I don't care about authenticity

It is taco night in this household.
Wait for it....

Yum.

Weird happenings of the day...

One of my favorite things is when you are driving, and you catch a glimpse of a sign or picture and feel as if you need to do a double-take.
Whilst driving to DC today, I saw a sign for the "George Bush Center for Intelligence." At first glance, hysterical. Then, of course, you realize that it is a CIA building named for George H. Bush. Good laugh.
Then, Brutus Buckeye gave me the heads up on a great article:
"Sheriff: Woman Sat on Toilet for 2 Years"
Yep. A woman apparently went into her boyfriend's bathroom and stayed for two years, while he feed her. Quote, the boyfriend, "She is an adult; she made her own decision. It was my fault I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it."
Yes. I would get used to my girlfriend (NOT wife) living in the bathroom for two years. And, I wouldn't get her help, because she must NOT have any problems or issues.
The story gets even better:

"Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who stayed in her boyfriend's bathroom for two years, spending most of her time on the toilet — so that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the man finally called police.
It appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat, said Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple. The woman initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.
"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it." "

Only in Kansas.

Are mistresses still chic?

So, yesterday, I received a a copy of "The New York Review of Books" for some reason. I wasn't impressed- I don't think that there was a single book reviewed that I would read, and those of you who know me, know I read nearly anything.
However, when you flip to the back of this periodical, you strike gold!
"Personal Services" and "Personals" make this publication worthwhile!
In "Personal Services," you can chose between "Sacred Erotic...The Incredible Lightness of Tough. Private, safe, tasteful," or "Erotic Explosion... Let me blow your mind, your ultimate erogenous zone. Provocative talk with educated beauty. No limits." Hmm...sounds like a zombie dating site (brains! braaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiinsssss!) And, sandwiched between these two ads, was "The Right Stuff- Date fellow graduates and faculty or the Ivies, Stanford, and a few other excellent schools." Interesting.
Now, in personals, there were several ads for people in boring marriages, looking for outside relationships. Now, get this- the age group for this ad? 65-75!! Strange.
The best ad, however, was from a self-described "scholar-adventurer...former revolutionary" looking for "long-term mistress or full second wife."
Now, this brings me to a relevant point, in light of Eliot Spitzer's link to a prostitution ring. Why don't American politicians just have mistresses instead of prostitutes? I mean, if you are spending $4000 on an hour or two with a prostitute, maybe once or twice a month, you could definitely swing an apartment, food, clothing, and presents for an established mistress. I think if the media found out about it, you could spin it into a nice, heartwarming story that will keep you in office (but maybe not with your wife).
For example, you can't spin the prostitute story too well, "I was trying to support these girls, who have no other transferable skill than sex. It's like the stripper who is paying for college."
Nah. Doesn't fly.
But with a mistress, "Well, ladies and gentlemen of the press, I am ashamed to admit it. I have loved two women in my life, and I cannot choose between them. Would you fault me for loving too much?" Make sure that there is "Titanic" music in the background.
Europeans have it right. Mistresses, not prostitutes!

Respect for the house bound

So, I've been partially employed for two months now (my last full time job day was January 11th- hard to believe that the whole life in NC is only two months away- it is seeming lifetimes). I work mainly evenings and weekends. It isn't ideal and it doesn't pay too many bills.
So, I've been largely stuck in the house. Now, I spend a lot of the day looking for full time work or refining applications.* I also do housework- cleaning, organizing, cooking, dishes, laundry. Today, I did a little of each. I also did finances and personal paperwork. Now, I have a small family and home. But, it does actually take some work to do all these things. I never thought to much about them in isolation, because these were all things that I used to do on top of working. However, when you have more time to do things around the house, it does take a good amount of time.
However, that isn't what earned my respect- what earns it for me is that doing all this stuff at home is really isolating. Being a house bound person, without a "career" isn't rocket science- it has its own artistry, but it can be acquired as a skill. However, the working in one environment, where you are the only person mostly, and you may not leave the house much, well, that takes some getting used to! At least at work, you have people around you (you may not like them, but there is an essay by William Hazlett, "On the Pleasure of Hating," so not liking them may be enjoyable) and perhaps daily companions or teammates. I used to have kids around all day and while they may drive you nuts (often), they also provided more comedy than a stand-up marathon. I had fellow teachers to discuss things with (work, the world, the latest trashy gossip). This, at least, gives a little variation to your day. Being house bound (or "Housewife/Househusband") lacks that- maybe the TV helps, but you can't argue too much with it. Or dish about some things, or come up with new ways/methods of making your work better.
So, to people like my mother, who is my best friend (husband, you are too, but Mom wins by a hair, due to default of length of association), who work at home and get little recognition, here's to you not going crazy!

