So I am denied.

To be more specific, I am denied at least until I find a replacement for me, which I was unwilling to make a firm decision on because I didn't want anyone to be excessed should my transfer not go through. How's that for a Catch-22 for ya?

I said goodbye to Errol this morning, but it was no big deal, even though he ended up taking a cab after I dragged myself out of snuggliness with Joephet to see him off to the M60 with his luggage, which I didn't. Oh, well.

So J. K. Rowling has finally and officially lost it, which is not to say that you didn't kind of know that there was something a little going on with her, what with the fake initial (medial initial, which is already conflicted) and the inability to imagine magic outside of a colonial British context, in which of course it's not hard to pick out the evil-inclined one out of Helga, Rowena, Salazar, and Godric, or to want to liberate house-elves who personally help you, even though there are no doubt legions yet enslaved (where is the magical ASPCA? Those poor pixies and mandragoras and boggarts and and and), no, but while this could go on longer than the series, the point is that the title of the sixth book is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This is just ludicrous.

So I'm in limbo, waiting final approval from the director of Personnel ("Human Resources") for my region. And it sucks. But I'm at least affable and cheerful and smiley while waiting, not crying, like some of the hysterical (how sexist a word!) cowaiters (waitresses?) of mine.

So the other side of the table can be harsh, when you in a shortage area trying to transfer out of a region must try somehow to hire all the other people in your shortage area, all of whom are jockeying for some position you can only sort-of offer, as your principal has not taken it upon himself to show up, after earlier inquisitioning you about whether or not you are leaving your school for reasons of harassment, which seems like a little late and backwards a way of doing it all, somehow, but the point is that you reject--you reject and you damn by faint praise, exaggerating virtue or vice of your school or your students or your whatnot, all to manuever out the female Asians not because of your deep personal issues, but because no one resembling your mother deserves the abuse and bitterness you daily swallow, and you lament that all the white boys while cute to some lame Midwestern extent can neither hold a candle to Joephet nor a classroom down in the least, and that the cute little gay boi who genuflects that it's not in his personality to be strict and rigid and firm in that way when it comes to other people is thoroughly unqualified, and of course would not give you the time of day otherwise, but in this context--oh, only!--has left you not only his email and home address but his number. Nah, the only real problem is four hours straight.

So it turns out that I still need a roommate, with three days before closing, but the worst case is that I end up fronting some cash for a month and paying $20 a day until the room is filled, basically. Still, it can't be worse given that I'm downing my rent to $500, which is ridiculous given the size of my room and the so on.

Rob Chin is back in town and is now bedecking himself sartorially with the help of his big sis. Rather, bio-big-sis-2, whereas I am pseudo-big-sis, or something like that, I suppose. My shinai is still sitting, disassembled, but unoiled as the alternative would be for it to smell like sesame. Tomorrow will be a day of goodbyes and interviews and also a boatload of forms-signings and the like. It will be odd, to be in a deserted circumstance. And I have cover letters yet to write...

So I'm much amused by Lostin, who claims that AsianGuy actually isn't, and has been making shit up, embellishing and so on. I wouldn't be too surprised, I suppose, but of course there's a vast generational gap between him and us, so who knows. And I suck cock. So yeah... who knows...

Hrmm... Beyond that, I wish there were more to report: this being Joephet's last week around before he has to run off to Little Neck to be with his fam and moms for a month. While his incessant demands, uncontrollable nudity, spastic giggling, piercing yelps, and flip hair will be missed, it will be lighter on my wallet and easier to start my new martial habits, which seem a little odd, yes, and not as useful as farmwork or mathwork, in some ways at least, but at least provide another area for humility, which I view as a key experience--something again about the Zone of Proximal Development. So I have been excitedly sanding my shinai though somehow corn oil seems like it would be a little too heavy. My brother and Lostin, however, both seem overbored by Jersey, and I don't blame them. My weekend visits, however, will extend to both them and dear forgotten Miss Fegs--I haven't seen her or Fegsling or Fegslina in ages.

So I am relieved that summer will soon start, even though this afternoon was a hectic rush from office to office, though I did end up meeting my new principal, who is Chinese which helps somewhat in some ways, I suppose. But I am feeling very much relaxed now despite the Harry Potter running someplace in the background, as that's just horrible classist shit believing still in what is by-birth and on and on, and now Joephet is giggling as he's flinging his... male byproduct at me like the monkey that he is. That's just gross.

