Sunday, March 17, 2024

OFF-THE-CHARTS LUNCH FOR A LONG DAY AT WORK

One more quick post connected to my intense dislike of shopping:

Work sucks. Not even joking, as the MCAS state testing gets closer, my life feels like more of a pressure cooker. For anyone who doesn't understand state testing, for my particular subject matter, the year-end cumulative test for 100% of the state standards takes place in two weeks. This is prior to the end of third term. This means that before my students have completed 75% of their academic year, they are being tested on 100% of the curriculum. 

The best part is that over two days, these twelve and thirteen year olds will be writing four to six entire 10,000 character essays. For those unfamiliar with what a 10,000 character (including spaces) essay looks like, it's five to eight complete and expansive paragraphs; four or five of these essays, and, for some students who are lucky enough to get the "practice" question, six full-length essays.

In. Two. Days. I know English graduate students who cannot pull that shit off. But, I digress.

While this is hanging over everyone's heads, I also have an entire day of professional development, which means that I have zero time in my classroom to do important things like planning and preparing for the upcoming lessons. This is in addition to those regular days of going to multiple meetings, helping to substitute in other classrooms, and doing the important bathroom patrol (Doodie Duty) since we cannot trust the middle schoolers not to smear feces all over the walls nor to pee in the sinks nor to cram the toilets so full of paper towels (or shoes or clothing or schoolwork) that the entire septic system backs up.

So, yeah, I'm really too exhausted at the end of the extended day to fight irate shoppers, long lines at the cashiers, or malfunctioning self-checkouts. (Let's not even throw in the insult of paying for bags that break faster than tissues.) I need lunch for Friday's PD (Professional Development -- a time to sit in bored silence while people treat us like morons) day, so I should get some food and snacks. My mind tells me that I have bread in the freezer and probably have enough peanut butter and jelly on hand. I might even have a yogurt of questionable date in my fridge. Yup, I should be okay. I convince myself that I probably have enough food, and, hopefully, enough toilet paper to survive the next twenty-four hours.

This is when I remember that I have rapid-rise yeast. I have bread flour. I have shredded mozzarella cheese. I have sliced pepperoni. I even have a jar of pizza sauce. All of these items I have at home. I also have a damn good, incredibly easy pizza dough recipe that only takes thirty minutes to rise (though I always give it an hour, just because).

Take THAT, you stupid grocery store! Suck on it, you crazy-ass shoppers! Bite my arse, you malfunctioning self-service machines!

Yes, I would quite literally rather make a homemade pizza than stop for fifteen minutes at the store. I don't know if that makes me an idiot or a hero, but the results are amazing and my PD lunch is off the charts.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

FROZEN DRINKS ON A FROZEN DAY

Continuing the misadventures from last week, I am still with the same two pals as we cruise around the South Shore of Massachusetts. It has been an unseasonably warm week up until the day we decide to get together and drive around. Of course, for the first time in five days, the temperature drops and the wind chill becomes ear-piercingly frigid. 

We stop at a scenic overlook, part of a farm-type school, and encounter snow. No, not a lot of snow, but patches of it here and there in small bucket-sized splotches. This is amazing to us since our area of New England has gotten about as much snow as South Carolina has gotten this winter. Ridiculously excited, we take a picture with the snow just to prove that we found some. Honestly, though, it is so cold, so numbingly freezing, that we run back to the car and grab more layers and hats and scarves and anything we can find to wrap around ourselves. The outing lasts less than ten minutes, and we are cold-hobbled by the time we stagger back to the vehicle.

Next we drive along the coast to perhaps fly a kite. Oh, the wind for kite-flying is strong, but the only way the kite will fly is if we suffer hypothermia and frostbite. We walk along the beach for longer than we probably should but ultimately decide that kite flying is not worth death.

We run a few errands that require us to cross great distances in parking lots because everyone and his brother and uncle seem to be out and about. Eventually, the day draws near to its end when someone suggests a quick drink, perhaps an appetizer, to finish off the day. As long as it's indoors, I'm game.

We get ourselves into the restaurant and sit near the window so we can watch the bay as the sun sets, casting long shadows over the water. When the waitress asks us for our drink order, we should probably say something warm like hot coffee, or rich with biting alcohol like brandy. After all, we are still trying to thaw out from an awesome but chilly day of adventure.

