Controlled Chaos

I got up and headed to the North Bronx to meet students to watch Wanted, but when I was on the bus, I read the reviews of it and Wall-E, which happened to be right next to one another.  Wall-E was rated one half-star better, but the review made it seem MUCH more promising, so when we got there, we ended up seeing that.  Chandy, Edy, Saudhi and Georgette didn’t end up showing, so it was just Matthew, Sye (in her f*ck tv shirt I gave her!) and I.  Wall-E was AMAZING.  It is by far Pixar’s darkest and most overtly political movie thus far, and all while being technically and cinematically perfect.  The credits were definitely worth-watching, and that’s when Georgette showed up with her little sister, Sinai.  We snuck into Kung Fu Panda for a bit, as Sinai had been promised a movie, and left after about 30 minutes of it.  Then we went to Burger King.  While people went and ordered food, I kept Sinai occupied by giving her the whiteboard and markers.  She still wasn’t talking, but she did draw a picture of Georgette when i asked her to.  Sinai and I ended up becoming good friends.  When everyone else had their food (except Sye, because hers had apparently been skipped), I went and ordered a veggie burger, and was number 13(!).  I helped Sye get her food, then mine came out, then we all ate.  After that, we walked to the bus, Sinai on my shoulders picking leaves as we went.  Then we took the bus back, and said goodbye to Matthew, who had to get home to head to LGA and then mali (whew!).  Sye and Georgette and I walked to the library, which was closed, then to a McDonalds, where we all used the bathroom.  It was a fun day…

Today was my last day as a BCSM employee.  I got to school, packed some of my things, attended the honor roll breakfast, then the awards ceremony, waited around, met with Mr. Tom, was told that God is sending me to Indonesia, and then left on otherwise good terms, I guess.  The ceremony was particularly cool, because when I got up to present the English awards, the students started cheering loudly, then chanting my name, then just going crazy, which was very flattering.

After the day ended, I left my bags there, and headed with Sye to Fordham, where we *shopped* (crazy, I know) for fingernail polish for Chandy’s birthday.  We had probably been in 7 or 8 stores before we ran into, almost accidentally, Hurricane Nail polish.  We bought one of every color, plus 2 of each glitter and white and black.  Then we went shopping more, this time for a bag to hold all of it.  We found the perfect bag, got on a train, and loaded it up.  I put it with the board and markers she had also requested, then we headed out of there.

Tonight Mayer and I headed down to Buddha Bodai, where we were to meet 8 soon-to-be-teachers.  Only 7 ended up showing, but they were hecka cool.  We walked (me, too much), and ate veggie/kosher food.  I had chosen the place specifically for that.  The conversation was very good, and we had a lot of fun.  After we finished, we walked toward the E train, as some of them wanted to start their 1hr45minute commute.  A few stuck around, though, and we went to a really cool little bar.  It was half-in half-out, so we sat across the divide.  The music, drinks and conversation were all really good.  We eventually got moved inside, and were served birthday cake (Christina got it for her fellow CM…aww!).  Then we left, and I had to run back up to get leftovers, then we got on trains.  I ended up causing Kristin and I to get out and get on buses, which coulda been worse, but we managed pretty well.  And had SO . MUCH. FUN.

Elephant Self Portrait – CollegeHumor video

Wow, this elephant can PAINT!  I suppose he can actually just perform the act of painting, and probably only the same painting all the time, but it’s still impressive.  I wonder if they ever let this particular elephant actually walk around with flowers, or if paints scenes from a quality of living that it itself does not enjoy…

Tonight I went downtown to see my friend Rachel play at Rockwood.  Hunter met me down there, and the show was really good.  She plays piano, and you can hear her on MySpace.

I took a bus to a train to a bus, then back to get on another bus this morning, all in an effort to get to Orchard beach.  When I got there, it was pretty raucous, but I eventually worked my way back to our space with the help of Grace.  When I got there, I put on sunscreen, said hellos, ate veggie burgers, then headed to the volleyball courts with Luis, Carlos, their friends, Stephen, Edy and Ramon.  We played through two games, then the third one, people left and others arrived, so we switched up the teams a bit.  Camila’s cousin Mabel was GOOD, but we still lost.  But I did catch them on “match point” twice, so that was fun.

From there, I walked back, then went to the beach.  I couldn’t find the rest of our group, so I ended up sitting there with Camila and Mabel until Georgette showed up.  She and Sye and Andrew’s friend and her daughters were going on a nature hike, so I joined them.  The hike took us out over the rails, where we found a lot of shells of horseshoe crabs.  Then we walked along the rocks and watched the surf roll in.  Georgette was holging the baby, and I ended up throwing rocks with the little girl at one point (important detail for later).  We walked quite a distance, around a little isthmus, then back through some forest to get back to the path.  When we got back, the little girl ran into a little boy, and there interaction was really cute.  He wanted her rock, but she politely informed him that it was hers, and he’d have to get his own. When the rest of our group went to the bathroom, I took her on my shoulders down to the beachfront, and she attempted to throw her rock in.  She’d been having trouble throwing forward, though, so we had to try again.  Anyway, from there we went back up to our campsite, where people were playing football.  I opted to juggle a soccer ball instead.  Eventually, people started hitting a volleyball around, and then we broke stuff down and left.  It was a beautiful day, and the orange rays of falling sun were really pretty as we headed out.  We got to a bus stop, which was kinda crazy, and pictures were taken.  Even more were taken when we were actually on the bus, mostly of my eyes by the chay.  We got off that bus, walkedup a hill, and most of our group turned quickly to get on a bus, so I didn’t even get to say much of a goodbye.  Then Chay and I took the D South and chatted.  She got off in two stops, and I got off at 125th, and that was that.

