First things first. Two snaps for me because I've completed my first grad school class. Woo-Hoo! I only missed one class, I facilitated a session (and my lesson was well received), and I wrote not one but TWO papers -- a five pager and a 16-page bad boy I named Ellipses. I'm waiting for a grade, but I would be surprised if I did not do well. (Of course, I could get a B and that would suck. I'm really aiming for an A.)
Second, my Hoyas are 7-3 for the season thus far, though that could change since they were supposed to play Towson tonight. Given the way the Hoyas played in my day, the record is not bad. And I don't think they're ranked, either. That sucks, too.
Let's see, TV has been a complete bore. Both Heroes and Lost are on hiatus. Smallville and Supernatural are re-running. But gawd, next month is going to be so sweet! 24 is back, woo-hoo! And Heroes will come current on Jan. 22. So it's all good.
I doubt I'm going to get the chance to blog again before the year is out, so here are my resolutions for the coming year. These are not in any particular order, by the way, these are just the first things that come to mind.
1) Hunker down and study for the LAST, ECST, and GRE. Complete applications.
2) Find a new job, because I can't take the abuse anymore! Let's hope that recruiter hooks me up with something sweet.
3) Auditions and open mics. And maybe I should start recording again, too.
4) Celebrate my birthday in style. I'm old. I want fun in the sun, but I think it takes more than 24 hours to get a passport.
5) Start going to the gym again. Not because I need to lose weight, but because I really miss working out.
6) Give more love to my family and my man, and show love to the friends who've really stood by me.
7) Blog more. And about stuff that matters, too. I'm dying to dabble in some poli-talk.
8) Take a wine-tasting class, and possibly a knife techniques/cooking course. I chop all wrong.
9) Pray more.
10) Commit to getting most, if not all, of these things checked off before yearend 2007.
It's been swell, y'all, truly. Here's to finishing 2006 with style and grace and ushering in new beginnings in 2007.
Happy Holidays!
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
What I'm Watching
Save The Cheerleader, Save The World!: If you have yet to catch onto Heroes, you can log onto NBC's website and watch the episodes you've missed. Which you should do, because it's basically X-Men Lite, except that these 'heroes' actually have powers you would want and wouldn't make you superfreaky. With the exception of radiation guy from Monday night's episode -- um, he can give you radioactive burns by touch. Case in point -- he gave his wife cancer. Yikes!
Notable characters: The dynamic duo of Hiro the Hero and his sidekick Ando. We know I have an obsession with all things Japanese, but Hiro by far is the most kick-ass of all those featured on the show. And Ando's wisecracks -- ah, so funny! Yokkata! Ones to watch: Claire, Micah (so adorable, that little tech-mech-manipulator) and Peter (I can't decide...Milo's kind of cute but the bangs are killing me!)
If I were stranded on an island...: Lost, I still love you. Even though the Easter egg hunt you sent us on (you know, the one that started at the end of the last season and continued through the summer. Yeah, that one!) was enough to make me (and many others) feel like a casual castaway. I'm just going to let the season unfold without second guessing or taking up an investigation a la the Scooby kids. (However, it's also helpful to check-in with Entertainment Weekly every now and again. Jeff Jensen is the magazine's expert Lost theorist. He tries to put all the pieces of the puzzle together so the rest of us don't have to).
I mean, I live for my shows but I don't want to have to WORK for them. I spend good chunks of my week doing that for other people, anyway. TV Time= Relax Time.
I also don't know how I feel this season set-up ABC's got going on. Yes, there were far too many reruns last year but I think those were helpful for those viewers who missed episodes. But now Lost is taking a break until February, and then we get 16 new episodes back to back. And those egg hunters will be tuning in to the last twenty minutes of Daybreak just to catch the Lost sneak peeks. I hope Daybreak does well, but the premise doesn't thrill me and at this point, with Denzel's movie coming out soon, it seems overdone. (Interesting that Daybreak is an ABC show, Deja Vu is a Touchstone picture, and both ABC and Touchstone are Disney entities.)
