2011: A DC Odyssey

Midnight in Paris, J'taime

2012-02-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

In spite of my love of movies, celebrities, fashion and E! anchors interacting awkwardly with famous people, I do not, in fact, love awards shows. I find they usually go on too long and they are one event for which I am okay just looking up the score later. No, it's not clear why award shows fall into this category and Presidential debates do not. But so it goes.

However, having watched almost all of the movies represented at the Oscars this year, I was eager to see who the winners and losers were, and, of course, discuss them with people. Turns out one of my classmates has pretty much exact opposite taste in movies than me. He loved Hugo; I thought it was pretentious. He hated The Artist; I thought it was brilliant. And on we went. One that I was particularly surprised by was his strong dislike for Midnight in Paris. He said he found it cheesy, misogynistic and pedantic. I granted him the misogynistic piece - I'm beginning to think Woody Allen used up all of his ability to write an interesting female character in one go with that Annie Hall lady - but the rest?! No no no.

Maybe you had to have been a very particular kind of literature nerd to enjoy that movie - as in, you don't just love reading, you were in fact the kid who would read a book before bed and then could not stop thinking about how much you wish lived in that book. You have thought to yourself, "I'm almost positive Jane Austen didn't marry because she created Mr. Darcy and then there was just nowhere to go from there." (Hypothetically. Someone could have thought that. I would imagine.)

Because, yes, I was that particular kind of book geek, and I felt that Woody Allen must be one, too. Because the way he imagined diving into those worlds, it was so picture perfect the way all of us book geeks have imagined our heavens looking.

I grew up reading Enid Blyton. In particular, she wrote all these books about girls at boarding school, taking them from Form 1 to Form 6. It was like pre-Harry Potter, minus the magic, with a lot more field hockey. And tinned sardines. Anyway, when I finished reading the Malory Towers series, I remember crying myself to sleep - it was as if, in finishing the series and realizing there were no more to be read, it only then became official that I would not, in fact, be going from Meiners Oaks Elementary straight to Malory Towers in Cornwall. And up to that point, that was more or less the plan. Even though I hated being away from my parents, field hockey, and most definitely tinned sardines.

Somehow I feel like Woody had some of those nights, too. So I think I'm in good company.

Home Schooling

2012-02-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

There was a pretty large homeschooling contingent at my undergrad. One of the features of going to a Christian institution. It wasn't necessarily a good or bad thing but...you could definitely tell who the homeschool kids were. Voice just a little too loud? Clothes just a little...off? There's a reason. Now, I should say, a chunk of my own family homeschools, with great success, and I also know some other people personally who came out of homeschooling well-adjusted, happy, super smart and generally lovely people. But someone just recently posted this link on my facebook, which lays out the top 12 reasons to homeschool. I think almost all of them are more good guidelines for how public schools need to adapt than anything else. And some are just wrong. So now, given my love of lists and public education, I am going to go through them.

1. Learning is customized not standardized

My goodness why is this not true everywhere? As Rick Hess has pointed out, the utopian worldview of edu-folks has led to "a 'differentiated instruction' community which offers a strategy of reform predicated on the notion that, if every teacher is exquisitely trained and does everything just right, it's possible to effectively teach children of highly variable achievement levels together in a single classroom." As he (I think) rightly points out, this is a pipe dream. BUT that doesn't mean that every child should not be receiving an education that is tailored to their levels of ability. It just means we need to stop thinking about it in a single-teacher-30-student model.

2. Associate with those you enjoy rather than those who share your birth year

Again, there is no reason why we structure schools the way we do, based on birth year alone. Social promotion has done no favours for urban schools, and actually leads to some of the problems in item (1). However, this is also a point where I fundamentally disagree with the list. One of the things the author states as an advantage for home school is that, "At home children can choose to be with those whose company they enjoy."

This is great for them. Until they leave their bubble and oh wow most of us have to spend large chunks of every day with people whose company we do not in the least enjoy. Or even just people we could take or leave. Dealing with these people is a skill one should absolutely develop, and however homeschool parents may think they are replicating it with their own children (church, play groups, homeschool groups, etc) there is just nothing to replace being stuck in a room with someone you don't care for for 6-8 straight hours. Welcome to life.

3. Freedom to learn with their tools

Again, I wish this were true in public schools. But fortunately, I think this one is slowly changing. As we learn more about mobile technology, more districts are incorporating laptops, cell phones and tablets into their curricula. Also, an advantage of learning about these tools in a school setting is that you encounter a variety of views about the use of them - some teachers will want them in every class, others will want them put away immediately. Hey, it's almost like how in the real world, you will have some bosses who will check their blackberries 18 times per meeting and find it unprofessional of you not to answer emails at 8 PM, and other bosses who will demand everyone shut phones down as soon as a meeting starts. It's almost like school is a training ground for life or something, and dealing with many different kinds of people, who may or may not align with your own style, is part of the training.

4. Socialize with those who share your passions not just your zip code

See item (2). Almost exactly the same, except instead of "end social promotion", my point is "utilize the internet".

5. Real life measures are better than bubble tests

Okay, I can't respond to this one without just directly quoting the reasons the author gives for homeschooling being superior on this point:

"In school we measure students success with bubble tests and response to prompts. At home we measure success by what children accomplish that matters to them. Some teens like Leah Miller have developed their own personal success plan. She sets her goals and then assesses her success in meeting them."

First of all, excellent point on the bubbling. That is absolutely not how we should measure students, and we absolutely should have measures that are important to them and relevant to their future. But I'm not sure that a "personal success plan" is right either. Again, let's imagine, if we could, that school is some kind of training ground for real life. While if you work for Google, you might be allowed to imagine your own success and judge yourself on it, this is not the norm. In pretty much every other job, there are external goals and deadlines you have to meet, regardless of whether or not they match your "personal success plan". But I think probably homeschoolers do a better job of balancing the relevant/irrelevant goals than public schools do. We should fix that.

6. Don’t just read about doing stuff. Do stuff!

Maybe if certain people (homeschoolers love Republicans, by the by) stopped cutting off funding for public schools or demanding all funding go to increasing reading and math scores, public schools could do this, too.

7. Travel when you want

See item (6). Also, one of the points that the author makes is that often public school schedules don't make sense for family travel plans. There is no reason why public schools need to maintain an outdated schedule designed to aid the agricultural cycle.

8. You are more than a number

Here is the quote from the list: "In school the only things students have to show for their work are numbers and graphs known as report cards, transcripts, or data reports." Given that this list was written by a public school administrator, I have to ask...what on earth is she telling her teachers? That should absolutely not be all children have to show for their work. And I don't think it is, in the vast majority of schools, where the vast majority of teachers are competent and hard-working. If this administrator is seeing her students going home with only "report cards, transcripts or data reports", she should do something about that.

9. Do work you value

The vast majority of teachers work really hard to ensure that the work their students are doing is meaningful and valuable to them. Unfortunately, "accountability" for teachers has gotten translated to "test scores" and teachers are forced to do a whole lot of meaningless test prep. On this one, both parties are to blame. We have not figured out a really good way to hold teachers accountable. But fortunately, I think this one is coming along, as well. Denver is doing neat things, NYC schools have recently adopted a more equitable evaluation system that will allow teachers to do more than "teach to the test"...we're slowly figuring out how to do it.

I should note, the author of the list opens it up by saying, "Education reform is happening today, but it’s slow and often ineffective. Parents need to do what is in the best interest of their children, right now." So she sort of speaks to this point. However, getting actively involved in your child's education (finding out who the best teachers at your school are, checking their homework, contacting teachers if you feel your child needs enrichment, etc) can tap into great resources that are available at almost every school. It should also be noted that most homeschool parents are not pulling their kids out of inner-city schools. They are more likely to be whiter, higher-educated, higher-income and religious. Ie not Title I school material.

10. Independence is valued over dependence

This is starting to get a little repetitive, so I'll just say...same basic point. Public schools do need to work on having more independent, student-driven learning experiences. At the same time, getting used to accommodating the learning/working needs of others is part of life, and working toward other people's goals and deadlines is just a reality.

11. You don’t have to waste learning time with standardized tests

Overall, of course, I agree with this. See item (9). But the author says, "In school students and their teachers are spending a large percentage of their time preparing for tests and testing even though test have little to no role in real life. My last test was more than a decade ago. How about you?". Uh...sorry lady, my last "test" was yesterday. And no, not because I'm in school. Because "test" doesn't mean just standardized tests. It means performing in high pressure situations. I had to write a memo to send out to a whole department at work in less than an hour. I had to sit through a meeting and take notes and use those notes to sound like I knew what I was talking about with my boss. Standardized tests in their current form, unfortunately, don't have a whole lot to do with real life. But the process of performing on command is absolutely part of real life...unless maybe you're an administrator?

12. No more meaningless worksheets and reports

Amen amen. I think 90% of public school teachers would agree with you. Now, Ms. Administrator, if you could just take care of all the discipline issues in every classroom so that every teacher could concentrate on meaningful, engaging activities with his or her students, that would be great. Thanks.

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

2012-02-16T11:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, after a few days of blog-detox post-challenge, I am ready to go back to writing. I will certainly not be posting every single day (nobody wants that) but I will, I hope, be posting much more regularly than I did pre-challenge. As in, I will be posting.

Today's post is also inspired by my classes, but in a much less rosy way. It has always confused me that professorship is viewed as the "pinnacle" of the teaching profession since, it would seem to me, it is in fact a totally different set of responsibilities and challenges. I thought about this quite often during my time in Newark, as I had a couple of friends who were pursuing Masters in English and were also teaching undergraduate courses. Sometimes they would try to commiserate. While I have the utmost sympathy for having to grade 20+ 15 page research papers, it is, in fact, nothing like managing a classroom of 20+ 7th graders. I'm not trying to place a value on which one is harder (the latter) or which one is less draining (the former). I'm just saying, they are totally different.

BUT if we are going to keep pretending like being a professor is the highest form of teaching, then here are some things I wish professors would learn from their "lesser" K-12 colleagues.

1. There are more ways to teach than a lecture. In your classroom, you have at least 3 different kinds of learners. Lecturing appeals to one of them. And the format of the lecture shouldn't be the same for each and every class - marching through your notes/outline is boring for you, and most likely boring for us, too.

2. Don't ask questions for your own benefit. Any K-12 teacher will tell you, doing "checks for understanding" should be to reinforce the student's understanding, not just to take your own lesson plan forward. One of my all-time professor pet-peeves is the "Let's play a fun mind-reading game!" problem. You know what I mean. When the professor asks a question like, "What do you think the most important element in this reading was?" and then proceeds to ignore, downplay or disagree with every answer until someone says the magic words. The magic words being whatever answer the professor already had in his or her head. That is a waste of everyone's time. As I learned in my 5 weeks of teacher preparation, questions should be to check for understanding, spur student reflection, or some combination. Maybe professors need a 5 week refresher, too.

3. Lessons should have measurable objectives. Professors of the world, your students can tell when you walk into class and you have absolutely no idea what you want to come out of the class or why, exactly, you even assigned the reading you did. It's annoying. It's a waste of time. It makes us all reflect on how much we're paying for tuition.

4. Grading should be transparent and easily understandable. This is especially true in a university setting, where the A versus A- distinction actually matters. It's unfair and frustrating to give little to no feedback and then assign an A-. Again, as I learned in my minuscule amount of pedagogical training, students should be able to articulate clearly and easily exactly why they earned the grade they did on any given assignment, and in the course or subject as a whole. The expectations and rubric should be so crystal clear that any disagreement can be solved by referencing those two things. I understand things get fuzzier as you move up in the academic spectrum. But the basic idea that grades shouldn't come out of the clear blue sky still holds, however old the students are.

5. Technology is a tool, not an end in itself. It's awesome that there's a smartboard in your room. If you know how to use it effectively, you totally should. But please PLEASE do not take 20 minutes of this class I paid for trying to figure out how to load your PowerPoint. Every time this happens in one of my classes, all I can think is, "you are so lucky you are teaching adults and not my kids in Newark - someone would definitely be in a fistfight by now."

Maybe that's how I can get some of these lessons across...start reacting like a 7th grader would.

Ok, first step: stop showering for a week. Work on my whine. See how many extra syllables I can squeeze into the phrase, "I have to go to the bathroo-oo-oo-oom. It's an emergency-y-y-y".

Come Together...but Probably Not Right Now

2012-02-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

Santorum won.

Santorum won.

Santorum won.

I don't know if I'm repeating that over and over to myself to make myself believe it, or in some sort of reverse-Wizard of Oz-type attempt to send myself to an alternative universe where it isn't true. Alas, I have no ruby slippers.

I've been going back and forth with people all day, trying to parse out whether this result is good for Romney, or Paul, or Obama, or none of the above. I'm really not sure. Colorado is the one that's really throwing me. Minnesota had crazy low turnout, Missouri didn't count, (except in the sense that spending $7 million of taxpayer money on a meaningless contest instead of schools or something else "counts"...) but Colorado. Colorado is supposed to be a reliable, bellweather-y type state, filled with Mormons. And Santorum got it. The other two I can justify as being good for Romney (breaking up the anti-Romney vote by drawing people away from Newt, making Romney look reasonable by comparison, etc.) but Mitt should have owned Colorado. He did actually spend some money there (though not as much as other places), Colorado is a bit more moderate and he was all over it in 2008. So this race just got interesting all over again.

So now on to the title of this post. Today in my Rivlin class, we talked about "core values" and polarization. First we made a list of core liberal vs. conservative values (with a sidebar for libertarians). In a class with 18 liberals and 1 conservative, this list was pretty amusing. I learned that apparently liberals are the ones who are for things like compassion, empathy, tolerance, and equality. And conservatives hate everyone and love the free market. Fortunately, although my professor is pretty far to the left, she makes a pointed effort to balance the discussion as much as possible. Even though one side is clearly wrong. She essentially made the case that most important policy issues involve a balancing of the two lists of values that we all hold dear (collective responsibility and personal responsibility; tolerance and justice for wrongdoing), rather than picking one side or the other.

But this is the problem I saw. One of the things on the list of "liberal" values was "Faith in experts/bureaucracy/government institutions", giving examples like the UN, climate change, czars etc. We talked about how liberals, even though they tend to favour personal freedom of choice for things like abortion and use of marijuana, also believe that it's right for the government to discourage overconsumption of sugar and cigarettes through heavy taxation and/or regulation. While these may seem in conflict, it is really a faith in experts and technocrats over individual choice if the evidence is strong enough. So then my professor said that she really believes that part of the way you solve gridlock and start working toward solution is to get everyone in the room to recognize and articulate the end goal, so that everyone can see we are working toward the same place, even if we want different roads to get there. The idea at that point is that you can get people to make a few compromises on the method because they are dedicated enough to achieving the overall mission.

In general, for most people, I buy this.

But.

If you have one side of the table holding lack of faith in experts and institutions as a core value, I just don't know how the discussion even gets started. For example, my mom and I watched this documentary called "Vaccine Wars" recently about the fight over mandated vaccines for children. In the interviews with the doctors and parents, it became clear they weren't even having the same discussion. The evidence is, quite simply, conclusive. If you accept a)the general rules of statistics (ie things like sample size (your 1/5/50 kids getting autism don't count as irrefutable evidence if there are tens of millions of kids with no symptoms and the other factors are fuzzy) and causal direction) and b) the expertise of institutions like the CDC and the NIH. Now once you accept the evidence...there isn't really an argument to be had. It's dangerous and stupid to not vaccinate your child. But if you don't accept things like huge studies with quality sample sizes and statistical controls as evidence, then there's really nothing to be done. It's unclear what would then count as evidence. And then...what? People on one side are wondering why we're even still having this argument (think climate change, regulating high fructose corn syrup, gun control), while the other side is demanding more "evidence" from institutions whose authority they are never going to accept anyway.

I'm getting frustrated just writing this.

Maybe this is why I work in education policy, where everything is fuzzy and nobody really knows if anything does or doesn't work for sure. Ah, the peace of uncertainty.

