Servons

Recently, I joined some Cate alums at a nearby Barnes and Noble to do some community service work. We worked for four hours in two shifts, wrapping gifts for donations. All proceeds went to Dorot, an organization that provides services for the elderly in the NYC area. I worked with Patrick and Emily, both from Taiwan, who graduated a year before I got to Cate. I never got to meet them in California, but they're a lot of fun and I'm glad to know them now. Patrick, as it turns out, is also the instructor of a yoga class I plan to take next semester. Here's a picture of the crew brandishing various wrapping tools:

Wrapping was fun, but the best part was taking advantage of the 40% discount Barnes and Noble extended to us afterwards. I bought six novels and a guidebook, none of which I really needed, but someone's got to support the flailing publishing industry, right? I felt it was my civic duty.

By the way, "Servons" is Cate's school motto. It is French for "to serve."

Oh Tannenbaum

I have a variety of memories associated with going to pick out a Christmas tree. At least once, the family headed out to a site that allowed customers to actually cut down their chosen tree (unless I'm making this up, which is possible). I recall little mock "Christmas Villages" set up, complete with strings of festive lights, oversized candy canes, and opportunities to take pictures with Santa. Christmas carols blaring from speakers. Cider and hot chocolate for sale. The sharp scent of pine. And against this cheerful backdrop, my brothers and I would subject each candidate to harsh scrutiny from every angle, noting any gaps in the foliage (can we put that side against the wall?) and skeptical guesses at whether this tree was too tall to fit into our living room.

What the tree-selection process in New York City lacks in romance, it makes up for in convenience. Every few blocks, I walk down the middle of a tree lot that has sprung up overnight for the Christmas season.

These lots are often accompanied by canopies, under which one can buy ornaments, stands, etc. They also offer all the pine scent you can sniff for free. But because of space constraints, the trees are, for the most part, imprisoned in tight sheaths of twine. I'm not sure whether a customer can demand to see a liberated tree to judge its shape - I have to think that after rejecting a few possibilities, the tree monger would start to get rather annoyed - so the only real feature of a tree that's readily visible is its height. And let me tell you, none of these trees would have been deemed tall enough to grace the Guadagni living room during yuletide festivities. Despite this, customers can expect to pay for their dwarfed trees about double what I remember my dad shelling out for our lofty centerpieces. More tree for your buck in Visalia. I guess you have to take what you can get around here. And while I hear lots of people complain about the price of, well, everything in Manhattan, they're all transplants. I can't recall ever seeing a native bat an eye when paying for dinner or a cab ride or an event ticket.

That's IT?!?

Last Friday I found myself running errands in midtown, not too far away from Rockafeller Center. As it was a balmy 16 degrees and I hadn't seen the famous tree yet, I decided to walk a few blocks out of my way to go check it out.

(See? Proof - I was there!)

As is the case with so many famous things, they tend to be disappointing in person. The trip to the tree was harrowing and almost not worth it. My route took me right by Radio City Music Hall about half an hour before their matinee show was scheduled to begin, and the sidewalk was packed with tourists and groups of small schoolchildren, many of whom were wearing reindeer antlers or nutcracker hats. I can't stand slow walkers in the first place, and when it's 16 degrees out and therefore recommended that one keep one's pulse racing to prevent frostbite, I came closer than I ever have to knocking old ladies and small children out of my path into into oncoming traffic. (Relax, that's not as bad as it sounds. Traffic in Manhattan hardly moves at all.) Time speeds up when you're having fun, but when you're flirting with hypothermia, it slows to a snail's pace.

The area around the tree, once I finally reached it, was crowded as well. It was really pretty, blah blah blah, but it looked so small. TV cameramen must put their cameras under the tree and shoot directly up, because the thing looks massive on the screen. I mean, it was a big tree, don't get me wrong, and if I'd seen it on Main Street in Visalia I'd have been mightily impressed. But somehow, surrounded by skyscrapers, the poor thing looked dwarfed and sort of bewildered. The skating rink was temporarily closed because an interview was being filmed there. I could have waited until it wrapped up to watch people circling the ice, but I'd had about enough of wind that reached into every crevice of my clothing to poke icy fingers at skin I thought was well-concealed (silly me). So I retreated to the warmth of the subway, got off a few stops later, and bought three sweaters and a pair of gloves.