So my spending has been out of control, and it seems the only time I can budget adequately is when I'm out in New Hampshire, in which case I spend absolutely no money whatsoever. The key thing for the summer will be to come up with a monthly budget and financial plan, though of course it helps that I'm not being murdered for rent the way that monthily. Still, it's a little scary having that credit card, even though it all is not quite out of control quite yet. But yes--strict fiscal forebearance from here on in is the watchword of the day, even if I do end up adding a number of recurring expenses such as Kendo.

So I been lounging waiting while quite inclined to take some pleasant afternoon naps at no real expense awaiting the return of my landlord with a new lockset for the door with which to bar Neill from reentering without permission adn some sort of rent-settlement for the three months still owed. I've also received news that the form I've been waiting approval on has yet to be filed, and that I will hafta go and sit in the Region 9 office until it is signed by some functionary or such, and I suppose that means that tonight I will take pains to prepare a cover letter justifying said transfer on the grounds of bilingual appropriateness, interview validity, grandfathering from alternative schools district, inflow within my shortage area, and resource commitment. As is obvious, I'm quite anxious about this, as it's kinda the cornerstone of my brave new future.

So two more days left of phoning it in, though there is still plenty of cleaning yet left to do--today I had to control my giggles when my coworker Wanda snidely remarked when the interviewee for my position was described to have been resting in the computer lab after a schlep in the hot outdoors and then up four flights of stairs, "What, is he fat?" and it turned out that he was very much so, to say nothing of being old enough to be my grandfather.

So it's amazing the shit that girls who think they're pretty try to pull. No, I'm not talking about Joephet, but rather one of the teachers at my school of the subcontinental puffy-painted-face-variety who at lunch today tried to pull this bitchy shit with the poor overweight Latina waitress when, in the flurry, which granted was partial incompetence and shortages, her coleslaw came late and she insisted repeatly, forcefully that it was too late for the coleslaw to arrive, and so why can't the fries be substituted by way of recompense, ignoring of course the explanations of the waitress that while fries are a separate side dish the cole slaw is a complimentary accompaniment, which actually is of a different size, but with insistence and pure ignoring of the waitresses arguments and her need to consult with her evil Asian owner/supervisor, eventually the charge for the fries is taken off. Now, I'm not sure what motivation there is in this, as the fries can't cost more than a couple bucks, and it's not as if she's in the company of people she needs to impress, or if she's not making just as much as the rest of us, or as if her harassment of the waitress is like her harassment of her boyfriend, which actually would lead to more goods later. No, it seemed like pure cattiness. Or something. It was unattractive, though, thoroughly.

The other thing is how strange it is to be walking through neighborhoods with an eye--not just an eye for the houses but for the residents and the stores and all of these other details, and looking not through my eyes but my parents', whatever that might mean. It's a lot more impromptu narratives that also wander. It's amazing the routinization that limits daily bounds--I didn't discover 24th Avenue for basically a year, and so on... So it's tricky now to try and gauge a whole neighborhood in just a walk...

So I don't think I have the balls to be a capitalist. I really don't. I've been scouting for this house for my parents, as explained earlier, as a retirement home, as a home for me as I pursue my career (current timeline is: '05: teaching purely; '06-'07: SAS certificate part-time while teaching; '08: teaching purely; '09: Assistant Principal and enrolled in CUNY's Urban Ed PhD program, through '12. At that point, I'd be 30, I'd have been in the system for 10 years (teaching 6, admining 4), and I would be ready at last to be a principal. Which already makes me too middle-class in my thinking.)

But, no, more to the point, I don't have the balls to be a capitalist--not only have all the listings that looked OK already fallen under contract, but the two "bargains" are all out in the black part of Astoria. Yes, there are black people in Astoria, and this is soemthing I've only discovered now after two years--I mean, I knew about Ravenswood, but there's also Astoria Houses. The point is, leftist though I am, and teaching at a school surrounded by projects on basically all sides, it doesn't quite show when I show up in the projects--I look like pretty much the same racist as my today-returned landlord, who, while enlisting me in her home-improvement projects (which I would love to learn about given my future stewardship duties), was very careful to ask about whether or not my new putative roommates were black or not. Of course, she hadn't asked this before, and I had already internalized this racism in my screening of roommates. So what does that make me? At what point does complicitness become collaboration outright?

So it's been another of the long tense days sitting around waiting for approval from the Region while everyone's just telling me that's being in a shortage area my transfer to another region will be difficult. It's frustrating and pointless, and I've been reading about cognition and checking out yet more houses to wile away the time. It's quite astounding how expensive everything is, while at the same time it's nice to actually figure out some of the investment terms that have always eluded me, for want of real-world substance. I feel so capitalist and conniving, though. Rent is robbery, after all, and yet there is yet no way to get out of it without falling into the same trap, really...

