Overdrive

I just realized I haven't posted something in four whole days, which I think is a record for me (excluding the summer vacation between my two years of teaching). Our life has been really crazy lately with the new condo and our upcoming move (which is tomorrow morning!), so here's a brief summary:

We knew we wanted to rip up and replace the old carpet in the condo, since it was thirty years old and full of all sorts of mysterious stains and sticky spots and holes and other reminders of everyone who had lived on it for the past three decades. We also knew that we wanted to do this before moving all our furniture and possessions in, both to make our lives easier and also because the floor-installing people charge you an extra furniture-moving fee that we wanted to avoid. Unfortunately, we had to wait until this past week to start the whole re-flooring process, because for the week and a half prior the condo was being abated (did you know they used to make popcorn ceilings out of asbestos??) so obviously no one could go in then.

Long story short, in order for all our complicated reflooring plans to be possible, we had to drive to the floor store first thing Friday morning to sign a contract, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to get it done before we moved. I also had a Very Important Meeting at work Friday morning at 9:30, but since the floor store opened at 8:00 and is only 20 minutes away I thought we would be fine. Anyways, it was my first time driving in Philadelphia, which combined with my notoriously bad sense of direction and really intense fog that prevented our GPS from working resulted in us somehow ending up in Camden, NJ - surprise! We spent 45 increasingly frantic minutes trying to figure out how to get back to Philadelphia and the floor store, and when we finally made it there (at 9:10) I sat in the parking lot and cried from the combination of all my least favorite things: driving, being late, and general uncertainty. Ben very helpfully yelled at me to calm down and stop crying, which I eventually managed to do despite his efforts. Of course, the flooring situation is fine and I'm not fired, so all my catastrophizing was completely unnecessary, as usual.

My lovely mother drove up to help us paint over the weekend, and the three of us spent all day Saturday and Sunday painting at the new place and all night packing up the old one, which felt productive but is not a relaxing way to spend the weekend. Then yesterday and today was the annual staff retreat at work, which was awesome in that it was at the Adventure Aquarium (back in Camden, but this time on purpose) and we got to wander around and look at hippopotami during the breaks between sessions, but was also terrible timing in that it meant that for the two days of the year where I would have really liked to be able to leave early to take care of other things (letting in the floor people, talking to the movers, packing...) I couldn't. Oh well, at least I got to see a bunch of crazy-looking jellyfishes.

Anyway, the floor people allegedly finished today, but I won't see it until tomorrow when we move. For now it's back to packing, packing, packing, but this time tomorrow we should be officially all the way in our new home! Once I figure out where I packed the camera, I will take pictures to demonstrate how it is no longer a dark brown cave of ratty carpeting!

Good news, everyone!

I got another piece of paper in the mail from Lehman today, and it hasn't even been a full three months since the last one! I guess they are just really on top of their game with diploma distribution this year.

Dear May Graduate

Congratulations on your graduation from Lehman College.

Diploma Distribution will begin:

Tuesday October 19          9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.   Shuster Hall 105

Wednesday October 20     9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.   Shuster Hall 105

[All capitalization and punctuation (or lack thereof, as in the salutation) is copied exactly from the original.]

I guess there are two main things that I find puzzling about this system of handing out diplomas. Firstly, why does it take them a full five months after graduation to have the diplomas ready? I'm halfway expecting that this thing will be written by hand, maybe with a nice border and seal traced onto it in smudgy pencil for effect.

Seconly, and even more concerning to me, is the fact that the only times to pick up the diplomas are during two random weekdays in October. Don't they expect their graduates to have, you know... jobs? Or do they think that we all have nothing better to do than hang around the Bronx unemployed for five months after we graduate, poised and ready to swing by on a weekday and pick up a piece of paper that could easily be mailed out?

Surely they must have some system in place for those people who no longer live in NYC and have jobs that prevent them from traveling to another city on a Wednesday afternoon, right?

If you send someone to accept your diploma, the individual must present the following:

1. A signed letter of authorization from you specifying your proxy's name.

2. Proper identification for the proxy or yourself - copies of Lehman identification card, passport, state identification, or driver's license.

