How did they know?

You Should Be a Teacher

You are patient, optimistic, and good at explaining things. You work well with all types of people, and you are a good role model. Success and positive outcomes are extremely important to you. You are both a good leader and instructor. People look up to and depend on you. You do best when you: - Can see the results of your work - Are able to teach someone a new skill You would also be a good nurse or non fiction writer.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

But I just don't get the non fiction writer bit***CV

9 1/2 beats

Last night I went to the city to see a demonstration of Kathak dance. Kathak is a north Indian style of dance which involves storytelling, stylised movements, adherance to beat counts and the ability to improvise.

After the performance (which included a brief tale of Krishna and Radha celebrating Spring by covering each other in colored water and colored powders) there was a workshop in which the audience got to try and do four things at once :) Me I can't sing and clap at the same time let alone stamp, count and sing, so I all ready knew what it would be like for me. What made it even more challenging was they divided us into two groups so that one group counted to 16 aloud while stamping at various speeds at the same time that the other group counted to match their stamps: then we switched.

The dancers follow 16 beat cycles in their minds (sometimes 12 and sometimes 9 1/2), while keeping 4, 8, 12 or 16 with their feet, singing and playing musical instruments. As one of the perfomers said it is like patting your head while rubbing your belly and walking on a tightrope; oh, and wearing 3 pounds worth of bells on each ankle.

It really was fun to do. I also got the opportunity to revisit the Castro. Found out Peets was no longer there, that Starb*cks is really umm of the hood now but not much else seems changed.
**
This past week has been in service meaning days and days of meetings as well as first aid and CPR training. We were also slated to work on progress reports but the memory sticks weren't ready so that could not be done. They are supposed to be ready tomorrow but this just means instead of having free day times to do the reports we'll have to do them on work nights in order to have them out on time.

When is that you ask? The end of February.

Meanwhile we have a major parent event this Thursday and one at the end of March to prepare for.***CV

reincarnation

Oh yay, I belong two years before I was even born.......hmmmm what can it mean?

You Belong in 1965

You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too.

What Year Do You Belong In?

Cinque-Folios

Firebringer, David Clement-Davies (498pp) The saga of a group of Red Deer somewhat similar to Watership Down except told from the perspective of the Efrafran warren. That is, when the group leadership is taken over by a stag determined to control at the expense of decency and nature. Another difference is that their's is a mythology in which a hero is foretold, whereas in Watership Down the mythology was more tales of resourcefulness.
**
Book of Thousand Days, Shannon Hale (304pp) I first thought this to be a Rapunzel tale which in some ways it is, if a pricncess locked in a tower is all one requires for it to be so. However, Ms. Hale says that she based her story upon the Grimm's tale of the Maid Maleen which I have never read. Set in Mongolia the story is told from the perspective of an orphan Mucker from the steppes who unknowingly becomes tangled in the betrothal arrangements of a shining one. The book is her journal of all that befalls her as she does her best to make the best of a pretty odd turn of events. Werewolves, handsome kahns and uppity jilted princesses make for a fun story.
***
Un Lun Dun, China Mieville (471pp) Once the true heroine of this tale made her appearance I really had fun. Until then I kept wondering if I should continue reading. (And I must say: the Black Window of Webminster Abbey? Absolutely fabulous. ) However I am interested now in reading Perdido Station as soon as I can find a decent editon of it.
****
Stickeen, John Muir (79pp) The true adventure of a day on an Alaskan glacier with a tiny and devil may care dog.
*****
King of the Middle March (the Arthur Trilogy vol.III), Kevin Crossley-Holland The conclusion in which Arthur learns of his namesakes end, crusades may be better in hindsight and that love can change over time. ***CV

Ergo

The quiz result was funny considering what my week has been like.

It is very hard to imagine myself as this contemplative, centered individual when three co workers are out on Monday, 2 on Tuesday, one shows up but leaves early on Wednesday; parents are submitting recommendation forms at the last minute, observers drop by unexpectedly, you have to figure out what lessons children should practice to show their parents, your hairdryer decides to catch fire early one morning when you've already overslept and it's 40 degrees outside, you're the opener but never manage to leave school until 5 o'clock pm, and even though some lessons caught on incredibly well you still have to virtually sit on some people to get them to focus on work (which they started in October!) and they act as if you are this fiend from hell.

Oh, and some students who you figure, Of course they've had this material so I can move on ummm haven't. "No honey: neither a slug nor a worm nor a starfish is a vertebrate." "No, up and down is not a geometric term for the position of a line." " As far as I know the word 'upon' is not an adverb."

So yeah. The result was a bit of a hah!
**
In other news I finished knitting the stole (there were knots in the skein which flipped the colour sequence) and I need to block it. Also my kilt hose book has arrived so I hope to pick it up tomorrow.