So it's been a day of surprises--the real estate investment I got at the library was surprisingly by some Filipina lady, the prospective roommate I thought was Bangledeshi was actually Dominican, and the program I thought was only full-time also has a part-time incarnation. So the most attractive time line is now to teach for a year all by itself, then enroll in an SAS certificate program for two years before taking another year off and then doing a four-year stint between APing or coaching and the PhD on the side.

But more to the point, I really need to get back on my comics and my poetry... Have I left it more behind than Alric his arts? Hard to say, and most likely--he's at least been trying.

So Lostin swooped in for a visit after just one week down in Jersey, and I can't say that I blame him, though I don't know what I can offer him in terms of entertainment on these lazy weekends when work has wound down pretty fully and your biggest concerns involve real property. Still, it was good to see him doing well and saving Japan from sinking under the oceans due to fossil fuel-fueled global warming. And stout beer is always welcome even on the last afternoon of Spring. It's just odd, though, to think that simultaneously at math camp another crop of minority middle class kids are being indoctrinated into the ways of useless white mathematics which can only exist in a stable post-industrial society in which the lower classes are adequately domesticated. But it's easy for me to say. It's not as if I've made math transformative and revolutionary. Yet.

How I Heard the News

(apologies to Alan Dugan)

So I was sitting on the bench
outside the commercial greenness
on the corner of Ditmars and 31st
on a rickety bench that tipped
forward and backward with
the sitters, facing the street
back to another bench facing
the other way, on which there sat
an old be-caned woman of unspecified
Dominican descent,
who muttered angrily,
"They killed an innocent man,
the bastards. He didn't do
anything, and they killed him.
We should kill all the damn
Chinese." The phlegm she spat,
however, missed.

So I am more than vaguely exhausted for a reason I can't quite pick out--I think that it's just the end of the year and the stress of making sure all this paperwork goes through (the snag now is securing Regional approval). Aside from that, I am ready to begin a lot of my summer projects, though I'd rather just be lazy for most of this weekend and still need to nail down that second roommate.

I'm told that there are part-time PhD programs, which sounds very attractive and all, except now I'm working far out in Queens, rather than conveniently in Manhattan. What's even more tempting is a fast-track administration certificate, but of course the problem with that is that it ends up repeating the horrors of my commute to Brooklyn, and no doubt at an accelerated pace.

So this is what Aristotle's got to say about me:

Anger may be defined as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one's friends. If this is a proper definition of anger, it must always be felt towards some particular individual, e.g. Cleon and not 'man' in general... It must always be attended by a certain pleasure--that which arises from the expectation of revenge. For since nobody aims at what he thinks he cannot attain, the angry man is aiming at what he can attain, and the belief that your will attain your aim is pleasant... It is also attendd by a certain pleasure because the thoughts dwell upon the act of vengeance, and the images then called up cause pleasure, like the images called up in dreams

Hrmmm.. So you say. So I need to find another word for my old state, and I would argue that the modern conception of anger in the senses of "Angry White Man" and "Angry Asian Man" are far removed from this particular conception. But then, I think Alric has already covered this in a different post--I have kotos, cosmic anger. Or something. In any case, this taxonomy should be a minor sideline project for me later this summer, as I seem singularly suited to write this, just as Broke wrote her senior thesis back in school on other people's pain...

Of course, I've mellowed out a great deal since my college days and my Alric days, and this is in part due to the Joephetian pacification, and also some sense that I'm doing something about the troubles.

Now slighting is the actively enteratined opinon of something as obviously of not importance... There are three kinds of slighting--contempt, spite, and insolence. (I) Contempt is one kind of slighting: you feel contempt for what you consider unimportant, and it is just such things that you slight. (II) Spite is another kind; it is a thwarting another man's wishes, not to get something yourself but to prevent his getting it.... (III) Insolence is also a form of slighting, since it consists in doing and saying things that cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything many happen to yourself, or because anything has happened to yourself, but simply for the pleasure involved...

...

We are angrier with our friends than with other people, since we feel that our friends out to ttreat us well and not badly... Further, with those who slight us before five classes of people: namely, (1) our rivals, (2) those whom we admire, (3) those whom we wish to admire us, (4) those for whom we feel reverence, (5) those who feel reverence for us: if anyone slights us before such persons, we feel particularly angry

Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter 2, trans. W. Rhys Roberts.