*Optional rant- okay. So, in VA, you apply to teaching jobs by county, not town (as they do in NJ). Now, each county has an online application system that you have to fill out to even be considered for interviewing. What gets me is that each county has the SAME online application system. Now, why isn't there ONE application for the state, which you could then send to each county you want to apply to? Makes sense, right? Instead, I have to do the same, tedious application (which is a long version of my resume- it just gets put into a database format by me) for each county. I also have to send copies of letters of recommendation, resumes, personal statements, CVS, transcripts, and licenses to each county. Why not just have ONE system, where I could scan the documents, and not have to copy, request documents, and mail so often?
Why? Because public education is a government job. Government likes to make many jobs, to hire more people (a form of social welfare, I suppose) to do things that one person could do. So, they need to have a person to process my paperwork at each county office (or maybe 10- I don't know) so more people can work.

Don't be lonely in these states

I read today that Virginia, my new home state, is one of four states that bans sexual toys, the others being Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Hey doc, I have a...

Soranus.
Just say it out loud. Then, laugh.
I was reading one of my Medieval mysteries when the name came up- I have seen it before (and laughed), but have forgotten about it.
Soranus is the name of a Greek doctor from Ephesus, who trained in Alexandria, and practiced in Rome around the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (90-130AD ish?). He did work on female health, fractures, and diseases. There are Latin translations of his work available, I believe, and some in Greek? I am going off of memory, which is not often the best research method. But a doctor called Soranus? He should have been a proctologist.
Ohh- proctologist joke! What is a Pokemon?
A Jamaican proctologist!
(I stole that from the yearly contest in the Post I believe to take existing words in the English language and give them new meanings that are funnier...)
I also remember that there is an entry for Soranus in the Suda, which is a Byzantine encyclopedia of everything ancient- sort of like a scrapbook of ancient knowledge (sayings, grammar, words, people, places, events). I looked online for that and found this http://www.stoa.org/sol/about.shtml, which is an online version of the Suda, which is being constantly updated, translated, and fixed by researchers. Cool! The problem with some much Greek and Latin literature is that you have to go to a top Classics research library to find works and they are not all translated. For a Latin teacher, this is a pain, because I know there are many strange works I would like to read with my students, but I have no university affiliations to get books and these obscure works cost an arm and leg to buy. Sigh. But, maybe I can translate the Suda into short Latin pieces for my students- I have been looking for ways to generate more interesting Latin pieces for classroom use at all levels....Just an idea.

A great article on education reform

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120364195876084617.html?mod=opinion_journal_federation

I found this one on the Wall Street Journal this morning. It proposes a mixture of business type school reforms, as well as instructional/curriculum based reforms. In other words, you can use "business" strategy to reform schools- fix the hiring process (end tenure!!!) and offer school choice (the author is a big believer in this system- I haven't thought about this enough to comment, but do wonder in inner-city schools- how much choice is there if there aren't many private/parochial schools to turn to?)- as well as fix the curriculum- stop using trendy methods that are marketed as the "answer" to teaching students, and work on figuring out what really works (brain based research as well as maybe creating tests that actually test something- can you read? can you write? can you do basic math and apply logical thinking? do you have a grounding in principles of science?). The "figuring out what really works" is the hard part (who does it, how do they do it, etc.)- but the author of this article looks at the Massachusetts school system (but does a lousy job actually explaining what they do right- he gives them about two paragraphs at the end!), which seems to be a success where it matters- in the classroom and in the lives of students.