Pardon me while I move like a cat and collapse into bed***CV

Ha!

**CV

two ringy dingies

I spent most of my weekend reviewing my lessons journal and transferring all the lessons from one notebook to another. Then I transfered those into an online system. Finally, I figured out how the online sytem enables lesson planning and did that too.

Found out today we may not be using this sytem at all.

*sigh*

Anyway when I arrived bright and early today I saw the first spring Robin! That sight kept me in spirits all through findng out that not one but two team members were out sick and a third arrived barely able to stand. So it was me and one other allll day with 40 children. I say 40 cause I consider two of the parents in that category what with their calls and emails and general tantrums of: serve me now!
**
But I am home and I had fun today. I got to parse poetry with a good sized group and they all have various moon poems to work with. So fun!

Currently we're reading four books(yes 4: as the opener I read one about Jesse Owens; for morning group I read Harriet Tubman; and then there is the fiction group with Watership Down and the History group with Gods, Graves, and Scholars).
***
I'm almost done with my Shale stole. About half a full colour repeat in the skein left***CV

Cross Quarter II

Weekend Glory

by Maya Angelou

Some clichty folks
don't know the facts,
posin' and preenin'and puttin' on acts,
stretchin' their backs.


They move into condos
up over the ranks,
pawn their souls
to the local banks.
Buying big cars
they can't afford,
ridin' around town
actin' bored.


If they want to learn
how to live life right
they ought to study me on Saturday night.
My job at the plant
ain't the biggest bet,
but I pay my bills
and stay out of debt.
I get my hair done
for my own self's sake,
so I don't have to pick
and I don't have to rake.


Take the church money out
and head cross town
to my friend girl's house
where we plan our round.
We meet our men and go to a joint
where the music is blue
and to the point.


Folks write about me.
They just can't see
how I work all week
at the factory.
Then get spruced up
and laugh and dance
And turn away from worry
with sassy glance.


They accuse me of livin'
from day to day,
but who are they kiddin'?
So are they.


My life ain't heaven
but it sure ain't hell.
I'm not on top
but I call it swell
if I'm able to work
and get paid right
and have the luck to be Black
on a Saturday night.

Cross Quarter

The Goose-Girl

Spring rides no horses down the hill,

But comes on foot, a goose-girl still.

And all the loveliest things there be

Come simply, so it seems to me.

If ever I said, in grief or pride,

I tired of honest things, I lied:

And should be cursed forever more

With Love in laces, like a whore,

And neighbours cold, and friends unsteady

And Spring on horseback, like a lady!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

And then there were none....

Busy busy busy but I did want to ask: What happened to Knit the Classics? It done disappeared.

Do you think the Count got 'em?***CV

There and Back

The trip was amazing. Death Valley is a place every one should visit at least once.

It was about nine hours to get there and that was after changing buses because the first bus developed engine problems before we had left the city (better then though than on the way). During the ride down the children kept htemselves occupied taking pictures, reading, following the trip on a map, and doing activity books. (No movies were shown, no music was played. Yes it is possible to do). As we entered the park a full moon was rising and so we only had the barest sense of what the landscape would be like.

On Wednesday we visited Salt Creek where some of the chldren managed to see a kit fox up close and personal, which the rangers said had not happened for fifteeen years. The rest of the time was spent studying animal tracks, learning about the plant life and water quality that made salt creek what it is. No one tried the pickleweed but apparently desert holly is edible. Aferwards we went to Salt flats which is 282feet below sea level. The location is also known as Bad Water, so named by a prospector who found the water but when he brought his mule to drink it it refused to do so . (Bad Water is actually a habitat for a rare mollusk). Because of the anount of salts that have been deposited there it is possible to walk out onto a sheet of salt which resembles a marble mosaic tile floor. The sheet curves in varying directions so if one imagines the yellow brick road only instead of bricks it is irregular polygons of salt then you have a good image of it.

The following day we visited Scotty's Castle and went back in time to take a tour. The castle is a living history museum so all the tour guides are dressed in period clothing (ours had seamed stockings, a fabulous cinch waist flared skirt coat and a snood) and speak in the present tense of 1939. While there we alos saw two young coyotes who do not know how to hunt. They are very cute and therefore are fed by the tourists despite Rangers' requests not to do so. During the summer the pups will be captured and released into an area where they will be able to hunt or if they cannot provede food for themselves they will be recaptured and put down. While this affected many of the children they (I think ) understood that it was far kinder to do this then to have the coyotes starve to death during the non tourist season.

From there we went to Ubehebe Crater which is also called Coyote's Burden basket and is where the Shoshone believe they first emerged. Then we went to one of the original borax mines and that children were confused by the treatment of the laborers of the time.