So today has been a long day of considering the future, beginning with visiting my old assistant principal in his new but temporary digs and so plotting the next few years--it was good to see him and his Mekhi Pfifer insousiance and to see what is still possible in an authoritarian principal-centered regime--the next few years will be that experiment in whether truly a school can be teacher-centered and what that all means.

Meanwhile, my new vision for years from now is not some Math-Science-Technology theme school as are popping up all over the place, but rather for a Rhetoric High School, which is more in the super-classical sense, where rhetoric is also a means for analyzing arguments, discovering arguments, thinking logically, persuading, and so on, as most closely tied to English and Social Studies, all as the foundation for a political awareness and communicative efficacy now more sorely lacking than math. I am also going to quote a large chunk of Aristotle when Joephet isn't pestering me to get to bed as much as he is now. It'll be relevant, surely enough.

So beyond that it was the grading of a ludicrously-easy Regents, proctoring a Global History exam in which the students tended to walk out very early and without having even written a single essay in some cases (in which case failure is guaranteed), in which the Far East was more than adequately represented, quantity-wise, at least. It's all rather depressing, to see this disconnect from lived life and the past, where what really matters are the exegetical and context skills, and the writing skills. Hence, Rhetoric High. It didn't help that the interview for a possible replacement was rather drab and unenergetic--it could have been much worse, but it's shades of my would-be-co-worker at my first school who part-timed as a comedian with PowerPoint dating presentations. Middle-aged computery Jewish men with sudden consciences are a motif in my life.

Also, from about a week ago, Joephet: "If I were a girl, I'd so be pregnant by now. It's just my personality!!"

So there are just eight days left in the year, and I'm strangely energized though now I need to figure out what is going on if I am going to teach three more years in a given school, which is the promise I'm making to myself as this school is worth staying at. That means after a year off I will go back to school in some way, which could be an SAS position to get certification to be an admin (though at the new school, admins don't do as much because teachers do more...), but that would be redundant if in three years' time I decide to go to the Principal's Institute (New York City Leadership Academy) so if so I should just go for another Master's degree, what with my AmeriCorps money, as those creds are universally useful anyways. But this means that perhaps some of the doctoral programs I was looking at are no longer feasible.

So I guess I'm askin': what two-year part-time Master's degree would be useful to my future career of bujiified educational agitation? I've been thinking about economics and rhetoric.

In any case, I can now publish a preliminary schedule for this summer (subject to approval)

First three weeks of July--settling in new roommates, starting up Kendo, booting up my four or so curriculum projects.
Last week of July and first week of August--Digging, Hargey Farm
Second and Third Week of August--Training-for-training, then training new urban teachers
Last Week of August--college program for middle school maths

whee! I'll be raking in the money, though not as much as if I taught summer school--that's $36/hr!

So I think it's going to be okay, even though I had to inform my principal of my intent in the presence of my assistant principal who of course asked if there was any reason why, and of course I was unable to answer that it was her incompetence. Now there's no final approval yet, and if I've learned anything about public education it's that promises aren't worth the ether they're uttered in. Still, it looks like I'm out, and it's still sad, but it's the right move long-term. Now I can be a math teacher.

So I was drinking a milkshake as part of my new diet this weekend, and started mouthing the words to Kelis' Milkshake to Alric, a la one of the Olsen twins and Avril Lavigne at the end of New York Minute, but Alric had never heard of any of that! This ignorance of course is to be contrasted with the whimsical conversations we have at school about the exact figurative status of "milkshake" in said song. It could be metonymic euphemism, though parsed (not parched).

So Joephet and I were watching NBC's Last Comic Standing tonight, and it was fucking depressing--tepid doesn't begin to describe most of the tired tired acts, and it makes me wonder--back at math camp, I used to want to go into stand-up, but of course that's not transformative enough, as it's not really dialogic or dialectical in the right way. I'd rather do the sort of freaky-deaky low-rent shock-art of power-stapling bananas to the trees and putting underwear on statues. But yeah... they ain't got nothing on me, but then again, my act would never be mainstream.

So Joephet and I have been enjoying Six Feet Under's first season, though we differ greatly on the attractiveness of Michael C. Hall.

I am, however, most dismayed that I mistakenly bought a half-drunken sport-pack Poland Spring twist-top 24oz. water today. Ah, well. No Mexican deli is perfect.