Oh my god I'm SO New York.

This, at least, is according to Eddie (who was born in Manhattan and was probably not actually as impressed by my cosmopolitan lifestyle as he made it sound).

I met Eddie tonight at an acting school downtown for a "reading." A mutual friend of ours, a guy named Jeremy, is an actor and a would-be screenwriter - that is, he's ironing the kinks out of a script he's been working on for a while called "The Great American Giveaway." To help him figure out what still needs tweaking, about ten people from the acting school he attends did a live reading of the whole thing, and he invited a bunch of us to come watch and give him feedback. Not a lot of that sort of thing going on in Visalia...

About 30 people showed up, which was enough to fill almost every one of the folding chairs in place. The actors sat in front of us in a semi-circle. A woman narrated it (in a movie script, this was pretty important if we were going to understand what was going on) and the others took on the roles of different characters. They represented a range of ages: some looked to be in their early 20's while others were well into their 40's. Amazing how you can tell someone is a professional when they aren't in costume and don't even stand up.

The script itself is a bit tricky to explain. It helps to know that Jeremy travels to Atlantic City at least once a week to host game shows at a casino. He's been doing this for a while, and although it pays fairly well, it's not exactly his passion. (He was a theater major at Ithaca, and while it's definitely a tough industry, I think he has higher hopes even while trying to be realistic.) His protagonist is 10-year casino game show hosting veteran, who's jaded by the whole scene. From what I know about Atlantic City - I've never been, but I understand that feels as though Vegas, a retirement home, and a trailer park collided - I can understand how that could happen. I really enjoyed the script, which was a sort of coming-of-age story about a guy who should have come of age a decade before. It had its funny, ridiculous, and inspirational moments, although the funny moments were the highest in number.

The stereotype (although this is probably more true in L.A. than it is here in NYC) is that every extra, waiter, busboy, and valet is working on a script, and that they're generally terrible. Jeremy fits the profile in that when he's not hosting cheesy giveaways at trashy casinos, he works as a concierge at a New York hotel. His script, however, was actually well-crafted, which was something I wasn't fully expecting. I mean, he's a very funny, clearly talented guy, but I guess my instinct is to jump to certain conclusions whenever someone tells me that they're working on a script or a novel - everyone is working on a script or a novel and 99% of these pieces will never see the light of day (and rightfully so). When I told him afterward that I really enjoyed it, however, I found that I actually meant it. Yes, there are little things that could be improved, but overall, I'd love to see this on the big screen. So please pass the title on to all of the big Hollywood execs you rub elbows with this week.

City sidewalks, pretty sidewalks

(Sorry for the weird formatting)

Midnight's Children

I've done a lot of reading during my first semester at Columbia, but very little of that has been actual literature. Yesterday marked a rather momentous occasion: I completed a novel (Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children) for the first time since October. Considering that I'd get through two novels a week in ideal conditions, this is a pretty drastic change. Still, however slowly I do it, I'm glad I have at least a little time (and inclination) to read something that is beautiful and meaningful in ways scholarship sometimes doesn't appreciate. Here is a quote from Midnight's Children in which Saleem, the protagonist, reflects on his life - a favorite quote from a favorite author (and no, those are not typos - that's Rushdie's gorgeous, jumbled style):

"Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each 'I', every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus* of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world."

What a beautiful way to look at self-definition, which is often a challenge for those of us less gifted than Rushdie.

Next on the list: G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. With any luck I'll have it done by March or so.

*the population of India, Saleem's country, in the 1970's

Heritage: End-of-Semester Reflections

We had to post an entry on the Zankel blog about "our educational journey" at the midway point of our fellowship. I was suprised when I sat down to write that a reflection about administration is what ended up coming out. I don't usually give much thought to administration (despite the fact that my mother is a school principal and my father is on a school board - go figure). Here is what I posted:

More than ever before, I am aware of the importance of the relationship between administrators and teachers in schools. As a teacher, I had always been primarily classroom-focused when I thought about education. Perhaps it was because I felt administrative issues were too far above my head to concern myself with. While I'm still not convinced that, as a teacher, I will have sufficient power to influence the administration (at least, not a larger schools, and not until I gain some seniority), I know that when I'm searching for a job after I graduate I will look long and hard at administrative policies and teachers' relationships with the administration before signing any contracts.