I should mention that it snowed early Thursday morning so we got to see a white Death Valley. And on the trip back we stopped and the children built a snowman.
**
No reading done on the trio but I have started Northanger Abby today (and Carrie I am loving it). Instead I started a lace stole in the Old Shale pattern and I have 2/3's of it done.

Donner vs. 49er

Number 9 Dream, David Mitchell (400pp) Set in the Japan of Now, though it may be parallel, Eiji Miyake is on a quest to find his father. Feeling guilty over the death of his twin sister nine years previously there are flashbacks to his life then and projections on his future. Yet nothing can really compare to what happens to him on the way towards his goal. Killer lady attorneys, drugged out delivery boys who can't tell a live parakeet magic trick from a fake parakeet one (euwww), thunder gods who keep their promises all too well, hackers in the underground, life and death bowling: I suspect Mitchell has a fondness for Murakami.
**
I Coriander, Sally Gardner (275pp) The story takes place during Cromwell's reign. Coriander is a young girl who inherits more from her mother than anyone suspects. A sweet fairy tale that favors royalists over round heads.
***
I have three books for the bus to Death Valley: Northanger Abbey, Queen of the Desert and Women's Work, the first 20,000 Years. Having never read Austin but loving gothic horror I figure Northanger is a safe introduction.

Along with two in progress sock projects and some material to practice blackwork on. I hope that the children are similarly prepared *g* ***CV

Ivy laced windows

The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly (342pp) I've read other John Connolly books and enjoyed them but for some reason when this book came out in hardcover last year I never picked it up. I honestly can't say why. It might have had something to do with the premise of a child who loses his mother and then literally loses himself in his books. However, I did pick up a copy last weekend and after starting one chapter late Saturday night, spent all day Sunday finishing it. How could I not when it is retellings through personal experience of classic fairytales? The last hundred pages or so are the author's discussions of why he chose which tales as well the originals from which he drew.
**
Ghost Written, David Mitchell (426pp) I am almost done with this book having picked it up yesterday. Being home sick from work will allow for that to happen. It is a tale told in ten chapters. Each chapter is an individual viewpoint located in a differnet part of the world and yet all the stories are connected in one way or another. The first chapter reminded me of Murakami's book about the Tokyo subway attacks and it is rather an interesting way in which to start off a novel. There are retellings of folktales here and there but they are not necessarily essential to the plot as they were in the above book. Two sweet stories so far and Iam now on the chapter located in Ireland.
***
We finished reading On the Banks of Plum Creek yesterday. Well, one of co-teachers did as I have laryngitis. I think I'll bring in Speedwell's Tale from Tales of Watership Down tomorrow (presuming my voice is back from vacation) as I don't think we should start another chapter book before our big trip next week. It will also allow me to get a sense of possible reactions to Watership Down.***CV

toasty toes

Oh my goodness! Warm warm wooly red socks. Yummmy!

I have been kniting socks, lots o socks the past year or so but not necessarily wearing said socks. I wore my tall tall red pippi knee highs today and was not cold at all. I could get use to this. Whilst wearing said comfiness I also realised what will help make my knee highs stay high ( as one was knit a little taller than the other) and now I am wondering whether I should order that Kilt Hose book I saw at Schoolhouse last night or wait?

Decisions decisions. I do want to start the bog jacket.
**
No reading as I have been busy the past two days laying down the law. Perhaps I can read this weekend***CV

Zooks! Egad! and Demme

The Scarlet Pimpernel****(264pp) Well now, I think I know one of Barbara Cartland's sources of inspiration *g* It's a cute story even if the heroine (who is supposed to have one of the keenest wits in Europe) acts like a space cadet a lot of the time. Good guys rescuing aristos from the clutches of madame guillotine; unscrupulous republicans doing their best to keep royalists from winning; pride getting in the way of true love; thugs at the inn; black pepper in the snuff box; really creative explicatives; etc.

What can I say? It's of it's authoress' time.

Not sure what I will read next. I SHOULD be readng about Death Valley but maybe I'll start the Count of Monte Cristo early instead.
**
Went to the LYS again in spite of the lghtning and thunder that was occurring. Picked up some more Noro sock yarn as well as a copy of Selbuvotter by Terri Shea. (Thanks to teabird's squirrel mittens :) **CV

the bell is striking twelve

Today is the last day of winter break. Tomorrow begins child care and then come Monday School begins. Heh. Yeah so I made the most of today. Went to practice and there were only ten of us! Compared to the thirty or so in a cozy 18 person sized space it was positively cavernous (or is that Jules V. speaking to me?).

Afterwards I went to the yarn shop which was: OPEN!

So I got me some Noro Sock in Go Green and I doubt they will be sox, but whatever, and I got me some BONE needles. This is for the go green goth in me (silliness now bodes ill for the kiddies tomorrow ). Also, I now have a copy of Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmerman.