So I have an effective job offer on the table and now it's time to play hardball with my principal, which will include recommendations and approvals from any number of colleagues, from advisors, from the other school, and ultimately the fact that there is no way to pay for my position (which was an expansion job in the first place) within the confines of the current budget, as funds have been diverted from the middle school which has been enjoying Title I money. So with all that we'll see. With the new job at least, I could see myself teaching another three years, as opposed to just burning out pronto. I am of course willing to do the entire good-of-the-school thing, but it really comes down to the difference between plugging holes in dykes and building new bulwarks. God, I've been in this profession too long. It's been hard because kids kept on saying, "See you next year!" to me and other folks also keep asking for plans for next year, which I'm more than happy to put in place, as good stuff will always be good.

Today, being the last day for kids, was a matter of hiding out mostly from the kids and playing MarioKart for the GBA. Life is good...

I've been exhausted, though, and my new fat loss workout is not nearly as effective as shoveling for the Hargeys, and I keep on passing out. A schoolyear really is a whole lot more draining than you'd think.

So I am upset enough to endure the later need to go and correct the word wrap and remove the auto-signature to email-post this: I hate capri pants. They are a war crime on men and need to be banned. It reeks so much of indecision and gaysian coding, and are more obvious markers as such than jack spade bags or even pink-skinned iPods. They're just thoroughly impractical as well, quintessentially misguided fashion.

Also, the rise of white minority politics in California and elsewhere, with, ludicrously, Caucasian clubs in high schools, is something that I will need to return to later and in depth.

So I up and walked out of work today, which is perhaps a little of an exaggeration--no, I did my fair share after whipping out a half-Regents last night in twenty minutes to a half hour to serve as a final on which my students did rather well, given second-chance multiple-choice. No, when I left it was with my students in good and other hands, and then it was just to teach elsewhere--it was odd to have 70 minutes and feel like there still was not enough time--students who were happy and eager, and raising their hands--it's a whole new experience teaching, a whole new energy, and I am still trying to figure out if it is at all an abandonment of past principles--even if I still talk to fast, even if actually getting this job will likely be impossible--at the very least I have hope and a decent lesson emerge from all this, and colorfulness...

We'll see, is all I'm sayin'--and this is a Monday what feels like a Thursday if not better, even if my housing situation could use some improving. But then again, that also cuts down on the time before Rob Chin returns and Kendo begins.

So Lostin now is in Jersey as well, which is of course the place you naturally go to find a center of plasma physics. My own summer starts soon, or maybe has already begun, psychologically. And I think this largely consists of trying to stay productive and active and diurnal, though of course there are still a rather substantial number of impedimenta to first be cleared, least of which is my need to somehow get back into shape--somehow this mythical amped-calcium diet has succeeded (in the dietariness of said calcium) only in making my as farty as Joephet. Still--and I know that this will aggravate Skaren, but after all the city wants for productive physical activity--I am vaguely satisfied with my new workout routine, if only because I sweat like mad during and for some time afterward. That, of course, is no real measure of quality, as I also am the font of whole brackish rivers in my classroom, in which I discovered a cute little mouse earlier this week. I do not know if that is the same mouse as "Petey." If not, I'll take suggestions.

So Joephet is making fun of my blogging, by saying, "So blah blah blah blah het-bujii blah blah blah blah racist blah blah blah blah blah...." He's cute. I have misplaced a quote that wouldn't go through--it'll be followed up with later. For now, I just note that the fine print on Red Lobster ads reads, "Prices different in Times Square, Canada, and Hawaii." Other than that, I've just been going with the flow in this half-idleness, enjoying a fine afternoon with Joephet at my house watching my rather pathetic collection of cheap DVDs and wondering what all else we could be doing. Tomorrow should provide more diversion, even as this sort of occupation keeps me from my usual incisions.

So Alric and I went to see Baadasssss, which was quite excellent despite a few story arc requirements, as a nice intersection between art as polemic and product. And this is odd, because when I just try and think of the contrasts with some piece of MTV-marketed filth like Better Luck Tomorrow, I shudder, while realizing that my own views on politics and art have been morphing since my college years to now, where I view politics as inextricable, somehow. But leave me not get all preachy and abstract.

Let's look at batting-averages, now that the semester is essentially over. Ninth grade class: 5 students passing out of 18. Girl-dominated tenth-grade class: 5 students passing out of 20. Boy-domianted tenth-grade class: 2 students passing out of 20.

So what's that come out to anyway?

