get thee away from the computer

It is a beautiful day but I am feeding my addiction to the web. between facebook, lost blogs and ebay, a girl can stay online 24-7. Got sideswiped by a car yesterday, at the intersection 1/2 block away from my school. I've made this turn 204 days a year for 5 years, but it takes one driver deciding that left turn from the right lane is OK and I need a new bumper. Thank god for insurance. If only I did not stop to talk to my former student's mother, then perhaps no accident. but i should be grateful that noone was hurt and the damage is pretty minimal. maybe someone has jinxed me with their evil eye. i thought a lot about our discussion in the wed. class about 'the evil eye'. my mother is adamant about not discussion impending trips or medical procedures in fear of being jinxed. as a result sometimes i find out that my parents are going on a 6 weeks trip a day or two before they leave or that my dad was in a hospital for 2 days. also i was always jealous of my friends' parents who bragged about their children, my parents always played everything down, which made me feel unappreciated.

thanks to my bff (best friend forever) r. who is picking me up to see drag me to hell. i've been a fan of sam raimi since i saw evil dead in the 80's. and thus with a little help from my friends i break my internet addiction binge for today with no money spent on ebay, thank god.

Little milestones II

One of the hazards of being a teacher is the attachment one forms to the students. In two weeks I have gotten really attached to a student who is in my summer school. I think on second day I realized that he can't read and some emergency measures had to come in place. In this respect I am particularly thankful to SK who was my reading methods professor. She was a really tough and uncompromising teacher, but boy did I learn a lot. Anyway, Jesse's progress is really amazing. He's starting to read and because his English is very good and I suspect he is very intelligent, he is able to figure out words semantically. I feel like a proud parent and want to show him off to everyone. Unfortunately, summer school is almost over and I hope dr. G (the principal) puts him in my class for next year, so I can continue working with him. I know I should not have favorites or get attached, but I just can't help it.

My class today was really inspiring. One of the reasons I went back to graduate school was teaching little people. One has to simplify one's language and although I really do so minimally, I felt my brain was turning to mush. Ignorance can be blissful and cuddly reality, but it was starting to depress me. Anyway, I think this summer I will try to read up on contrastive rhetoric.

I just checked my Facebook and someone posted a link to Andrei Codrescu's blog on NPR and boy did he ripped Facebook to shreds. I'll save that for my paper for the class. But then again with limited time on my hands how would I find this information without Facebook and all the smartiepants smurfs that gather all the tasty cultural tidbits for me.

OK, time for bed. I promised my friend that I will finish reading his screenplay and comment on it. For once my bluntness is an asset. Plus there are 3 or 4 issues of New Yorker saying "Read Me!"

Disk disaster - play by play

On Sunday, late at night, I finished my monster of a unit plan and realized I had no paper. So I saved my opus grandus to my trusty (or so I thought) memory stick and forgot to save it to do what I always do for insurance, email myself a copy. Off I went to teach. Well, at 12:35 pm, my disk came up empty. Nothing on my classroom computer. Nothing on my MAC when I got home, nothing on my LAUSD laptop. My dear neighbor who is IT specialist told me he'll be home at 7:00, but at 8 there was no sight of his car. I called my mom and then frantically called my friends to see if anyone could help. From 9 until 10:15 my neighbor had valiantly tried to recover files I foolishly did not back up. Scrambled is my webquest (thank got we uploaded it last week). Gone are my word files and powerpoint presentations. How much sleep did I have - 0. But my unit plan is done. Of course I would like to know why this happened. How did my memory stick got corrupted? Of course it came from LAUSD, so it should have been a warning. Well, I hope I survive today on no sleep and finish the lesson plan in time for today's class.