The teachers' union is very active at Heritage, and the school often feels like a battleground. Rather than the administration and teachers working together to achieve a common goal, the provision of a quality education to a very at-risk group of students, I see instead a tug-of-war in which the administration tries to make the teachers do things and the teachers think of reasons why they don't have to. I don’t feel I'm in a position to say who is right or wrong; I've seen evidence that each side has a pretty good argument. However, it's disheartening that so much energy is expended in what seems to me the wrong arena. Trying to stay on top of the kids at Heritage is exhausting, and trying to stay on top of the kids while simultaneously engaging in constant combat with one's coworkers is impossible. Something's got to give, and I’ve heard several of the teacher's comment that the quality of their planning and assessment is suffering.

In addition, few of the teachers seem satisfied with the efforts of the new principal. It is his second year, and I've often heard them complain that he doesn't support them, particularly when it comes to disciplinary issues. Again, I don't feel I'm in a position to point fingers at anyone, nor have I had the chance to hear Mr. D's side of it. He seems to me to be a man whose heart is in the right place, but he reminds me a bit of Obama in that he's young, inexperienced, and has inherited a huge number of problems. All eyes are on him to solve them all, immediately and finally. I can't imagine teaching at a school in which I had anything less than complete confidence in the principal. At a school like Heritage, where the task of education is particularly challenging, it becomes even more important to have faith in one's leader.

Putting the brrrr in "bring it on"

Today it was finally cold enough to test out the cold weather running gear I got for my birthday a little over a month ago. We had our first snow last night (!!!) and when I set out around noon it was in the mid-30's. All of my new stuff held up great, and I was really pleased. Sorry the picture is a bit dark - I used the self-timer on my camera rather than subject any of my hallmates to a sweaty, post-run photo shoot.

Starting on top is a fleece ear warmer my grandparents gave me. It's great because the top of my head doesn't get too hot but my ears stay nice and toasty. My earbuds fit right underneath. Next is a tank top which I already had; in colder weather, I'll put a long sleeved polypro. shirt over it. The green zip-up hoodie is from my parents. It has breathable vents (the gray parts) and several handy pockets. The hood is tight enough to stay on my head while I'm running, although it wasn't cold enough to need it today. My favorite part, however, is the sleeves. At the ends, the cuffs have thumb-sized holes so that part of my hand actually fits right inside the sleeve. You can see it if you look closely at the picture. This really helps, because my cotton gloves (gasp! I need better ones) don't do a great job. Lastly are my tights, which are more insulated than my original pair and go all the way down instead of stopping at mid-calf. They have zippers at the ankle for an even tighter fit, but I won't need those until it gets colder.

It was a good run. It feels really different in the cold and I'm still sort of adjusting to that. I deal with heat better than with cold, and the little gusts of wind that would sneak in occasionally weren't the best. At one point the wind really picked up and my face got pretty chilly. At the same time, it's quite invigorating. Instead of feeling sluggish the way I do on a hot day, the moment I step outside, my survival instincts kick in immediately. If I don't get going and keep going I'll be freezing, so the urge to stop for breaks pretty much vanishes. The trails are slightly less crowded than they are in summer too, and I expect they'll continue to thin out as the weather continues to cool off. And I can safely say, after wandering around midtown for half an hour last night in snow, whipping winds, and 27-degree temperatures, that running in the cold is much better than walking in it.

Bringing up baby

Some of my fondest memories are of going with my dad to pick something up at the clinic over the weekend or after closing. The halls were empty, and my brother and I would cavort around on oversized crutches, maneuver the wheelchairs gleefully fast around corners, and pretend to dance with the real skeleton my dad has hanging from a metal frame in his office. It didn't occur to me until much later that none of this was really typical. Somehow, the skeleton came up once in adolescent conversation, and I was pelted with a chorus of "Ew, your dad has a dead guy in his office???"

