Photo Documentary of The Inaugural Meal

Here's Dak mere moments after telling her we were skipping class in order to cook dinner for Dad. You can see how upset she is:

Here's a long shot of her pouting, and part of the initial kitchen set up. Note recipe on the computer. (And reading for grad school nearby. Because, you know, I might be able to get those 162 pages read while standing in the kitchen.)

Setting the table. My theory: if it looks good, nobody will care what it tastes like. (Added bonus here is the shot of Jim's and my filing system for our doctoral work in the background on the dining room buffet. Enjoy.)

Then I laid out the ingredients. This seemed like an important step to me at the time, though now it seems totally ridiculous. At this point I'd managed to thoroughly read the recipe about 3-4 times, and limited myself to only one call to KC to ask about greasing the pan. Try not to be overwhelmed with the numerous ingredients about to go into this meal.

Here's the chicken resting on a bed of uncooked rice, moments before adding the cream of chicken soup.

And here's the chicken and rice just moments before going in the oven, the chicken now covered in cream of chicken soup and topped with a packet of onion soup. Are you blown away by the difficulty of this recipe, yet?

Preparation of the I Forgot the Name Fruit Sauce, which is just a mixture of sour cream and brown sugar. Mix to taste. (Now I'm even sounding like I know what I'm doing.)

Strawberry Dessert Cup with I Forgot the Name Fruit Sauce. See theory above.

Steaming the broccoli. This was much harder than anticipated. I told myself once, "I think it needs longer," but then took it off then anyway since Kari told me to. This proved to be expert advice, because by no small miracle, the broccoli was perfectly done.

Gratuitous photo of Dak:

The final presentation. Can I get an Amen?

My new New Year's Resolution

I'm going to cook, dammit.

Tonight is my inaugural meal. I'm going to be making this chicken and rice dish. I'm also going to steam some broccoli. There will probably also be bread.

For dessert, we're going to have strawberries with some sauce I don't know the name of. I'll document with photos.

Dear Rachel

Today is March 1st, which means that you somehow managed to barely get through the month of February.

Next year, remember this:

In February, you will undoubtedly:

• hate your job
• wonder why you went into teaching
• despise some students
• leave work feeling uninspired and uninspiring
• have forgotten that you felt the exact same way last February.

Don't forget: you DO NOT like February, and February does not like you.

Here's to March!

xoxo,

Rachel

The Disparity

Yesterday afternoon, I was talking to Teaching Pal Tim about teaching all day Wednesday and then going to grad school in the evening. The difference between the actual goings-on in my classroom and the ivory tower are pretty alarming. Tim had the good idea of posting one comment from school and one element of grad school per week.

Good idea, Tim.

Someone should use this stuff for a dissertation on the teacher/graduate student dual identity. Not me, but someone should.

School: "I have to eat lunch during class because I'm busy making out with my boyfriend during actual lunch."

Grad school: 50 minutes explicating the following Maxine Greene passage from "Curriculum and Consciousness":
"Although I am going to claim that learning, to be meaningful, must involve such a 'going beyond,' I am not going to claim that it must also be in the imaginative mode. Nor am I going to assert that, in order to surpass the 'given,' the individual is required to move into and remain within a sealed subjectivity. What I find suggestive in the criticism of consciousness is the stress on the gradual disclosure of structures by the reader. The process is, as I have said, governed by certain cues or norms perceived in the course of reading. These demand, if they are to be perceived, what Jean Piaget has called a 'continual decentering' without which [the individual subject] cannot become free from his intellectual egocentricity."

Oh boy.

Freakshow

Today was the start of second semester. I had three new sets of Pubic Speakers, and as of 8:30 this morning, two of those three sections were already filled to capacity--as in, I already had more students than desks.

Historically, the start of second semester doesn't go well for me. I'm entirely frazzled from wrapping up first semester and preparing for second semester in whiplash inducing turnaround time, and I'm mistakenly assuming that my new students will heart me as much as my old students did. Immediately. As in, they will walk in my room and will pick up where old kids left off, despite the fact that old kids didn't heart me right away either.

This generally leads to a lot of overcompensating by me--lots of jokes, lots of self-deprecation, lots of attempts to engage the newbs in the class and in my life. When this fails, as it always does, I begin to just talk about how weird the start of second semester is, how painful that they all don't know me yet, and I assure them that in 3-4 weeks time, they'll love me! They'll really love me!

I'd say the low point today was when I exclaimed that a sophomore boy (in a Public Speaking class dominated by huge, senior jock boys) was "so cute and little!"

To my benefit, I should point out that a girl from that same hour stopped at the door, turned to me and said, "I don't know you, but I want to BE you" on her way out. I'm going to guess she either didn't like the poor soph boy that I exclaimed over and was grateful for the total embarrassment I forced him to endure, or was entirely charmed by my freakshow song and dance today.

But "cute" and "little"?? Jesus! What was I thinking?!?

Edina teachers fight for a fair contract

Update

Today I found myself saying the following to one of my sophomore boys:

"Can you please not peel your orange in the shape of a penis and two testicles?"

There's just plain not a lot of dignity in that. He tried to pass it off as an elephant with two big ears and a trunk, but seriously?

There are three more days. KC keeps reminding me that we're just trying to "keep the lid on." I fear the lid is off. Way off.