Word.

Substitute "history" with "AP Govt," "one month" with "one week" and all the history class references with "four rights movements, nine SC decisions, the civil liberties protected under the bill of rights, incorporation, and the balance of fighting terorrism v. protecting freedoms" and you'd pretty much get my life of late.

Walk with me

Yesterday I took a walk for the first time in a long while - I take the same route every time. Thought this time around, I'd bring you all along. The narrative was better yesterday while I was walking, but I didn't have time to post until now. Still, you get the idea.

We'll start on 10th and make a left onto G. As we walk down G, be careful not to trip on the skateboarding ramp set up in front of the yellow house. And don't be frightened by the ginormous dog at the green house. As far as I can tell, he's harmless. You won't be able to stop yourself from smiling as that yuppie dad walks alongside his little girl while mom pushes a baby boy in the stroller. We'll be on G for awhile, passing under countless trees and past many tableaus. The three boys, all in dark, baggy jeans and crisp white tanks, freestylin' on the corner, using the mailbox as their beat box. The elderly couple, both in their Sunday best, making their way gingerly across the cobblestone. The Jeep full of Marines, cruising by, country music blasting from the radio.

Eventually, G will dead-end at Garfield Park and we'll cut through the middle, stopping to check out the tennis matches and the horseshoe game. We'll hear nannies gossiping in foreign tongues, pushing tow-headed children on swings next to J Crew catalog families catching up around the sandbox. And, if it weren't spring and the trees weren't in bloom, we'd catch a glimpse of the Capitol dome as we walked past the older man playing fetch with the dogs while his wife reads the Post on a bench nearby (both rocking popped collars with no sense of irony).

We'll leave the park and walk down 1st and soon rowhouses will give way to apartment buildings and suddenly we'll be passing the Canon House Office Building and the Capitol will loom large before us.

We'll hang a right onto Independence and walk south again, heading back towards home. As we pass the first bar with outdoor seating, you may notice a bounce in your step as your body responds to the 60s-era rock coming from the motorcycle parked out front before your brain even realizes it's there. And then we'll be on Pennsylvania, past more friends and families and couples enjoying the early evening sun and a meal outside. A right on 10th takes us past the old military hospital, currently in the midst of preservation and looking like something right out of a horror movie. We'll step to one side and kids race past on bikes, screaming and laughing about who-knows-what, and we'll peer through open doors and windows to see how everyone else lives. We'll admire original moldings and built-in bookcases and we'll say"wow, that's orange" when we see one particular living room and then we'll be home.

And we'll know. For all the chaos and crime and pollution and politics, this home is a pretty wonderful place.

Seriously...

Gifts don't matter and it is truly always the thought that counts, but the big bouquet of orchids that just made their way to my desk? I'm nearly speechless.

Why I love my roommate: Reason #8973672

Not only did she help me celebrate my last day of being 26 with manicures, margaritas and divey Mexican food BUT she also made me cake and bought me an AWESOME birthday gift! Seriously. I walked into the kitchen and there on the table next to the cake was a case of Spotted Cow topped with a big, hot pink bow. A CASE. OF SPOTTED COW. WITH A HOT PINK BOW. I just want everyone to be clear on this. She rocks. End story.

Hello again

This is going to be disjointed and I apologize for that, but I have a variety of things I want to say and no real way to connect them.

This weekend, I took four seventh and eighth grade girls camping on the Eastern Shore. Those of you were with me at my last blog know that I also did this last year. And may remember that I returned rather battered. This year's group was a little less...into it, but we still managed to have a good time and I bear no physical signs of the trip. There was a canoe trip, a campfire on the beach, lots of hiking and some adventure challenges (this year I did not climb the tower and zipline down, although I did climb 50 feet up a tree and swing down to the ground: it was fun and a little less terrifying). There were few incidents and only two minor accidents and everyone returned to DC late yesterday afternoon a little better off, I think. I mean, really, two sunny/warm days playing in the woods overlooking the bay - how could you NOT be better off?!