I guess we all think our childhoods are pretty normal while we are still working through them. I was reflecting on this today while sitting in my language development lecture. My professor talks about his daughter frequently, providing lots of examples of the speech she produced at different stages of her life among other anecdotes. Today, he told us about studying Hawaiian pidgin on the islands for a month, and, as a sidenote, mentioned that his daughter had taken a class in pidgin and soaked it up like a sponge. She is, I think somewhere around 9 or 10 years old, and spent her formative linguistic years being tape recorded by not only adoring but also inquisitive parents, who both cooed over and analyzed every babble. A slide presented in today's lecture really drove home how weird it is for a kid to have parents who aren't, well, normal. We were learning about different methods of measuring brain waves, something my neurology class has already covered, so I was sort of drifting when this picture appeared 6 feet high on the screen:

Lily probably thinks this is perfectly normal. I mean, everyone's parents stick sensors all over their heads and make EEG images of their brain activity, right? I'd love to be there the day she has the revelation that no, her childhood was a long way from typical.

Talkin' bout my education

Every good teacher learns from his/her students. Today, for example, I learned a great deal from Lorraine, a rowdy freshman at Heritage. I had taught her the word "befuddle" the day before, so it was only fitting that she teach me the useful phrase "dead as" today. For those of you not as hip to urban slang as I, "dead as" is an expression synonymous with "I truly mean what I have just said," or "I wholeheartedly agree." For example:

Dick: Dat movie last night was off da hook!

Jane: Dead as.

Skip: I 'uz up all night and I be tired as fuuuuck. Dead as.

Principle vs. Practice

Below is a blog post I typed up for my fellowship at Heritage. We're required to post on a communal blog once every two weeks or so to keep the coordinators of the fellowship abreast of what we're doing.

"I keep reading that effective methods of teaching vocabulary involve more than just requiring students to memorize definitions. Apparently, even writing the words in sentences isn't even enough. Students should see the word in multiple contexts. They should experiment with derivatives of the word. They should learn about roots and affixes and connect words' structures and meanings to those of other words they've studied. All of this, of course, takes time and lots of careful, explicit instruction. However, from what I've been reading, depth of knowledge is much more important than breadth, making the effort to teach it right effort well spent. Students learn about words when they're instructed in this way (instead of simply learning words), and they gain skills to help them continue to acquire vocabulary in other settings.

"I saw firsthand how important it is to provide students with context and thorough definitions at Heritage. Ms. P. gives the students lists of eight words every week or so. The definitions they learn are purposely brief to make them easy to remember, but often they don’t manage to convey the complexity of a word's meaning. Ms. P. gives the students one or two examples when introducing the word, and then the students complete a vocabulary packet. On this particular day, one of the words was "pretentious." Ms. P. told the students that it meant "fake," and explained that people like Paris Hilton were pretentious, and so were people who had lots of plastic surgery and wore large, flashy jewelry. 'Hey!' yelled a girl from the back row, 'Michael Jackson got a pretention nose!' Sigh."

Local flavor

Spotted today while walking home from Heritage: An elderly Asian couple walking a cat through the park. The biggest cat I have ever seen. On a leash.

That's why New York's my home

In a supremely dorky move (or a supremely frugal one, or possibly both) I found myself checking out lots of cds from the Visalia public library this summer. I had a great time loading them on to my computer and bolstering certain genres. Mostly I found some wonderful classical music, but a compilation I stumbled upon called "New York Songs" seemed like just the thing to pysch me up for my upcoming move. It's a great cd, full of older, classic songs that celebrate my new locale. In one of my favorites, Sammy Davis Jr. compares New York to Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Hollywood, and notes that although other cities all have their charms, New York trounces all of them. The chorus goes, "That's why New York's my home, let me never leave it, New York's my home sweet home."

I find myself making similar comparisons as I ride the incomparable Bolt Bus (clean, spacious, and equipped with wireless Internet!) back to NYC after a wonderful few days in Boston. I've always liked Boston, and was disappointed that my search for potential grad. schools this time last year didn't turn up any I was interested in around the Boston area. It would have been fun, I thought, to live there for a while. Now that I'm settled in New York and have visited Boston a few times, I've concluded that New York was absolutely the better choice.