Smallville. Yes, you had me at Ar-row. As in Green Arrow. Granted, Justin Hartley may not be the world's best actor (loved him on Passions) but I love him as Oliver Queen -- he's totally stealing Soop's thunder. (To the idiots who passed on Hartley's Aquaman series -- how you feeling 'bout that now?) Add to that the possibility of other JLA members making appearances this season, and you've got a reinvigorated show that may be winning back some fans.
Good TV is hard to come by, but these are my can't miss thus far. More to come.
Gets to Tivo-ing, already!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Because A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste...
When you get a chance please read this article from The Washington Post, because this man has the job I want, the job that I'm working towards at this very moment.
Yes, yes, y'all, that's right. I'm going back to school so that I can get my MA in English Education, as well as my New York State certification. Given my work experience, I wanted to focus on writing and rhetoric. And while you can concentrate on a specific sub-area, it's my understanding that you can only do so after years of teaching standard English (writing and lit). The course I'm taking right now is fascinating and it's opening my eyes to the challenges that teachers, especially those teaching in urban schools, face.
That's also where I want to focus my efforts, in inner-city and urban schools. Have you read and/or heard some of these No Child Left Behind stories? How there are some schools that actually underreport (or sometimes completely fail to report) the test scores of their minority students because the actual results might show that the schools and teachers aren't making any progress towards meeting NCLB mandates, and there's a (legitimate) fear that they will be held accountable. And because of NCLB, teachers may feel pressured to test prep all year long instead of actually TEACHING -- helping their kids make lasting connections to the concepts they learn, connections that will stick around long after testing day.
The whitewash, it seems, is nothing new. This week I read a biographical account of a now 30-year old man who was once a student in NYC public schools, and you know what -- he couldn't read a lick! His teachers passed him each and every year -- he even attended one of the most competitive high schools in the city -- and by the end of it all he could read is "and" and "but"! His grades were no indication -- As and Bs. He didn't graduate (dropped out in 11th grade) and he's learning to read now, trying to make his business big out of his apartment in one of the LES projects. But I could feel his frustration in his story...It begs the question -- how many other kids got passed along for show, in the end had very little to show for it?
As well-intentioned as NCLB was, it puts the focus and emphasis on testing and pays less attention to the quality of the teaching. It's not to say that tests aren't important, but shouldn't we be concerned when kids feel like the purpose of reading is to answer the questions at the end of the story? Don't we want them to read between the lines and come to conclusions that will stir their own curiosities, their own questions, and those questions in turn will lend themselves to those at the end of the story?
If life is one big test, education is a key part in preparing in prepping our kids for what life holds, the challenges it will bring. It's key to unlocking the potential of young minds, in passing down the keys to the kingdom. I'm saddened to think about all those minds going to waste, to only being considered as a number to meet a mandate. Quantity versus quality, indeed.
Yes, yes, y'all, that's right. I'm going back to school so that I can get my MA in English Education, as well as my New York State certification. Given my work experience, I wanted to focus on writing and rhetoric. And while you can concentrate on a specific sub-area, it's my understanding that you can only do so after years of teaching standard English (writing and lit). The course I'm taking right now is fascinating and it's opening my eyes to the challenges that teachers, especially those teaching in urban schools, face.
That's also where I want to focus my efforts, in inner-city and urban schools. Have you read and/or heard some of these No Child Left Behind stories? How there are some schools that actually underreport (or sometimes completely fail to report) the test scores of their minority students because the actual results might show that the schools and teachers aren't making any progress towards meeting NCLB mandates, and there's a (legitimate) fear that they will be held accountable. And because of NCLB, teachers may feel pressured to test prep all year long instead of actually TEACHING -- helping their kids make lasting connections to the concepts they learn, connections that will stick around long after testing day.