Caucus Coverage

2012-02-07T18:26:00.001-08:00

Very quick entry to just inform everyone that if you don't watch CNN coverage of caucuses, you absolutely should. Watching the likes of Wolf and John King trying to squeeze a story out of a bunch of people in a gym contributing and counting their 20 votes is just hilarious. The zoom-ins on the counting, the break down vote by vote of who's winning, the interviews with Minnesota voters...you have to see it to believe it.

True Age Test

2012-02-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

I remember for a while there was a little fad of "True Age" type IQ tests or physical tests or whatever that were supposed to tell you how old you really were, based on how long you could stand on one leg (thank you, Wii) or how fast you could answer questions. Those are all well and good, but here is how I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am a 90 year old woman on the inside.

1. I never remember anyone. Ever. Some friends and I have an incredibly awesome facebook group (it's secret and you can't be in it) in which we mostly bitch about how dumb other people are. Also, we are really mature. But anyway, a good portion of our posts are along the lines of, "Remember this person? Look at where they are now!"

I never remember who it is. Ever. I think maybe during high school I only saw my teachers and friends and whatever boy I was in love with at the time or something. But I remember no names or faces and if someone told me I was actually home schooled, I wouldn't have a whole lot of evidence to refute it. This is very related to Piece of Evidence #2.

2. The eras of my life are already getting blurred. I was listening to Marc Maron's podcast today, and he was talking about a recent visit to Boston, where he used to live, and how he kept running into people and not remembering if he knew them when he was in college, when he was older, when he was a kid, or what, and how at his age, he's gone through so many life stages that they all get put into one pot.

Apparently my age is already enough for me to do this. I recently saw someone on the street here in DC that I'm pretty sure I recognized, but didn't go up and talk to because I absolutely could not place if she was a California acquaintance, Texas, New York, DC...maybe the solution for me is to stop moving.

3. I don't like loud activities. The one exception to this is dancing. But other than that, my favourite things to do include reading, watching massive amounts of TV, jogging, listening to talk radio and podcasts, and shopping by myself with headphones (listening to talk radio and podcasts). I love love listening to music, but concerts...meh. People are so loud! With the yelling and the speakers! Also, get off my lawn!

4. I get sick all the time. Pretty sure any insurance company that actually evaluated my immune system would conclude I have the same expected costs as a senior citizen.

5. CNN tells me so. All of its ads are for erectile dysfunction, retirement plans, AARP auto insurance and mobility aids. Although they also seem to think there's a slim chance I'm just a Christian single looking for God's match for me/in the market for a fleet of airplanes. Little do they know, I'm a just a Wolf Blitzer fangirl.

Valentine's Day

2012-02-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

In case anyone had missed all the store decorations, candy everywhere and guilt- and shame-inducing commercials, Valentine's Day is coming. Time to buy stuff.

I realize it is a trope for single girls to say they "hate Valentine's Day". I have to admit...I said this. Every Valentine's Day. For the first 19 years of my life. But for the past 5 years, I have been hate-free. And let me tell you why.

1. I finally actually researched the other meaning of V-day for February 14th. I remember at my high school there would be random girls talking about this celebration and handing out lollipops, but I didn't really process. Then, my freshman year in college, I started volunteering at a domestic violence shelter, and we organized an official V-day event. My sophomore year, I baked vagina cookies and handed them around to people, spreading the good news that February 14th is about more than heart-shaped everythings and cheesy cards.

A Love That Lasts Forever

2. I got a long-term Valentine. Sophomore year, 5 of my girlfriends and I decided we were not waiting around for dates, and we went on wonderful dates with each other. My friend Lara and I drew each other's names and had quite possibly the best date of my life. We dressed up all fancy, went to dinner and then watched some horribly cheesy movie. That has become the tradition. Every year since then, at least one of us has been dating someone else (actually I think she's been dating someone else every year, and I've been dating someone else at least 2/5...) but we are always each other's Valentine. Last year and this year, we've been separated by half a country. But no matter! We skype and watch bad Netflix movies. As a side note, this kind of thing is probably what also made certain members of my family more or less convinced I was a lesbian. I guess I see where it might come from.

3. I decided to not let Hallmark determine my life. And I mean this in the opposite way of how bitter single girls usually mean it. Yes, Valentine's Day is something of an invented holiday. And yes, we do spend entirely too much money because someone tells us the time has come to be romantic. But really, almost every holiday was invented by someone, somewhere. There are super fundamentalist Christians who refuse to celebrate Christmas because it is not actually Jesus' birthday and the Romans just wanted to make it coincide with a pagan festival. I think this is ridiculous. It's a day we have arbitrarily chosen to celebrate the nativity and give each other fun presents and wear silly sweaters. I like all of those things, so I am going to celebrate the hell out of Christmas. If you've ever visited my house when I've had the chance to be part of decorating, you know this to be true. In the same way, February 14th is a day we've arbitrarily chosen to celebrate love and give each other candy and wear hearts and red and things. Red looks good on me, I love candy and I support people being in love. I will not let the fact that Hallmark makes a ridiculous profit deter me from celebrations.

4. February 15th. February 15th, chocolate suddenly becomes insanely cheap. And it is awesome.

Almost there

2012-02-03T19:45:00.000-08:00

I have 7 days left on this challenge. And boy howdy am I glad to be almost done.

While I have learned a lot about my own writing style (I like lists, parentheticals and dashes, and I dislike asymmetrical lists, transitions and embedding other forms of media), I have also learned that one 30 day challenge is enough for a lifetime. Nobody needs to write about his or her life and thoughts this often. So it was a good exercise, but not one to be repeated.

In other news, my dad gave me this book for Christmas that's a book of daily inspirations. I have really, really been enjoying it. And if you know me at all, you know how unlikely that is - I'm pretty quick to find something like that cheesy and unappealing. But there was this one passage that really caught my eye, and has been sticking with me for the past few days. It reads as follows:

"Wouldn't it be nice if love were like a cafeteria line? What if you could look at the person with whom you live and select what you want and pass on what you don't? What if parents could do this with kids? "I'll take a plate of good grades and cute smiles, and I'm passing on the teenage identity crisis and tuition bills."[...]It would be easier. It would be neater. It would be painless and peaceful. But...it wouldn't be love. Love doesn't accept just a few things. Love is willing to accept all things."

I'm sure everyone struggles with this to a certain degree, but I think I might have an issue just a little bit more than most.

I'm a problem solver. My parents used to listen to Dr. Laura (before she went all crazy political) and I remember she said once that if you wanted to talk about your problems and get an answer, talk to your husband, and if you wanted to talk about your problems and just commiserate, talk to your girlfriends. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that she was at least into gender politics the whole time, as she clearly enjoyed defining what men and women do. But anyway. I apparently listen like a man. I like to come up with a solution for people's problems, and I don't really understand the appeal of talking about them without brainstorming possible next steps. This drives some of my friends crazy, I know, but I can't help it. Well, let me rephrase that. I can help it. But then I would be frustrated and I am way too selfish for that.

So what does this have to do with cafeteria line love? It means that I have a hard time not wanting to give up on people when they don't fix the things that I clearly see they need to fix. And oh my goodness, I am so glad my friends don't do the same for me. In fact, I'm realizing as I write this (also learning from this entry that I don't think a lot of things through until I write them out...) that a common thread among my closest friends is that I get frustrated with them for being so accepting of people, even when I think they need to get madder or cut more people off. I guess they're in my life to show me that that is not how love works. And I am very glad they are. Even if I don't always learn the lesson.

Although I'm also watching a lot of Homeland, and learning that ANYONE CAN BE A TERRORIST. So there's that.

Groundhog Crazy

2012-02-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

First of all, my apologies for being two days behind. I was at work for almost 12 straight hours on Tuesday, and then had class for 8 straight hours on Wednesday. My brain was a little fried.

News updates:

1. I am doing an absolutely terrible job of keeping in touch with everyone. I am so sorry, everyone. The upside is that I am almost done with school! And then I will be able to be a person again!

2. I ran my first actual regressions with my data for my thesis. The results were significant!! This is a huge relief. This is in spite of the fact that teachers never ever seem to want to just admit they don't like their job. They will complain about all the individual aspects of it, but getting them to just say, "Oh and yeah, this job is overall unsatisfying" is nearly impossible. This implies a variety of issues, but for me, who is trying to prove that administrator attitudes are linked to whether or not teachers are satified with their jobs, this is a particularly big problem.

3. We have had a weird couple days of spring time-y weather around these parts. It's been amazing except, as I mentioned before, I've been stuck inside pretty much all day every day. So I guess what I mean is, "I hear it's been amazing."

And now for why I titled this post about groundhogs. I heard on CNN this morning that the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, predicted 6 more weeks of winter. More interestingly, I also learned that this tradition raises millions and millions of dollars for the local town and all the hotels in the area have been completely sold out for this weekend for the past 5 months or something insane and people have traveled from all over the country to see this groundhog come out of its hole.

...

How are we in a recession?

I am never one to support austerity measures, but for the low levels at which the American public believes the economy to be improving and believes themselves to be economically healthy, we sure are willing to shell out for a groundhog. A groundhog who is not even that accurate. He's right 39% of the time...he would do better by random chance.

So I support all these people spending and fueling the economy of this Pennsylvania town. But then, please don't say the President has done nothing for the economy. You're paying a ridiculous amount of money to go see a rodent make an inaccurate prediction about weather patterns. That's a luxury if I've ever heard one.

Or, if your wallet really is hurting, flipping a coin will actually give you a more precise reading on the future. Plus you can keep the coin.

This Obsessed American (Life)

2012-01-30T16:05:00.000-08:00

I fully realize that I have linked to podcasts way too many times. But I'm going to keep doing it because podcasts really are one of the best inventions of the last 10 years. It's a free way to hear people talking about really interesting things that you can take with you and listen to whenever it's convenient. Brilliant.

So on This American Life this week, the theme was "Reap What You Sow". The first act was about the Alabama immigration law, HB56, which is the strictest in the nation. The idea of it is actually the same as Romney's "self-deportation" idea. Essentially, let's make life so so miserable for people that they choose to leave on their own. In the podcast, they talk about immigrants who can't get protective orders from abusers, can't send money to relatives, can't get their water turned on, all because they involve some kind of contact with some kind of citizen and thus require proof of citizenship.

Surprisingly, given my overall way-to-the-left political leanings, I'm a little conflicted on this issue. I think I was highly affected by two things. First, my own mother had to go through the immigration process, and it was really hard and they were not very nice to her (or so I've heard), so it bothers me that some people just skip it all together. Second, I remember staying after school once and chatting to my high school Spanish teacher, whose family had moved to the States from Mexico when she was young. This had apparently been a very scarring experience for her - it ripped her family apart, it took forever, and they were discriminated against when they got here. She actually still had members of her family (some 20+ years later) who were waiting for visas back home. She was very, very in favour of harsher punishment for illegal immigrants.

Now, part of me says, "Well, that's why we don't let the murderer's victim's family decide the appropriate punishment - it's understandable that she would have strong views, but that is one side of bias, and there is always more than one side." But part of me says, "But...yeah, why would we reward people for cheating?"

However.

This whole "self-deportation" idea is a terrible one. It's inhumane, it's unAmerican, it's inefficient and it punishes lots and lots of innocent bystanders. It reminded me of Germany's approach to driving the Jews out before they opened up the labour camps - just make life miserable so they'll want to leave on their own. Ok, ok, I know I just pulled the Holocaust comparison and that is totally unfair because the Jews were not doing anything illegal by being Jewish.

However. (Again.)

I think heading down the road where we stop treating people as people is dangerous, regardless. And for a party that is so obsessed with the "Judeo-Christian values" infused into the Constitution, they are awfully willing to let Creator-endowed rights stop with citizenship. The right to be treated fairly and humanely, to be protected from abusers, to have a fair trial...either we believe those are rights from God or we don't. I do.

Thanks for the food for thought, Ira Glass.

Debates 4 Lyfe

2012-01-29T16:43:00.000-08:00

I went to a party last night and got sucked into a conversation with this guy I really didn't want to talk to - he seemed okay at first (worked on the hill, had an interesting background, was from the Midwest...I love people from the Midwest). But then he started doing this weird conversational tick that some people do, that I have never understood. He started bashing everything I said.

I told him I lived in Southwest. He said it was a shitty neighborhood that would maybe be cool in 10 years.

I told him I worked on the Hill for a while, too. He said the Senate side was a waste of time and nothing ever got done.

I told him I wasn't really into sports (even though this is isn't strictly true anymore...). He said people who don't like sports are just pretentious.

I told him I loved watching the Republican debates. He said I was wasting my time and that I probably didn't have any friends.

That was the last straw.

So two things on this exchange:

1) Why do people think it's funny to act this way in a conversation? It's maybe funny to take the contrarian, combative point-of-view for a couple issues, but it gets old really, really fast. And at some point...I do actually like all of those things, so if you really feel that way about all of them, then maybe we should just stop talking.

2) I LOVE DEBATES. His argument was that it was a waste of time because you could learn everything you needed to know by watching the coverage afterward. But why do people watch sporting events live? Because it's just more exciting that way. Yes, I know the clip of Newt yelling at John King is going to be played over and over again on every news network until the next debate. But I want to see it when it happens! Like that amazing football catch that will be on every highlight reel from now until the superbowl. You can see it on ESPN, sure. But it's so much better to see it happen right in front of your eyes. Also, I want to form my opinions on the debate before I hear what Rachel Maddow has to say about it. That way, if she agrees with me, I feel extra smart, and if she doesn't, it gives me food for thought. I don't know what the sports equivalent of this is, but I'm sure it exists.

So screw you, Guy at Party. And also, deepest apologies, Roommates. You're going to have to put up with a lot more debates before this is all over.

Crime and Punishment

2012-01-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

I have now had 2 different podcasts discussing the same idea, so I am taking it as a hint from the universe and discussing it here. Yes, The Universe has specific blog requests.

Just to get this out of the way, here are the links to the two podcasts. The first one I've already linked to in a previous post, but it's so good it gets a double-link.

1) Radiolab's "The Bad Show" episode. Discusses the Milgram experiments, sociopaths and other bad people type issues.
2) Start the Week's "Justice" episode. Discusses a new play about an international criminal, a survey about the youth's view of the police and the state of the prisons in the UK.

Both of these podcasts deal with this issue: what does justice look like? And both come to a similar conclusion: at the end of the day, most people don't care about a specific punishment, they care about understanding why a crime was committed.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Even as kids, when we're falsely accused, we're mostly interested in getting an apology, being vindicated - finding out why our parent or our teacher or whoever assumed we were the guilty party. I know as an adult, when I recently had my phone stolen, I was more fascinated with the psychology of how someone just takes something that isn't theirs than I was with reporting them to the police or anything like that.

A friend and I were recently watching this youtube video that Casey Anthony put out. It is really, really weird. Mostly because you can't see into her head at all. When OJ released his "how I did it" book, it was frustrating and kind of shockingly ballsy, but at least it confirmed that he did see what he did as a big deal. He was somewhat on the same page as the rest of us, in that sense. If you watch that video, you'll see...she is not even vaguely on the same page as the rest of us. She's chatting about her computer, about her day, about her new haircut. It's like she's just another one of those teenagers doing a really bad vlog. A vlog. But the point is, it is truly bizarre to feel like someone committed this horrible crime, and there was just no reason behind it. No floods of rage, no political aspirations, nothing. Just 100% random and a year later, she's over it. That is extremely unsatisfying and unsettling.

All of this also makes me think we need to take another look at our justice system. We focus 99.99% of our energy on making sure the punishment is correct - we refer to this as victim's rights, as true justice. But maybe true justice is getting to the bottom of why crime was committed in the first place. If someone commits a murder in the midst of a drug deal, is justice putting that person away for life, or figuring out and addressing why he or she was involved in a drug deal in the first place?

I should add, I feel a little weird writing this, given that I've never had anyone close to me involved in a violent crime. I'm sure I would feel differently if I did. But when I read how much money and time and energy we put toward punishing criminals, and how unsatisfied most victims' families end up feeling, I just think there has to be a better way.

And then I think for .15 seconds about going to law school.

And then I laugh at myself and get back to watching Brothers and Sisters.

Four More Beers!