While New York has its snobby areas, you can always find a gritty character or two even on Fifth Avenue or the Upper East Side, evening things out and making you feel a little better about not being dressed to the nines. Obviously, Boston is a diverse city and has its rough neighborhoods just like New York does. But Boston seems to be more segmented in that certain types of people seem to stick around certain parts of town almost exclusively. Some people might cite that as a boon, but I happen to like a little variety when I people-watch. New Yorkers can be pretentious, true, but in a more worldly way than Bostonians, somehow, which I find far more appealing. And in Boston, you can't pass the time you spend waiting for the T counting rats on the tracks because there aren't any (rats, not tracks), making the subway a far superior mode of transportation despite the grime. Boston is colder and grayer than New York, and I use that phrase to describe both the weather and the general demeanor of the people I encounter there. Some of my dearest friends are native Bostonians, but I'm beginning to suspect that they are exceptions.

I have to agree with Sammy's parting words: "So save your money, save your railroad fare, 'cause when you leave New York, you don't go anywhere."

Not ladies' night

Recently, I went to a trivia night organized for students of all of the Columbia graduate schools – TC, business, architecture, social work, etc. I arrived to find a packed room, bags and bags of salty, crunchy toothsome treats, and two glistening kegs of beer. What really took my breath away though was the number of males in the room. Probably only 30% or so of those in the crowded room were women. TC is 75% women, and I didn't realize how much I'd gotten used to that environment. It was borderline overwhelming; it almost reminded me of coming back from Japan and hearing English from so many different directions simultaneously. I wonder if that's what it feels like to go from an all-girls' high school to a co-ed college. Girls taught in single-sex environments supposedly come out more confident, but they must have some advantage I don't because I felt borderline panicky for the first few minutes.

Once I had regained my composure, I focused on helping my team to stay hot on the heels of the winners up until the last round, when we dropped to 3^rd place. (Who pays attention to current events anyway?) I think 3^rd place when you're competing against other Columbia grad. students is pretty respectable, frankly. We had a fantastic time, and I've got my fingers crossed that another trivia night will happen soon.

The Pitter-patter of Scaly Little Feet

I've made something of a habit of looking for rats on the subway tracks. They're not exactly swarming all over the place; I see one only once every few trips. I'm sort of grimly fascinated by them, and don't recoil, as many do, when I see one scurrying between the rails, stopping to sniff at pieces of refuse in search of food. I track their progress until they're swallowed up by darkness again. They're sort of endearing in a way.

This was before the other day, when I had gotten off of the train was headed toward the turnstile. A medium-sized brown rat came tearing around a corner, dodging people (who were just as enthusiastically dodging him) as he went. As I said, I like rats, but I have learned that I like them from a distance. It seems that I'm not ready to push my relationship with them to the next level.

The Age of Aquarius

Every two weeks or so, TC makes a limited number of discounted tickets to a particular Broadway show available to students. I didn't see the first few ("Westside Story": seen it; "Wicked": not really interested; "In the Heights": huh?) but when I saw posters for tickets to "Hair," I was one of the first in line. My friends Crystal and Jacqui and I went to see it together on a Sunday afternoon.

I had seen the movie, and although Eddie warned me that the musical is quite different, I hadn't expected it to be SO different. Even going into it with background knowledge, I still had trouble following the plot, which wasn't really introduced until there had been about 20 minutes worth of scene-establishing songs and developed very slowly over the next hour and a half. I liked the movie's interpretation better because it was easier to follow (which indicates, I guess, that I am bound by the rigid structures imposed upon me by The Man and therefore learned nothing from "Hair").

That said, I loved it. The music has been running through my head continuously since then and has yet to get annoying. Not only was the music played live, the musicians were actually on the stage in front of the backdrop. Some of them were even perched on an antique pick-up truck-turned-stage. The actors were all young and energetic and startlingly talented. They used not only the surface of the stage as a performance space but the aisles as well, even up in the nosebleed section where we frugal TC theatergoers were sequestered. They handed out flowers and danced with audience members. At the end of the show, the audience was encouraged to come up onto the stage and dance with the cast.

Take that, whitey.

Below, observe country music star Taylor Swift:

At Heritage on Tuesday, two of my favorite girls had an urgent, whispered conversation punctuated with swift glances in my direction and audible repetitions of "Should we tell her?" Spidey Senses a-tingling, I sauntered over and asked them what on earth had them so worked up. "Miss," said Negla, "You know who Taylor Swift is?" My pop culture IQ qualifies me as severely handicapped, yet trainable. I replied that I'd heard of her somewhere, for some reason. "You know what she looks like, Miss?" Negla pressed. I replied in the negative. "You look like her," Negla proclaimed, Chelsea nodding emphatically at her side.