My birthday is tomorrow. I turn 27. I know this is not old, but I can't help but feeling like it sounds old. Or, at least, older. Not that this is of special importance to me, but it is kind of interesting to think about: tomorrow I will be as old as my mom was when she had me. I am incredibly content with my life right now - I have a great group of friends, a boyfriend who makes me really happy, a job that I almost always enjoy (even when I'm being apathetic about it), and the city where I live is finally feeling like home - but you can't help but think that, at this age, my mom was married with a job she also enjoyed in a city she loved and a baby on the way. It just makes you think about generational changes and the like. While the majority of my friends are married, only one has a child and even that is incredibly recent. Anyway. No big parties or plans this year. Tonight I'll do shopping/dinner/cake with Elizabeth and tomorrow Brian is taking me to Tabard Inn and then it will be done. It will be good, don't get me wrong, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow; I just wasn't feeling the big celebration this year.

Brian would be the boyfriend who makes me so happy. I mentioned him in my last substantial post. It's been about two months since our first date and while things progressed very slowly at first, it is wonderful now. I had forgotten how easy it is to fall into a routine with someone - for things you didn't have in your life before to so easily become commonplace. And I was not at all prepared for that little bit of a loss that you feel when those things don't happen all of the time. So. Yeah. He's wonderful. And things are good. And that's probably all I have to say about that.

Work is winding down, which is completely mind-blowing. The AP exam is two weeks from today, the seniors transition off campus in four weeks and school is over in...well, it might be too soon to think about that. But still, I legitimately started thinking about senior exams today and once they are off campus, my work load lessens considerably as I only teach from 8a-10a and then from 3p-3:45p. It is crazy and fun to think that this year is very nearly almost over. Although, and maybe it is just me, this is the hardest time of year for me. I can hang with it through March, which most people don't like, but right about now I start to get really apathetic about things. Not that I love my students or am interested in my content any less, but it just gets progressively harder to be super excited from here on out.

Today in AP I had a rather upsetting interaction with a student. We started civil liberties today and I was lecturing on the three main reasons that civil liberties become an issue. One is cultural conflict and I use the boy scouts ban on gay troop leaders as one example. I'm about to explain how (and why) the Court upheld the ban, etc when P interjects to say that she understands that though. I pause and she continues on to say that if she were a mom she wouldn't want a gay man looking at her son and touching him. I pushed back a lot bc I think that is insane logic, not to mention ignorant and a little hateful, but I don't think she got it. In the end, I was using myself as an example saying that I am a straight woman who, like a gay man, is attracted to men and yet she thinks it is okay for me to teach boys. Her reasoning was that it is okay bc I am not attracted to them and wouldn't touch them sexually. At this point, N interjects (in a mildly exasperated tone) "being gay doesn't make you a pedophile," but she still wouldn't concede the point. It was awful. I'm not even as upset as I should be - or as I think I should be - I'm just disappointed. Disappointed in her for not being more open-minded, in her parents for teaching her that and disappointed in myself for not pushing her more. I mean, I know I did what I could and I know the time and place were not right to push it more, but that doesn't mean I can't wish that it had gone better. Or differently. ::sigh:: I suppose all teachers have stories like this one, but...seriously?!

Man oh man

Actual conversation that just happened in my classroom:

Context: I am helping a student write a five paragraph extended prompt response. To do this, he has first completed a graphic organizer.

M: It's on my organizer. ::digs in bookbag:: Where is it? That would help now.
Me: Yes, it would. That's sort of the whole point.
M: Really? I just kind of thought we did it.
Me: Why would we just do something? Didn't I explain how we use the organizer to write our paper?
M: Yeah, but...I don't know. ::looks at organizer:: Yeah, this really will help.
Me: Good. ::shakes head:: I'm glad.

G-d love him, but seriously?! Oy.

a better response

My students often ask me why my high school experience was so good (b/c I often tell them that it was). I usually come up with something decent, but this weekend I found the right answer in an editorial by Sue Ontiveros of the Chicago Sun Times. Witness:

I've been in a lot of outstanding schools, but I've never been anywhere
that has the kind of positive vibe that pulses through 211 S. Laflin. In
visiting Whitney Young, I felt as if the message to students was: You've made
the right choice; we know you have a good mind, and we're going to make it even
better. And because this message is so loud and clear, the kids believe it
themselves.

