gap grows between grades 3 and 8, the hispanic-white gap shrinks substantially--revealing that the widening hispanic-white gap normally reported is due entirely to new immigrants, and that students who stick around do quite well. Controlling for poverty and other factors on achievement, hispanic students actually outperform their white peers in the higher grades.
  
• Making the case that nothing has a bigger impact on student achievement than teacher quality, so that should be a major focus of all efforts at improving schools.

Well, I tried to be brief, and it sort of worked out. I'll try to prevent these posts from getting too wonky this summer (and forever, actually), but I can't make any promises.

:: Leslie H - 4:46 PM - ::

Baby Farming

I'm not sure why the busier I get, the happier I am--I tend to blame my father--but today my work reached some critical mass, and I'm content. My involvement on projects has accumulated to the point at which I can't foresee the end of them all, and I have four or five long-term tasks to juggle and switch off between when I start to get bored. Fabulous!

Enough about work. (Except, here--funny school name of the day: Copperopolis Elementary. Just say it--it's so fun!) I was perusing la Internet over my bowl of Trader Joe's Frosted Minis this morning and happened upon this gem, a collection of information on Victorian England. Honestly, it's more interesting than it sounds. Anyway, I thought this little passage was interesting. It lured me in with the title "baby farming" (it's in the Crime section), and then it turned into a critique of society that could have been written today. Except that no one today writes with such flare!

...Barely was the trial of the murderess concluded and the court cleared, than our fierce indignation subsided from its bubbling and boiling, and quickly settled down to calm and ordinary temperature. Nay it is hardly too much to say that our over-wrought sympathies as regards baby neglect and murder fell so cold and flat that little short of a second edition of Herod’s massacre might be required to raise them again.
This is the unhappy fate that attends nearly all our great social grievances. They are overlooked or shyly glanced at and kicked aside for years and years, when suddenly a stray spark ignites their smouldering heaps, and the eager town cooks a splendid supper of horrors at the gaudy conflagration; but having supped full, there ensues a speedy distaste for flame and smoke, and in his heart every one is chiefly anxious that the fire may burn itself out, or that some kind hand will smother it. "We have had enough of it." That is the phrase. The only interest we ever had in it, which was nothing better than a selfish and theatrical interest, is exhausted. We enjoyed the bonfire amazingly, but we have no idea of tucking back our coat-sleeves and handling a shovel or a pick to explore the unsavoury depth and origin of the flareup, and dig and dam to guard against a repetition of it. It is sufficient for us that we have endured without flinching the sensational horrors dragged to light; let those who dragged them forth bury them again; or kill them; or be killed by them. We have had enough of them.

The writer continues to describe the behavior of the baby-farmers not on trial: perhaps they scale back their advertising, but they have such confidence in the "sluggardly law" that they never consider stopping the, um, the baby-farming. The parallels to tragic news stories today are too many and obvious to mention.

I never did learn exactly what baby-farming was, much to my disappointment. But my conclusion is: people have always sucked.

:: Leslie H - 5:02 PM - ::

Adaptation

I decided to be proactive about the whole surviving for 8 hours in an office thing. My strategy, it's becoming clear, is to turn the office into home to the extent possible. There are only a few physical changes: I'm gradually stocking the fridge with my preferred lunches and drinks, and I brought in Advil (for the headaches I get after I go to the gym in the morning) and a pillow (for my prematurely old lower back).

Most of the comforts of home, however, can come via the magic of the internet. Not only can it deliver my personal mail and favorite websites, but it can simulate most of the qualities I ask of my desk at home. Here's a list of some sites that are particularly helpful:

Connecting
aimexpress - Can't install my chat program on the organization's computer? No problem! I can log in and chat solely through the internet with this site or meebo.com.

"Enough like work" websites
New York Times - Barely a departure from the daily education news clips I'm expected to read anyway.
Washington Monthly - It's politics, and that's...sort of relevant.
kottke.org - A collection of goodness for completely irresponsible moments, but it doesn't look quite as frivolous as my other internet guilty pleasures (no hot pink background nor pictures of celebrities).

