Music to grade papers by:
Fade Into You, Mazzy Star
San Andreas Fault, Natalie Merchant
Gold Rush Brides, 10,000 Maniacs
Noah's Dove, 10,000 Maniacs
Le Spinner, Isabelle Antena
Snow Day, Lisa Loeb
Sleeping Satellite, Tasmin Archer
#1 Crush, Garbage
Fix Me Now, Garbage
Baby Can I Hold You, Tracy Chapman
David Duchovny, Bree Sharp
No Ordinary Love, Sade
Uninvited, Alanis Morrissette
Last Time, Shea Seger
I Kicked a Boy, The Sundays
Scarlett's Walk, Tori Amos
Bleed to Love Her, Fleetwood Mac
Malibu, Hole
Other Side of the World, KT Tunstall
Son of a Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield
Fast as You Can, Fiona Apple
Ladder, Joan Osborne
A lot of chicks... don't know why. (shrug)
19 September 2007
Autumn Weather, Memories, and Autumn Weather Memories
It's kind of hard(1) to justify blogging when I have committee notes to transcribe. It's a little harder to justify when the committee chair reads my blog. But! I finished that last night, so I feel unencumbered to blog away. Until I look over at the mountain of papers that need grading. But the night is young.
On the way home from school Monday, I put the iPod on random shuffle. One song that came up as I got close to the airport was El Condor Pasa, recorded by Simon & Garfunkel. I heard the opening notes and was instantly transported to a scene, about a dozen years ago. I had checked this album out from the library - my senior year, maybe my junior year of high school - and doing my homework while listening to this album. It had to be late fall, because I remember it was dark relatively early. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk in the corner of my bedroom, working on math homework, it was dark outside, and I was listening to this album.
Isn't it fantastic how strongly associative both music and smells are? They are incredible memory-triggers. I know it's a common phenomenon, and I don't know enough neuroscience to know the details of the mechanisms. Why are scents and sounds so associative? I can smell Christian Dior Dune perfume on someone and instantly, I'm back walking the streets of Belgium with a friend who wore that scent that summer. Or I can smell ckOne and it's my freshman year of college again, and I'm at my closet in my dorm room getting ready to go to class. It's weird stuff, the connections between our senses and our memories, but I like it. Now that my grandparents are gone, I fear I'll never smell their basement again. Sort of a mothball-ish scent, something sort of aftershave-y, something kind of kitchen-y, and decidedly unique. One of my favorite smells.
Speaking of late fall evenings, I really want some autumn weather. Now. I want warm sunny days and cool crisp nights. I want shocks of color in the trees, golden sunlight darting beneath leaden grey clouds. I want sweaters and turtlenecks and boots. I want rainy October evenings that plaster leaves to the streets. I want apples and popcorn and football games.
Apparently, what I want is the midwest. I'm insanely jealous of all of you with high temperatures in the 50s. Another day in the 90s...
That said, we had some kind of tropical wave pass through today, which made for a grey all-day rain. Highs in the low 80s, and some wind. If this is what passes for fall weather, I'll take it. One of my favorite weather memories, if you will, is of elementary school and having one of those October days that starts out dark and rainy and never really brightens. The kind of day where the incandescents inside are brighter than the daylight outside, coupled with a constant chilly rain. I don't know why I think of elementary school when I think of this weather, maybe because those classrooms had the most and biggest windows. I think it is the windows - because that kind of weather makes me think of rainy autumn evenings - even those that gave way to snow - in grad school, in an apartment with fantastic windows. Common vitreous denominator.
On the way home from school Monday, I put the iPod on random shuffle. One song that came up as I got close to the airport was El Condor Pasa, recorded by Simon & Garfunkel. I heard the opening notes and was instantly transported to a scene, about a dozen years ago. I had checked this album out from the library - my senior year, maybe my junior year of high school - and doing my homework while listening to this album. It had to be late fall, because I remember it was dark relatively early. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk in the corner of my bedroom, working on math homework, it was dark outside, and I was listening to this album.
Isn't it fantastic how strongly associative both music and smells are? They are incredible memory-triggers. I know it's a common phenomenon, and I don't know enough neuroscience to know the details of the mechanisms. Why are scents and sounds so associative? I can smell Christian Dior Dune perfume on someone and instantly, I'm back walking the streets of Belgium with a friend who wore that scent that summer. Or I can smell ckOne and it's my freshman year of college again, and I'm at my closet in my dorm room getting ready to go to class. It's weird stuff, the connections between our senses and our memories, but I like it. Now that my grandparents are gone, I fear I'll never smell their basement again. Sort of a mothball-ish scent, something sort of aftershave-y, something kind of kitchen-y, and decidedly unique. One of my favorite smells.