Today, I stayed in my room, had kids grade stuff, pulled posters off the wall (and ceiling, and I knocked a light cover over in the process), and entered numbers into powerschool.  I also had kids clean up words from the word giveaway.

[Every week, I write ten words on sentence strips and tape them to the back of the window curtains.  The students find their definitions that night for homework, then act them out or draw them in groups and review them the next day, and them fill them into blanks in sentences on Friday.  We do this nearly every week, so by the end of the year, there were quite a few all over the room - especially since I do this for three different classes.  So on the last day of the year, I took them down, and gave them to kids.  They start6ed taping them to their shirts and wearing them around school.  I wore "chaos martyr" for the rest of the day.  =)  ]

Anyway, after we finished, Avery, YoHanna, Marlene and I went to get (crumby) pizza, and then went to the corner of Crotona park to eat it.  We saw Sahar walk buy on the way to the play we’d soon be attending.

We then went and sat down for the play.It was very good.  Brandon’s performance as seuttelus (sp?) was amazing, Matthew can just plain ACT, Roman’s antics were hilarious, Steven’s punchlines were well-executed, Frances and Syeda were excellently ubiquitous, Leomar can really play that role too well, Cynthia apparently has no spine, Elizabeth is a kitty, and Saudhi stuffed things in her pants.  Kanter can really rock a show.

I left there with Sahar, waited for the 11 for a while, then ended up walking a while, until we got on an 11 anyway.  Then we hit a D, but not before she told me about great street food usually for sale there.  From there, we left for 14th, and headed to Red Bamboo, a vegetarian restaurant.  We got great food, and had great conversation.  She is leaving for Mali with Matthew and Fatoumata on Friday, 6/20.  Chatting with her was a wonderful experience.

But what is the solid gold guitar?

(I don’t remember when these posts really happened, exactly, so I just stuck both of them here)

A while back, I took students to Evander High School at Gun Hill to learn to use digital video cameras and post-production software.  After 6 Saturdays of hard work (plus some), we finished our recycling video, and entered it in the NBC Universal Digital Media Contest.  We ended up getting second place in NYC for our video “924 Trees a Day!”
Our prize?  Each student got a digital video camera, and both the school and I got $500 gift certificates to Best Buy.  Not all of my crew could make it, though, so curiously enough, Marlene and Yasser went with me, and we met Mahmud and Ms. Mayer down there.  On the trip down, we took a crowded 35 to a crowded D, but on the D, I read a few excerpts from my journal.  We ended up getting there just in time.  After the ceremony, everyone left and got a gift bag as they did so.  In the bags were a pre-pay cell phone, a geek squad t-shirt, an iPod speaker set, a Best buy hat, and some other stuff.  Pretty sweet hookup, especially on top of all the gifts!

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I was in my doctor’s office again, and this time a different doctor heard about my travels.  He started telling me about akshardam, and telling me that he would have Dr. patel write me a note to take with me.  This never happened, but he was pretty persistent with it at the time.  Anyway, another odd doctor discussion…

Joivonnah Childs, a student at my school, won a scholarship from the Annenberg Foundation.  I edited her letter, and thus was invited to attend the event.  Sye and I went down there together, and Brandon, Andrew, and Harry showed up a bit after that.  The ceremony was interesting, because you could pretty clearly tell whether people were Annenberg foundation-ers, school staff, or family members.  I ended up playing around with Joi’s little brother for most of the time, but I did take a second to congratulate Shiyah, the other winner, and to meet Joi’s grandma, who is an alderwoman up in the Bronx.  After it was over, we went to a CVS, where I bought ricecakes and a drink.  I waited with the kids until harry’s parents showed up, then took the bus home (and set next to a guy who was also playing video games – we talked, they approved of my game).

Today I went up to the Botanical gardens to work, but it was hot and the last day, so the kids gave Andrew a present then we stayed inside and the students filled out surveys on the experience.

After that, Andrew, Saudhi, Syeda, her brother Syed, and I headed down to the Southstreet seaport.  We first stopped by Andrew’s house, which is an actual house and was pretty cool.  Then we met Syed at the train, and headed down from the South BX.  Saudhi and I listened to music as we went, focusing on Mars Volta, Sparta and At the Drive In.  Then we hung out n the dock for a while as we waited for the ship to get ready.  In the meanwhile, we ate some snacks Syed and I had picked up, including yogurt-covered raisins, plus some water Andrew brought us.  The water was mostly used for pouring on unsuspecting others.  Eventually, we got on the boat.

We were headed through several bridges en route to the Eagle Islands the city has preserved.  I saw and talked to Pepe Gomez on the trip, but spent a good deal of my time talking to Syed.  I learned that Bengali and Hindi are somewhat similar.  The boat ride was pretty cool, especially when it started raining.  We went by the bridge that a fountain was being built under, and I consider(ed) that a dumb idea.  We got to the islands, which actually weren’t all that impressive, but the trip was very fun, and I met a lot of fun people.  And all our stuff stayed dry, which was good.

When we got out, we walked down Fulton, and stopped in a little pizza place.  I bought pizza this time (Syed and Andrew kept buying things!), and we sat in two booths to eat.  I loaded my pizza up unnecessarily with topping. We all acted silly.  Then we left.

We took the train back up together for a long while.  We managed to get a whole bench that fit all of us but 1.  At first, it was Syed, but then it ended up being Sye, I think.  I was tired when I got home.