So the first day back was pretty good, though I suppose that I was a little scatterbrained all things considered and still not all that together in terms of my brave new curriculum, though I did feel more effective and I was better received by new students for my new looks than Wifey, but that's probably just more of my kids' I-missed-you mockery--the Chinese kids are getting a little out of control, though--I don't know half the slang they peddle. That and the fact that by now I should have learned how very easy it is for students to break, crack, bend, slap, head-band, bite, and otherwise maltreat my nice new dual-scale rulers. I just hope that the rubbed-off receipt is still valid for Teacher's Choice or else I'm out a good 30$ of rulers.

Meanwhile, I am chronically disappointed these days by 24, which while doing more for blacks in the media than Chris Rock, is a little limp--all these Iranians and Latinos playing Turks though I am still impressed by how Tony can go from watching futbol and sipping beer out of a coffee mug and running around with loose women to being hardcore without electrocution. I personally would not cooperate after my Wifey's new man wet my chest and zapped me a few times.

So it's back to school tomorrow, and I am almost ready--it's almost exciting what tomorrow will bring, as while this has been one of the truly more relaxing vacations imaginable one does get at least a little humdrum--a challenge, even an annoying ELL-cacophonous hormonally-Sprung little punks...

So I am not suddenly a kendo-god thanks to contacts--it's more like, "OOOOhhh.. I see his kote is open.... Ooops"--it was better when I was more impressionistic and twitchier, but it's already different in terms of assertivenes and aggressiveness somehow--tai-atari is a lot easier when nothing can fall off of your face....

Meanwhile, the more I think about it, the more necessary it seems to really get serious about getting into good shape, as all of this shinai-play is not really aerobic enough to improve my base-line health... I'm not talking white-people abs--that's nonsense, but it would be nice for Wifey to stop complaining about my backfat.

So now I have these plastic things in my eyes and while it's some squintiness, I think it'll be a nice edge for when I go to practice tonight, actually being to see targets that is. The only snag was I somehow ended up waiting for an hour after I was all done, as they thought I still needed something. It's amazing how the musical tastes of overweight Latina eye-clerks converge almost entirely with gay men. I didn't, however, make it into work today, so I may be a little behind when the grind begins a little later on--I've been buried somewhat in a vague sense of dread as the Long March winds closer, which won't be so bad because of trips and vacations, but it's still the sort of thing which really drains you--and the bags under my eyes already show this to some great extent--it's amazing how the little things that in college you just used to toss off--a trip to NH, a week of teaching an extra 66%--wears you down for weeks on end, until the next vacation you also squander.

So it's been a not-very productive day at work though not unproductive entirely, as usual. I just can't get a fire lit under me unless the deadline is very real and urgent, after all. Otherwise it's just an academic exercise with a time horizon well beyond reach. It's the halfway point for this vacation, and really a little bit more than that--downhill is always faster and I do not know if I can drag myself into work again after today.

So it's been a while, and I've been to the Mitten-state and back, and I played a number of matches, and scored two points, but upon going back to the home dojo last night realize that there is a whole lot more work that I need to do, and it's a little frustrating, but probably just because my right arm got whacked and still rather hurts. It was a good experience, if only because I got to see the heights of teenager-kendo--which is damn good, what with unconquerable seme and what not, while further putting my own place on the mountain in context. It also didn't hurt to see the parents, though of course they seemed much older and yet the old house seemed pretty much unchanged from my previous visit two years ago this time--the only difference is that nothing, and I mean nothing, has been thrown out--I can look at an object and trace it back ten years at the least--it's just piles of junk--sometimes organized into thematic piles--but it's all there for possible eventual use. The knife-sharpening-rock is worn until there is a groove into it, as is the cutting board, and the chopsticks are also almost worn down to needles. I now know where I get it from, and that I have a relatively mild case.

So I still have a job but the review from yesterday's observation was negative--not that there was anything to be said for how the lesson structured in terms of questioning and learning and development--no it was all issues about classroom management somehow... which is quite right, as it's still my biggest issue, but it's disappointing to see that this is the only thing where there can be substantive talk of any sort... But then again, it's because I choose not to kick students out arbitrarily or temperamentally... It's gotten to the point though where I just get angry at students who I can't negotiate with--I feel as if I should be better at this by now, and it's just tiresome to still deal with the same issues--thanks to kendo training, though, I can keep my cool though I still need to work on my seme.

So I am quite possibly in rather deep shit--I walked out of my class today to retrieve my rulers after having sent a poor student twice with no success to my locked and messy office to return only to find the principal along with two besuited visitors peering curiously at my untended classroom.. I'm expecting an axe to fall within the next day or so, I'm afraid...

So there is yet much updating to be had, and I hardly remember when I last went, though I am still in the season of anxiety over this observation, though there is I suppose a temporary reprieve in that it's a better day that the hammer falls, even though I feel thoroughly and completely unprepared somehow--I get the sense that I can be a real prick when it comes to explaining some of these math things, and that I tend to overthink things while underdoing them.