2012-01-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

Let me just say, I love me some Obama. He's smart, he's articulate, he's darned good looking (a very rare presidential trait). In my politics and the media class, thought, we were discussing the "who do you want to have a beer with" question for the Republican candidates. Obviously, the overwhelming favourite was Ron Paul. Duh.

But then I started thinking, "Would I want to have a beer with Obama?" And, while I love the man, (and agree with him on almost everything) the answer is definitely "no". I was watching him speak this morning at the University of Michigan, and he was trying to be his old 2008 campaign self ("Hey I still remember how much I paid in student loans! I know the names of students and stuff! I'm young! Have you guys seen that youtube video?!") I appreciate what he's doing. I would like him to win, so I get that he needs college students to get out the vote. But he seems like his two modes are "super serious policy wonk" and "attention needy over-charismatic crowd worker". I love the first guy, understand why the second guy needs to exist, and really don't want to hang out with either one.

But then I started thinking, "Would I want to have a beer with Hillary? What about Cory Booker? Dianne Feinstein or Barbara Boxer?" No, no, no and no. I would definitely love to just talk with any of these people. But I don't want to hang out or be their friend. (Rahm Emanuel is clearly a different story. Any drink, any meal, any time, anywhere. Let's hang out always.)

So there are two possible explanations for this. 1) I can be a little anti-social sometimes. I cancel a lot of plans and if my choice is between Downton Abbey snuggled in my bed or going to a loud bar, I will definitely tend to choose the former. I don't think this is the reason, though. Because I would love to have a beer with Ron Paul or Chris Christie or even John Boehner. Mostly I would want to see if I could make him cry.

This brings me to possible explanation 2. 2) I only like having beers with people with whom I disagree. Well, political beers. I want Obama and Hilary and Feinstein and Boxer and Booker to go govern. I want Paul and Christie and Boehner to sit with me and chat about politics because I would way rather hear a totally different way of viewing the role of government and improving our country. So I don't think that "Who would you want to have a beer with?" question is valid at all. You know who I really want to go to a bar with? Peter Sagal from Wait Wait. Because he's hilarious. And yet I really really don't want him to be president. I want the people governing my country to be so wonky and wrapped up in their work that they seem like the worst happy hour buddies ever. We need a new go-to question.

Another possible explanation for my drinking companion choices: maybe if I'm liquoring up all the Republicans, the Democrats will actually get something done.

A Moment of Quiet

2012-01-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

I have had jobs all along the spectrum of work.

As a teacher, I never rested. Ever. I was up and going and certainly not taking a bathroom break.

As a nanny, part of my day was taking a nap. I should have appreciated that more.

And I've had all kinds of jobs in between. The internship I just started is proving to be one that's a little closer to the teacher side of things - I am busy busy all day, and I am certainly not comfortable enough yet to take a coffee break. But I did eat lunch today, so that's a step in the right direction.

So even though I'm sure you're all fascinated with my daily routine of the past and present, that is not, in fact, the purpose of this post. The purpose is to say this:

What actually makes up your workday is a really under-discussed matter in the debate on teacher compensation. Because, yes, teachers do get summers off. And while there are incredibly dedicated teachers who stay until 5, 6, 7 PM, most teachers do go home at around 3:30 or 4, a luxury for those with office jobs. However, those hours from 8 AM to 3 PM are nothing like the hours the rest of the world experiences. There is no coffee break, clearly. But there is also no bathroom break, no quiet break, no sitting down break. I think if you wanted to make this somehow equivalent to an office job, it would be like giving a presentation at a meeting of your colleagues all day every day. No, it's not as high-stress as giving a presentation to your bosses, and yes, it gets easier eventually. But there's no having an off day. You have to be on point, all the time.

So maybe it's time to stop discussing how much teachers work, when they work, etc. At the next meeting of the district or central office, perhaps we should ask administrators (/Republicans everywhere): how much would we have to pay you to give up any kind of down time during your day? How about the privelege of ever leaving your office or chatting with other adults between 8 and 3? Ok, now add a little boost for the privelege of leaving your job and having everyone tell you you don't work hard enough.

Now do teachers seem overcompensated?

Weekend Promises

2012-01-25T20:09:00.000-08:00

The title is a way of saying...sorry for this post. It is going to be short and boring because it already way past my bedtime and I have Day #2 of my internship tomorrow so I need some sleep. But I will not give yet another podcast link this time. Even though it just so happens I listened to a fascinating Start the Week podcast on the gold standard. No link.

In fact, my plan was to give a wikipedia link, but then I couldn't find the right article. So maybe someone can help me.

Tonight, I got into the zone. I had about 10 pages I needed to write in my thesis (still so far from done...) and I banged those suckers out. In 3-ish hours, I got it all done and it was actually relatively painless! I got The Smiths playing, and Morrissey's lovely voice just carried me from page to page until suddenly it was finished. What is that called, that thing that's the opposite of writer's block and/or procrastination?

Whatever it is, I love it. And Morrissey. God bless them both.

Also...here's that podcast. I couldn't help it.

Quickie with a Good Excuse

2012-01-24T18:14:00.001-08:00

This is going to be yet another very quick entry, but here's why:

1. State of the Union tonight! One of the most exciting nights of the year!

2. I just had the first day of my new internship, which means I was too uncomfortable to take any kind of a break so my brain is a little dead.

3. I have 90 pages of reading I still need to do. That will almost certainly not happen.

So here is the quick entry, and it is yet again a podcast recommendation. Everyone should download and listen to this episode of This American Life on the European debt crisis. It will make you smarter and better.

Gerrymandering Schmerrymandering

2012-01-23T18:09:00.000-08:00

In spite of my promise of a weekly summary of Paul Begala's class, I am not going to talk about that one this week. Don't get me wrong, it was a fabulous class. We learned about the inner working of press conferences and that Clinton had to be dissuaded from doing a photo op with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders ("Sometimes he didn't think the optics through"). But this week, I was really struck with my reading for my class with Alice Rivlin (yes, I do have the best professors).

The class is called "Policymaking in a Polarized Environment", and so far, we've been just getting introduced to the class and doing reading about the history of political polarization and current research on its causes, etc. One thing is for sure: our Congress is about as polarized as it has ever been, and that shift has been almost entirely on the right. As in, Republican members of Congress have moved decisively to the right, while Democratic members of Congress have become more cohesive, but have remained ideologically consistent. But both sides are less likely to vote across party lines or agree to compromising decisions.

The question is why. A popular theory has been gerrymandering; the idea being that as districts have been carved up to support one party or the other, candidates have less incentive to appeal to swing voters and moderates. Before doing my reading, this is what I thought.

Now I just wish it were true.

Turns out, (1) people are just moving into more ideologically confined districts; cartographers don't have to do a whole lot of work to group us by party. (2) It's people's preferences that are getting more polarized, not the districts. People who are politically active and engaged are more likely to hold extreme views and express them more loudly, and moderate voters are more likely to align their voting patterns with these more active members of their community, rather than "waste" votes.

I find this incredibly depressing. I would love to blame our deep divides on state governments and commissions, etc. But no. We just don't want to be around each other. It makes me increasingly grateful that I grew up in a Republican household, where I learned how to respect views I disagree with, and then went to school in Texas, where I learned how to live around people who were culturally radically different from me. Maybe it should be a requirement that everyone from the South has to move to hippie dippy Ojai for a year, and vice versa.

Says the girl who now lives in a 75% Democrat city that voted 92% for Obama. Oh well.

Football Fandom

2012-01-22T20:25:00.001-08:00

I am not into American football.*

-----

The previous sentence was one I've believed to be true about myself pretty much my entire life.

Fact: I am not a fan of violence.

Fact: I am not a fan of stopping and starting.

Fact: I am not a fan of competition/excessive testosterone

Fact: I am not a fan of close-up shots of men's asses.

I thought all of these facts added up to me never being able to enjoy football. None of these facts have actually changed. I am still not a fan of any of those things. But man, learning the rules of the game really makes a big difference.

To be fair, I should have learned this much faster. The same thing happened to soccer at age 17 (although the appearance of Cristiano Ronaldo may have also been a factor) and to baseball at age birth (thank you Mom). Not that that made me good at sports or especially willing to participate. When I was 8, I remember being forced to play baseball in PE and standing out in far, far left field (my specialty position) picking flowers, when I heard our teacher and some boys getting into an argument about what happens when a ball bounces on field and then into home run territory. (Note: it is highly likely this happened because I was supposed to catch something and didn't) I shouted, "It's a ground rule double" and promptly got back to my flower picking.

Anyway, this makes me want to learn the rules of other sports I find boring. As in, all of them. What new worlds will be opened up to me? Basketball? Hockey? Curling?

I think I'll start with rugby. Let me have some more quality time with my dad. I would say cricket for the same reason but, well...I've watched that sport my whole life and still don't understand what a point is. Or a run. Or a wicket or whatever. Pretty sure it's a lost cause.

But the point of all this is: I was actually sad the 49ers lost tonight. Because I was watching (until Downton Abbey came on, obviously). And I cared. I am very proud of myself.

*I don't include the "American" descriptor because, like most people who use such a phrase, I am a pretentious jackass. I do so because I have big chunks of family who honest-to-goodness need the clarification. They can't help being born in the wrong country.

Fair game?

2012-01-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

Last night was the final Republican debate before the South Carolina primary. So obviously Parks and Rec (even though it featured Paul Rudd...) had to go by the wayside. Republicans, you better be damn grateful. Even though I'm not going to vote for you. And I spent most of the debate yelling at you through the TV. So maybe what I meant by "be grateful" is "wonder why this is how I choose to spend my time".

The very first question of the debate was about Newt's open marriage scandal. He really let John King have it in a very entertaining way. At one point, he tells John King "To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine." In the words of Paula Poundstone...he has a very limited imagination.

In all seriousness, though, I really wondered about his point that it was an inappropriate topic for the debate altogether. So here are all of my thoughts about it, in a list, because that's how I like to organize things.

1. I don't think this is going to make any difference to his numbers one way or the other. The scandals of 90's-Newt are well known and well documented. They sort of add to/make his story of fallenness and redemption. People who think he's now a different person are going to add this extra piece of scandal into the mix and probably chalk up its timing to the "lamestream media". People who care about his past, well, is this really such a surprise? I mean, why does it matter if he asked for an open marriage? He was cheating on her either way, right? In some ways, maybe it's better if he was asking for the open marriage. He was kind of having one with or without her, so it seems like the asking was more of a nicety. He wanted to make her an honest woman!

2. I hate that we're incapable of staying away from personal character issues. As I've talked about in previous posts, I think the post-Watergate world sees politics and politicians in a fundamentally different way than the pre-Watergate generations. If I could pick my dream candidates, they would be technocratic robots who just make the most economically sound decisions for the long-term. I don't care if they go to church, cheat/don't cheat on their wives, play ball with their kids, etc, because we've shown repeatedly that none of that matters. And also that people will always lie about that kind of stuff, so why bother to get worked up about it? The morality of Newt Gingrich that I care about is whether or not it's moral for him to want to limit unemployment benefits past 4 weeks. He can have as many women as he would like in the Lincoln bedroom, but is he going to be balancing our economy on the backs of the poor? It looks like he will. That's the morality I care about.

3. But in this one particular case...I think it's maybe fair game? Here's why: (Yes I have subpoints)

A) He led the impeachment trial against Bill Clinton. While he was cheating on his wife. Now I understand that the impeachment was for lying and not for the sexing, but still, Gingrich had the balls to look the American people in the face and with no shame say that the President should be impeached for lying about something about which he was lying. At that very same moment. No, he was not under oath. But still. No shame. I just...I just think that if I were in that situation, I would not cop to my cheating ways at that point, but I would maybe take a backseat on the manslut shaming.

B) He doesn't want to allow gay men and women to get married. Supposedly because he cares about the sanctity of marriage. I think if you're going to put that out there, well, the sanctity of your own marriage gets to be on the table, too. To draw an Obama parallel, he said he went to church regularly, when he clearly didn't. He definitely lied. I don't care. However, if he was proposing legislation that said everyone had to go to church, immediately, I would care. Even apart from the 1st amendment issues. So if Newt takes marriage off the table, I think I would, too.

Endorsement

2012-01-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a very, very brief entry. Everyone should make it their business to download these two podcasts and listen to them ASAP.

1. This interview with Rachel Maddow. Even if you don't agree with her (I don't always!) I guarantee you will find her charming and funny and full of really interesting insights.

2. This episode of Radiolab. This is consistently one of my favourite podcasts, but in this particular edition, they discuss serial killers and the Milgram experiments and such. I now think about the Stanley Milgram experiments in a totally different way, and I bet you will, too.

High Quality Advice for Life

2012-01-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: I am going to sound like a horrible, self-centered, shallow, vain bitch through the majority of this post. Please read to the end. I swear I improve slightly.

**

This is my advice for an easier, happier life: be attractive.

Today, I was walking into Georgetown and was stopped on the street by this guy I kind of thought I recognized but not nearly enough to actually talk to. Turns out I recognized him because we sat by each other on my plane ride back from CA after Thanksgiving and we had chatted for a good part of the flight. It was a decent conversation. Clearly nothing life-changing - I only half remembered him all of 2 months later. From what I recollect, we discussed fun places to go out in DC, whether or not I liked my iPad and how crappy the movies were that were playing.

But he apparently remembered me well enough to say, "Kathryn! How are you?" and then, observing my half-confused, half-terrified expression, to press on with, "Remember, the flight back to DC? I'm in cybersecurity blah blah blah..."

So I pushed my way through the conversation, lied about being late to class and walked away with an email I'll never, ever use. And my first thought, because the pressure of this 30-day challenge is overwhelming me a little, was, "I'm totally writing a blog post about how being able to remember faces and names is a double-edged sword - it's convenient if the other person is good at it, too, but can also come off super creepy." Because this guy came off as super creepy.

But then I started thinking about how much I wished I could have such an amazing conversation with, say, Adam Scott that he would remember it weeks later and want to give me his email so we could talk again. This guy was more of an uglier, pimplier version of Mark Hamil, who is just not my cup of tea. To be fair, he also had the conversational skills of one of my 7th-graders. But to be even more fair, Adam Scott could have the conversational skills of a stone wall and I would have wanted his email.

I think the moral of the story of my run-in with my plane buddy is this: you can get away with just about anything if you are attractive. You can be dumb, smart, smarmy, socially inept, too loud, too quiet, whatever, and people will assume the best of you and let you get away with just about anything. That last article was a more dry explanation. This article speaks to a more pop-culture-y, fun explanation. But either way, the point is that if you look like Zooey Daschanel or Adam Scott or whoever, you can pretty much act the way you want and people will let you get away with it. So if I could give one piece of advice to someone just starting out in life, it would be this: become attractive early, and stay that way.

I say this 100% as someone who cannot get away with anything. I feel awkward and embarrassed all the time. I just felt I needed to publicly acknowledge my own prejudices. And have an excuse to look up pictures of Adam Scott.

Alternate Universe Debate

2012-01-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

I was wrong! I was wrong! The Republicans were all over the race issues last night.

Sort of.

They were all over the early 90's race issues conversation of "welfare queens" and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and such. Hence the title of this post: I think the candidates were having a debate in some sort of an Alternate Universe, where the entire country of Mexico gets booed, and apparently it's insane to think that if we bomb countries they might want to bomb us back. But here is my actual evidence that this debate was being broadcast from another dimension:

1. Dodd-Frank is too strict and we are being "strangled by regulations".

In my universe, our entire financial system went into a meltdown because of lack of regulation. Income disparity is at its highest in 50 years because of lack of regulation. We've had to bail out banks and investment firms and AIG because of lack of regulation. I grew up in a Republican household. The concept that tax breaks and deregulation can encourage growth and help everyone is not foreign me and I do not believe is always wrong. But come on. I think at this point, we've learned that taking away all regulation is a terrible, terrible plan.

2. Government regulators are the enemies of free enterprise.

Obama just appointed the ex-head lobbyist of Monsanto as the chief of the FDA. SEC lawyers walk out the door and straight into jobs at Goldman Sachs. I wish this were far, far more true than it is.