We are New Englanders, and because we probably have no brain cells left that have not been chilled to oblivion, we order a round of mudslides. You read that correctly: We order frozen drinks. But, you see, there is a method to our madness. This way, the frozen drink comes with a straw, and we won't have to pick up and hold the glasses that are covered with frost. We can simply tilt the straws as the drinks sit on the table, totally not molesting our defrosting fingers.

Brilliance, apparently, never freezes. By the time we are ready to truly finish up the day,  we've warmed ourselves up by belly-laughing for hours. 

Sunday, March 3, 2024

WHY I HATE SHOPPING

I. Hate. Shopping.

Shopping is an enormous time-suck. Driving to the store, driving home from the store, looking around the store, and, the truest of all time-sucks, waiting in line. I will starve myself before going to the grocery store. 

I find very little more frustrating than going to a store with on-line confirmation of stock only to discover that the store does not really have what I am looking for, despite their insistence otherwise.  If the computer says that the store has "ten items in stock," then there should be at least one somewhere on the shelves, in the "to be re-shelved" pile, or out in the back waiting to be stocked in the first place. 

Remember Service Merchandise? This was the first self-serve store: Pick items from an onsite catalogue or computer list, go wait by the mini roller coaster, and grab your order as it came out from the backroom in a plastic bin that resembled a coal miner's cart. Best store ever, and zero inventory loss to theft.

The main reason that I despise shopping is the people. 

Recently, my friends and I decide to brave the crowds at a busy grocery store. Usually, this isn't a problem, but the aisles in this particular store seem tighter than necessary for a place with such high volume. There is a lot of pushing, of shoving, and an alarming number of people just stopping in the middle with their carts so that no one else can move. Most of the people are idiots, but, for those few moments of knowing glances with other like-minded shoppers, the entire debacle becomes worth every painful moment.

Me (to myself): This feels like a full-contact sport.

Woman (shopping nearby): And it's like this all the time. All the time. 

We laugh, and, as she turns a corner, she runs right into another shopper.

Not even two aisles later, an elderly man with a completely empty cart (despite being in the middle aisle of the store amidst hundreds of us with semi-full carriages), stops dead in the middle, blocking anyone trying to travel north or south through the baking supplies. I try, I truly do try, to hold my face in neutral, and I feel like I'm doing a bang-up job of it. That is, until I glance past the old guy and see a man about my age blocked from coming the other direction. He catches my expression and busts out a huge bark of laughter. 

"Oh," I say as we finally maneuver through the bottleneck and pass each other, "was my face too loud back there?"

The final coup de grace happens at the check-out. A couple gets in line behind me. The woman says, "We could maybe sneak through the express aisle."

I respond, "I don't have much stuff." Then I smirk. "Trust me. With the day I'm having, this is sure to be entertaining."

The two girls running this particular register and bagging station are not the brightest bulbs in the store's chandelier. I ask for my groceries to be packed into the heavier, ten-cent bags. You see, I'm not going straight home, so I want the stuff in bags that will hold up for the long ride. The cashier looks at me blankly, reaches over, grabs a huge section of the container, and hands me six or seven empty bags. Then, she just stands there. 

"Uhhhhh, no. For bagging. My groceries."

Both girls stare at me as I push the bags back toward them. No one says a word. No one moves. We are standing in a tableau of stupidity.

Finally, I make huge gestures with my arms and hands, sweeping from the left to the right, as I say, "Just riiiiiiiiiiiiing my stuff through and send it dooooooooooooooooown to the bottom and paaaaaaaaaaaaaack everything in those big plastic baaaaaaaaaaaaaags." 

Still, nothing. I spot my friends in the next checkout aisle, clearly not having the same problem. I turn to the couple behind me. "I told you that you wouldn't be disappointed!" Them, to the cashier, I say, "Go! Ring! Let's get these puppies home!"

This. All this. This is why I hate shopping.


Sunday, February 25, 2024

AI Is Not the Wave of the Educational Future

Q:  What is worse than spending ten straight hours grading narrative essays?

A:  Spending many of those hours grading narrative essays that are obviously generated via AI.

Q:  What is worse than grading AI-generated narrative essays?

A:  Knowing that the students who used AI will be incapable of and unwilling to write the MCAS essays when the state tests occur in five weeks.