Beyond that, I hardly recall the past few days of training, as until tonight I'd gone four days in a row of kendo, though it ended with a whimper of surrender after the latest godo-geiko outclassed me by meters at least. So there are just two practices left before I fly off home and for shiai, which should be interesting to say the least--just me and other scrubs. I'm at one of those strange stages in my training, where thinking doesn't help--just more doing is what I need, though I must confess that my ego still figures too much at least as far as the other mudansha are concerned--but maybe that's just reasonable--there's something deeply satisfying about whacking the kote of the crazy-seigan-no-kamae (I'm too embarassed to really figure this out, but it's like he's lifting for a hidari-kote, except it's too high and while it does apparently seem to protect his kote, it really doesn't *pop!*) of one of the other mu-kyu. The others are scarier, though wobbly too--my main issue is speed which comes from being overtight and overtense. I further think that I'm overfocused on small- or half-waza because of the upcoming tourney--I should at this stage still stay focused on big, beautiful kihon and I think at the dojo they tend to forget how beginnery people are. I should spend more time on kihon and worry less about keiko. Big, beautiful men.

This weekend's trip, meanwhile, was for figure skating, about which I was decidedly wobbly and ungraceful, much to Wifey's amusement at my falling on my butt repeatedly--the kids though had an amazingly great time--real plucky some of them, even if they have not yet learned that keep-away is a fun game only if their victim (me) is trying actively to get-back the kept-away (a glove). It's nice to know that I can still outrun them all, though, even in Docker's AirCushions.

So it's observation season, and I'm a little wary or something... I dunno exactly how to swing it, exactly what to do, but then again it seems like these admins mostly softball their reviews, though I personally find that it's better admins than other math teachers, though I do my share of diplomatic eye-rolling when I sit in on their classes as well. Somehow I dunno how well the "design your own game" project is going to fly with my students. I have plenty of ideas--I do not know if they will.

So I have inherited Rob Chin's kendogi, which I did need today as I left my own at home--it was surprisingly soft as it had never been washed, though that is of course no longer true at all--unfortunately it did not help in shiai-geiko, in which I was dominated, thoroughly. But it's just a matter of time and dedication... not even to winning, but... it's a long long road to ippon-ima...

So sometimes ten cents becomes ten dollars--I can't remember for the life of my if I entered the right amount on my deposit slip, and the fee for this error is $10, so that would be it... and mostly it was nice round numbers anyway.

It is amusing to watch white professors of Chinese history explain things. Such as indigenous Chinese slavery... "Well, you must understand... that the Chinese did have domestic slavery... but this was different from European slavery... it would be the case that you could buy someone... daughters, for instance... but these slaves were considered.. part of the family... and they would be... well, if they wanted to get married, well, it would be arranged, but the, um, master would not be so inhumane as to um keep a slave from getting married, even though, um, he'd arrange it... and you could always, um, buy yourself out... so no.. it was quite different from European slavery... I mean, the slaves were considered human beings... they could just be bought and sold..." eunuchs... "he was a eunuch, and this was a considerate, um, disadvantage..." and Confucian scholars... "I don't know how to put this, but Confucian scholars could really be a pain in the ass... they would always tell the Emperor what he could and could not do, what tradition demanded, and it was hard to argue with them, because, um, they were damn well-educated..."

I don't dare ask about the bisexual Han emperors.

So my feet are more torn up than usual thanks to an extra shiai-oriented keiko today, which is all well and good, exhausting as it might be for the most part--it was in many ways easier than the first segment, after I had been adequately hydrated and all that--Rob Chin still thinks I'm ridiculous for keeping a training log, and I think that he's actually pretty much correct. But then again it is in the tradition of throwing myself someplace totally out of my realm of competence, and relentlessly building up for it--perhaps even the sort of thing that I won't outgrow, like I seem to have most other things in my life.

All of this activity, however, has not really helped me much to slim down--probably because I eat ever so much more voraciously these days--a pattern that goes back to my New Hampshire farm days but such is the peril of married life.

So this is redundant and obvious--Social Security would never need saving if it weren't funded by the most regressive tax imaginable--remove the income cap (I'm looking at Alric) and it pays for itself ferever.

So my kids still amaze me sometimes--I ask them to find another way of writing 2x+5x, and some say 5x+2x, while others say 6x+1x--all not what I intended, yet for them organic, and they use elaborate rearrangements--and stand by it all. It is a good way to end an otherwise rocky week, and the sort of thing which is relatively overlookable, but worth a lot more--students don't necessarily "buy" simplest terms.

So I finally got what felt like a clean kote-men off of Sensei today, who was in fine form today in the inimitable Margaret Cho's mother way, "Do you hold a babee this way??? Nooo..... You don't look like this..." but this is hard to describe--but of course when I lined up to speak to him and get pointers, he was all, "did we practice today, oh, yes...." I guess this is what you get for not having a zekken.

Still, it's some progress, even if the kids in my last period keep on switching the clock on me. Little punks.

So some things are finally coming together in practice, though I'm sure I'm setting myself back by saying and thinking so--despite being in full bogu for over an hour and a half today, I was still walking by the end and still had another bout in me, maybe--it certainly was a great feeling, the progressive drenchedness of my entire head and the spent exhaustedness, but though of course there were always new waza which I had a hard time mastering, somehow by the time it came for mawari-geiko, I felt I could hold my own against at least some of the other beginners, feeling for the first time confident enough that going for big-kote and big-men actually let me do better than the sashi-waza which are supposed to be faster, but which cause less winceing flinching and are still less accurate--I was just cutting away almost effortlessly. I guess if my cut is big and straight I will make it in. It's still a long way to go and far from anything to write home about, but it's the sort of progress that's a little reassuring after so long which is not so long at all.

Anyway, a new semster begins tomorrow, and I find myself vaguely energized and excited to extend my current work to the next level, which is non-linear but exciting. And the class-composition changes which they have been making in the various classes will make my life much more tolerable indeed. All in all, I'm ready to put that old winter malaise behind me.