Now Ms. Swift is an undeniably attractive young lady, and I can't say that I was particularly offended by this comparison (after Googleing her later that afternoon to find out who the hell she was, of course). However, claiming that I look like her is, putting it mildly, a stretch.

There's an age-old stereotype that all Asians look alike. So, some say, do all black people. And Mexicans. And Indians. And (insert additional non-white groups here). Heritage doesn't have a single white student. Could it be that minorities think we all look alike? I guess there aren't that many white people running around their neighborhoods, and maybe the similarity is more striking to them than it is to me.

I'm just grateful that, if my students do indeed fail to see major differences between white people, they didn't point out my striking resemblance to Chelsea Clinton, or a pre-Trim Spa Anna Nicole Smith.

Tony makes an offer I can't refuse.

Of course, an offer to come hang out with me (and with Jeff, and Kyle, two of his high school friends) is pretty hard to refuse, particularly when there are decadent dinner plans and promises of good bottles of wine in the mix. After a Saturday night at a French restaurant in the East Village, I met up with the three boys on Sunday morning for a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We walked from Jeff's apartment, which took ages (no one seemed to know where we were going, despite that fact that our party contained two geologists, who I'd always assumed knew how to find their way around, as well as two iPhones). It was worth it though. The picture above is taken with Manhattan behind us and Brooklyn in front.

This is the Manhattan Bridge. Although we had trouble finding the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge, we seemed to come across the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge every few blocks. This should give you an idea of the straightness of our trajectory.

This is looking back at Manhattan after we'd crossed the halfway point. The bridge takes about 20 minutes to get across. The weather was unbelievably gorgeous - high 60's and clear. Unfortunately, New Yorkers are no dummies, and it was pretty crowded walking across as everyone scrambled to take advantage of the unseasonal weather.

Well, it was mostly clear. If you peer into the hazy area to the left of the buildings, you can just make out an unimpressive darkish protrusion that is actually the Statue of Liberty. This picture is a testament to the beauty of New York, and also my inability to adequately control exposure on my camera.

Anthony was delighted to take this picture with me. He did not once threaten to throw my camera off the bridge if I took one more picture, or suggest that an action shot of him strangling me would be a nice way to remember our afternoon. The Sears Tower and the Chrystler Building are behind us. (You may have to take my word for this.)

The intrepid explorers arrived in Brooklyn at last, famished, and staggered into a breakfast joint Jeff was fond of to land ourselves at the bottom of a 45-minute wait list. Nothing a few bloody Marys didn't fix, however, and there was a pool table and an outstanding live band (yes, at breakfast-time on a Sunday) as well as plenty of people who are way hipper than I'll ever be to gawk at. All of this served nicely to pass the time until we were seated and could inhale our meals. Above, admire Jeff's form as he flags down a cab for our much quicker and much more expensive trip back to Manhattan.

A great visit from Anthony, and a great time in NYC.

"Don't it always seem to go..."

"...that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?" Well Joni, I'm doing my best to appreciate my idyllic walk to Heritage. Twice a week, spend 40 minutes walking two miles to Heritage High and another glorious 40 walking back. (It's generally more glorious walking back because I'm glowing with the assurance that I haven't been liberated of any personal possessions by my young charges, our Hope for Tomorrow.) Here are some pictures from my pleasant commute:

I spend all but about four blocks walking through either Morningside or Central Park. In the mornings it's generally pretty quiet, and in the afternoons people are walking children and dogs and partners and friends along the sidewalks. I enjoy both settings.

One of my favorite things about the walk is the opportunity to listen to podcasts and lectures (of my choosing, from the Learning Company and NOT by my professors) on my iPod. It's great to be learning something that I'm not going to have to write a paper about later.

Alas, as this entry's title indicates, I know my strolling days are numbered. The bus, which I can catch four blocks from my building and which stops literally outside the high school, takes about 30 minutes and costs $2.25 each way. It's loud and crowded and rather reminiscent of one of the lower circles of Hell which Dante describes so vividly. Nothing short of seriously perilous weather would get me to board that thing, but, alas, that's just what's coming in a few short weeks. In the meantime, I'll try to keep Joni Mitchell's wise words (ungrammatical though they may be) in mind and savor each walk as though it were my last of the season.