So Joephet has been doing rather well, as we approach a year of whatever it is that it's been, which is of course hard to pin down in het-bujii terms, but that's also fine by me. His new legal internship proves he's useful. Which is incredibly sexy, and not something that most people can genuinely claim, I'm afraid. Which of course isn't true in some sense, so let me get all definitional: of course people do things, and these things lead to other things--Asset Relations Associates, Investment Management Associates serve their purposes, but usefulness on my view also requires some sort of immediacy (maybe I'm just impatient)--it's a matter of measurable progress, and of course indispensability, which was at some point a life goal--but this is more of a vestigial Randist idea, and more about internal self-actualization than one's external relations. But I'm getting in a loop-de-loop here with terms. The point is, in Rob Chin terms, if you're going to the fiesta, be ready to kick ass. Otherwise, they're not going to invite you to the next fiesta.

Joephet kicks ass.

So I remembered what I was so amped to blog about last night...

But first... I interviewed today at another school, and it was an eye-opening experience. Sure, the math classes were still dry and formal and not very open-ended or progressive or exciting, but at least they were orderly, and, unlike my two schools so far, no student said to me, "Mister, why would you want to teach here?" It even felt like a vacation, even though I wasn't fully charming, and I think the most shriveled teacher of seven in the interview room was whispering about my overgesticulating hands, but all in all it was nice to see kids getting along and doing work, even if they still dont' quite understand what's going on. One thing's for sure--if I tried to teach a lesson at my school about the male reproductive system at my school, I wouldn't get past "scrotum." So we'll see, and at the very least I've managed to steal materials that our school could use for its internal procedures. The sad thing is, we used to be almost like sister schools. Or something.

I was amused because they were discussing the virtues of city life versus farm life, and they seemed way off in some ways--I would have taken notes for Skaren if I could have--apparently there is no technology in the countryside, despite the fresh food and cleaner air... The teacher made it sound like the entire world has industrialized and lives in this glamour, while of course neglecting the suburban lifestyle altogether. It'd odd, this conflation of urbanization with industrialization--as if horseshit doesn't also smell.

But what I wanted to blog about were the bits of A Beautiful Mind which I saw last night. It illustrates the problem with math movies in many ways: everything is reduced to schematic but brilliant nonsense and literalized into pretty glowing lights. This of course is not to say that it wouldn't make for nice fiction or a compelling psychological thriller on the order of Gothika outside of it all (regardless of the actual facts), but to make the story derivative and parasitical on lived experience is cheap. But apparently, it's OK to be schizo if you're: (a) white (b) tenured (c) married (d) a fucking genius. That's nice to know.

So my blogging has been limited by Joephet's troubling lack of internet access, and so I forget half the things I mean to report and the like--there have been a large number of absurdities surrounding Reagan and school that have been swirling. But I suppose it's not all that urgent.

The only news is that I've finally gotten a haircut, and feel much younger again, which is a shame--the plan is to be shaved-head farmhand this summer...

So I missed blogging last night as I had to rush to get to Joephet's a decent hour so that he could get his surplus-beauty sleep, but last night involved finishing off a lot of long-postponed work, including that pesky math coach application, where I managed to invent three years of teaching experience for myself, just like that. Hrmm... I also talked to my ba for quite some time, which was enjoyable even though I had Alric's financial acumen to negotiate differences between notes and stocks and such. Basically, the deal offered is a scam, and we know it... Still, it turns out that I have the greenlight to launch an exploratory committee into house purchases in the Metro-New York area. It was nice also to bring some human contact into his life, as these days he's all alone now that my mom's back in Taiwan, though my grandparents are still lurking and praying while walking backwards in the middle of the night, I bet. At least, I hope they are. My gramma is as old as Reagan... Which is still a good sight younger than Deng Xiaoping. So yeah.. Asian male bonding...

Beyond that, I have little to report, though I must admit that I had to chuckle today when my students were talking about their restaurant-pranking, including ordering a Whopper at McDonalds, but more amusingly going into "chinese stores", ordering "One order of Chinese food, please!" and walking out, smoothly.

So I'm all cleaned up, as is this house--it's astounding the amount of dust that can accumulate, without any real effort, as you just sit around and wait--it wasn't the worst it's ever been, though in the kitchen the grease from Errol's overenthusiastic frying has left a gunky mess that can be rather nasty to look at, but is not the end of the world by any means. And so the prospective roommates will be showing up for now until satisfaction, and it's so much like dating it's rather scary, somehow--in part because I'm so out of practice thanks to Joephet, but also because the financial transaction is so much more serious, as Neill's continued delinquency has shown. Still, we'll see, and soon I'll be on my best behavior in my own home. Whee.