3. People are staying unemployed because we're letting them have unemployment benefits for too long.

Yes, companies are just begging for new employees and all those lazy low-income folks are saying, "No thanks, I'll take my barely livable unemployment benefits here and pass up that excellent job with health insurance. But seriously, thanks anyway!"

4. Obama has made government way too big, but also, has not spent enough on defense, building up the border or creating jobs. Which he can't do because the government doesn't create jobs. But still, he's doing a bad job at that.

Yup.

5. Obama hates the troops because he wants gay soldiers to be able to serve openly.

The troops don't really care. Military leaders, sociologists and psychologists all say it does nothing to negatively affect troop morale or cohesion. And Obama actually setting an end date so troops can go home to their families...to me that says he cares about them as people a hell of a lot more than our previous president did.

I could keep going, but I would just like to conclude with this point: I think all of these items show that Republicans are horribly out of touch and out of date with their policies. This is also evidenced by the fact that the Fox News moderator looks like a 1950's football cartoon.

MLK Thoughts

2012-01-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

My day off started with seeing this article on Politico. And yes, I start my days with visits to Politico. It's primary season! Where else would I be?

First of all, I had no idea there was a debate tonight. It's my own fault for categorically ignoring Fox News Anything. But it's because they pull shit like this. In case you missed the icon in the corner, the meeting between Obama and the GOP was happening live. They were cutting off the actual dialogue and explaining how combative he was being before it actually happened. But my point here is not to bash Fox. Lots of other people do that much, much better than me. My point is simply that I don't tend to ever know what's happening on that channel and now I'm a little sad about that.

Second, I don't usually agree with Jesse Jackson. I usually find his methods way too aggressive and narrow-minded and I think he purposely alienates people. In this case, however, I think he may be right. A recent piece in the Times discussed how the US currently has worse socio-economic mobility than Europe. Given that this mostly affects the low-income, this also disproportionately affects African-Americans. Surprisingly, Rick Santorum is one of the only candidates who is actually addressing this reality head-on, even if it is in an incredibly stupid way. But to continue to pretend like the poor economy is equally hard on everyone and race plays no factor and it's all about the middle class is just stupid and blind. The unemployment rate for African-Americans is almost double that of whites and has remained unchanged, even while the overall unemployment rate has dropped. The sort-of-a-point that I'm trying to get to is that Republicans like to blame their poor numbers among African-Americans on the fact that Obama is black, or that they have outdated party loyalty. I think they would be doing us all a favour if they would recognize that African-Americans aren't voting for them because of policy, rather than politics. Republicans have made perfectly clear that they don't care about anyone but the rich. It's nice to talk about the power of small business and the American Dream etc when that works. But it doesn't. Europe has better socio-economic mobility than we do, and it's tough to deny that our lack of a safety net is having a huge impact on that reality.

I have no real hope that any of the Republicans actually will talk about race issues tonight. But I genuinely do think MLK would have wanted them to. Not because Jesse Jackson said so, not because that was his passion, but because it's the only way the conversation is going to have any real substance. It's the only way to inject some actual policy into an otherwise totally political discussion. So I'll end with one of my all-time favourite MLK quotes, one that hung in my classroom and I made my kids write an essay about:

"A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan."

I am Not About Originality

2012-01-15T14:16:00.000-08:00

I am stealing the format of this post pretty much directly from mi amiga Nancy and her blog. In case you were wondering, yes, I am going to keep linking to it until everyone reads it. It is brilliant and funny and will make your life better. Also I'm hoping all this pressure will force her to update all the time.

Anyway, in case you don't like clicking things or you don't know how, this is essentially what I'm stealing from her for this entry:

"I could talk all day about what my life is about or the things I want to accomplish. The challenge, as Ms. Niequest explains, is to decide what your life isn’t and who you are not. What can you commit to not doing? What can you commit to not worrying about and not feeling guilty over in order to make time in your life and space in your mind and heart for the things that really are important? So Shauna and I both made lists of things that we will not be doing. (She made hers first, and I stole a few of her ideas). This list can always change and I can add and take away from the list as I see fit depending on the season of my life. But for today, this is my list of things I will not be about. Enjoy!"

So this is going to be my short list of things I am not about. The first clearly being originality. Building on that, just like Ms. Higson stole from Ms. Niequest, so I will steal from Ms. Higson.

1. I will not keep my opinions to myself.

This one came to me as I was recently listening to the annual "Conundrum Gabfest" that the Slate Political Gabfest puts out at the end of the year, where they just debate random etiquette/political/philosophical topics because everyone just loves to hear them talk so much. That sounds mean and sarcastic, but I mean that seriously. I could listen to those three all day.

One of the topics brought up by Emily Bazelon was this question: When someone you care about is getting serious (like engaged) to someone you think is wrong for them, is it ever OK to speak up? What about other big decisions, such as buying a house?

The overwhelming answer from the other two people was "Obviously not, no one wants to hear that. Maybe for a house it's ok, but relationships, keep it to yourself." And I know they're right. I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in living rooms/cars/metros/on the phone and heard my friends complain about significant others who are clearly awful, and just repeated to myself over and over, "Do not say anything. Do not say anything. Ask neutral questions. Do not say anything."

I always say something. I can't help it. This has hurt friendships, this has led to some very uncomfortable moments, but at the end of the day, I care about my friends so much more than whether or not they particularly want to be friends with me. And I think everyone needs someone who they know will give them an honest opinion, even when it hurts. So sorry, friends of past, present and future. Maybe don't ask me to give wedding toasts.

And PS, friends who are reading this, if you're thinking that I'm talking about you...you're probably right. All of you. I over-share my opinions all the time always.

2. I will not watch nature documentaries.

First of all, I don't like nature. It's full of bugs and dirt and we spent a long time getting the hell away from it and I, for one, don't want to spit in the face of all that hard work. But even just watching TV about nature, while I understand it is bug-free, is incredibly depressing.

My brother once tried to share this video with me and my mom, in part because it's a cool nature-y thing and in part because it takes place at Kruger Park, a place my family has visited quite often. Supposedly, at the end, some lovely thing happens with the baby water buffalo getting rescued or something, but we didn't make it there. I started crying at around the 7-second mark, or whenever the buffalo gets cornered, because that is awful. AWFUL. I understand this is the real world and that nature is cruel and there are predators and blah blah blah. I hate it and I don't want to see it. I don't want to live around lions or crocodiles and baby anythings shouldn't be preyed upon. And I feel like every nature documentary ends with some baby something getting eaten or almost eaten or abandoned. No. Thank you. At least in stories of human cruelty, there is some lesson to be learned about humanity, a species that is a part of my daily life. Learning about lion cruelty is disheartening and makes it really hard to enjoy how much they look like giant kittens.

3. I will not cook for myself.

I love cooking when I'm home with my family, or when friends come to visit. There are few things I enjoy more, in fact, than getting together with friends and preparing a huge meal. But when I'm on my own, I think cooking is stupid. I microwave vegetables, I buy pre-made meals, I put cheap-o garlic salt on just about everything. And (this is stealing from Nancy) I will eat the same thing every night, without shame, and if I could afford to make that thing a Chipotle salad, I would definitely do it. As it is, that thing will likely be a bag of microwaveable green beans.

4. I will not stay in relationships past when I get bored in a conversation.

This is almost certainly why 3 months is my current all-time record, and this is also almost certainly something I should work on. But not yet. Right now, at this "season of my life", I don't want to waste my time with people who bore me. In part, this is totally unfair. I happen to have insanely funny, smart, witty friends who make every conversation a stomachache-inducing laugh-fest, or a mind-blowing deep-thought-inducing exchange of ideas, or some mix of the two. No man should have to compete. But if I'm thinking about how much laundry I need to do during our date...well...maybe try harder with the next gal.

So thank you, Nancy, for this idea! I really enjoy declaring things I won't do. I wish I could have the balls of one of my ex-students, who told me he just wasn't a "homework person". Somehow I feel like my thesis advisor isn't going to go for that one.

Arrogant Jerks vs. Sanctimonious Idiots

2012-01-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

I should probably just go ahead and warn now that this blog may very well turn into a summary of my Begala class on a weekly basis. But who wouldn't want to read that?

So first of all, I didn't really realize until yesterday that when I get nervous, my voice gets very waver-y and very, very quiet. He had us go around the table and introduce ourselves, and asked a lot of questions (he was incredibly friendly) about our families and our undergrad experiences, etc. Turns out his neighbor growing up went to my undergrad, he knows the head of our poli sci department, and is generally a big fan of the Wildcats. I'm really surprised our conversation even got to this point, though, because my introduction basically consisted of the following: "My name's um....Kathryn...and um....Texas." Imagine this at the volume of a small mouse. I'm usually a pretty competent public speaker but this was one of my heroes. And he was smiling. It was too much.

The rest of the class was amazing. He told us some great stories, and it turns out he does pretty fabulous impressions of Bill Clinton, James Carville and Barack Obama. And he still calls Clinton "Mr. President". Just like on West Wing. *Tear*.

So now on to the actual content of the class. Mostly we talked about the concept of "rational ignorance". The basic idea is that most people stay uninformed about politics and political strategy because they don't see how it affects their day-to-day lives. This made me think of my grandmother in Israel. When asked what she thought about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, her response was, "Well, I do wish they would be better about taking care of their trash bins". This is, first of all, my grandmother in a nutshell. In the middle of an incredibly racially divided Zimbabwe (Rhodesia at the time), she was the only white woman in her college class and was elected student body president. She cares about people as people, and their political affiliations or societal stature mean little to nothing. I wish I had inherited more of those genes.

But in relation to my class, this is also a prime example of rational ignorance. The broader political implications of the peace (ha) process are meaningless in her daily life. What matters is their trash habits. In the same way, all those polls that say that "only x% of Americans can name a Supreme Court justice!" or "most Americans don't know when the election is!" mostly show that politicos have done a really bad job convincing people that these facts have any impact on their daily life, not that anyone is stupid. Begala's contention was that people on the left are particularly prone to this kind of arrogance. If you hold an argument for long enough with a liberal, the argument will eventually break down to, "The American people are too stupid to know what to do on their own and they should just leave it to me. If you disagree, you are clearly stupid, too." I may or may not have been guilty of this sentiment. Of course, this is not to say the right is without its own problems. His claim was that an argument with conservatives will eventually break down to, "Everyone who tries to give power to the government is anti-American and elitist. If you disagree, you are clearly a bad Christian/bad patriot." Either way, not a very productive conversation.

All of this made me think of the discussion happening in ed policy circles. I'm sure this could be applied to pretty much any area (seems like a pretty fundamental divide) but of course, for me, ed policy seems the clearest example. On one side, we have arrogant anti-union folks. Unions are clearly the cause of every problem (they cause cheating, they prevent accountability, they demand unreasonable salaries) and if you disagree you are caught in the past and don't know how this new generation of teachers is going to work. On the other side, we have sanctimonious pro-union folks. Unions are the only thing holding our schools together (TFA teachers are incompetent, school "reformers" hate teachers and want to take away their benefits, teachers are paid peanuts) and if you disagree you are a terrible person who doesn't care about children or teachers. This leaves very little room for collaboration or even just a reasonable conversation. Just recently, Matt Damon's mother turned down an award from the NEA (not my favourite organization) just because their president had written an article with (yup, written an article. Not started a new organization with, not gotten married to, not became blood brothers with) Wendy Kopp, the founder of TFA. All the original article said was that we should make sure we're holding teacher prep programs accountable - it didn't even really go into how we should do that, or what specific standards should be. If we can't even agree on that basic point (maybe we should make sure we're preparing our teachers well? No?) then where the hell are we?

Like I said, I'm sure ed policy is not the only arena in which this kind of fundamental disagreement is happening. I guess it just stands out more because the accusations always come down to caring/not caring about "the children". Those children to whom we're supposed to be teaching the value of empathy and cooperation and seeing the world in shades of grey, right? Right.

New Semester, New Inappropriate Professor Obsessions

2012-01-13T09:04:00.000-08:00

Today I start my final semester of grad school. It will be full of thesis lamentations, desperate job searching and (almost certainly) way too much TV watching, followed by complaints that somehow I don't have enough time to do any work. Looking forward to it.

Mostly, I'm looking forward to the class on Politics and the Media that I'm taking with Paul Begala. Yup. This guy. My goal for the semester is to work up enough courage to (a) talk and (b) get him to sign my copy of The War Room. If you're not into politics, imagine being into sports and taking a class with...let's switch to movies. It would be like being into movies and taking a class with Roger Ebert. In other words, awesome.

Another goal for this semester is to apply to at least one job per week and to fully enjoy being a student. Because I remember the first year out of undergrad, thinking I had not appreciated how amazing being a student really is. You work with little to no pressure, there are very few real consequences for being unprepared and no one expects you to even be conscious on the weekends. I am taking full advantage of this this time around.

One more goal: work on finishing my DC checklist. There are all kinds of places around the city I have been meaning to visit but haven't put the effort into making happen. For example: more than 5 minutes at the Vietnam Memorial, Spike's food truck (it's kosher!), a live Political Gabfest, tour of the C-SPAN offices. If this list/the rest of this blog had left it unclear...I am a nerd.

The Primar-mageddon

2012-01-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

I learned on CNN this morning (they repeated about 6 times in case I missed it at any point) that Newt Gingrich called the SC primary the "armageddon" of the race in his interview last night with Piers Morgan. As in, everyone is pulling out all the stops, a crazy amount of money is being spent, etc etc. It's all or nothing. Or at least, that's what Newt has decided. In this one, very specific instance, I wish he were right. Unfortunately, Ron Paul is calling Florida the real decider, Perry won't be satisfied until he's lost every Southern state, and Huntsman is going to need the race to move back North again before he declares defeat. We're in for several maybe-geddons. And of course, we all love the drama of it, and all the speculation that we're just praying will be totally wrong.

So this is the point I'm slowly ambling up to: I wish prognostications about voting patterns were more wrong. I wish newspapers with incorrect headlines were practically an annual pattern. Pundits are often wrong about who exactly is going to win, but they seem to get voting patterns scarily correct. Young people vote this way, old people vote that way, Christians vote this way, Jews vote that way. And I think we all want them to be wrong. After all, I am a young person, and if you listened to pundits you would think my top issues are education loans, the environment and vodka-soaked tampons (ok, I'm a little old for the last one...we moved on to whiskey. Classier.) Those are, in fact, not at all my top issues. And yet I can't seem to stop voting how they tell me young people vote. Most Jewish people I know (my mother included) care about more issues than Israel. And yet, as a block, you wouldn't know it.

Today, also on CNN, I saw this pastor from a megachurch in La Mesa, CA talking about how he was publicly endorsing Newt Gingrich (and apparently had done so from the pulpit) because he was the only candidate who cared about the "foundational Christian issues". Turns out these things are abortion and gay rights. Funny, I thought he was going to say, "caring for the poor" or "social justice". Don't know why I would imagine such a thing.

Anyway, apparently a bunch of evangelical leaders are getting together tomorrow to discuss who they are going to collectively endorse. And obviously this is going to lead to pundits deciding how evangelicals as a whole are going to vote. It seemed like in the past few years, we had finally moved away from this "religious right" domination, where Christians could care about all kinds of issues and vote in different ways and still be part of that "evangelical base". I hope that's still true.

Come on evangelicals, in all those Southern Primarmageddon states, give us a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment. Or at least, please don't vote for Gingrich. Seriously.

Phones and Scones

2012-01-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

Today, I made scones. For those of you who know me, you know this is far from an unusual occurrence. Baking in general is a love of mine, and scones in particular make frequent appearances in my kitchen. In fact, my roommate and I talk sometimes about starting a Tea and Scone food truck. This is a joke, obviously. Except for around finals time. Then I'm super serious about it.

But today I was making scones with a special purpose. They were "thank you scones" for one of my roommates, who somehow managed to understand my techno-illiterate instructions and log on to my laptop while I was out in CA and track down a mysterious non-serial-number serial number that allowed me to replace my stolen iPhone. And all of this work just because I sent an email and asked. Clearly he deserved many, many scones.

So two thoughts about this whole experience, from stolen phones to scones.