We wish you all the best for the future.

[And then there's a space for the registrar to sign it, or at least for a stamp or photocopy of his signature, but it's just blank.]

So, I guess they figure even if you are lucky enough to have a job, you probably graduated with someone else who is still unemployed? Good to know they have high expectations for their graduates.

Anyway, I'm not really sure if it's worth calling them and trying to convince them to mail it to me. On the one hand, I feel like I should probably have a copy of it for record-keeping purposes, but on the other hand, the last time I called them on the phone (which was for the fairly simple matter of changing my address, don't ask me why they can't have you do that online) I had to get transferred between four different mouth-breathers and the whole process took over an hour.

Why don't I ask Ms. L to do it, since she's still teaching at our school in the Bronx, you may ask? Because they misplaced a paper for her registration in our second semester, the ripple effects of which prevented her from properly registering for the following two semesters and from her being issued a diploma at all. She's still trying to sort it out, and it will probably take her long enough to earn a PhD in the meantime.

Back in the day...

For this thing at work I had to find a picture of myself back in high school, and at first I wasn't sure what to do since all my high school photos only exist in hard copy in my room back in Maryland. But then I remembered something I did back in 11th grade that resulted in my photo getting posted online, and lucky for me it was still there! Feast your eyes on my nerdy majesty:

(From the Maryland Chemathon webpage)

That's right - I was on the first place team for the 2003 Maryland Chemathon! Check out our sweet Teen Chem Squad t-shirts that I made myself. Yeah.

Incidentally, three out of the six ended up at MIT, and the guy in the top right ended up almost winning Season 4 of Beauty and the Geek. So I'm basically famous.

Trash chute fail

A few weeks ago Ben and I were walking around Philly when we saw something spectacular. I didn't have my camera with me and knew we wouldn't be able to go back for a few weeks because of the condo buying/painting/abating and then going to NYC this weekend, so I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to capture it on film because it seemed like it was quite temporary. We finally made it back over there today with a camera in tow, and lucky for us it was still there!

In case you can't tell, that is an entire trash chute made out of nested trash cans with their bottoms cut out! And it isn't just a fleeting construction of last-minute necessity, since it has been there for at least a few weeks.

The best part is, there isn't even a trash can or dumpster underneath it to catch any garbage. It just dumps onto the sidewalk.

I think I am starting to like living in Philly.

Don't Eat the Marshmallow

I wrote once in my teacher blog about the importance of self-control to academic success - basically, numerous  studies have found that the ability to delay gratification is linked to academic success (and as far as I know, no studies have found to the contrary). Anyway, I first learned about this effect in a child development class in college, which is also when I first saw the adorable videos of kids trying really hard not to eat a marshmallow:



I think most teachers are at least anecdotally aware of the link between self-control and success in school, and some even try to impart that lesson to their students. But I only just learned through my new job that KIPP schools, which get great results with economically disadvantaged students (and was founded by two TFA alums!), actually explicitly teach their kids about the scientifically-proven merits of the ability to delay gratification. In fact, when you walk into KIPP Philadelphia (and apparently most KIPP schools across the country), this is what you see:

How awesome is that??

Excuse my edu-geekout

Okay, I know I'm not an official TFA blogger anymore, but I still work for TFA and am still super-interested in ed reform, so excuse me for a minute while I go crazy about three totally awesome things that are happening in rapid succession:

1. President Obama gave his back to school speech from Masterman school here in Philly today! We all watched it live in the office, it was super-exciting and reminded me of watching it with my students this time last year. Weird.

2. Also right here in Philly today, Colorado state senator Michael Johnston (TFA '97) is speaking at a local dinner for educational philanthropists. Michael Johnston is one of my heroes because within a year of taking office, he basically single-handedly took down the Colorado teacher tenure system - something we are unfortunately still very far away from achieving here on the East coast. Sadly, I don't get to go to the dinner or meet him, but one of my friends from work gets to pick him up at the airport and drive him to the dinner! I'm very jealous, and will be picking her brain about it tomorrow.