Chris Milam

Chris Milam is a friend of mine from Vanderbilt. Freshman year, we were lab partners in our loathed astronomy class and would occasionally attend Vandy basketball games together. Chris is originally from Memphis, and despite the fact that he adores the South (and has the same tolerance for northern climes as a hothouse orchid) he has moved to NYC recently to further his career as a singer/songwriter.

Chris was considerate enough to play a show at a venue on Columbia's main campus last night, which, from a commuter's perspective, was great for me. He's a very good performer. His real talent, though, lies in writing lyrics that are at once witty and profound, painstakingly crafted and spontaneous, and always real. I've always admired his way with words, but a few minutes in a coffeehouse with the average young male singer/songwriter makes him infinitely more appreciate-able. (See, Chris would probably never write a word like "appreciate-able. I told you he was good.) The guy that played before him last night was decent enough, but his songs were essentially strings of cliches set to music. I found I could predict his next line about 75% of the time based on the rhyme scheme. Chris's music is anything but predictable.

As a final thought, these are the kinds of things that happen in New York. People who have no real business crossing my path again for any logical reason are always visiting for the weekend, here for an interview, moving in, or whatever. Living in the city is expensive, but it's certainly saving me lots of plane tickets and tanks of gas: my visitors come to me.

Run, marathoners, run

I went to watch part of the NYC marathon on Sunday with my friend Jacqui and her boyfriend Jake (who has a Tennessee accent which made me very nostalgic). There was a possibility that it would rain, but it ended up being just overcast, which was good news for the runners and spectators alike. The day was perfect for running: not too cold, no glaring sunlight, and pretty fall foliage to look at.

The marathon route takes runners through all five boroughs. It begins in Staten Island (getting there in the morning is apparently a huge pain because it involves taking a ferry) and ends in Central Park. We couldn't get anywhere near the finish line, but we watched from about mile 20 for a while, then moved to a chute beyond the finish line. Each runner who finished got a medal and a reflective blanket – it gets chilly the second you stop running when you are all sweaty.

It was really inspirational to watch. We saw several runners spot people along the sides of the course who had come to watch them run, and it was great to see their faces light up as their loved ones cheered them on. Some spectators had signs, and most took pictures as people jogged by. One girl was running in yellow tights, a yellow long-sleeved shirt, a yellow hat with bear ears, and a red t-shirt that said "Will Run 4 Huny." Fun idea, but I'll bet being dressed as Winnie the Pooh got hot after a while… Another guy was running in a Minnie Mouse dress. For the most part, though, there weren't a whole lot of costumes (although there were lots of t-shirts with clever phrases on them). Lots of jerseys had the names of different countries on them; apparently this was a pretty international event. Some people had written their first names along their arms or on their shirts, which was a great idea because then the people in the crowd cheered them on by name. It's not a foolproof system, though. Jacqui yelled, "Go Oliver!" and looked a little embarrassed when I pointed out that I don't think "Olivier" is pronounced that way.

Jacqui ran a marathon once, and so talking to her about it was interesting. I got answers to burning questions such as "Didn't you get tired?" and "What happens when you have to pee?" and "No, seriously, weren't you, like, WAY tired?" Jacqui said she loved doing it, but was unlikely to do one again. Honestly, I've never been interested in doing one before Sunday. It's something I might consider now.

Halloween in the big city

Halloween this year was a two-night affair. I went, in costume, to a club in midtown with some girls from TC on Friday night, and on Saturday night I went to the annual Halloween parade in the East Village before meeting my friend Eddie at a house party in Harlem.

This, alas, is the only picture I have of my wearing my costume, so I am posting it despite my not-so-fetching expression. I was a Freudian slip (get it?). Below, by the way, is a picture of my Krazy Glue-covered fingers after sticking the letters onto my slip. Eddie, to my left, was a homicidal maniac, although by the time I met up with him he'd gotten rid of most of his costume, which apparently was cumbersome. Eddie and I taught English together in Japan, and it's great to be in the same city he is again. To my right is Jake, whom I met for the first time at the party. I believe he went as a slacker, since his costume consisted solely of that mask.