1. I am eternally grateful to my mother for being obsessive about cleaning before leaving on long trips. I remember the day before we would leave for months-long vacations to Zimbabwe, I knew I was going to spend all my time cleaning my room and making sure the rest of the house was spotless. In general, my mom is no neat freak, but for some reason, some sort of pre-travel adrenaline would always kick in and she would go on a tear.

Turns out, she knew what she was doing. When I got the email from my roommate that he had gone in my room and gotten the number for me, all I could think about was how many piles of clothes he had had to step over, or whether or not I had left make-up spread out all over my dresser or possibly just part of it. I cannot describe the joy that swept over me when I arrived home on Monday to find that, apparently, my mother had trained me well and my room had been cleaned prior to my departure. Like, my bed was made and everything. Apart from that pre-travel surge of cleanliness, this is never true. For the most part, I have stopped apologizing for this - I am not a neat person, and I am ok with that. I have better things to do than make sure all my laundry is in a basket. However, I am going to steal my mom's trick of cleaning before vacations. Clearly it's worth it.

2. I think I am okay with things being stolen from me. I have had two major things ever stolen: a camera when I was in France during middle school, and this cell phone. I had the same reaction both times: "But...but...it was mine. Someone just looked at this thing that didn't belong to him or her and took it? But...how?" I realize that by now, after living in Brooklyn and working in Newark and living in Sketchville SW DC, I should maybe start wrapping my mind around these things. And stop owning bags without zippers.

However, the whole time I worked in Newark, I never had a single thing taken from me. I mean, besides pencils, which somehow managed to leave my classroom in droves on a daily basis. I don't even know what the kids were doing with all those pencils. Certainly not their homework.

I maybe should have gone in with the mentality that a lot of these kids had been raised with a sort of "finders keepers" mentality, and so I needed to have my guard up a little more than usual. Or to put it even more generously, that the socioeconomic conditions of the neighborhood meant that they could probably justify taking whatever they wanted from my purse - they needed it a lot more than I did. But I didn't. It wasn't until a year later that I really realized it was maybe dangerous to walk from my school to Newark Penn by myself after dark. Or that I shouldn't have left my purse anywhere in sight in my classroom. But I'm glad I didn't think those things at the time. It left me open to new perspectives on the city and on the people in my school and neighborhood.

So basically what I'm saying is, I'd rather pay for the new phone and keep my faith in people, all things considered.

However, I may invest in a purse with a zipper.

30 Day Mind Cleanse

2012-01-10T14:45:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned before, I'm very easily influenced and distracted. And yes, I would like to be in charge of taxpayer money. What?

Anyway, one of my favourite internet writers was recently asked "How do you get over writer's block?" (I would link to this specific entry but I can't figure out how. Here is his blog. The question is somewhere in there.) His answer was essentially, "Write. A lot." This was nothing I hadn't heard before. I was an English major. We were told that all the time. I just never thought it applied to me because (a) I had no desire to be a writer writer and (b) I usually solved writer's block on papers by not writing them.

But the thing is, at the moment, I almost exclusively write memos and and policy briefs and regression results and legal summaries. While I am glad for these skills, I would like to maintain my ability to write an interesting, funny paragraph without too much sweat and tears. Also, there's a part in his answer where he says this: "if you’re experiencing writer’s block...your brain is telling you that it’s being lazy; force it to work anyway. Ninety percent of people who go to a gym don’t want to work out ninety percent of the time they go, but they force themselves to and, after ten minutes or so, their muscles are invested in the workout, the body is releasing endorphins that make them feel good, and they forget why they ever didn’t want to work out in the first place. Your brain’s the same way." I felt like he was calling me out on both my lack of blog-updating and gym-visiting.

In addition, one of my good friends started her own blog. It is brilliant and you should absolutely add it to your own blogrolls. She does not update nearly as much as I would like her to (hint hint) but, as mentioned in one of her entries, she is a big fan of 30-day challenges and sets them for herself about every 30 days.

So put this all together and what do you get? A long, rambling piece that's made up mostly of other people's writing, you say? Well, yes. But also, I am setting myself a 30-day blogging challenge. I will write every day for 30 days. These might not actually get published every day, but I will be writing, and at the end of 30 days, there will be 30 blogs. And I will be 30 days closer to being able to write a really great Christmas letter that people actually want to read, which is, of course, the ultimate goal.

Work Overload and Genetic Fatalism

2011-10-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

I want to apologize now for any complaining I've done in the past about being too busy at work. Or too bored, for that matter. Either way, I had no idea what "busy" meant. Nobody does "busy" like the US Senate. Yesterday I stood on my feet and wrote memos and took notes and made folders and ran bills and amendments around like a crazy person for 10 straight hours. And I was the first person in my office to leave (I've never been so grateful for class).

And all so a bill to rewrite No Child Left Behind could go to committee markup the next day so it could not pass.

You're welcome, tax payers.

While I would love to talk about all the things that made my life hellish yesterday, this is in fact the highest level of detail I can go into. Maybe I'll come back and edit this post after everything goes public. Suffice it to say, if I didn't hate Senate Republicans before, I sure do now.

A huge part of my job for the past few weeks in preparing for this markup process has been to get intimately familiar with the old NCLB and the '65 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB's predecessor). In an interesting (and nerdy) parallel, I've also been watching Ken Burns' new documentary Prohibition on PBS, and it seemed like that particular amendment went through a checklist of bad legislative traits.

Good intentions, not well thought-out
No plan for implementation
Overly strict and unrealistic goals
Started off with broad public support, but no one wanted those standards actually applied to them
Huge demands placed on states with little to no funds for support
Stifled public debate, in part because of its good intentions

Sound familiar? It did to me.

As for somewhere I've been recently, we hosted another seasonal brunch this past Sunday at our house. It was lovely, and we had a great turnout and amazing food. I stole a recipe for sweet potato hummus from my aunt and one for pumpkin rice pudding from a friend from undergrad who writes that blog. Don't spend too much time looking around that blog though...the degree to which her whole life is put together and adorable will depress you. Anyway, I made both of those things, along with a loaf of french bread to accompany my roommate's Bacon Bourbon Jam, and it was a hit.

So now for the genetic fatalism.

We decided, before this brunch started, that we were determined to have a minimum amount of leftovers after this shindig. So we bought ziploc baggies and and containers in advance to hand out to guests as they left, with the idea that they could load up on some leftovers and reduce our burden. People were annoyingly resistent. I took it upon myself to be the pusher.

"That bag is hardly full."

"You barely ate anything! You'll starve on the way home."

"This is how you repay us for hosting you."

"Who doesn't need a few scones for the road?"

If someone had brought me a shawl and some orthopedic shoes, I would have officially become my Jewish grandmother. It's a good thing nobody in the room owed me a phone call.

Stealing from Myself

2011-10-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

I'm required to blog weekly for my Ethics class, so usually those are short and not very interesting. However, this is what I posted this week, and it's a little longer and better. So I'm reposting it.

I don’t know if anyone else likes podcasts at all, or Slate.com, but if you like either, you should listen to their “Political Gabfest” podcast. It’s one of my favourites. Anyway, a point they’ve made several times on their show is that campaigns and primaries have the perverse effect of narrowing the field down to egomaniacs who either have extreme ideologies or are willing to lie and say they do for a while – either way, not a desirable candidate.

When I was reading the Warwick piece and got to the end bit about central ethical principles we should want to see public servants possess, I found myself thinking about that podcast and that particular point. Campaigns and primaries do seem like a great way to weed out all five of those ethical principles.

-Public Orientation: you have to have money to run a campaign. You have to say things that please interest groups to get money. Having a general “public interest”, unfortunately, just won’t win you the money you need.

-Reflective choice: especially during primaries, there are just certain values we demand our candidates say, whether they actually believe them or not. I’m thinking specifically of how Romney recently had to run away from his own health care policies.

-Veracity: fudging, stretching and otherwise distorting the truth is a fundamental part of campaigns. While of course ideally a candidate should be able to present facts fully and honestly, I know from my own campaign work that omissions and distortions are presented to campaign staff as serving the higher good of election, and thus acceptable. I’m sure they’re presented the same way to the candidate.

-Procedural Respect: especially in our current climate, you are not going to get elected saying that “Washington has its flaws, but the institutions are there for a reason so I’ll probably keep most of those in place.”

-Restraint of means: 1. Campaigns spend like crazy, and more money is always, always better; and 2. Campaigns are not won with small, reasonable promises. They are won with big, sweeping, expensive promises of change. Even promises to cut spending all over the place are not tempered and do not reflect a thoughtful restraint of means.

Finally. I know.

2011-10-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

[Insert apologies here]. However, I genuinely had nothing interesting to say. At least I can recognize that in myself and act accordingly, right? I feel like if every 24-hour news network had this same trait...there would be a lot of dead air. Now I'm just imagining TJ Holmes standing there saying "Yeah, not a whole lot today. Don't want to just rehash exactly what I said yesterday. So I'm going to write my grandmother. You should, too. Probably a better use of time." Notice my Jew-guilt coming out.

Somewhere I've been this week: Shophouse in Dupont Circle. It was started by the Chipotle folks, but it's the Southeast Asian version. These are super popular around here - we have an Indian Chipotle, a Mediterranean Chipotle, a Japanese Chipotle. Of course, none of these are actually from Chipotle themselves, but it's the same basic idea. Anyway, Shophouse was surprisingly delicious! I mean, you have to approach these things with the same mindset as you do Chipotle - it is not meant for real, authentic Mexican, it's meant for an enormous burrito that likely shortens your life by a couple years, but makes it much more enjoyable. In that spirit, I got a pork and chicken meatball bahn mi with green papaya and peanuts and it was fantastic. Highly recommended. Killer lines though...hopefully those will die down once it's been open for a few months!

So I've gotten totally obsessed with the WTF with Marc Maron podcast. He interviews these comedians about their lives and backgrounds and it is always totally fascinating. He also vaguely reminds me of my old professor, Rick Hess. Same level of directness, similar sense of humor, comparable amounts of cursing. I loved his class so much. I recommend starting with the Amy Poehler or Louis CK interviews. Both incredibly moving pieces of journalism.

One of the most recent that I listened to was with a comedian I hadn't heard of before. His name is Anthony Jeselnik. Apparently he wrote for Jimmy Fallon and was famous for an outstanding roast of Donald Trump. So I looked up that clip and I guess for that kind of comedy it was good? I don't really know. Everyone else seemed to be laughing. To be honest, I don't understand roasts. All I can think about is how much I would be crying if I were the roast-ee. Yet another reason for me to never be famous. But he did seem better than the other people, so good for him. Anyway, one of the things he said in his interview with Maron that really stuck with me was that he actively seeks things that should be offensive and tries to make people laugh about them. At one point he said, "yeah, I can't seem to find a good punchline for rape yet." He got actively mad about people in his audience who found his language or his messages offensive. He kept essentially saying they needed to grow a pair.

I had been thinking about this, and feeling very conflicted. On the one hand, life is too short to be sad about everything. Sometimes you just have to laugh and move on with life, and people who take things too seriously do harm to themselves and others. Also I like the idea that as a society, we should be able to talk about anything and not cut people out of the conversation because they need to approach it in a humorous way. I get making jokes about cancer or about disabilities - a lot of people who live with those things say that people tiptoeing around them makes it worse and it's something they have to live with anyway so they'd rather joke. On the other hand, I don't like jokes about rape. (Unless Always Sunny makes them. Then it's hilarious.)

And then today the discussion happening in my mind (yup) took a new turn. An ex-student of mine added me on facebook. I went to look at his profile, and he's holding a gun. He has a teardrop tattoo. When I had him as a student, he read sci-fi books and stayed after class for homework help. He got teased a lot. I thought he would either have to go to an amazing charter school or he would get "toughened" up at the general high school beyond repair. Looks like the latter happened. And today, I was sad.

I was just sad. My heart just hurt. A lot. I understand that some people aren't ok with that emotion, but I think it's on them to change. There is a place for pure sadness in our lives and in our society. Maybe it's ok to mourn, to not move on immediately or be ok with people making fun of things. So to all the people who get angry at people who get offended and say they're too sheltered, I say this: I think you're too sheltered. Not being sheltered means embracing a wide range of emotions, including shame and sadness. Grow a pair.

Awaiting the Alien Invasion

2011-08-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

So far this week, DC has gone through The Earthquake (holding back my CA disdain for the overreaction) and Hurricane Not-So-Much. Turned out to be more just a really long-lasting drizzle. I feel bad for North Carolina, because clearly they took the hit for us. But the good thing is that I had a great excuse to stay home and watch about 12 episodes of my new obsession, Dr. Who. I'm not usually much of a Sci-Fi person, but I'm learning that I have a serious weak spot for BBC sci-fi. I think because they don't try to do anything fancy with the graphics or the storyline and also I'm in the first David Tennant season and he is rather dreamy. Also I like the universe-i-ness of it. Finishing The Sopranos and Six Feet Under has scarred me because there is just nothing nothing left to watch of these families I love so much. There seems to be an infinite amount of Dr. Who.

But enough about TV, even though it is taking up significant portions of my life. This past week, I went to Austin, TX, and was totally rejuvenated. I don't ever want to move back to Texas, but there is something homey about being around all those people I love so dearly and also being able to park easily. Since then, we've been orientating the hell out of the new students, with trivia and dancing and dinners and info sessions. Ready for that mess to be over - I have never been and never will be an orientation kind of gal. Making 50 new acquaintances in two days makes my head hurt and also makes me more inclined to hate everyone. Not a good attitude for a student mentor, but this is what they get. One place I went this week that I absolutely do NOT recommend is Third Edition, one of the bigger bars in the Georgetown area. Teeming with undergrads. And in Georgetown, "undergrads" means girls who look like prostitutes and guys with popped collars and smarmy faces. Picture a lot of this, except the girls are more naked and there are more booze involved. Do not ever ever go there.

And this brings me to my thought for this post. The Abilene Paradox. If you don't feel like reading that Wikipedia article, let me summarize for you: a group of friends is in a car. No one wants to go to Abilene (this is almost certainly true). Yet somehow...the car ends up going to Abilene because everyone thinks everyone else must want to go to Abilene because that's where we're going and no one wants to be the squeaky wheel. I feel like, theoretically, this should be an almost extinct phenomenon because we are such a squeaky wheel-friendly society. Everyone has an opinion on everything and posts it immediately on Twitter. In politics, this should be all the MORE true! There is nothing more popular than saying "everyone else is wrong". Yet somehow...we still end up going to Abilene. We all think raising taxes and eliminating some deductions is a good idea, and yet somehow we are only cutting programs that the vast majority of people think should remain untouched. Everyone says Social Security has to be addressed, and yet on we go.
So maybe the problem is that we have too many people squeaking. There's a lot of chatter in the car about how awful Abilene is, and even some people suggesting a place to turn around, but there's just too much noise. I don't have a solution for this at all. Staying quiet doesn't help, but more talking doesn't either, and at this point, all the "I take real action" promises just add to the squeakiness.
Also, as an FYI, I'm hoping to go to Abilene in October, entirely of my own free will. It's actually not that bad.