I have been teaching for a really long time, and my areas of expertise are subject-specific, grade-based, and test-prep informed. The required state standards for my subject matter are no longer mastered in elementary school through no fault of the teachers and through the entire fault of the business-based school model that stresses social-emotional content over academic proficiency. This model has been crashing and burning for years now with no apparent slowing. The wreckage has been visible through both state testing and the rising need for academic triage.

You might be tricked into believing that I am untrained in the latest and greatest trends in my field. We "elderly" educators are just as savvy as (and, in some content, more so than) the newest churned-out crop of professional teachers. That's one of the benefits and also one of the curses of state-mandated professional development. Here's what you should never be tricked by: AI is not the wave of the educational future. 

Before you jump all over me with the "You just don't understand technology or how it works" blasphemy, I'm quite certain that technology has its place even in my field. After all, I use technology when I write. I rely heavily on an electronic classroom platform to post assignments and to do my planning and to track the standards. I integrate all kinds of technology-based lessons to teach, to reinforce, and to chart data.

Here's where I will go toe-to-toe with you: AI has zero place in graded writing at the middle school level. (Okay, at any academic level, but I digress.) Zero. And that's the grade that I am tempted to give my 20% or so students who clearly used AI (and also cheated with each other using AI). 

The irony of all of this, of course, is that technology is supposed to make our lives easier, more efficient, and less mistake-filled. Instead, these AI-generated narrative essays are grammatically muddled, difficult to grade, and full of topical errors. King Arthur's wizard Merlin working at Market Basket and driving a Tesla? Yeah, I doubt that, especially when the same key words end up in a dozen essays that all suck as much as the other AI-generated ones do.

Recommendation to parents: Buy your kids some pencils and pens (and please tell them that highlighters are NOT writing utensils). I'll provide the lined paper. We are going old-school for writing. It's a sad day when I would prefer to slog through handwritten essays by kids who never mastered holding a pencil (lest it hurt their fragile psyche) rather than grading typed essays using premade rubrics. I much prefer students who are willing to try and actually think than those who coast through a few key strokes and hit "print."

Sunday, February 18, 2024

DON'T CALL IT UNTIL YOU CAN CALL IT

New Englanders, especially the old timers, are incredibly hardy. 

You know why we keep talking about the Blizzard of '78? Because it was fracking amazing, that's why. It thunder-snowed sideways for three straight days. It snowed so fast that the plows couldn't keep up with it (hence people abandoning vehicles on highways). Even though the sun came out and it was warm and beautiful when it all ended, the snowbanks were so tall that no one could see to drive around corners or through intersections. Everything was closed for a week or more. We all just walked everywhere, right down the middle of streets and freeways, and partied straight for a solid seven days.

Now, we have today's New England snow storms. Essentially, each is a non-event. The fact that the weather forecasters have the latest technology available and still cannot get it right is beyond me. Take last week, for example. It was 50 degrees, kids were playing outside without coats, and the air did not have that distinctive stink of snow. In other words, where I live would be a snow-free zone.

Superintendents all across the state panicked. Gawd forbid the parents actually have to get up in the morning and . . . gasp . . . plan. Newsflash: Parents plan anyway. We plan for possible snow days. We plan for early releases. We plan for all kinds of contingencies. 

What is absolutely worse than a snow day? A snow day without snow.

This was our big "blizzard" last week - we didn't even get a dusting of snow. Barely even a flake fell, and, when it hit the warm ground, it melted instantly. This was the dire event that forecasters hyped up so forcibly that even garbage collection was cancelled. Anyone who lives in New England and considers an amount of snowfall under a foot to be "a significant event" is either a Newbie or a moron. A foot of snow is chump change here in New England. A significant amount of snow starts around eighteen inches and goes up from there. 

Okay, so a few parts of the state, mostly to the south or along the coast, did see snow. Excellent. Bully for you. The rest of us lost a much-needed work day. Schools now have to make up a non-snow snow day in June, when we want to be on vacation or at sports camps or at the beach.

So, if you wonder why people still talk about the Blizzard of '78, it could be because people had brains back then. People didn't call off school or garbage collection or close stores or businesses or government offices until they actually saw snow, until it actually happened. Yes, we had to watch the television or listen to the radio or rely on phone trees to get the word out, but I'm pretty certain none of us was dumb enough to go to school in a blizzard nor stay home when it remained dry.