I mean, why else would so many of them wake long before daylight and travel
from all corners of the city to get to this school? There they stand, on bus and
L stops, coming often from neighborhoods where the value of education has been
tarnished; maybe barely believed in anymore. Yet their commitment to the idea
that education is the way to a better life remains steadfast.

Their travels don't take them to a school where everyone looks just like
them, either. It's a true melting pot of white, black, Latino and Asian, but
even more than that, it's people of different economic and class backgrounds,
all coming together to do one thing: make their good minds even better. Go
through four years where you're learning and having fun with others so different
from yourself and you can't help but realize that bigoted generalizations they
might have heard about ''those people'' just don't hold.

Summer plans

I'm a total geek. I know this. That being said, getting the following email this morning TOTALLY made my day!

April 2, 2007

Dear Jessica:

Welcome to the Institute! We are happy to inform you that you have been selected to participate in the 2007 Summer Institute, entitled"Political and Constitutional Theory for Citizens," sponsored by theNational Endowment for the Humanities and offered by the Center forCivic Education. We hope that you will accept. We had a very large number of applications this year, and we are pleased to have been able to accept what appears to be a very strong group of Institute participants.

This NEH three-week Summer Institute (July 7 - July 28) has been designated one of the nation's "We the People" institutes this year. These institutes are especially focused on professional development for teaching in civic education and the fundamental values of the constitutional order of the United States. This program, however, has been developed and conducted as a three-week "We the People" National Academy of the Center for Civic Education for seven summers prior to this one, and for two previous four-week NEH Summer Institutes. In addition to teachers from all parts of the United States and from all types of schools in this country, the National Academies have also included educators from other countries.

Better late than...you know

Tomorrow my dad turns 62. Good thing I remembered this today and not, say, Wednesday. Birthdays at the beginning of the month are really just a little unfair. Guess I'll spend today browsing for a gift and a card to be sent this afternoon. Better late than never has started to become my mantra this year. I am not a fan.

ready...BREAK!

Spring break has sprung and I am thrilled about it. I just got home from my trip to New York and it was fantastic. Okay, so the drive up could have been better (it should NEVER take six hours to get from DC to NY...EVER), but that is a hazy memory now. It was wonderful to see my friends and celebrate their upcoming wedding. I'm glad I went up the night before. Not only was it less exhausting, but it gave me time to hang out with Christina and chat. Plus, I got to meet a bunch of people who'll be at the wedding and that's always nice. And...Scott's family is this crazy, loud Jewish clan who made me feel completely at home (and, okay, also made me miss my own crazy, loud Jewish family). Everyone was so nice and the shower was gorgeous, but I think the day these folks descend on small-town WI for the wedding is going to be fantastic. Seriously. (Oh, and the drive back was easy - a lot of rain, but also a lot of substantial phone conversations, which helped tons!)

Tomorrow I'm going to the DMV to re-register my car and finally get a new license (I only moved six and an half months ago, what do you want from me?!). After a lot of thought (and I'm not being sarcastic here; I did give this a lot of thought), I am biting the bullet and registering my car for two years. I mean, really, this is home now. One of Christina's soon-to-be-aunts asked me where home was today and I immediately thought, "DC." Weird, huh? But, and I think this is typical for a lot of people of our generation, Chicago is home too. Chicago will always be home and I will always be a Chicago girl (and White Sox fan) at heart. These are all things I thought about when the vehicle registration renewal came in the mail. And I decided that, keeping all of that in perspective, it's probably time for me to suck it up and commit to being here at least semi-long term.

I'm hoping I can do the DMV quickly tomorrow (I mean, it's a Monday morning, right?) and then the rest of the week will be filled with reading (Jesusland; Middlesex; The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears), baseball (Wednesday afternoon: Nats v. Marlins), tv show viewing (Arrested Development awaits me) and a lot of time outside. I also have some lesson planning to do and I really need to file my taxes (I may never be the girl who gets them done right when the W2s arrive), but let's focus on the positive. Speaking of, I'm flying home (see? I did it just there) on Saturday morning for Easter. I'll only be in town for about 50 hours, but I'm really excited to see my family and all that good stuff.

Tomorrow's supposed to be sunny and 79. I'm so excited!