Nerd Love

2011-07-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

Both my thought for the week and my Place I Went have to do with the concept of being a nerd. I had a happy hour this week with a friend of mine at Brasserie Beck, an overpriced K-Street place where I once saw Carl Levin. They have really good mussels and frites, which makes sense, since they are Belgian. But you will easily put down $40-50 for a meal, which is no problem when you're on the company card, but choke-worthy for a grad student like me. During happy hour, though, they have half-priced Belgian drafts, which are delicious. As pretty much anyone will tell you, I am not a beer person. Truth be told, I'm not even really an alcohol person. Red wine makes me nauseated, I usually have to give back rail drinks for being too strong...if a diet coke could make me better at talking to people I don't know, I think I would be a tea-totaler. (Is that how you spell that?)
But Belgian beers are delicious. They taste like light, refreshing juice. And the bartenders at Brasserie Beck are delightfully geeky about it all. They tell you the composition, the aging process, they let you try samples and pair them with things. I ended up going with a Palm Speciale, in spite of its menu description of tasting like "warm biscuits". (Dear BB, no one wants their drink tasting like warm biscuits. Especially when it's 106 degrees outside. Just FYI.) All of this to say, Brasserie Beck happy hour is highly recommended. Ignore the menu and let the bartenders put their geekery on display.
And now my own nerd-dom: I think I may be in love with Gene Lyons. First, who can resist this come-hither look paired with a tweed blazer? A woman can only be so strong. Second, he writes fantastic columns on why current Republicans would hate Reagan, on why schools are not like companies and also has some of the best headlines around. He has a way of taking a lot of my mutterings (and the mutterings of millions of others) and turning them into useful, articulate thoughts that can actually be shared with people on both sides of the aisle. Take, for example, the debt ceiling debate.
During the two speeches on Monday night, I sat with my roommate in our living room and moved through a roller coaster of emotions. First, I was amused at Wolf Blitzer's anxiety in getting ready for the address - I think he's permanently scarred by the Bin Laden debacle, when he was forced to reveal nothing, nothing, nothing until a slightly drunk John King stepped in and totally stole his thunder. Then I was worried for Obama and the reception of this speech - first of all, why exactly was he giving a speech a couple days after the GOP had specifically said "we're tired of speeches"? And good gracious, did he have to keep saying all the things typical Americans don't know? They already think he's pedantic and elitist, so recapping the nation's ignorance seems like a terrible idea. But by the end of the speech, I felt he had, overall, done a good job. He had used solid reasoning to back up his ideas - we have to do historic cuts, but to suggest you can tackle this problem without any revenue increases is insane, and the CBO, Moody's, S&P and the American people all agree. We have already paid for all this stuff, this is about authorizing ourselves to be good on our word and about making a solid, sustainable plan for the future.

And then came Boehner's speech. Facts went out the window. Right off the bat, he compared the US Government to his own small business. That is nothing but misleading rhetoric. His small business did not determine the international economy. His small business was not responsible for determining the behaviour of millions of other businesses in the US and around the world. And then he moved on to some good ol'-fashioned revisionism.
"Here was the president, asking for the largest debt increase in American history, on the heels of the largest spending binge in American history."

I'm sorry, who had the biggest spending binge in American history? I mean, not according to Sarah Palin? Could it be...oh wait...maybe...not a democrat?! Take a look at this fantastic graph the NY Times put together on the comparative spending of Obama vs. Bush.

And this. This is why I'm in love with Gene Lyons. This quote right here:

"Mr. President, this ain't Harvard Law Review, where everybody's done their homework and honorable colleagues seek reasoned compromise. If you want the great mass of Americans to grasp what's going on, you've got to tell them plainly and repeatedly until they can repeat your message like an ad slogan: "Less filling, tastes great." "Where's the beef?" Like that.

How does "deadbeat Republicans" sound? Because the simple fact is that the GOP under George W. Bush put two wars, a Medicare drug benefit, and tax cuts heavily slanted toward the rich on the national credit card. Now that the bill's due, they're planning to skip town and stick Democrats with the charges...

So when Speaker Boehner speaks of "the largest spending binge in American history," he's hiding who's responsible. The Obama administration has added a comparative fraction to the National Debt, almost all by necessity. Also due to recession, tax revenues are way down.

These are indisputable facts. GOP cultists, however, occupy a metaphysical netherworld where anything in the New York Times is false by definition, scorning arithmetic as an elitist tool. Much of the public simply doesn't know what to think; the Obama White House has been perversely reluctant to tell them."

(Read the rest of the article here)

Roommates, in case you were wondering, this is what I was trying to get out when I was sputtering incoherently on the couch. Gene Lyons, please marry me.

Justified Prejudice

2011-07-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

I am not an Old People person. I don't know what this is going to mean for me as I become an old person myself (although according to my students I reached that mark at least 10 years ago), but as it stands now, I just can't do it. I really admire people who can talk super slowly and super loudly and about the same subjects over and over and over. But I am not one of those people. Now, of course there are exceptions to this. I love swapping emails with my grandmother and I'm always up for a Golden Girls marathon. But overall, there is a certain pace at which I need my life and my conversations to move, and old people just don't fit into that equation.

I bring this up because there is a lady at my work who is about one hundred and fifteen years old. I'm guessing. She is a very sweet lady, and I appreciate the fact that her glasses are the same size as her head, much like the Queen. But you know, the woman cannot for the life of her work a computer, and this drives me up the wall. She has told me she can't seem to send an email to someone, and I look over to discover she is trying to type their email address into the browser window. Or she asks me how to do something like print a document. Like a word document. Like the kind of thing you just press the "print" button for. And I think what gets me the most is that I'm usually the one who ends up looking stupid. Consider this conversation:

Old Lady: Kath-a-ryn (this is how she always says my name)
Me: Yes, Old Lady?
OL: I just got an email from someone all the way up in New York. But I can only see the first line. How do I open it?
Me: How do you...what?
OL: Open it. I would like to open it and see the rest of the email.
Me: Well right but...you click it.
OL: Click it? What do you mean?
Me: Like click...with your mouse. <-- notice how stupid I am starting to sound.

There is only so much I know how to break down. I don't know how to further explain the concept of "clicking".

Ok, but the point of all of this is not to make fun of an old lady who, I understand, did not grow up with computers. It's to say...it's amazing to me how generations change. Because it's not just that she didn't grow up with computers. It's that she didn't grow up having to constantly learn and adapt to new technologies. I didn't grow up with Twitter or Google +, but I did grow up learning that things change at a rapid pace and you better get comfortable with teaching yourself how to open an email. So when Twitter etc emerged, it wasn't scary and it wasn't overwhelming and I didn't automatically think to myself that it was the realm of the kiddoes. I thought, "gee whiz I can't wait to see how congressmen make idiots out of themselves with this new technology."

Not really. I would never think "Gee whiz".

But I think we should be keeping our eyes out for how this is going to impact schools and politics. The idea that schools should look a certain way because they always have and always will is fading. Check out this story from Slate, where they try to use crowdsourcing to design a modern classroom. Are desks necessary? Walls? Teachers? It's all on the table.

Oh and for somewhere I went this week: Station 4. Go there for brunch. Enjoy the people watching. Stay out of the heat. Ask for homefries.

New Nose, New Times

2011-07-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

I have the best possible excuse for not updating: I've been hospitalized. Coincidentally, this is also my excuse for not going to the gym and eating poorly, so I'm really hitting up all those New Year's Resolutions.

I had a deviated septum repaired, and let me tell you, it feels awesome. Breathing is really underestimated.

Since then, I've traveled to California and back for the holiday weekend. I went to the Ojai 4th of July parade, and I think this event really captures my hometown in a nutshell. There was a healthy mix of tractors, smart cars, giant raised trucks and people dressed like vegetables. I wish I could find a good picture of the raised truck I had in my mind. It was approximately 800 feet off the ground and had an eagle and an American flag painted on it. Perfect for the parade, but I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that this person has this truck every other day of the year, too. What happens on days when he or she is not feeling particularly patriotic? Probably takes public transportation, like a real socialist.

There were also representatives of different spiritual centers from across the valley, as Ojai has the highest number of these per capita. To be fair, we only have about 10,000 capita, but still, well done to us for being so enlightened. Also this added lots of pretty saris to the festivities.

My journey back to DC had a layover in Cleveland, which actually turned out to be a halfway decent airport. But the little hopper flight from Cleveland to BWI was miserable. First of all, it was in a prop plane, which I hate. I used to have to take those from DFW to Abilene, and it took me until about junior year to realize that the "prop" came from "propeller" and not "prop" like for a movie. As in a pretend plane. Because it certainly does not feel like a real plane. But to be honest, I've more or less gotten used to those by now. The main reason this flight was miserable was because of my neighbour on the flight.

I am a friendly person. I don't mind a little conversation, a little polite small talk to make things less awkward. One of my most pleasant flying memories was being on a plane to the UK and spending almost the entire flight chatting with a 70 year old man sitting next to me about the Harry Potter book in my lap. But I have limits. And these limits are even more important when working on 2 hours of sleep. And I most often express those limits by answering politely but concisely and then putting in headphones. And this lady, my neighbour, did not seem to know these rules. She asked where I was flying from (because who the hell actually comes from Cleveland?) and I said L.A. and returned the question. She said Miami because she was visiting her boyfriend. I did my limits thing: "Oh, that sounds nice. Well let's hope it's a nice, smooth flight home!" and headphones in. Ready for some Bon Iver and mah jong. Next thing I know, a cell phone (still on! No respect for anyone's rules!) is in my face with a picture of an old chubby man. "This is my boyfriend, he's handsome, isn't he?" "Oh, um, yes, he has nice eyes." "Well he's 57 and he looks great for his age doesn't he?" "Yeah, absolutely, I would never have guessed 57." "He's wonderful. So handsome. Great body. Big, you know?" "Oh that's so great that you guys found each other." (hands still holding my headphones, about an inch away from my ears) "Well he's not all great. Last night...he was texting someone. At 2:30 AM. And when I rolled over to see who it was...he covered his phone. What do you think that means?" ...

I then proceeded to talk with this lady about every aspect of her relationship for about an hour and a half, the entire length of the flight. That's longer than most of my own relationships even last.

So this is my thought for this week: I miss etiquette. That is to say, I miss something that has never been cool in my lifetime. For the most part, I get this. I don't like the idea that something just inherently should not be done for no reason other than it just isn't. I think it's silly and, more importantly, disenfranchising. If you know the rules, you're in the club, but there's no way to know the rules other than to be in the club, and so we limit social mobility and accentuate class differences. I like the idea that we act in ways that make sense, not just ways that Emily Post says are acceptable.

But I also think basic social rules do play an important role, and total disdain for them is unhealthy and counterproductive. For example, if there were rules of etiquette for text messages, we would not have people getting in fights over how tone comes across or texting too late or too early in the morning. The dismissal of etiquette for wedding invites (so many of my friends do it on facebook now...) means that people end up confused and angry because it's unclear how official the RSVP is, or what guest limits are. Placing the buffer of etiquette rules means that we can all maintain better relationships with one another, and that's the point of it all, isn't it? If this woman next to me had just picked up on my polite hints, we both would have left the plane with nothing but pleasant memories of meaningless small talk. As it stands now, if I ever see that lady again, I will run the other direction.

She decided to run a background check and make him come see her in Baltimore, in case you were wondering. It seemed like a sound decision to me.

Don't say you're moving to Canada, don't say you're moving to Canada...

2011-06-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

I generally hate those people who say things like "If [fill in the blank politician] wins, I'm moving to Canada" because 1. they never follow through and they're usually the kind of people whose move you would welcome; and 2. Canada? That's saying nothing about their conviction. It's a great country with better healthcare, cleaner air, better schools and a more logical system of government. It's probably a move we should all make anyway. Now if someone said, "If [whoever] wins I'm moving to Zimbabwe" - there's real commitment. They really hate that candidate.
However, these words almost passed my lips last night, as I sat watching the first (real) Republican debate on CNN. My roommates got to see me at my most ridiculous: yelling, rocking myself, babbling, grabbing my hair. It's more or less how I imagine getting through my twilight years. Only less cursing.
But before I discuss the many, many thoughts I had on this topic, let me talk about one place I went in the last week, which will actually end up connecting. I'm pretty sure.
Last week I went to happy hour with a good friend of mine from my grad program. She is one of the only Republicans, and she reminds me so so much of Ainsley Hayes. She's blond, she's adorable, she's uber-conservative, she is wicked smart. (One of my favourite West Wing scenes of all time: Ainsley arguing against the ERA). Anyway, we went to Nooshi, this great sushi place in Dupont Circle, and I highly recommend it. I had a "white peach bellini". I like my alcohol to be juice with nice after-effects.
We talked a lot about her job - she's an intern in the senate - and Weinergate and, of course, the Republican primary. (See what I did there?)
Of course, at that point the debate hadn't happened yet and so obviously my opinions have changed drastically since then. I sometimes wonder if anyone's mind gets changed by these debates. After all, if you like a candidate they either "showed their true merit" or "had a bad performance". And if you dislike them, you come up with equal excuses for a good performance - softball questions, empty rhetoric, etc. But then, I tend to hang around people with strong opinions, so what do I know.
The one overarching thing I did learn from this debate is why all my favourite Republicans are Republicans with a lot of caveats and qualms. In other words, I learned why the Republican party has abandoned its people.
First of all, read this article.
If you did not read that article, then let me summarize for you. Essentially, conservatism is supposed to be rooted in realism - in the belief that you must capitalize on what reality tells us people will do in certain situations, rather than what, ideally, we would like them to do. We limit government not because government is inherently evil, but because we have seen that leaders, left to their own devices, will seize more and more power. The current Republican party is based purely on ideology - we cut taxes because we're supposed to cut taxes, even though we see in historical evidence that it has led to massive deficits and does not help spur economic recovery. In debating healthcare, the Affordable Care Act was just wrong even though the final CBO numbers said it would reduce the deficit by $140 billion over the next ten years, and approximately .5% of GDP in the ten years after that. Repealing the PPACA would increase the deficit by $210 billion.
On Monday night, we saw seven people spewing ideology and ignoring facts. What I found most distressing was the lack of will to correct each other. Bachmann made so many idiotic self-contradictions (somehow Obama simultaneously led from behind on Libya AND acted too quickly! Amazing! In addition, she would support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman BUT would not overturn state laws! A totally new constitution!) and yet no one said anything. I understand they were all following Reagan's 11th Commandment, but there is no respect for true facts versus spin, in a way that I don't believe is true across the aisle. When the health care debate was taking place, you did not see every single Democrat supporting the legislation whole-heartedly. You did see every single Republican vote no, even though the bill had many of the same elements as were put forward by Republicans in the 1990's - an individual mandate, government-sponsored exchanges, etc. They stopped voting on logic and started voting on ideology and party biases. In the debate, the candidates were asked if they could think of a single thing Obama had done that they liked or agreed with. No one could say anything. That's either stupidity or intellectual dishonesty. I may have disliked W severely, but if someone asked me if there is anything he did of which I approved, I could come up with something. Because in a real, nuanced debate that is based in reality and not on partisan grounds, we all agree in some places and disagree in others.

Apart from the disregard for the facts, we also saw on Monday night that the Republican party truly is captive to its far right constituents. Now, to be fair, the reason Democrats don't have the same issue with the left is not because they are smarter, better people. As is true for most of these other issues. Kidding. Sort of. Democrats don't have the same issues because we are just a more right-leaning country. Thank you, American Spirit of Individualism.
But when a very smart voter in the audience said, (paraphrasing) "I'm a moderate Republican, and you kind of need us to win, and we're scared that you're too captive to the tea party, so how are you going to win us back?" the response was essentially, "Don't worry, you'll grow to like the tea party and they're not that extreme anyway". (You can look at the transcript here - the question comes in about a quarter of the way down.) That is a terrifying answer. The Tea Party is a nonsense, illogical organization that uses its status as kind-of-a-party-kind-of-not in an inconsistent and frustrating way, and they bring nothing but useless anger and a distrust of government as a whole to the table. It is disappointing that none of the candidates seem to want to separate themselves, especially since, from a purely political point of view, they don't need to pander. Those people are not voting for Obama anyway.
The thing is, I'm usually all in favour of saying both parties are just as bad as each other, etc, etc. But I don't buy that anymore. I think debate on the left is more rigorous, more based in fact, more honest. Someone prove me wrong.

On a side note, the opening remarks by the candidates on Monday were hilarious. In the contest of who has the most children, this was essentially the exchange (again, paraphrasing):
Santorum: 7
Bachmann: 5 children...oh yeah, and TWENTY THREE foster children. Bam.
Gingrich: Wait I'm supposed to talk about children?
Romney: 5 sons, 5 daughters-in-law and 16 grandchildren. (Biological ones count for more)
and my favourite, Paul: Oh we want to talk about children? Yeah well I delivered 4000 babies. Take that, bitches.

