Dance Party

What a FABULOUS day!  It poured rain and it was splitter splatter shimmering.  I had a spontaneous dance party at my apartment with Haagen-Daz.  I was the only one there.  The music was from Forest Gump and it started with Respect by Aretha Franklin.  Ok, it really started with a solo of I Will Survive.  Anyway I gotta go pick up my roommate.  Maybe she’ll join in.

All about Technology

I had no idea just how into technology I was until tonight when I picked up my new laptop from the UPS place.  I was seriously giddy.  Like screaming and clapping and dancing in my car, singing to myself.  I rarely get this excited about presents.  This was a gift I bought myself, thanks to my final ms bonus.  I love it!  It's so tiny and beautiful.  I was pretty excited when I got my Creative Zen Nomad thingy too.  And my cell phone.  But this one takes the cake.  It makes even my small swiss army laptop bag seem huge.  That's ok though.  I need the room for books. 

Shock & Stress

I think I'm still in shock from the huge change in my life.  I pretty much turned it inside out.  Went from working to school.  From Seattle to Boston.  From being rich to being on a budget.  From Microsoft to teaching.  From LDR to SDR.  From Seattle friends to college friends.  From living alone to living with a roommate.  From reading for pleasure to reading textbooks.  From using a laptop to using a paper notebook. 

 

All this change has put my brain into overdrive.  I dream and dream and dream at night.  The strangest things.  I can't stop in the morning.  It's hard to wake up because I can still feel my brain processing all the input from the previous day.  There's lots of input.  So far I've had to do a lot of reading/listening but not much more.  This week the papers start.  Perhaps that will be a good outlet for me.  Maybe it'll release some pressure on my brain.  Can it even hold any more?  I know SO MUCH about teaching right now that I didn't even realize I needed to know.  And I've reinforced a lot of old knowledge from my education courses at Princeton.  It's nuts, I tell you.

 

I ordered an IBM Thinkpad X40.  I'm superexcited about it, but I won't be able to live up to Microsoft's big dream for education.  It would be pretty much impossible to use a laptop or tablet in class to take notes.  The teachers can barely use technology.  I haven't seen a single person with a laptop in all of my classes.  A lot of the activities are hands on and involve you talking to the person next to you or across from you, so the laptop could even be in the way.  Maybe I'll write more about it later, but it's kind of a shame.  I certainly would appear like the obnoxious Microsoft girl if I started taking notes on a laptop in class.  I remember when the Tablet PC people at MS first got their tablets and they seemed totally obnoxious taking notes on their tablet.  It would be like that times a million. 

 

Where have all the laptops gone?

Hint for the Movie Quote

Here's some hints for my movie trivia below.

It's not animated.  It's old.  And people speak with Irish accents.

The Door in the Floor

Last night I saw "The Door in the Floor" with Ben, Michelle, Martin, Rob, Juliet, and newguyDave. FASCINATING movie. I loved it. It's about a writer of children's books, which is pretty topical for me right now, but everyone seemed to love it. It has great symbolism, really good characters, and keeps you drawn in the entire time. I highly recommend it.

Here's a movie quiz for you. What movie does this quote come from?
Three wishes I'll grant you,
Big wishes and small,
But if you wish a fourth wish
You lose them all!

Here's a hint. I used to watch it over and over as a kid, but I still love it.

Mad Scientist

About that scientist drawing. Most people, when given this assignment to draw a scientist, draw someone with many of the following characteristics. A white male with glasses, wearing a labcoat, possibly holding some test tubes. He usually has either a beard or crazy hair and is sometimes even labeled "crazy" or "mad." This assignment has been given to first graders in the US with the same results. I haven't scanned in my scientist yet, but I drew myself, with lots of those characteristics. A white female with glasses and a lab coat, smiling, holding a test tube, question marks coming out of the head, and "sense" lines coming from the ears and fingers. She's surrounded by a cloud, a mountain, a flower, and an animal.

So what's the point? Kudos to Chris for figuring this out. At such a young age, children have internalized this stereotype of a scientist. Research has shown it only grows stronger as they get older, especially with people drawing white males. This can really discourage individuals who are not white and male from seeing themselves as scientific. My textbook says that this is one thing that leads to the gender gap in science. Anyway, good job for participating, and next time you want to see a scientist, look in the mirror. (cheesy grin here.) My ego about my science skills led me to draw myself. I bet a bunch of my friends did too, right MikeB?