So I eavesdroppt today on two ethnic conversations, one on the N train between about Spring Street and Times Square, the other on the M60 bus between Astoria Blvd and 3rd Avenue. I don't usually get the chance to listen to conversations on the subway, perhaps because I'm overengaged in my own things, but mostly, as I've remarked before, mass transit is mechanical din over human silence, for the most part, and these conversations were very, well, fan-boy.

The first conversation was dominated by the one guy who was regaling, or trying to, the other with his knowledge of the intricacies of martial arts as applied to the "Hong Kong" style of making films, and its infiltration into Hollywood Cinema, in movies such as the two Charlie's Angels films and so on. Spirit of course matters much more than strength in the martial arts, or something... The new trends for the future are not very encouraging. I got the sense that someone was being hit on.

The second conversation began with a long meditation on the approprirateness of another fellow traveler's large amount of luggage, followed by speculations as to further difficulty and personal alternatives involving the SuperShuttle and accusations of niggardliness. I missed the transition, but soon the conversation turned to various judgments and recollections about the new Cartoon Network Justice League, which I am not familiar with per se, though of course they are all just rehashed stories from way back in the day. The inevitable judgments about Batman's badassness and Superman's paperthin secret identity surfaced.

I will try to harder to be more amusing in my eavesdroppable conversations, and think that I do rather well, but not as well as when Skaren Hargey is embarassing in the shit out of me and Alric on a 4 train (a 6 train would be a different story...).

So I spent most of this afternoon sprucing up the house for presentation to prospective new roommates, and this meant lugging most of Neill's stuff into his room (which is beautiful, and brightly lit as he never closes his blinds) and permuting some elements such as my TV from its perch atop the IKEA light sea-green table named "Olson" to a smaller cart, shoving lots of things into closets, and the like. Then it was frantic, drunken stirfry until off to an underattended graduation party where, while educated at the etiquette of spelling bees, I was more concerned about the future than anything else--tons of applications and cover letters yet to write. It's freaking me out, or beginning to, at least. Still, it'll be OK, though I'd rather be a coach than a teacher at this point... And coaching years do count toward principalships.

So Reagan is dead. And that means Gerald Ford finally did something right.

So Joephet has gotten an internship, which we celebrated at Natural Tofu, which has the best beef short ribs this side of the Yalu River. He'll be working at New York's oldest and largest free legal clinic for the poor. He literally got this job within the span of four hours from the time he e-submitted his resume and cover letter (both genericalized) to the time he was offered a position. This is all the more impressive given that, knowing Joephet, he likely spent about three hours getting ready.

I've decided to go the Singapore Chow Mei Fun route, which will enable me to go ahead and swing by some Kendo, if I want. I have been going to bed obscenely early so I wake up early on the weekends, but if it means just wrestling in bed with my new favorite intern, it's not nearly so bad, even if now I'm obligated to buy him internship presents.

I've been looking at graduate programs: NYU, CUNY, and Columbia stick out, but of course the two private programs don't quite specialize in Urban Ed in quite the same way, and cost twice as much tuitionwise, give or take. Either way, it's time to think about the GRE and certainly also the ATS-W, and yes, now, I have a copy of a video with me teaching some math, and asking questions, gesticulating madly.

Beyond that, I need to clean my bloody mess of a house, as there are all sorts of people who will be coming through to take a look at the fagcilities soon. Ah, for the days of Alric! So innocent and pure and without the complications of ugly gentleman callers.

So today was just a day of low turnout and working on the future--it looks like the summer curriculum development will be per sessionable, and at 36$/hr, I am hoping to make enough to cover the Kendo habit I am already beginning to develop and quite rather obsess about, and which I may well already begin to indulge in come this weekend at the risk of incurring the disappointed wrath of Rob Chin. There's just something gay about sanding and oiling your shinai. Splinters are nasty.

So the following exchange:

Me [to student, making fun of him for his inept advances on a classmate]: You're just going to end up like the Luftwaffe flying over Britain in late 1944.
Other student: Luftwaffe? What's that?
Me: Don't you know any history?
Student: I don't get cable.

So I am so torn these days.... I have been added to the Personnel Committee at my school, even though I'm interviewing on Wednesday at another, better school attached to Lelaina's higher institution. I have also received a marriage-pact proposal (for when we're thirty) from another teacher at my school amid yet more prying into my personal life and alleged crush on Wanda, and though this particular girl is nice and attractive, it's kind of a sign that it's hopeless when you're told you're sweet, unlike all the assholes. Of course, it sounds like I'm a lot more monogamous to this Joephet I'm not even dating than a lot of het-guys. Of course, the New York Times Magazine claims that young teen fags are more relationship oriented than their straight teen counterparts. I suppose that at least I can believe, though it's always odd to see the degree to which het-bujiiness is actually internalized.