Multi-faceted

2011-06-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

Well obviously about a week after saying that I would write about politics, I am going to not write about politics. If you've ever heard me discuss the history of my career plans, made a date with me for any time not five minutes in the future or been with me in a kitchen while I bake, this will not surprise you. It's not that I'm flaky or flippant about any of my endeavors. I'm just really, really interested in a lot of things and I get distracted. I had to swear of Wikipedia for any kind of preliminary paper research , not because of admonitions from professors that it isn't accurate or scholarly (professors of the world, it is time to stop having principles about Wikipedia...all your students use it. Get over it.) but because it would zap hours upon hours of my life. I learned lots of things about lots of subjects - for example, did you know that your Hebrew name does not actually need to be Hebrew? Since ancient times the Jews have borrowed names from lots of other languages. I learned this while writing a paper on Invisible Man.
Anyway, I will not be writing about politics; I will be writing about my neighbourhood and a news story that's been haunting me since one of my TFA friends posted it on their facebook last night.
So let's start with a look at the bright side of life, before I move to one of the most depressing things you will read all day.

I love my neighbourhood. I live in the SW quadrant of DC and it is a dynamic, diverse section of the city. We recently opened The Arena Stage, which is doing a fantastic play right now called "Ruined" about a brothel in Rwanda during the genocide. We have a pretty new Safeway with its own sushi bar. By the way, when choosing an apartment, sight unseen, from California, this was a major draw. Not the sushi bar. Just the Safeway. We have fun events like the 7th Street Landing, which features a farmer's market and live bands and beer and wine tasting. At the most recent one, I was struck by how many different kinds of people were present - not just racially, but also students and elderly couples and young families. All different socio-economic classes were represented. In a city like DC, with its stark SES/racial/everything divides, this is a true feat. But I think the thing I love most about our quadrant is its underdog status. I still get this look of sympathy whenever I tell people where I live. "Below the mall, you say? They have houses there? Oh..." The thing is, I never correct them. I am happy for everyone to keep thinking there is nothing here - I will maintain my low rent and the distinct lack of tourists and ability to get a table at a bar on the waterfront at the height of happy hour, thank you very much. Judge away.
Side note: part of my enthusiasm for this underdoggery comes from watching a neighbourhood that I moved into in Brooklyn go from livable-on-a-teacher's-wage and diverse and relatively quiet and safe to a haven for hipsters, complete with outrageous prices and lines for every single restaurant and unicycles tied to trees, in the space of about six months. Goodbye, Prospect Heights. It was fun while it lasted.

Ok, and now for a nice little dose of depression. In case anyone reading this doesn't know me, I taught in Newark with Teach for America, and thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I still get to keep in touch with many of my colleagues. One of them now works at a charter school up there, and posted this story. I can't imagine how those poor little children will ever recover. I can't imagine ever being able to trust another human being again. But of course, children are amazingly resilient and I hope that the city gives them the needed resources to get back to a normal life.
But that's not the point of posting that story. The point is this: the Bible says some crazy things. It says to take daughters who disobey out to the city gates and stone them. Doesn't like braids or make-up, etc. Tells lots of people they will die in fiery pits. It is strongly anti-fig. And yet anyone who has spent time in a halfway decent church or knows my dad knows that this is not what Christianity is all about. It is about loving your neighbour, taking care of one another, keeping the peace, talking to God about things as much as possible. This crazy man who is using Christianity and Christ as some kind of a shield for his inexcusable actions is insane. He can probably quote verses at you to justify what he did, but that doesn't change the fact that he in no way representative of the religion as a whole. I think most people get that.
The Qu'ran says some crazy things. It says to get rid of infidels. Wants us to stone daughters who disobey (hey look, a place for compromise!). Doesn't like the Jews too much. And yet anyone who has spent time around Muslims knows this is not what Islam is all about. It is about loving your neighbour, taking care of one another, keeping the peace, talking to God about things as much as possible. Those crazy people who use Islam as some kind of shield for their inexcusable actions are insane. They can probably quote verses at you to justify what they did, but that doesn't change the fact they are in no way representative of the religion as a whole. I think most people...sigh.

A confluence of thoughts

2011-06-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

When I was teaching, I used to only be able to listen to music on the train to and from work. Audiobooks, podcasts, etc., stressed me out because my job drained every last iota of energy from my body and I couldn't process anyone else talking to me, even if it was just my own headphones. Bad side effect: there are bands I love, whom I can no longer listen to because they make my chest tighten. I am instantly transported back to that PATH train on my way to Newark and I want to just get in a cab to the airport and leave and never come back.

But this is no longer the case. My job no longer zaps the will to live out of me, so I can listen to podcasts (as this is obviously the main purpose of life, no?). And boy do I listen to podcasts.

My current podcast roll:

Slate Political Gabfest

Slate Culture Gabfest

Slate Spoiler Special Podcast

Hang Up and Listen (Slate's sports podcast)

Manners in the Digital Age (also by Slate...yes, I will read/listen to/worship anything they create)

This American Life

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

Start The Week

NPR's Intelligence Squared

The Week Ahead (an Economist podcast)

And my current favourite: The History of The World in 100 Objects

I listen to these when I walk to work, walk to school, walk to a bookstore, walk for funsies, sit on a bus, sit on a train, etc., and I always feel like a better person for it. Or at least like I can make a decent conversation with more people.

But the point of all this is to say that the most recent podcast I listened to was an episode of AHOW on an "early writing tablet" from Mesopotamia (#15 in the series) that shows how much a worker was to be paid in rations of beer. I think I know a few of my classmates who would happily convert to such a payment system. But anyway, this is one of the earliest known examples of writing, so the series took the opportunity to talk about how the ability to write did more than just open up worlds of literature - it allowed for more complex mathematics, philosophy, science, and perhaps more importantly, it allowed for a system of government. You could write down how much people were owed and how they should be paid and suddenly, some people had power and others did not and it was not based on whether or not they could hit you harder with a big stick. So obviously my mind flew to educational inequity. And actually it flew there from two different directions.

1. I am no luddite. I love technology (if you couldn't tell from my podcast obsession) and my mother taught me to value "whole new concepts", successful or not - we had many As Seen on TV products in our home. My favourite was the "Buttoneer", a thing that was supposed to attach buttons for you without involving any sewing, an activity that gives my mom anxiety. In reality, it managed to take one of the easiest tasks of all time and turn it into an overly-complicated process of plastic fasteners and hole-alignment. It also might have been my favourite because obviously it was buy one get one free, so we had one that I believe to this day is sitting in its plastic casing in a junk drawer somewhere in my parents' house. But goodness I have gone off topic. The point is, I love technology and think the internet is just fabulous and that technology should be integrated into every classroom. But I can't help but wonder, if writing in the first place was what opened up whole new worlds of complex thought, does dumbed-down writing produce dumbed-down thought? I think it does. And this worries me because, truth be told, suburban school are still, for the most part, producing kids who may have terrible grammar in their text messages, but they can put together an essay. High poverty schools are not. There was an attitude at my school in Newark that grammar and spelling etc were going going by the wayside anyway because of technological advancement (in 5 years we'll be doing state testing on computers! they'd say) so let's not focus on that.

But the thing is (and skip ahead if you get scared of a high levels of grammar nerdiness) a complex sentence is more than the sum of its parts. It shows an ability to see relationships between clauses - things depend on other things, semicolons serve different functions than colons and represent different levels of importance for different parts of the sentence. Knowing how to use an adjective versus an adverb and hearing the beauty of a well-crafted description shows an understanding and respect for language that just can't be conveyed in words that are half numbers and half letters.

So when we give up on teaching kids to spell because they'll use spellcheck anyway and we give up on anything more than basic grammar because language is constantly morphing anyway, I worry that we are giving up on complex thought for those kids.

2. Which brings me to direction #2 of my brain-plane. (I wrote train originally, and then realized I had written "flew" before, so that didn't make sense. See, someone along the way taught me to be consistent in my metaphors.)

Republicans make no sense to me. Granted, this is a thought that pretty much goes through my head all the time anyway, regardless of brain-planes, but this time it was tied to a specific context. They complain about rampant entitlement spending. About "welfare queens" and "victim mentality". And yes, we do spend over 60% of our budget on entitlements. Note: a huge portion of this is on Social Security and Medicare, most of which goes to white, older Americans, most of whom vote overwhelmingly Republican. But I digress. We do also have issues with welfare system abuse and fraud, and lots of people think of themselves as victims, I'm sure.

So how do you make that go away? You empower people. How do you empower people? Through education. Who wants to slash funding for education in inner-cities and at failing schools that most need it? Oh wait.

I don't see how out of one side of your mouth you complain that people are not taking enough personal responsibility, and then out of the other, deny the resources to move people out of a state of perpetual dependency. My kids, and I loved them to death and will never stop calling them "mine", are screwed. I tried to help, of course, but almost all of them will graduate with almost no reading, writing or mathematical skills. In other words, we are guaranteeing that they will have no choice but to be told how much they're owed and how they'll be paid, and some people will have power and others will not, and it's still not based on whether or not you can hit someone with a big stick. This time it's just based on your school district.

In related news, my peregrination: for Memorial Day weekend, I went to the Maryland version of the Jersey Shore. Ocean City was pretty fantastic - I got a great tan and ate some delicious crab. But after a weekend of these kinds of sightings, I think you see the obvious connection to lack of complex thoughts and beer rations.

Embracing my Fate

2011-05-30T16:35:00.000-07:00

When I started this entry, I had just finished finals. It feels decidedly bizarre. I keep getting off work and wandering around aimlessly, wondering what exactly I did before I started school. I always think of that Christopher Walken SNL sketch where he claims to only work part-time because he sleeps for large portions of the day.

But anyway, the point of all that was to say, I finished finals, so we (and by that I mean pretty much everyone in my program...we apparently only do things in obnoxiously large groups) went out to Public Bar, a place with mediocre drinks and downright terrible music BUT an excellent rooftop area with a great view of Dupont Circle. It was a really fun night, and I highly recommend the roof to anyone who comes to visit. Not the bar so much, just the roof. So really, if you have access to a free roof, take that one instead.

And now for a thought. So part of the reason why I have been updating so rarely is that I want to be at least somewhat passionate in what I'm discussing. And I also said (to myself) when I started this blog that I did not want to discuss politics ad nauseum, as I happen to have a few friends and family members who do that, and it is boring and occasionally infuriating. It is what I think about and talk about pretty much all day, every day, but I thought I would be able to separate my real life from my blog life. However, it turns out this was mostly resulting in me never updating. I was discussing this dilemma with a friend, who pointed out this very simple fact: "But it's your blog!"

And thus it was settled. I am going to embrace my fate, and become an angry, rambling politico. I plan on buying a frumpy powersuit ASAP.

Thank Goodness We're Free

2011-04-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

My place I visited stand in stark contrast today. One is a happy tale of a place that brought me nothing but joy, and the other is a rant. Let's be joyful first, shall we?

It's spring time in DC, finally. Maybe. Okay, okay, maybe the temperature is supposed to drop back down by twenty degrees this week, but that's fine. It's spring-ish. It's at least winter-neutral. So in celebration, I headed down to Eastern Market on Sunday for the first time in months and was delighted to find all my favourite vendors back with their wares. If you are ever in DC, it is my #1 recommendation on a weekend. It may be a little crowded, but totally worth it. I bought some apples and strawberries and enjoyed the sunshine and live music and hustle and bustle of a busy market. Someday, I will live in that neighbourhood. And I will buy local hummus. This is my version of the Red Hat Society.

And now to the anger.

I am never ashamed to be girly. As my parents will readily attest, I was the most princess-, pink-and-purple-, frilly-dress-obsessed little girl you had ever met. Meet me at age...um...little with my brother and grandmother. Notice the pink dress and frilly socks. Those were standard beach wear. So I get this whole "everything feminine is mocked mercilessly which proves we all hate women" argument. 99.9% of the time I agree. And I agree with this anti-backlash, pro-royal wedding argument that the backlash came from the fact that feminine silliness gives us a negative gut reaction in a way that masculine silliness does not - why exactly are women idiots for going all gaga over this wedding but no one makes a peep when men sit in front of a tv for hours watching people in ridiculous clothes throwing balls at each others' heads?

However.

If I have to hear about this stupid royal wedding any more after this week, my head may very well explode. And here is why.
1. Kate Middleton is not an everyday girl. You could not be Kate Middleton. I could not be Kate Middleton. I mean she is not titled, but she is insanely wealthy and insanely beautiful and would never have met William if she could not have run in those circles.
2. We are celebrating rich people marrying each other and increasing the already staggering income gap in the UK that is continuing to grow there and here. We are increasingly becoming a society where we only live, go to school with, marry and reproduce with people of our same class. How charming of us all.
3. They seem like jerks. I won't try to explain it here, but if you ever go to Oxford, you will see their counterparts, and you will know I'm right. Also, I just don't get Will as a person. If I had watched my mother chase after media attention and then get killed by that pursuit, I would never want cameras anywhere near me. And I get that they were going to be harassed regardless, so maybe it's better to invite them in and get control of the situation, but it still seems like too calculated a move for someone who lost his mother to this kind of media frenzy.
4. I would still really like to be a princess, and now the only option left is the ginger Nazi. No thank you.

Let's Do the Time Warp Again

2011-04-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

No more apologies for how often I update. I'm a busy lady. So moving right along, I had a birthday recently. It was absolutely wonderful, quite possibly my favourite birthday ever. Three dear, dear friends from undergrad came into town and we did all the things we're best at: we baked, we ate, we made silly jokes, we watched TV, we danced, we made fun of ourselves, we laughed a lot. It was everything turning 24 should have been. And by that I obviously mean that I pretended I was 20 again, with no one to miss.

One of the best parts of the weekend was going dancing at The Black Cat to some banghra music mixed with hip hop and 90's pop. There were a bunch of people from my grad school there and one girl who actually knows how to dance, so we all just imitated her or thought back to the last Bollywood movie we had seen. Turns out they do these nights once every 6-ish weeks, so I will definitely be back. As should everyone else.

My thought for this post actually comes from one of my classes (academia inspiring further reflection?! Shocking!), specifically my class on campaign finance. We had a guest speaker, Ellen Weintraub, one of the commissioners on the FEC, and she was fascinating. Her closing point, though, was basically that her job didn't matter. She essentially said that if young people just voted and cared about politics, the amount of money spent would stop mattering because people would be researching issues on their own and politicians wouldn't think it was worth it to spend so much on cheesy advertising campaigns. It sounded mostly like she didn't know how to make a clean exit out of her presentation so she went for a classic liberal position, but anyway, that's not the point. The point is, she posed the question to our class, "Why do people your age not vote?!" and it rather stumped me. Well, first I just thought, "lady, of all groups of people to address that to, are you really going to ask a group of Georgetown graduate public policy students in Washington, DC? Really?" But then I started thinking...why don't people my age get more involved as a rule? Even in 2008, a year we got SO excited about young people's involvement, they still did not even come close to the involvement of the electorate over age 65. (Thanks for the Obama win, guys!) Involvement among 18-29 year-olds has been increasingly dismal since about 1960.

So here is my theory, in bits and pieces, so far.

Watergate fundamentally altered the way my generation and late Gen X views politics. I think that's why we have such a disconnect from the Boomers. To us, politics is pure functionality - we've been overwhelmed with transparency, and it's a pretty disgusting picture, but oh well, that's how it gets done. There is no romance. Politics is no place for values, beyond efficiency and efficacy. This has two main implications.

1. The personal lives of candidates is pretty irrelevant. Nixon was a Quaker, and he almost single-handedly brought down the executive branch of our government. Clinton was a cheater and a sleazy politician to the core, but also insanely intelligent - he kept us at peace, he reduced the deficit, he created AmeriCorps, he reformed welfare. I'll take the cheater any day. I think that's why, in the 2000 election, you saw Bush trying to push his "I go to church every week" schpiel, and a lot of older people getting excited, and a lot of younger people saying, "and...?" Even young conservatives cared infinitely more about his voting record and his emphasis on compassionate conservatism than any professed religion. And when it came out that Obama hadn't even attended his own church enough to know what the pastor was saying, we saw a bunch of boomers and early gen-x-ers up in arms, and most gen-y-ers wondering why anyone thought otherwise. Of course religion is just a box politicians check off - you can't survive in politics and actually put some system of beliefs above yourself. You can see this even in discussion of the founding fathers. Honestly, you could craft a pretty coherent argument that either a) the founding fathers based large chunks of the constitution on Judeo-Christian principles and held to those principles themselves; or b) the founding fathers purposely separated themselves from any religion because they were largely Deists, secularists, Masons or some combination - hence the vague "not-quite-Christian-not-quite-anything-else" type language. In my experience, which side of that argument you choose is pretty strongly linked to age. Either way, the founding fathers are everlasting symbols of what politicians should be, the symbols are just entirely different. For boomers, the founding fathers infused their personal lives and personal faiths into everything they did and created. For Gen-Y-ers, the founding fathers may or may not have had some vague belief in something or other, but they kept that firmly away from their political actions, and they expected the same of future politicians.