For my listening enjoyment
Pandora - When it just gets too quiet! On this site you plug in a band or song you like, and it plays you similar ones. You can log in to save your stations, and voila! Instant music!
KQED - Where I tune into all my favorite NPR programs.

I was also quick to discover that the reflective surface behind my computer monitor can serve as a large rearview mirror so I can keep tabs on the locations of everyone in their offices. I don't mean to give the impression that I'm browsing (or writing) blog posts so often, but it's nice to take a break now and then without advertising it to everyone else. Having all my websites bookmarked is sort of like hanging my pictures on the walls--does wonders for my comfort level.

Today's fun school district name: Paradise Unified

:: Leslie H - 4:14 PM - ::

Every once in a while I wander over to The Washington Times Op-Ed page to see what the proud voice of Conservative America is saying. This was my reading today: Keep America American.

On illegal immigrants: "They are no different than Americans who rape, kill, maim, smoke in a no-smoking area, drive without a license, deal drugs, make moonshine, solicit prostitutes, abuse children, steal credit records, beat their wives, rob a bank, carjack, kidnap, commit home invasions, plant bombs and blow up a federal office building, commit perjury, obstruct justice, smuggle cigarettes, smuggle humans, carry a firearm without a license, force women into prostitution, fail to pay taxes, steal a child's bicycle, commit identity theft or set off fireworks in a jurisdiction that prohibits fireworks. A criminal is a criminal is a criminal. The only difference is if they are in this country without our permission."

It's heartwarming.

UPDATE: Here's a snippet from a commencement address Stephen Colbert gave, also addressing immigration--as an antidote to the former.

"And when you enter the workforce, you will find competition from those crossing our all-too-porous borders. Now I know you're all going to say, "Stephen, Stephen, immigrants built America." Yes, but here's the thing--it's built now. I think it was finished in the mid-70s sometime. At this point it's a touch-up and repair job. But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spansih, the next thing you know, they'll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools.

So we must build walls. A wall obviously across the entire southern border. That's the answer. That may not be enough--maybe a moat in front of it, or a fire-pit. Maybe a flaming moat, filled with fire-proof crocodiles. And we should probably wall off the northern border as well. Keep those Canadians with their socialized medicine and their skunky beer out. And because immigrants can swim, we'll probably want to wall off the coasts as well. And while we're at it, we need to put up a dome, in case they have catapults. And we'll punch some holes in it so we can breathe. Breathe free. It's time for illegal immigrants to go--right after they finish building those walls."

:: Leslie H - 1:04 PM - ::

Well, it's Day Two of my summer internship at the Organization That Shall Remain Nameless, and things are going pretty well. It's a small office--eight people total, and three of those are frequently out--and the atmosphere is friendly and comfortable. No one dresses up, which is key for me since I can wear all my business-sloppy clothes from teaching. Most are in their late twenties to mid-thirties--an age group I’m beginning to feeling a part of, and just young enough that I can't quite believe they let us run a whole office. It feels a little like we're throwing a party when mom and dad are gone, except that instead of drinking and inappropriate touching we're advocating for education reform. Everyone is very friendly; today four of us took a nearly two-hour lunch break to meander through the farmers market in downtown Oakland, and I got a chance to chat with them about non-work-related topics. (And also to sunburn the hell out of my scalp.) I wish I could believe this was a normal activity, but I think more often I'll be eating my yogurt in front of the computer.

Eight hours in one place, I begin to sense, is going to be a bit tricky. It's just, you know, my whole day. All in one place. (Curiously, this doesn't bother me when that place is my apartment.) I'm hoping to get over this quickly as I'm likely to spend the rest of my life in places much like this one--if I'm lucky.

My only real complaint is that, in an act of true cruelty, they have faced my back, and my computer screen, out towards the main office. Surely they do not expect me to stay on task every one of these eight long hours!? How am I to mentally check out and read blogs when the entire office can read along with me?

Really, I'm sure something will work out. Like careful window-shuffling. What is really important for me to keep in mind is that at no point during the day will 33 teenagers pour loud and sweaty into the room, demanding an education. And THAT is priceless.

[Most amusing school district name I've happened upon today: Placentia-Yorba Linda USD, in Placentia, CA. Oh, magical Placentia.]

:: Leslie H - 4:59 PM - ::