Still, it's nice to know I'm marriageable.

So I now have the leisure to flesh out some of the details from the past days, over which I have glossed because of my rushes in the past few days, even as I'm sitting around the house trying to figure out the best way of flavoring unflavored Stonyfield Farm lowfat yogurt--pouring in guayaba nectar has not quite worked (maybe it's just not thick enough), and I have yet to try the figs, though usually mixing in some honey is more than enough. It's time to get serious about productive weight gain.

As to the Nigerian girl--it was a little odd, as places of mass transit are actually vacuums of silence or familar chatter rather than meetings and smiles, unless of course it's the Hogwarts Express, in which case you'd better pay attention for key plot points. It was odd, too, as we were making fun of her skepticism and lack of trust in my knowledge of the train schedule when I was blurting out the word "Restauranteur" (as one of a long list of possible careers for an apparently Chinaman)! And so this led to talk of Rocco, NBC, the foreign press, my chemistry with my brother (which is apparently quite wingmanny), and eventually to self-identification with the Swedes, about whom I knew so little past Gustavus Adolphus: this odd perkiness and yet sharpness, and me doing my best to femme it up while not going overboard given my brother's presence. But it is at least an odd relationship to one's race, in many ways akin to my own, and apparently the parent-culture is commensurate. It's nice to know I've still got game.

College Min was in town, and somehow unchanged: a strange connection, and perhaps she'll take on Alric's job. That would just be droll, and there were moments, "I want XXXX dollars!" (if you readers were better at Chinese tones, I could try..., but of course no...) that could have been ripped directly from two years ago. I wonder what she made of my and Kenta, who apparently was trying to "butch it up" for their benefit.

I have been careful not to pad the hits on the counter that I have, so I always view the comments through my commenting service rather than the page itself, and this is very droll, as there has been a certain quite welcome though quite forward commentor whose comments are all the more amusing when read completely out of context.

I haven't said all that much about Hanna and Lex--they seem rather fine, given all that further transitions they are going through, though I sense a new and further tiredness from Lex as far as the whole academic shebang goes. I know how he feels.

So I am home again and idle, unsure what to do with the rest of the afternoon proper before the inevitable (yay!) dinner with Joephet. It's been a better day than expected, with more than the usual number of twinges of guilt at my current desire to leave my current school--explicit conversations, moments of getting through, for instance. It all feels like I'm just avoiding a confrontation, all the while I am furtively consulting the uft website for transfer protocols (shades of last year...).

So, I'm just home for a check deposit, some DVD-buying, some light lifting and a bit of tidying up. All pretty humdrum, I suppose, though I still hafta dispose of all these beer bottles...

So Joephet and I rushed through a great Thai dinner (Gaeng Ped Gai and Moo Kum Wan) to make it to The Day After Tomorrow, which despite some Jake Gyllenhaal nudity in profile, was better than expected though still a little short. Some spoilers: if the United States were ever rendered uninhabitable, flight into Mexico and the Third World would not be consensual, no more than any Latin American relations, much less the debt which is of course the fault of WorldBank nonsense and other Northern economic imperialism.

Other than that, I'm excited, though anxious because though it sounds like my prospects at the new school are decent, it's unclear if I will be able to actually obtain any sort of release. It's time for a haircut!

There are such further minutiae unblogged due to my brother's presence, and many of these are lost, including trainbound lectures on the evils of Kaplan (despite the original (noble) roots of getting Jews into the Ivy League) to future Nigerian Alric-dates. Whee! But all that may yet return.

For now, I'm just enjoying being with Joephet again and continuing my beer-drinking street: two McSorleys tonight, while my brother and I basically killed almost a case of Yuengling this weekend. OK, that's not so impressive, but I did at least outpace my brother, which is impressive given his whitey fratty ways.

So it's been a good day--my bro's gone, so I get to hang out more freely, I have been reunited with Joephet at long last, I saw Kenta this afternoon for the first time in over a year, likewise with a certain college Min, and I made it through the first day back, and there are a mere 10 teaching days left in this year. But the best part is that I have been offered an interview at the school I want to be at next year, which is still tricky in terms of leaving my current school, but thoroughly possible.