One interesting thing I've discovered hear is that most people trying to be elementary school teachers don't like math and science. I am a tiny tiny minority. My textbooks are actually apologetic, and they take the job of convincing people to like math and science. Granted I have some liberal textbooks that insist that the old ways of teaching by rote memorization created a generation of math & science-haters, but it's discouraging when I do my reading. Over and over I have to read stuff like "You probably didn't enjoy mathematics yourself as a child." or "If you don't like science, your students never will. You need to reflect and find your inner scientist." I want books that LOVE math and science like I do. Why doesn't my social studies text apologize?

my first karaoke

Thanks for your responses on the scientist thing.  I'm waiting on one more before I write more about it.  For those of you looking for my email address, I guess it got removed from my blog somehow.  It's kathleen.mulcahy (at) gmail.com.  I'm not writing it out because of those web crawler bad people.

 

Last night I went to karaoke night at the Charles Playhouse with Ben and I actually did a song.  It was the first time I ever performed karaoke aside from with a large group of giggling girls a long time ago.  I did Manic Monday and I got a little drunk first.  It was really scary and a little fun.  Singing in front of a crowd is one of my big fears.  I'm pretty sure it was really bad, but at least I got it over with.  Ben did 2 songs, both really well, as usual.  Sometimes he dances around and shakes his hips when he sings.  I like to watch the people that get really into it.  The Red Sox game last night was really good too.  Karaoke stopped temporarily for everyone to watch the end of it.  Unfortunately, today's game is pretty much as bad as it gets.  Damn Yanks!

couch, rain, and sweaters

The couch arrived today.  Note: this is a big deal.  Michelle and I have big plans to watch tv on it tonight.  The best part: It's RED.  Note: this is my favorite color.

 

It rains a lot more out here than it did in Seattle.  And a lot harder.  I don't ever remember using an umbrella in Seattle.  I now carry an umbrella with me all the time. 

 

It's getting cold, which is very exciting.  I wore a sweater yesterday!  And I'm wearing an even better one today.  Life is good.

 

Homework for all you people reading my blog.  Take 1 minute and sketch out a picture of a scientist.  If you're feeling ambitious, scan and email it to me or use paint and email it.  More on this in my next entry.  I wouldn't want you to skip ahead and find out the purpose. 

Ack! a Mac!

I'm using a mac right now. All the PCs are being used up. Of course all
the crappy Macs are free. It's like working on a japanese computer.
Impossible yet alluring.

Talking to Who?

My roommate tells me I talk to myself a lot.  She says she has to keep coming out to see if somebody else is here.  I knew I did it a little, but apparantly I talk to myself a lot more than I'm aware of.  I found myself doing it again yesterday.  I guess that's what happens after 3 years of living alone.  I don't see it as such a bad thing.  After all, one of my favorite people, my grandma, talks to herself.  I guess it runs in the family. :-)  The only thing is, my roommate is a psych major so I bet she has all sorts of ideas about why I do it.

stamina

It's been just over a week and I have already learned tons of elementary school math and science lessons.  Wondering if I have the stamina for entire days of teaching all these hands on lessons...

blog blog

I haven't had much time to blog. Classes are in full swing. I was in the library from 9-6 today. My only Monday class was even in a room in the library. Left for 10 minutes to grab a sandwich. We're allowed to eat in the library.

Other times when I've tried to blog, blogger seemed to be down. Bad luck. It's nice to have internet access again. Got my printer hooked up today. It's really fun having a roommate too. Over the weekend, she made waffles AND cookies.

Bubba the Prince

Yesterday, just before noon, I walked up to my new apartment to meet my new roommate. As I waited for Michelle to arrive, I saw one of those UPS post-its by the door. Since I had nothing else to do, I decided to snoop a little bit and check it out. Much to my surprise, it had my name on it. It said the package was from Amazon.com and the third and final attempt had been made. This was very exciting. Did I order something and forget? But I wouldn't have used that address. I didn't even have the keys to the place yet. Did someone send me something? But nobody had my address except my mom, and she wouldn't use amazon for a welcome gift. Hmmm... It was so enticing.

This morning, I got Ben to graciously drive me to the UPS place to pick up the mysterious package. When I opened the box, I saw 3 books, the first titled "Bubba, the Cowboy Prince." Everything clicked together. Bubba had in fact asked for my address so he could send a welcome "card." I remember like 3 years ago coming into work after a morning volunteering at Medina Elementary, when I excitedly told Bubba I had just read a book about him. He knew the book well. (It's a Cindarella story.) It is my very first book for when I have an actual classroom! Bubba is very thoughtful. He also gave me some books about Boston, one is the Zagat book, which he tells me will be helpful in finding some good burgers and fries.

I sure hope Bubba finds his Miz Lurleen.