There was one new point that the author brought up that I have not thought too much about- teacher education. I never took any education classes in undergrad and only took a crash course at the grad level, to achieve certification in an alternate route program. I did not realize that much of the bad practices in education are taught to education majors, since schools of education have not really looked at their curriculum to see if what they teach really works for students. I have noticed that the strongest teachers at my old schools were the alternate route teachers- those with little "indoctrination" from an education program. They had great success with students and were willing to try any method that worked with their group of students. In my own classroom, I never really used "educational theory" as anything other than a tool- MI theory, Bloom's, etc. were all useful at certain times. I learned my methodology from my own research in language acquisition (my area) and from my students. At the end of each lesson, I would have "Student Satisfaction Surveys"- I asked my students to identify strong and weak spots in my teaching and give me ideas for how to help them. Some kids wanted more groups, some wanted more one-on-one with me, some wanted less homework but more work in the classroom, and the list goes on. I used this information to modify my teaching for each class as well as for each student. Again, I have not taken the traditional education classes, so maybe this is where some of the bad teaching comes from?

Last point- the author of the article also talks about teaching certification- a process that does need some revamping, just as the hiring-retention-training process does. To be certified, you have to have the paperwork (courses, tests, degrees), but to retain your certification, you have do not much of anything. You have to teach, but then do something like 100+ hours every five years of "professional development." Now, this "development" can be utterly ridiculous- you can take stupid seminars on how to use Microsoft Word and get 10 hours of credit. Why not actually keep this requirement, but give it some teeth? Every field has national associations, all of which have national conventions. Why not put aside some money to send people to these conferences, instead of hiring people to give "professional development" seminars to schools on certain days of the year (as someone who experienced these "professional ed" days- they are worthless, especially the generic ones for the whole school- and they aren't cheap for school districts- you can pay thousands of dollars to presenters who add nothing to a teacher's ability to teach)? Why not ask many of the national associations to put on web classes (which are cheaper than flying people to conference at one particular point) for their fields? Why not have teachers work over the summer to do professional development- as a department, as a county, as a state?

The problem with this last point is who will pay for it- my husband finds it amazing that I have to do these hours for my certification, but have to pay for all of it (well, some schools offer "tuition assistance," but they have arcane rules for what they will pay for. They also pay for things not related to education- if you have a MA, then they will pay for you take classes in any field you want, even if it is not related to what you teach. This needs to go and money needs to go for developing what you do in the job you are paid for). He finds that strange- I find it typical in education. The money is the issue- I just wish that doing best for the students would be more of the issue, and then managing the money to reach that goal.

Good names in PA

While driving to/from Wilkes-Barre, PA this weekend, I saw some good names for towns and other goods:

1. Hecktown Road - used to be Helltown, then they maybe got blasphemy laws?

2. Scotrum, PA- glance at a sign for this town really quickly and you think you see another word

3. Shamokin, PA- its like a town that watched "The Mask" too many times and decided to name their town after the "Shaammmoookin" line. Or a combination of their jobs- shamming and smoking weed...(says husband dear)

4. Lickdale, PA- I want to know the story behind that one.

5. Sign for a farm stand- "We have Old Timey Applebutter"- didn't know "old time" could have a "y" at the end

6. Tokyo Diner- American or Japanese food? You take a guess.

7. Best person of the day- we were cut off by a guy with "I'm a reenactor" bumper stickers outside of Gettysburg, PA (Civil War reenactor)- when we finally passed him, we got a good look- now, I'm not down with the Civil War fashions, but a beard that grows entirely under your chin from your sideburns and is absent from the mouth/cheek area, well, I wish we had the camera. And, it was snow white colored. I will try to find a picture online to supplement this image.

8. Strangest drink of the weekend- Manishevitz Blackberry (husband tried it and found that it had a palate of....blackberries!)

9. Best line of the weekend- "This town has balls!" re: Wilkes-Barre and the third testicle theory (which was discussed in front of grandma, who giggled away)

10. Best food of the weekend- Dominick's pizza (full of delicious lard in the dough, so it seems to be fried on the bottom), clams, and Grandma's soup. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Soup....