2. Voting and political participation doesn't change things. Ok, it's possible that Obama is going to change all of this, and maybe the generation after mine (Z? Right?) is going to vote up a storm. But I'm going to assume they won't, because they, too, have CNN (and MSNBC and Fox News and etc etc, I'm just using CNN because Don Lemon is such a fox). CNN tells you way in advance who is going to win, what everyone thinks about everything, and it seems everything is decided ahead of time. And since any idealism or romanticism about politics has long since gone out the window, what exactly is the point of voting? The fact is, even if every young person in America voted, we would still not out-number the boomers, so from an efficiency standpoint, voting is not an optimal use of time.

So there you go, Ellen. Two weeks after class, I have an answer for you. You're welcome.

Home where my thoughts escape

2011-03-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

Eek, okay, writing on a regular basis is clearly NOT going well. But if it's never too late to restart these things, then it also has to be never too early, right? Right.

So the last month or so has been pretty much totally overwhelmed by school - I just finished midterms and basically was a hermit. But I did manage to get in a few little adventures around DC. Mostly food-related. PS this has also not been the best month for that whole "go to the gym and stay healthy" thing.

A quick February food round-up:

-Georgetown Cupcake. Finally went for the first time (the setting of TLC's DC Cupcakes) and it was passable. Totally overpriced, but a quality cupcake. If you want my non-expert cupcake opinion on the many options in DC, the place to go is cake love (non-capitalization intended...it's hip like that). However, if you are like me and love baked goods but absolutely do not understand the particular obsession with cupcakes, then I recommend either Baked and Wired if you're in Georgetown or Sticky Fingers in Columbia Heights. And yes, Sticky Fingers is vegan, but you would never know. It tastes like buttery eggy delicious.

-Taj of India. An Indian restaurant in Georgetown that had rave reviews and...decent food. I think all my family trips to London have spoiled me for life with Indian food. Everything else just tastes decent. It also made me very excited to get home this week and hit up the Indian buffet near my brother's work. Although it's hard to tell if it's the food that's delicious, or if the appeal comes from the fact that my darling brother never fails to insist on paying. (As well he should...given my need to work in school districts and non-profits, it is highly likely he will always make approximately 500 times more money than I do) Oh yeah, and that I get the pleasure of his and my sister-in-law's company. I guess that's important too.

-Winter Brunch. My roommates and I hosted a winter brunch, and it was fantastic. Some tips for success if you want to be as fabulous as we are:

Limit your guest list. People are more likely to come if they know they will actually matter AND if you make it open to friends (let's be real...if someone asks you're not going to say no. And if this is a facebook invite you look like a jerk if you don't) you leave some flexibility for more guests than expected. We hosted a fall brunch and basically invited the entire city, and it was a mess. I mean, we still had fun and all, but it was overcrowded, there was not enough of some foods and WAY too much of others, people just got into little cliques because they could hardly move, and I know I spent most of my time stuck in a corner because it would have been hellish trying to get back to the buffet.
Ask people to bring the alcohol. Cheaper, can't go bad later, people are more likely to take it home if unused, no dishes to return.
Invite some people you aren't as good of friends with, but want to be. It makes the conversation more exciting, because you're getting to know someone new, and it's hard to run out of things to talk about. Plus they are likely to come with lots of things...you know, because they feel awkward.

Ok, so that was my substitute for "somewhere I went" this month. Honestly, if I had tried to do that the normal way, it would have gone something like this:

I went to my room. I couldn't even tell you the colour of the walls...I was staring at a public finance textbook. It was black and white with lots of squiggly lines. What did it say, you ask? Good question. That probably would have been a good thing to know for that test I just took.

Now, a thought: this month, I've been pretty obsessed with following the happenings in Wisconsin. (If you're not much of a newshound/have been living under a rock, this gives a pretty good summary) I'm not going to attempt to comment on the politics of the situation here - if you know me, you know my opinions on unions and education spending, and if you don't, well...just know I have two public school teacher parents and I personally like that they get health insurance and can't be fired at a moment's notice. I like that, given that they can't get the wages that anyone else working their insane hours in a job no one else wants to do would get, they can have job security and quality compensation in other areas. I also like that my high school English teacher, who was not universally loved by students and parents but was a quality teacher, was not immediately fired when some idiot kid decided he didn't want to do his homework and started a hate campaign.

Like I said, though, not getting into the politics here. My thought is this: for a society that is supposedly so one-track and simple-minded, we manage to hold a lot of contradictions in our heads at once. We love the teachers we know (I challenge you to find a single parent that really disapproves of EVERY teacher his or her child has had), but hate teachers at large. The unions are made up of those teachers! Those exact same caring teachers. Yes, there are a few union presidents who have lost sight of the mission, but there are also soldiers who are racist and are in their profession for the wrong reasons - and I won't even pretend to say anything bad about soldiers. Because, you know, that would be unpatriotic, unlike bashing the people who shape our nation's youth. Anyway.

We hate a general obsession with celebrity, and yet, it wouldn't exist if a lot of individuals weren't obsessively watching every minute of that fantastic Charlie Sheen live interview. (Was I one of those people? Absolutely.) We want government to cut spending in general, but when asked specifically, want to increase spending in most areas. We want science to march forward and for the US to be leaders in innovation, and yet it is practically an annual tradition to mock scientific experiments with unusual names and self-righteously cut them from the budget. We are totally uptight about our children witnessing anything sexual (see the Miley Cyrus pole dance freakout or one of my favourite news stories of all time) and yet are totally fine with stores like Gap Kids or Limited Too that put our children in clothes that were meant to accentuate the ADULT form.

So to be perfectly honest...if I didn't care about politics, I probably wouldn't care about any of this. Yes, we're all hypocrites, yes, we're probably all going to hell in a handbasket. Got it. However, as someone who really enjoys the politic-i-ness of of politics, this makes campaign and PR work really difficult and confusing. When people are walking contradictions, you can't even win one group and forfeit another - you risk forfeiting the other half of the person you're trying to win. Politicians have always been sleazy and flip-floppy, but maybe it's not their fault. Maybe if we were less sleazy, flip-floppy and confusing ourselves, politicians wouldn't have to respond in kind.

Uh oh...already behind

2011-01-26T17:19:00.000-08:00

Okay so yes, I have already fallen behind on my resolution to stay up with this blog. But here I am now. On top of it again. Sort of.

So almost one month into the new year, how am I doing on my other resolutions?

-Gym at least 3 times a week: check!

-Starbucks down to once a week: check! (sort of...I decided dates/social coffee meet-ups don't count. Don't judge me.)

-French practice: yeah, no check whatsoever. Oy, I need to pick this back up. But hey, I've been baking things out of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Vol 2". Does that count? I say so.

This week, I've been settling into the routine of school and work, and getting used to being busy pretty much constantly. This also means no time for grocery shopping. As a result, one place I've been multiple times this week is sweetgreen, an amazing salad place in DC. There's a location on M Street in Georgetown that now knows my name and my order: romaine with butternut squash, spicy kale, grape tomatoes, cucumber and quinoa, in curry pineapple yogurt dressing. I know you're jealous. Just come visit and I will take you there.

And to be honest, I have barely had time to think about anything this week. Memos, problem sets, snow storms...who has time to think? But last night, I took an hour off and watched the State of the Union address. As per usual, Obama was articulate, though perhaps vague at some points (although who isn't in the SOTU?) I have to say, when I heard from my favourite political writer John Dickerson say he thought education was going to be the biggest topic addressed in the SOTU, I got nervous. I can't remember the last time I just 100% agreed with someone on education policy, especially a politician. Would he start bashing tenure? Would he start falling down at the altar of TFA? Would he do the charter school dance like everyone else? Well, he didn't do any of those things. He was sadly unpointed and noncommittal. It sounded distinctly like he was planning to do what every politician does: talk about the importance of education, and then drop it at the next news cycle. I think the saddest part for me was when he made the plea to "young people" to look into teaching as a future career, especially in math and science. I waited for the follow up statement - "We will reward you by forgiving all your loans" or "we will make it worth your while by developing a fair, thoughtful merit pay system that rewards good teachers" or "we will make the job easier by focusing on strong school administrations and parent involvement, so you can be in a supportive work environment". Nope. Apparently people who are strong in math and science should just choose to be teachers and give up millions of potential dollars and add hours of stress to their life for funsies. Can't wait to see how that one will go down.

I'll just go ahead and change my name to Mr. Navorski

2011-01-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

I have been at the Atlanta airport for 12 straight hours. I was supposed to be on a flight last night at 9 PM to Reagan. Well, to be fair, I was on the plane. Starting at about 8:35. First, it was going to be a 30 minute delay because we had to wait in line to get "de-iced". Then it was an hour delay. Then it was 11 and we were still waiting. Then all the runways closed, and apparently there's a window after you get de-iced in which you can still take off, so we had to wait until a runway was open before we could even go get in line. So we waited. At around 12, we backed off the gate and got in line. And waited some more. At 2 AM we finally got de-iced and at 2:30 AM, the pilot came on and announced that we had waited so long that we were now low on fuel, so we had to return to the gate. At that point, the freezing rain started coming down. So off the plane we got and I have been here since.

Ways to entertain yourself in an airport:

Talk to the people around you. I have met a woman who works for Lockheed Martin who can't discuss the details of her job, a man in an army uniform who is leaving for Afghanistan in two weeks and said he thinks having children and being in the military is irresponsible, two hipster 18-yr-olds who are starting a band called Dove Dawn ("It's ironic", they explained, but I don't think they know what that means) and a very nice man at Atlanta Bread Company who keeps giving me free tea refills.
Walk through the various terminals and see how the people change with the airlines. For example, Air Tran was filled with huge families and 20-somethings with no money (like me!), while Delta was predominately older couples and business travelers. My Freakonomics-style analysis of this is that Delta was much more popular about 15-ish years ago (I remember my grandparents used to use them a lot), so the people who have frequent flier miles with them are likely to be older. Someone out there will shoot that down, I'm sure.
Watch Netflix Instant Play on your laptop. I've watched so many episodes of Friday Night Lights. And the $10 it cost to connect to the internet is quite possibly the best investment I've made in the last year.

Note: Unfortunately, none of these things will actually cure the mind-numbing boredom that comes with being in the exact same space for this long. Which brings me to my thought for the day.

There was a family near me at one of my hours at the airport with 2 kids, ages 3-ish and 8-ish. The older one must have said "I'm bo-o-o-o-ored" about 65 times over the hour, stretching vowels and adding syllables in a way I haven't heard since teaching days. The younger one, on the other hand, had 4 crayons and a napkin, and didn't make a peep. He coloured away, making scenes of his family in various locations. But no, this was not a trite revelation about how it all comes down to attitude, even though it does.

Rather, it mostly made me think about how much adults reward the wrong things. I mean, like I said, the 3 year old was totally content, but his parents were barely paying him any attention. The 8 year old, on the other hand, was being offered option after option to appease his increasingly loud feelings of discontent. That 3 year old is going to learn that if he wants to compete, he better start finding something to complain about, and fast. And that is how you end up with a plane full of people yelling at flight attendants, even though we ALL KNOW it is not their fault and there is nothing they can do. The quiet, polite kids get 4 crayons and a napkin. Whine, and a free chocolate milk is in your future.

EDIT: As of now, I am at a hotel in Atlanta. The airport was basically completely shut down, and I'm hoping to be on a flight tomorrow morning at 8:55. Here's hoping.

Already winning

2011-01-04T12:24:00.000-08:00

Well I have learned a new trick for getting a higher success rate on New Years Resolutions: don't start until 4 days in. I'm guaranteed to last at least a week.

So as I have said at least 4 times now, keeping a blog is a resolution for this year. However, it is not the only one. Here are my others:
-Keep going to the gym at least 3 times a week
-Cut Starbucks visits down to once a week (for people who know me...yes, I know this sounds impossible, but it will be done.)
-Save $150/month for a plane ticket to Australia in December
-Work on my conversational French at least twice a week

I'm also trying to be realistic with myself that those all sound doable now, but I also am not back in school or work, so they could rapidly lose plausibility come January 12th.

As I am writing this post, I am thinking it could swiftly turn into a rambling series of empty paragraphs, which will then lead me to hate my writing, which will then lead me to give up the blog altogether. So new plan: I am going to take the heading of my blog a little more seriously. I really just chose those words because I like the letter 'p' but I think that will be a good format - one place I've visited, and one thing upon which I've been ruminating. Done.

This week I am not back in DC, I am in CA soaking up the rain and the valuable time with family and friends-so-old-they-are-like-family. I haven't really been going anywhere new or interesting - in fact, I have purposely been going to all the places I've been a million times before, or staying home and doing absolutely nothing. My family is currently on a Shanghai Rummy kick (You should play!) although my mom winning every single time gets a little old...

One slightly different place we've gone this week is to the Humane Society in Ojai, where we were looking at a new dog to adopt. My parents have big, big hearts and they wanted our dog Lucy to have a friend, and they also wanted an adult dog to find a home. After much deliberating, and a few detours, we ended up applying for a Tibetan Spaniel we've decided to name George Bailey. However, there's a hold on him, so we have to wait to see if some other paperwork goes through...it's all up in the air. As a side note about the Ventura County Humane Society, if you live anywhere near there and are thinking about getting a pet, please go check them out. They care so deeply about all the animals, and take really good care of them, but we learned it costs $10,000/month just to keep the doors open. So if you're looking for a place to volunteer, donate or adopt, go visit. Ojai even built you a new yogurt shop to draw you in...

My pondering actually came from this visit. When we first walked in and saw all the dogs, they were all cute enough - it is very hard to convince me I don't like a dog. We weren't even going in to look at the Tibetan Spaniel, we were coming in specifically to look at another dog we'd seen on their website. But I saw this little boy in his cage and started to pet him and he was just the sweetest thing, so we took him out to play for a bit. He was unnamed, so of course I immediately started thinking of all the things we could call him. It was just after Christmas (the 30th, I think?) so obviously Christmas names were coming to mind. Kevin McAllister? Ralphie? Scott Calvin or Bernard? George Bailey. My family has watched It's a Wonderful Life religiously, every Christmas, for as long as I can remember. So George it was. And the second I thought that, and repeated it to my mother, the bond between us and the dog appeared and strengthened instantaneously. Just in the act of assigning a name, he became ours and we became his and my heart was set on this dog. So is that why I name so many inanimate objects, like my computer (Ginger) and my Kindle (Toby Ziegler) and my phone (Stackhouse)? I want to feel bonded to everything around me? Or is that why we give so many nicknames to the people we love? The name everyone else calls them is just the species. The name that is just for us bonds us to each other more deeply. In high school, all my friends and I had these ridiculous captain names for each other - I was Captain Dubious, I believe. But being able to call each other and answer the phone, "Hey Captain Mathster" or "Captain Innuendo" makes me feel like no space has grown between us. And even though I'm sure everyone else at our school thought us incredibly nerdy, I wouldn't trade that feeling of closeness for anything. This week I got a present from my best friend, who signed the little gift tag simply "<3, PTS" and made a joke as I was opening it about the great amount of thought put into the signature. But I loved it. In those three little letters, a nickname we share for each other, were all our years of friendship and love, conversations going until wee hours of the morning, knowing each other well enough to speak without words, and, as we got older, years of counseling, mourning, celebrating, and confiding. A small little name can say so much.