morningbook

Monday 1 October 2012

1. Massive cooking night in the kitchen. Waffles for the freezer, fruit/veg puree for Emmett’s yogurt, moutabal, chicken, caramelized leeks. It was crazy. How nice to not be so worked out, to be able to cook at night. 

2. Writing questions directly tied to the Common Core State Standards is a mild pain in the ass. Some of those standards are meaningless. Take L.9-10.3: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening. What does that mean? And the sub-letter is meaningful, but dumb: L.9-10.3a: Write and edit work so that it conforms to the guidelines in a style manual (e.g. MLA Handbook or Turabian’s Manual for Writers—-sidenote, people still use Turabian? How awesome and hardcore, especially in 10th grade) appropriate for the disciplien and writing type. That makes sense, but relates in no way to using knowledge of language to comprehend when reading or listening. Turabian will not help you read. 

Some of the other standards are so broad as to apply to basically every single goddamn question I write: RI.9-10.1: Cite strong and and thorough evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. That is everything. 

And still others are two separate standards when they are almost indistinguishable 90% of the time. RI.9-10.6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose. How is that significantly different from: RI.9-10. Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between then. I mean, I see a hair-splitting difference between determining an author’s point of view and the rhetoric they use in, say, a persuasive essay and looking at how a general expository text is organized. But, seriously, nine times out of ten I have a really hard time drawing a distinction there.

Bottom line: Common Core State Standards are bad-ass and will totally fuck up kids who are going to get them in high school as they are actually rigorous and build on prior knowledge—so, you know, rolling them out to high schoolers is really not fair, because they probably don’t have all the background knowledge the standards presume. But, once again, rigorous. And text-based. And I like that. But they are still standards. So no matter what you do, you are going to end up using 4-5 standards all the goddamn time and looking at the other eighty and hoping you hit them once or twice because they are so specific as to be almost useless.

3. I had a really nice time playing with my kid tonight. We read People. I tickled him, a lot. It was nice.

Sunday 30 September 2012

1. Woah. Long day. Grammy and Pappy came, ate lunch, and walked all over the goddamn place with me and Jeff and Emmett. That walk tuckered the kiddo out. He was about passing out on Jeff as we watched “Sesame Street” this evening. And it was only 6:30. Lots of excitement = too much for toddler.

2. Made this macaroni and cheese. Stellar. Vegetably, not-too-rich, and actually really satisfying. Pretty neat trick.

3. These past two days of not working have been awesome. I’ll be happy to know when my next book deadline is so I can get back to cranking stuff out, but I’ve actually been cooking. There was brown butter made and consumed in my kitchen. Brown butter, peeps. Obviously living the good life, having a weekend like a normal person.

Saturday 29 September 2012

1. Put up pickled hot peppers and Indian spice pickled romano beans today. Turns out I really should have (bought and) worn gloves before cutting up over a pound of assorted hot peppers. I finished over four hours ago and still, every time my hands get wet (which is all the stupid time) the burn kicks back up. This page suggests all kinds of things. I’m gonna start with alcohol and god I hope it eases up. Cuz it’s kind of sucko. 

2. Stupid angry toddler making everyone miserable. Emmett has been a super grump for a bit now. We watched almost an hour of Sesame Street. That is a pretty good sign of how dire his piss-ass mood was today. 

3. Jeff and I went grocery shopping alone. It was very nice. Emmett was at his cousin’s football game. He was not happy to have to come inside after a full morning outside. Again, see #2 above.

Friday 28 September 2012

1. And so ends another Friday. We hit the blue slide playground at Frick park today. Emmett loves a good park. Pretty sure there was a child predator of some sort there. He lurked. He lingered. He pretended to do some pull ups on what was obviously a kids’ jungle gym. He took notes in his little moleskine. No one acknowledged him, and he acknowledged no one. Gah. If there hadn’t been so many families—what a gorgeous day—I would not have stuck around. Even with Jeff.

2. Finally, a brief respite from work. So, I cleaned. And watched “Dawson’s Creek,” cuz that shit is not gonna let go until I finish the whole series. Then I’ll finish “Ally McBeal” and continue to hate Billy. I’m up to Charlie—Chad Michael Murray and his cold dead eyes—and I hate him, but he’s fun to hate. Billy is just horrible. Really misogynistic and horrible. Hard to believe that kind of machismo played even twenty years ago.

3. And Chipotle for dinner. I admit to having a teenager-y crush on the obviously still a teenager hot kid who works there. Or, I think 16-year-old me would have had a serious crush on him. Thirty-year-old me likes him because he puts a lot of carnitas in my burrito. 

Wednesday 26 September and Thursday 27 September 2012

1. Rain is no fun. I get the SAD and Emmett gets the cabin fever. Maybe also some SAD. And he’s got the saddest, worst diaper rash, so he doesn’t want to sit down. But he gets tired. But he can’t sit. God save us.

2. Blowing freelance deadlines is awesome. I seem to have earned myself some good will on account of writing well, though. Still, not my favorite. And I so thought I was on top of shit. Then, blammo! Not at all! Sorry you thought you could take a day off after a good ten days of working. Sigh. I do think, though, that Saturday could be my day to do nothing.

3. Everything in our house now has stool potential in the eyes of Emmett. His work bench? A stool. The laundry basket? Just got to turn it over and tada! A stool. And he can climb up on our kitchen stools, which are a fair bit higher than our kitchen chairs. And he can push chairs and stools around the kitchen, climb on them, and reach things that used to be safely out of reach. He can even push around the learning tower. We are in trouble.

4. Started reading The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander. It’s very sad. I’m one of the initiated and I still find it shocking. 

Monday 24 September 2012

1. I am so sick of those history lesson plans. But they are done. For now anyway. On to Burke and Wills!

1a. A little sad that I just picked up another four amazingly pulpy Kit Carson books, a few hours after submitting finished lessons. Perhaps I’ll write 10-20 pages about Kit Carson—the man! the myth!—for my grad school essay?

2. Emmett really likes to make himself laugh. And he has an inhaling-type chuckle that is hilarious. Crawling into a box? Hilarious. Standing on a stool? Hilarious. Whacking the rubber duckie with the rubber turtle? Double hilarious.

3. God bless daycare. That shit is awesome. 

4. Finally cooked again. Miso-Curry Delicata Squash from Supernatural Everyday. That’s right: squash, tofu, kale and miso in one dish. Dirty hippy food to the nth degree. But impressively tasty. I may go eat some more from the fridge. 

Saturday 22 September 2012

1. Watched Mikey get married. He’s not really Mikey anymore. Poor Adam, my brother the best man, went to fetch Mike’s computer, which he forgot, and it took him over an hour. Mike refused to enter the reception until his best man was there. Until he finally had to give in and go in without him. So sweet. So sad. Then Adam finally made it, entered to some Jock Jams (Jamz?), slammed a beer, and gave his quite nice speech. 

2. Emmett barely sat down at all. He may be finally falling asleep. We just heard him singing in his room, to himself, all calm-like. Recreating “Crocodile Rock,” which he found quite inspiring in the car?

3. So. Tired. Of. Work. I have a deadline Monday (see above) and then another Tuesday. Then another new project lined up, but at least I’ll be through one giant deadline and another medium-sized one.