3. One week from yesterday, my favorite TV show (I know, I'm a dork) is going to have an episode all about ed reform, featuring interviews with Bill Gates and another of my TFA-alum heroes, Michelle Rhee. The episode is because of the upcoming documentary Wating For Superman, which I can't wait to see!

Okay, I'm done for now. But I do encourage everyone to watch Oprah next Monday, and to pledge to see Waiting For Superman when it comes out on the 24th!

Primed and ready to go!

The people who owned our condo before us had some interesting taste in paint colors:

Even though it's noon in this picture, it looks super-dark thanks to the poop-brown walls.

And in the bedroom:

Yes, that is yellow on the bottom and silver on the top. Why? Why not!

We haven't picked out new colors yet, but knew that the high level of hideousness would require some serious priming in order for us to be able to paint over it. So I bribed some people from work with pizza and beer, and we had a priming party!

It ended up being pretty fun, because we are going to replace the carpeting and remove the popcorn ceiling, and we haven't moved in any of our stuff yet, so we were able to go kind of nuts with the paint. We didn't have to do any of that boring stuff with drop cloths or painter's tape because there was nothing we could have messed up by getting paint on it! Well, maybe the windows, but we'd have to be pretty incompetent to get paint on those.

So eight people, three pizzas, four gallons of primer and four hours later, we had this:

Notice how even though this is later in the day, it looks brighter thanks to the white walls.

No more space-age silver bedroom!

Even though it's just plain white, it looks so much better than before. I'm really excited to pick out new, non-hideous colors and spend next weekend painting for real!

In conclusion, check out our sweet view:

Yay!

DOG!

We are dogsitting my boss's beagle for a few days, and since she got dropped off here last night she and Ben have been rolling around on the floor together in pure bliss - I can't tell which of the two is more thrilled by this arrangement. My ability to enjoy the dog's presence is marred by my constant anxiety that I will somehow ruin her forever and get myself fired as a result.

The dog is unusually affectionate, especially considering she's only known us for about a day. All she wants to do is cuddle, and she even wanted to sleep with us last night. When we left for work this morning we could hear her crying all the way to the elevator; it was heartbreakingly pathetic. How do people do this with kids??

Anyway, I tried to take a picture of the dog because she is really quite cute, but she is also very wiggly and has a tapetum, and I am not a great photographer in the first place, so this was the best I could do:

DOG!

New School Year

Today was the first day of school for the School District of Philadelphia, and my usually serene morning commute was overrun by shrieking teenagers and their blasting iPods. All summer long I had been feeling like my new job was only a temporary gig and come fall I'd be back in my classroom as usual, but seeing all those kids going to school (and not even having realized in advance when school started) finally cemented that I am no longer a teacher. For the first time in nineteen years of being a student and then a teacher, I don't have a first day of school to look forward to and/or dread. For some reason, this makes me feel more adult than buying the condo did.

Labor Day Road Trip

I spent the long weekend with my family, driving my younger sister back to college. This will be her third year at Oberlin, but it was my first time visiting the campus. My perception of the school as being mostly hippie-ish was supported by the fact that they don't have RA's, but HLEC's ("Housing Loose-Ends Coordinators") - hers introduced herself as "a resource, not a police force"- and also the gender-free bathrooms:

Okay, this one isn't actually a gender-free bathroom, but others were and I liked this rotatable sign.

And speaking of bathrooms, I had never seen this before in a dorm bathroom, or any other public bathroom for that matter:

There's not even a shower head, it's just a straight up bathtub!

Most of the weekend was spent driving and unpacking, but I did get a brief tour of the campus. My favorite thing by far is the living machine in the Environmental Science building - it is basically a mini-wetland that handles the building's sewage in an eco-friendly way. Except apparently the building is sort of out of the way for most people, so its bathrooms aren't used to the capacity the living machine was designed to handle. The solution? They pay you to poop there! It's an honor system where you have your name on a piece of paper and make a tally mark for every piece you produce, and at the end of the semester you get 25¢ per poop!