Yes, we're not just hardy, we old timers are practical, as well. Must be all the snow we slogged through.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

TOTING AROUND MY STASH

I have an addiction. No, it's not that kind of addiction. I am addicted to buying (and reading) books. Despite having a backlog of about fifty physical books and probably two hundred e-books, I continue to trade in books at the Used Book Superstore and bring home more and more and more books.

I go to bookstores in other towns, states, and even other countries. Yes, when I was in Montreal, I went into a bookstore in an all-French neighborhood, although I have not spoken any real French since I left sixth grade.

It's a sickness.

Every time I visit family in North Carolina, I go in search of bookstores. I can't find the independent one I am looking for, so I end up at the Flying Biscuit cafe, instead. After I eat breakfast for lunch, I hit my back-up bookstore, Barnes and Noble. 

I don't need a book. I have a book with me and I have my phone with both Kindle and Nook e-books already loaded. But, I go in anyway. I peruse the magazines, decide that Taylor Swift graces too many covers for my sanity, then pick up a travel book for an upcoming trip to the west coast.

As I get to the register, the woman asks me if I have a membership. I do have one, for another few months, anyway, because my educator discount has been discontinued, so teachers get a free year of B&N premium. Turns out I get a free tote bag.

I need another Tote bag like Castro needs another cigar, so I almost decline, but, in the end, I agree to it, thinking it will be some cheap muslin or plastic thing. Instead, I get a choice of three different heavy-duty canvas bags. The nice ones. The twenty dollar ones.

Score! 

I choose a black and gold bag (Bruins colors), and I happily leave with my merchandise. Like I said, I don't need any more books, but now I have some great swag inside of which I can hide more books. So, I guess it all works out in the end.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

SPRINKLING SOME COMMON SENSE

Signs like this should not be necessary:

"Do not drink drain clog gel."
"Refrain from sticking body parts into animal cages."
"Rat poison is not candy."
"Do not cross the road in traffic."
"Do not stick your mouth over the car tailpipe."

I think I may have encountered the ultimate example of human stupidity. Well, via signage, anyway. And I am still trying to figure out who on this crazy planet we call Earth could have attempted this so that a sign would ever be necessary.

I am at a hotel -- a newer, lovely Marriott in an area full of shops and restaurants and all kinds of cool places within walking distance. The hotel is mid-range financially, so I doubt there will be silverfish in the bathroom, and any available room service will not be delivered with white gloves. It's clean, it's modern, it's quiet, it's very comfortable, and it has some higher-end amenities. 

I really like the bathroom. It has a huge walk-in shower with a decent-sized rainfall showerhead, and there is a pass-through shelf where I can leave a rolled-up towel (or, I suppose, a mixed drink). I have tons of towels, considering that it's just me. I have plenty of room on both sides of the sink to set up my make-up and earrings on one side, and my dental stuff and hair stuff on the other. There is a huge light-up mirror over the sink along with an adjustable table-top magnifying mirror, too.

Therein lies the rub.

It is the adjustable mirror that first catches the problem with the bathroom. I see something over my shoulder but, because the mirror is at an angle, the view is actually of the ceiling. I stand and peer into the light-up mirror over the sink and catch a glimpse of the same thing but from a slightly different angle. Finally, I turn around and stare up at the top of the bathroom.

There is a fire sprinkler head in the ceiling. No big deal, right? I mean, that's where the thing belongs, in case of fire. It's not the sprinkler itself that is the curiosity. It is the sign that is stuck on the ceiling next to it:  "Contact with sprinkler will cause flooding." Still not a problem, correct? I have seen a soccer ball smack into a sprinkler head at an indoor arena and flood the entire sports complex, so it makes perfect sense to me. 

No, it's not the words that constitute the absurdity. It's the illustration on the warning. There is a coat hanger with a red line across across it.
That's right. A coat hanger.


This means that some moron in a Marriott hotel somewhere decided to suspend clothing on a hanger from the sprinkler head, probably even spun it around for fun, and proceeded to flood an entire hotel because once the system is triggered . . . 

Please, people, if you are that incredibly stupid, please, please, please stop breeding. Stop reproducing. Stop sending your spawn to public schools. Just. Stop. 

Stop, so that the rest of us can continue to experience the little hotel amenities that we have come to enjoy, like clean rooms and bathrooms with running water. Stop making signs like this necessary. And to the sign makers, please start producing signs that the rest of us can truly appreciate:

"If you don't know that this is NOT a coat rack, please drink this poison, stick your head in this tiger cage, or run across the track at a motor speedway."