Speaking of late fall evenings, I really want some autumn weather. Now. I want warm sunny days and cool crisp nights. I want shocks of color in the trees, golden sunlight darting beneath leaden grey clouds. I want sweaters and turtlenecks and boots. I want rainy October evenings that plaster leaves to the streets. I want apples and popcorn and football games.
Apparently, what I want is the midwest. I'm insanely jealous of all of you with high temperatures in the 50s.
That said, we had some kind of tropical wave pass through today, which made for a grey all-day rain. Highs in the low 80s, and some wind. If this is what passes for fall weather, I'll take it. One of my favorite weather memories, if you will, is of elementary school and having one of those October days that starts out dark and rainy and never really brightens. The kind of day where the incandescents inside are brighter than the daylight outside, coupled with a constant chilly rain. I don't know why I think of elementary school when I think of this weather, maybe because those classrooms had the most and biggest windows. I think it is the windows - because that kind of weather makes me think of rainy autumn evenings - even those that gave way to snow - in grad school, in an apartment with fantastic windows. Common vitreous denominator.
(1) Just kind of.
16 September 2007
Stuff and Things
Man, I am monstrously bad at blogging these days.
Well, Prom is over, which lulls me into thinking that I might have some more time on my hands, but I host a food-science workshop at the end of the month, we close and move mid-October, I'm helping a friend do airbrush tattoos one weekend in October, I'm planning to go to Purdue one weekend in late October. Which brings me to November. So, I'm deluding myself if I think things are going to settle down any time soon, aren't I?
I got a new phone this week. Called Verizon to add a text-messaging plan and found out that I was eligible for phone upgrade. Sweet! Since my previous phone was a piece of crap - the battery hatch was completely broken and the battery itself barely lasted a day. Anyhow, they had a pretty good price on these, so I now have a sexy red phone. I've always been on the Luddite side of the technological spectrum, so to have a hot new phone is kind of a Big Deal for me. And it's red! Anyhow, I celebrated by having a major text-fest on Thursday, and spent yesterday afternoon transferring telephone numbers to my new phone because I'm far too cheap to take it to a Verizon store and give them $50 or whatever it is theyrob charge to transfer data.
Well, Prom is over, which lulls me into thinking that I might have some more time on my hands, but I host a food-science workshop at the end of the month, we close and move mid-October, I'm helping a friend do airbrush tattoos one weekend in October, I'm planning to go to Purdue one weekend in late October. Which brings me to November. So, I'm deluding myself if I think things are going to settle down any time soon, aren't I?
I got a new phone this week. Called Verizon to add a text-messaging plan and found out that I was eligible for phone upgrade. Sweet! Since my previous phone was a piece of crap - the battery hatch was completely broken and the battery itself barely lasted a day. Anyhow, they had a pretty good price on these, so I now have a sexy red phone. I've always been on the Luddite side of the technological spectrum, so to have a hot new phone is kind of a Big Deal for me. And it's red! Anyhow, I celebrated by having a major text-fest on Thursday, and spent yesterday afternoon transferring telephone numbers to my new phone because I'm far too cheap to take it to a Verizon store and give them $50 or whatever it is they
Did I mention it's red?
Our door is finally painted! The whole place looks great - pictures to follow soon. So, it's essentially finished. Now we just wait to close.
09 September 2007
06 September 2007
Tramontate, Stelle
Let's all sing along to Pavarotti's most famous (and beautiful) aria, on the occasion of his death at age 71. Listen to it and tell me you're not moved by the last crescendo of notes.
Mercilessly ripped from Wikipedia:
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- Il principe ignoto
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- Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o Principessa,
- nella tua fredda stanza
- guardi le stelle
- che tremano d'amore e di speranza...
- Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
- il nome mio nessun saprà!
- No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò,
- quando la luce splenderà!
- Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
- che ti fa mia.
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- Voci di donne
- Il nome suo nessun saprà...
- E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir!
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- Il principe ignoto
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- Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!
- Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincerò!
- Vincerò! Vincerò!
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Translated from the score:
The Prince Nobody shall sleep!... Nobody shall sleep! Even you, o Princess, in your cold room, watch the stars, that tremble with love and with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me, my name no one shall know... No!...No!... On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...
The Chorus of women No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.
