the last required; #4, my summer at summer school.

(pre-blog shout-outs: (1) the illustrious, oft-essential laurel a. kilgour, for showing up, (2) a small enclave/conclave in amherst: if you haven't picked up on it yet, i never really get to any point, or - alternately - i never really betray the non-space of the point itself (points, if you remember, are zero-dimensional mathematical objects; perfectly fit by a rumination of coordinates; there is nothing linear nor volumnious (a word?) nor temporal about them), (3) sarah, of jake and/or sarah, who pointed out an error in my disney reference.)

as i'm tapping away at the free internet pod at san fransisco bread co. on jackson ave., and since i have 13 min before i go to lunch w/ my roommates, this summer reflection blog will most likely fail to get outside its own meta-blog costume, much to the dismay of nearly everyone involved (re: a discussion w/ robbie, where i admitted that my response to the near-necessary self-loathing that results from the production of blog-text is a constant parenthetical chain of a sort of textual self-awareness of my own poor wheat v. chaff ratio [re: a daniel hall e-mail]).

so, my summer school teaching experience - itself so varied in scenario, and so obviously divorced from a more-or-less normative classroom environment/culture. nevertheless, a happily controlled, non-confrontational lab space for the application of educational strategy; a well-padded playground for getting my feet wet. all this layered with a short list of desires, cravings (1) my own classroom, (2) a mathematics course, (3) curricular direction. perhaps, then, my appetite is whetted.

things that are more interesting:

(1) i almost failed a child. scenario: a large book report project, involving paragraphy on setting, characters, a plot summery, and a critical review. event: octavius, one of the ms. savage-dubbed "molina's mafia," turned in a branstorming packet in what was clearly not his handwriting. later, turned in a typed rough draft (in this - sentences obviously not his). upon confrontation/conversation, the argument that his cousin had helped his with - among other things - his grammer - crumbled easily after being loosely quizzed on the content presented in the book report. arguments that i thought his family was stupid, or that i was out to get him - similarly short-lived. aftermath: failed all sections represented in rough draft, though able to accrue points in those absent (to his credit, he had been working hard on his critical review in class, and had made much progress therein). poss points: 60. extra credit opportunities (offered to the whole class a day or two before) stressed in his case: involved various exercises on poems from norton anthology, outlaw bible of american poetry. result: 40 points accumulated via book report. some reluctance to poetry extra-credit; began by paraphrasis wc williams, slugging through langston hughes. octavius saved his ass on the penultimate day, via a long conversation about some poems he had rushed through (dickenson - "a fly buzzzed," hughes - "the negro speaks of rivers," "harlem (2)," wc williams - [something about old age]). sidenote: qualin, another mafia staple - and a scarface fan- spent a long time one morning shuffling through the outlaw bible, his interest sparked by d.a. levy, and a poem with the word "mcdonald's" in the title.

[note: it is now 1:07 pm - long after the estimated departure time for lunch. i fear i will soon be taken away from this computer. further elements will be quite abbreviated.]

(2) the last day of summer school was bizarre: brief, cumulative vocab test; first half of morning spent doing nothing while children rehearsed their "plays"; second half of morning spent watching aformentioned plays - all loosely based on the "pilgrims coming to america," all loosely put in modern context (highlights: (i) quote, "where can i find this chief trees," (ii) an america's most wanted spoof - "the new world's most wanted"), all involving some sort of poster or diaramma (sp?); last moments of morning spent by being awarded various randomly assigned titles and pins (mine was service-based), and feasting on subway sandwiches, hot wings, donuts, and cupcakes.

(3) i babysat ari's hog this weekend. highlight: visit to lake patsy, where (a) the hog followed me around quite intently/contently(?), (b) we made a small patch of mud for the hog, in which he rolled around, (c) the hog chased me as i ran around [this event caught on video], (d) the hog ate a burnt worm.

(4) i saw dave chappelle twice. read robbie's blog (robert pollack, "celebrity sighting," and "chapelle, continued" - also, robbie's a hell of a writer) for the story.

(5) margaret visited. powerfully.