I got only one or two good pictures from the parade. It was dark and so most of them came out blurry. (I eschew flashes.) It was really crowded despite the pouring rain – thank goodness I thought to bring an umbrella and wear boots – so I can only imagine how many people must show up for this thing when the weather's good. Anyone who wanted to could walk in the parade, and my little group chose to do that rather than standing on the sidelines just watching it all go by. It was a good choice, I think: It kept us moving (and therefore warm) and made things much more interesting. Among some of the more memorable costumes we saw: Barack and Michelle Obama, balloon boy (Falcon, the kid whose parents claimed to have sent him up in a homemade balloon), several Tetris pieces accompanied by the theme song on someone’s iPhone, a bowl of ramen noodles complete with chopsticks, a FemBot, a piece of bacon, Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, Popeye and Olive, Salvador Dali, and Andy Warhol. I was surprised to see only one Michael Jackson.

The party was in an incredible three-story brownstone in Harlem. Apparently Eddie knows a few of the guys who live there from college. It was a typical house party – fun, but nothing too exciting. All in all, it was a fun Halloween, and this was definitely my favorite costume yet.

Security

"No Radio, Beeper, Camera, Cellular, GPS - NOTHING IN CAR!!"

Fall hike

Today I went on a hike with the Columbia Hiking Club along where the old Dunneburg Spiral Railway used to be in upstate New York. After 4 1/2 hours of enjoying the breathtaking foliage, we went apple picking before heading back to school. I picked about 4 lbs. of apples, and ended up with an apple turnover and a few cider doughnuts as well. Mmmmm, delicious fall!

Problems in academia: Solved at TC

Those of you who have been out of the classroom for a while possibly don't remember what the average college professor is like. Many schools put pressure on their professors to conduct research and publish a set number of articles/books in a given time period. Most professors are also required to serve as advisors to students. It's understandable, then that many are not good teachers; they are juggling a lot of priorities, and staying up late to read about classroom methods is not at the top of their lists. Add to this the fact that some are interested only in the research side of things and teach a class or two because that's the only way the university will keep them on staff, and you get a recipe for, well, the stereotypical college professor. It's been my experience that the ones in the sciences are particularly bad.

Not so at TC. Just like (mostly) at Peabody, Vanderbilt's school of ed., the professors know how to teach because, well, that's what they teach. My advisor, mentor, and professor Dr. Masullo, for example, has a knack for pausing right after she's said something important, and has yet to start making another point until the very instant I've finished writing down the gist of her last comment. I'm not the only one whose note-taking timing matches up with her lecture style either apparently, because she's hardly ever asked to repeat what she just said. She somehow manages to be both light and informative at the same time, and backs up her lectures with useful study guides and relevant video clips.

Just one more thing to like about TC.

Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, came to speak at Columbia today. I tried to read a bit about him before going, wanting a bit of background, but Wikipedia (my scholarly source for all information) was surprisingly tight-lipped about him. The article talked about his biography but didn't say a thing about his philosophy. I know more about Michelle Ree, the superintendent of D.C. schools who didn't actually get chosen to be the secretary of education. So I was particularly interested in hearing what he had to say.

In introducing Duncan, Susan Fuhrman, the president of TC, went over some of his more impressive feats while he was superintendent of Chicago schools – huge increases in student achievement and graduation rates, tripled applications for teaching positions in the district, etc. Impressive, but I have to say I'm a little put out that he's never taught himself and has had only administrative and policy-making experience.

Some of his more memorable points:

-Schools of education (not TC of course) are doing an inadequate job of preparing teachers for the classroom.

-Schools of education are the "Rodney Dangerfields" of the academic world because they "get no respect."

-Universities often use schools of education as "cash cows," collecting lots of tuition from education students and redirecting it to more expensive (and more academically impressive programs) like chemistry, physics, etc.

-Approves of teacher training programs that have students in real classrooms, not lecture halls, as much as possible.

-Would like to see continuous, valuable professional development in schools where experienced teachers serve as mentors.

-Stressed that money is not the best way to reward good teachers and schools, although it is a small factor, and that more important to teacher satisfaction are things like adequate time for group planning and student assessment, high quality administrators who give them full support, and the resources they need to do their jobs.

Hard to argue with any of that, really. Very like a politician, except that he didn't feel slimy like some politicians can.

For the full transcript of his speech (or the webcast), follow this link: http://www.tc.edu/duncanwebcast.