The Prince Vanish, o night! Set, stars! Set, stars! At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!
05 September 2007
Weather Geekery
Latest installment in the I-don't-have-time-to-write-a-real-post-so-I'm-just-
going-to-link-to-something-interesting page that used to be my blog before school resumed:
Footage from the cockpit of the Hurricane Hunter aircraft during a nighttime core-punch, as it were, of the eyewall of Hurricane Felix. Click.
going-to-link-to-something-interesting page that used to be my blog before school resumed:
Footage from the cockpit of the Hurricane Hunter aircraft during a nighttime core-punch, as it were, of the eyewall of Hurricane Felix. Click.
04 September 2007
Know Thyself
Dearest Future Self:
Next time you're up past 100a on a school night, just go ahead and take your shower before going to bed. Because every time you think, "oh, I'll just set my alarm a little early and do it in the morning," your brain will convince you otherwise and cause your hand to repeatedly smack the snooze button in the morning. You just don't have the requisite willpower once you're nestled comfortably into bed, no matter what you may think at night. I don't know how many times it takes for you to be convinced of this. I mean, seriously - you haven't figured this out yet?
Sincerely,
Jennifer
Next time you're up past 100a on a school night, just go ahead and take your shower before going to bed. Because every time you think, "oh, I'll just set my alarm a little early and do it in the morning," your brain will convince you otherwise and cause your hand to repeatedly smack the snooze button in the morning. You just don't have the requisite willpower once you're nestled comfortably into bed, no matter what you may think at night. I don't know how many times it takes for you to be convinced of this. I mean, seriously - you haven't figured this out yet?
Sincerely,
Jennifer
01 September 2007
Once Upon a Time...
... I wrote a blog.
So school has started, hence the post sabbatical. With some of my closest colleagues and friends gone, and many of my closest students graduated, it almost feels like a completely different school. When we started inservices, I just had this unnerving feeling - like waking up from a coma to find that a lot of things had changed. But, the year seems to be off to a decent start. I'm teaching six classes a day, five different preps (uh, yeah...), but they're all courses that I've taught before, at least. There are a lot of new faces, and I don't have a lot of returning students - at least ones that I've had in class before. I really try not to, but it's very easy to look at this crop of students and wonder, "who is this year's (previousstudent'snamehere)?" Everyone is so different, I shouldn't think that any student will fill the shoes of a previous one. But I can't help wonder which ones will be dismissed? Who will be valedictorian? Which ones will seek me out as a mentor? Which ones will influence me just as much as I influence them? It's a time of infinite possibilities - the beginning of a new school year - and those of you who know how idealistic and optimistic I am can understand how that excites me to no end!
My AP class is gigantic. Well, gigantic for me - I had three students my first two years, six students last year (which I thought was big). This time, I have twelve. Twelve! Grading lab reports in a timely fashion will be challenging...
By the way, Tic Tacs now come in Cherry Passion blend - cherry (red) and passionfruit (yellow). No word on whether this is a temporary flavor, or if they'll be around for a while. When you see them, buy them. Pick out all the yellow ones and send them to me. Now, go do it.
So school has started, hence the post sabbatical. With some of my closest colleagues and friends gone, and many of my closest students graduated, it almost feels like a completely different school. When we started inservices, I just had this unnerving feeling - like waking up from a coma to find that a lot of things had changed. But, the year seems to be off to a decent start. I'm teaching six classes a day, five different preps (uh, yeah...), but they're all courses that I've taught before, at least. There are a lot of new faces, and I don't have a lot of returning students - at least ones that I've had in class before. I really try not to, but it's very easy to look at this crop of students and wonder, "who is this year's (previousstudent'snamehere)?" Everyone is so different, I shouldn't think that any student will fill the shoes of a previous one. But I can't help wonder which ones will be dismissed? Who will be valedictorian? Which ones will seek me out as a mentor? Which ones will influence me just as much as I influence them? It's a time of infinite possibilities - the beginning of a new school year - and those of you who know how idealistic and optimistic I am can understand how that excites me to no end!
My AP class is gigantic. Well, gigantic for me - I had three students my first two years, six students last year (which I thought was big). This time, I have twelve. Twelve! Grading lab reports in a timely fashion will be challenging...
By the way, Tic Tacs now come in Cherry Passion blend - cherry (red) and passionfruit (yellow). No word on whether this is a temporary flavor, or if they'll be around for a while. When you see them, buy them. Pick out all the yellow ones and send them to me. Now, go do it.