The whitewash, it seems, is nothing new. This week I read a biographical account of a now 30-year old man who was once a student in NYC public schools, and you know what -- he couldn't read a lick! His teachers passed him each and every year -- he even attended one of the most competitive high schools in the city -- and by the end of it all he could read is "and" and "but"! His grades were no indication -- As and Bs. He didn't graduate (dropped out in 11th grade) and he's learning to read now, trying to make his business big out of his apartment in one of the LES projects. But I could feel his frustration in his story...It begs the question -- how many other kids got passed along for show, in the end had very little to show for it?
As well-intentioned as NCLB was, it puts the focus and emphasis on testing and pays less attention to the quality of the teaching. It's not to say that tests aren't important, but shouldn't we be concerned when kids feel like the purpose of reading is to answer the questions at the end of the story? Don't we want them to read between the lines and come to conclusions that will stir their own curiosities, their own questions, and those questions in turn will lend themselves to those at the end of the story?
If life is one big test, education is a key part in preparing in prepping our kids for what life holds, the challenges it will bring. It's key to unlocking the potential of young minds, in passing down the keys to the kingdom. I'm saddened to think about all those minds going to waste, to only being considered as a number to meet a mandate. Quantity versus quality, indeed.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Jumping On The Bandwagon
Yes, I'm showing up late to the party. Again.
This blogging revolution is what, like, two or three years old, right? There were even some people out there that were hip to it eons ago -- I've seen some of those sites. But now everyone can get in on the game, which is pretty sweet considering that the idea of HTML scripting makes me want to put my head through the wall. I got a (respectable) C in that class in college, but that website project was a killer.
So why me and why now? A couple of reasons. First, opinions are like assholes and everybody's got one -- myself included. There are millions of moments in a given day where I would love to call up my boyfriend or one of my friends and talk their ears off about my frustrations at work, about the latest boneheaded move by this bonehead politician. About how I'm still undecided about making the investment in the Xbox 360 ( I will blog about that in the future) or waiting until PS3. Or how I love Justin Timberlake to death but "Sexy Back" just ain't doin' it for me.
Nope, nothin' doing.
Point is, I can't just call everyone up like that anymore. And even if I could, would they care? I've got a boatload of friends who think I'm super silly for still being into cartoons and video games at my age. Out there in the blogger-verse, however, there may be someone else who is feeling me about the Xbox dilemma.
Secondly, blogging is great practice for me as a writer. My job is very industry-centric and sadly my interests DO NOT lie there. Our lives and experiences are so varied that it's quite frustrating to find yourself pigeonholed into a box with walls that someone else defined.
So...Um...Yeah.
I'm unsure as to whether I've fully answered the "why me, why now" question. But I'm starting to get hungry, and that box of Cookie Crisp is calling my name...
This blogging revolution is what, like, two or three years old, right? There were even some people out there that were hip to it eons ago -- I've seen some of those sites. But now everyone can get in on the game, which is pretty sweet considering that the idea of HTML scripting makes me want to put my head through the wall. I got a (respectable) C in that class in college, but that website project was a killer.
So why me and why now? A couple of reasons. First, opinions are like assholes and everybody's got one -- myself included. There are millions of moments in a given day where I would love to call up my boyfriend or one of my friends and talk their ears off about my frustrations at work, about the latest boneheaded move by this bonehead politician. About how I'm still undecided about making the investment in the Xbox 360 ( I will blog about that in the future) or waiting until PS3. Or how I love Justin Timberlake to death but "Sexy Back" just ain't doin' it for me.
Nope, nothin' doing.
Point is, I can't just call everyone up like that anymore. And even if I could, would they care? I've got a boatload of friends who think I'm super silly for still being into cartoons and video games at my age. Out there in the blogger-verse, however, there may be someone else who is feeling me about the Xbox dilemma.
Secondly, blogging is great practice for me as a writer. My job is very industry-centric and sadly my interests DO NOT lie there. Our lives and experiences are so varied that it's quite frustrating to find yourself pigeonholed into a box with walls that someone else defined.
So...Um...Yeah.
I'm unsure as to whether I've fully answered the "why me, why now" question. But I'm starting to get hungry, and that box of Cookie Crisp is calling my name...
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