Still enjoying life...

Well this past week has been great. My parents and my aunt visited me. Getting to spend time with family really is great for boosting the spirits. It also meant that I had the opportunity to see a number of Broadway musicals. Thursday night we saw Promises Promises with Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenowith. It was absolutely amazing although I never realized just how short she is. Friday we saw the Broadway version of Elf. It was a ton of fun and thoroughly enjoyable. Saturday we was Chicago and Million Dollar Quartet. Overall there was quite a lot to take in, but I loved every minute of it. The best part by far was having family from home coming to visit. My parents were able to see my school and meet my co-teacher. It also didn’t hurt that instead of eating in all weekend I was able to eat out at some pretty great places. We found a wonderful little Indian restaurant right next to my apartment that I will definitely be visiting again.

This week in class has been pretty low key considering last week ended with a student punching a staff member in the face. Since it was a three day week and only half a day on Wednesday for classes we focused more on review than learning new material. I had a student explain to me his theory on how algebra was created by teachers to make busywork. I then set that as my facebook status. The best part is the first person to comment on that status was my old algebra teacher who I probably used the exact same line on. I also had a student who decide to make vulgar sexual noises all of the class period. That was one of those moments where I had to choose whether or not to address the issue. I did originally, but when it continued it I decided to focus positive attention elsewhere. He was convicted the week before and finding a way to invest him in the class was challenging. I also had a student ask me why we do work every day in class. My response was that we were in class to learn and it was my job to teach him so that is why we have lessons every day. He said that I should try taking a day and not doing a lesson. To which I replied, “Do you think it is ok for me to show up to work and not do my job? Who would want to have an employee who doesn’t do their job?” He then stated, “I couldn’t trust someone like you to do a job Mr. Hamilton. You are too perfect.” Well I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment from my student or not. It is however slightly disturbing to think that he thinks you can go to work and some days just decide not to do anything. We are going to have to work on that. Students quiz scores this week were up significantly which is exciting.

I am in Boston for Thanksgiving with a friend from TFA. It is great to be out of the city and in a home. I’m sure I will have more to say soon.

A week in the life of...

So this week has been filled with new expreinces. I saw a pregnant clown on the way to work the other day. I can't say that I see the subway as the best place for a clown to hang out but who am I to judge. Grad school has been fairly low key. In my classroom however it has been a busy week. All four of my math classes are now at different points due to varying student abilities as well as the constant influx of new students. We have been studying perimeter and area with the middle school and the high school classes are at various levels of solving linear equations. I have a new student named Sirlancelot. Yes that is his real name on his transcript. Yikes! What loving parents. We also had a student punch a staff member today in one of the classes so tension is a little high for some of the students. My parents and aunt flew into Newark last night so I get to spend much of the weekend with them. :) One final thought/peice of advice. I found the greatest tv show on hulu. It is called Murder One and it was filmed back in 1995. The show is set up like any good cops and lawyer show except the entire season is focused around one trail which makes the whole thing much more intriguing.

Back to the blog

I wouldn't have expected gas to be a problem in an all girls class. But hey, I guess everyone does it. So I fail epically at updating this blog. Here are the things that have gone on in the past few weeks.

Improv Everywhere event. So I participated in a giant flash mob in Manhattan which consisted of about three thousand people doing all sorts of random things in stores and in a park. There is a video of the event here: http://improveverywhere.com/ Sufficient to say, it was one of the most unique experiences of my life. Being surrounded by people I had never met before doing things that you normally wouldn’t do in public was a blast. We had a gift exchange and I received a brand new copy of Pan’s Labyrinth. After that we (Matt, Mollie, and Robbie a TFA friend) went to Brooklyn to see a program called digital graffiti. It had a hippie/bohemian feel to it. There were all sorts of extremely obscure art. One of my favorite things that I saw was a woman on stilts with long flowing white robes dancing in front of a projector that kept changing. A local gym was also open and had all of its bouncy equipment set up which was quite fun. All together it was a really fun totally free night out in NYC.

By the way…major props to anyone who reads through this whole thing. In other developments I now have a new roommate. She just moved in. Her name is Simone and she was born and raise here in NYC. Matt and I are both exited to see how things work out. (cheesy intro) When it comes to working out I have now joined a gym. The sad thing is my biggest motivation for actually working out is the fact that I am paying for it. I am only paying ten bucks a month, but it is still hard earned money coming out of my pocket.

For one of my three day weekends I traveled to Baltimore to visit my good friend Joy. She has been doing TFA there for the last year. It was really great to meet up with her and her friends and just have some fun relaxing. Every time that I get to see people who I know from back home I cherish. It is not that I don’t enjoy the people here, but there is so much that they don’t know about me yet and so much that they don’t know how to relate to that I do miss home quite a bit. (Home qualifies as both Spokane and Fircrest in my book).

My students are so great, even the ones who throw desk across the room and the ones who put holes in the smart board, because each and every one of them is just a kid who is looking for attention. While I do have some days where I am frustrated, for the most part I come home each day pretty happy with what we’ve accomplished. If only there were more time. The bummer about being the only math teacher at my school is that I students only get one period of math a day as opposed to the double periods of social studies and English they receive. I feel that especially with math the more practice my kids get the better.

I’ll try to be more on top of updates. I promise myself that now, but we will see when I write again. For anyone out there who is feeling bored for some reason you are more than welcome to give me a jingle.