Phew. What a week.

I don't know why I've not posted this week; a ton has happened. I guess I'm just lazy. Shocker.

Actually, before I get into anything else, I want to state for posterity that this weekend I've been surprisingly productive. I have read the rest of my articles needed for my annotated bibliography, and I have graded a class set of last month's author project, and updated two classes' grades in the computer. Go me!

Yesterday I got to go to Project Cicero. It is the coolest thing: someone or some organization gathers books all year, and then in two days, they invite a bunch of TFA/NYCTF-type teachers to come and take a big box of books for their classrooms.

Do you remember the contests on Nickelodeon, where you could win a shopping spree in a toy store, and have like three minutes to dump as much stuff as possible into your shopping cart? Didn't the very idea of that just thrill you to bits?

Well, going to Project Cicero was like that for the nerdy, more grown-up me. AND without the time limit. I didn't speed too much, though I tried not to dawdle either, since the books were flying off the tables and I wanted to see as many as possible. But I didn't pore over any books; if it sounded familiar or vaguely interesting, I added it to my pile.

A free book shopping spree! Man, talk about a thrill.

I stayed for perhaps forty minutes of my hour and a half shift. I didn't even fill the box because I only brought my medium-sized rolling suitcase. As it is, I must have gotten nearly sixty books and packed that suitcase as much as it could go.

I had driven my little car into the city, on a Saturday afternoon. I'd hoped that the traffic wouldn't be too bad and it wouldn't scare or intimidate me too much. And you know what? The transportation gods were with me: it was so easy and quick (relatively). I parked in a garage a couple blocks from the event and they let me drop my full suitcase in the garage office.

Then I had some hours to kill. I got a very tasty smoothie on Sixth Avenue, and then sat in the food court of the Manhattan Mall, chatting on the phone and reading research articles (though not at the same time).

I did feel bad about being inside on such a gorgeous day, so after I felt like I had spent some worthwhile time on work stuff, I left the mall and strode outside into the dusk. It was still very pleasant, and I really enjoyed just walking down the street.

I walked for a good twenty blocks before I figured I had to get on a train. The blocks were the north-south mini ones, though. And I came across a salon, so I went in and got my eyebrows threaded. That was a new experience for me. It's kind of ticklish and a very odd sensation. I don't get how the thread pulls out the hairs, but I think it's pretty neato.

On the train, read a bit of my advertising book, and then met up with Ms Frizzle. There were supposed to be a few people getting together, but it ended up being just the two of us. It was nice, we just sat and talked about boys and work.

The other weekend I had drinks with Ms M, and that was really nice too. I think more of that talk was about traveling. Ooh, and then we found a crepe place! I was so excited. We were both annoyed at their many menu misspellings and inauthenticities. For one, once they were done cooking, before serving them, he let them sit on the plate thing, which made one edge all crispy. Also, the guy put the crepes on plates! To be eaten with a knife and fork! Not cool.

If I haven't said it recently, or at all, I am so glad and grateful for the wonderful people I have met through this silly blog. Thank you to all you friendly NY teacher types!

At school, this week was rather tiring. Prejudice has been the unofficial word of the week, and not necessarily in a good way. Ugh, I think I'll just leave it at that.

I'm having my students do some work on the beginning of equal rights work: abol!tion and the suffr@gettes. I told them about how the two movements grew up at the same time, only a hundred sixty years ago, and that all movements since then were possible because of those first fighters. I let them know that this is an important project to do, because it's so personal and sensitive. None of us would be here without them. I'm crossing my fingers that they get into it and learn a lot. (So far they've at least learned/heard the terms for the movements. That's new to them. I suppose that's a good start.)

Um, what else? Hm. It feels like I might be forcing myself out of the lazy-bum phase I've been in for awhile. I hate working at home, but I also hate feeling behind. So now I have only one set of projects to grade, a project to sort-of plan, and a media unit to polish.

I've started the annotated bibliography. I'm taking it on like an assembly line: I started with the really easy stuff, the citation and summary. Now I can continue to put in the more detailed parts of each article. It's due in three weeks or so, so if I keep up with working on it some each week, I should do okay. Shit, I keep forgetting that that has to be turned into a literature review, and they BOTH are due in three weeks. Yuck. Still, I'm making progress. Hurrah.

And now I have to go get groceries because I'm hungry. Food!