Then I went into work to just make sure that things were okay. Well, and to enjoy the calm that is an empty classroom.
**
Finished Journey to the Center of the Earth last night and started the Scarlet Pimpernel today. Since I actually own a copy of the Count of Monte Cristo I may join up again with Knit the Classics. Still thinking.
***
I'm considering a classics book group for the class as well. Two actually: one monthly and one bimonthly. Again, still thinking.****CV

Look it's a mammalian tortoise!

I am almost done with Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Verne, 239pp). It is quite different from the movie I remember seeing many, may years ago. I do not want to hear of any remakes thank you, shudder, Dr. Dolittle comes creeping to mind. For one thing there are no competitors trying to get there first, which I recall as being a rather big plot device in the film. Alos I think there was woman on the expedition in the movie.

What I like about it is that it seems wonderful chapter book for the class at the beginning of the year. I would love for the children to hear certain parts and be able to say "Wait a minute, he went where? Because he thought the earth is hollow?? That can't be right!" "They ran into a what? Were they even alive at the same time?" And there is much mention of the diferent geologic eras of the evolving earth which I think would be great as well.
**
I found a copy of Women's Work, the First 20,ooo Years (Elizabeth Wayland Barber) today while milling amongst the blob like mass which was "50% off all calendars today" at Pendragon books. One would have thought it was the ONLY place open today, yikes!

I also got:

The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Emmuska Orczy

The Greek Myths, Robert Graves

Irish Folktales, ed. Henry Glassie

Because, you know, I will have SO much time to read once the school year begins again***CV

Old and New

One way in which my reading shelf grows:

Discover a favorite author has a new blog. While reading said blog further discover that author is an avid change ringer. Briefly wonder if this is related to certain gentlemen's habits of jingling loose coins in their pockets. Presume it can't possibly be that but remain uncertain as to what it might possibly be.

While randomly perusing the web find a pattern for change ringer socks. Note that the pattern maker refers many times to the Nine Tailors.Briefly wonder, wth? Before moving on.

Go to book shop. Discover book titled the Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers. Stand agahast at one's ignorance in not recognising a Lord Peter Wimsey novel. Promptly purchase book. Pour pint of cider. Remain not at home for rest of evening.
**
Another way:

Go to morning practice after which do banking as planned and then walk for a loooong way to a yarn shop only to find it is closed. Mutter then head back and after another loooong walk duck nto a cafe and finish current read (The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell). Look at watch decide that there is enough time to go down the street and check out the used book shop. Arrive to find that it is: CLOSED.

*Mutter*

Walk all the way back to where practice was in the morning only go across the street to a shop which is open until (look at paper sign, look at watch) one more hour. Enter. Browse. Leave with two new books :)

Firebringer, David Clement-Davies
Complete Grimms Fairy Tales, ed. Jack Zipes

Oh and Happy New Year.

I do believe I will be reading it in.****CV

ringing the changes

I went into the city today. Didn't spend all that much time there. Just long enough to walk up and down Haight street looking for some things. Of the things I was looking for I only found one:
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers

But that's okay. Before heading across the bay I went to practice this morning. I can really tell where I've been slacking. The last few days I've felt muscles I had forgotten were there. Well they are not letting me forget now. I'll have to do something about maintaining the regularity of class when break is over.

When I went to Article Pract the other day I not only found one of the books I was seeking (Book of Yarn) I also found some bone knniting needles. Not being sure at the time what exactly I could use them for I did not pick up a pair. However I have since discovered that I do not have any 9 needles. And as there was a set available then I will go back and see of they are still available now. Minus the extra few miles of walking.

I already have such wonderful story ideas to explain the ficticious origins of the needles ***CV

Skald

*Sigh* apparently I have read all of the Shakespeare Stealer tales and unless Mr. Blackwood is writing another there are no more to be read. I did return the volume I meant to today and instead got Hush by Donna Jo Napoli (a story based upon an Icelandic saga in which an Irish Princess is kidnapped and sold as a slave to a Norse nobleman*) and Tales From Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb.
**
I keep intending to go into the city but so far I haven't made it yet. There are a couple of places I would like to go to as well as I received some movie passes which I would like to use. And yet being able to do nothing is so lovely that the thought of going to town, much as I love and miss SF, is proving a challenge. I did actually go to practice this morning and visited the aforementioned shop. But I then immediately came home, did some weeding, and read.

Perhaps if I played the Feynman physics lectures I have on CD I'd get some knitting done....***CV

* And yes I consider it so much better than the book I returned. Blame the historic textiles mentioned in it,the Cuchalainn references, or the fact that it is actually teaching me some real world geography: something that could prove of more use to me then mastering the art of whingeing (Which I already have down pat).