Okay, sorry for the very toilet-centric entry, apparently my two years going native with middle schoolers is still affecting my brain. Now onto the eight hour drive back to Philly!

Rebranding

Remember a few years ago when PETA tried to make fish more sympathetic by renaming them "sea kittens"?

At the time I thought PETA had successfully reached the limit of ridiculous rebranding, but then I found out about this. Make sure you have the sound on!

I am officially a grownup!

After some frantic last minute wire transfer drama, Ben and I signed the papers to officially close on our new condo this morning! We had to spend an hour signing more forms than I thought could have possibly existed (including one promising the FBI that we aren't terrorists, another affirming that "Ben" and "Benjamin" are the same person, and many others that contained fancy old-timey terminology like "witnesseth") and then sit around for another half hour waiting for the last-minute wire transfer to go through, but things went pretty smoothly overall. Now we just have to spend the next thirty years paying our mortgage, and voila! We'll be homeowners!

(We'll be out of town for the long weekend, but I hope to post some pictures soon!)

Requisite SEPTA Rant

My one complaint about Philadelphia as compared to New York is the public transit system.* There's already an entire blog about how much SEPTA sucks, but my frustration with it goes much deeper than the occasional off-schedule train or inept employee (although I've certainly experienced more of those in the past month than I did in my two years in NYC combined). SEPTA doesn't just suck anecdotally, it sucks  fundamentally. 

First of all, there's this:

A real subway system

Philly's subway system

Just looking at the Philly map makes me sad.

Second of all, there's the fare system. First, it still uses tokens,  which are more of an antique than an acceptable method of paying subway fare. But worse than the archaic existence of the tokens themselves is the fact that you can only buy them at certain stations. Unlike New York, Boston, DC, and every other subway system I've ever been in, every station does not have a fare vending machine.

I discovered this the first day I commuted to my new job - I knew the tokens were $2 each, and made sure to have a $20 with me so I could buy a bunch at the machine and use them for the rest of the week. Except, there was no machine. "No matter," I thought, "I can buy some from the station attendant!" I was thinking of my freshman year of college in Boston, when the MBTA was still transitioning to fare cards and you could buy tokens from the guys who sat in the station booths all day. Wrong! Here, the person who sits in the booth all day can't sell you tokens. They just sit in the booth. You can give them $2 and they will buzz open the gate for you, but that's it - they can't even give you change if you don't have exactly $2. I'm guessing that the lack of token machines in all stations is a union issue - who would want to give up a such a sweet job?

SEPTA does have weekly/monthly passes, but once again, unlike in NYC and every other civilized city, you can't just walk up to a machine in any station and buy one. You can only get them at certain stations, and during certain times of day on top of that.** And then they are only for specific time intervals - unlike in NYC, where when you buy a weekly pass it is good for one week from the time you buy it, here you can only buy a pass that is good for one specific week. So if you were going to be in town for a week starting on a Thursday, you would have the choice of buying two weekly passes (one for the week including that Thursday and one for the week after) or attempting to track down an elusive token machine.

There are all kinds of other poorly-designed elements of the system that contribute to its overall terribleness. Often the station layouts are ridiculously bad - at the station near my work, you come down the stairs to enter the station only to run smack into a giant supporting beam thing that you have to squeeze around. And despite the fact that there are only two subway lines and they only intersect once, it is quite possibly the most confusing subway transfer you will ever experience. The station where you transfer is an unlabeled maze of tunnels, and it has a different name on each subway line - instead of it being called something informative like "SEPTA Center" or "Transfer Terminal" or "THE ONLY PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SWITCH LINES," it's "15th Street" on the blue line and "City Hall" on the orange. So if, like me, the first time you transfer from blue to orange you make a mental note to transfer at 15th Street when you reverse your path on your way back, you will obliviously ride right past City Hall (and your only transfer opportunity) all the way to the end of the orange line, the whole time wondering why it's taking so long to get to 15th Street. Oh, and when you finally get off and try to turn around and ride the orange line back to the transfer point, you can't change the direction you are traveling without exiting the station to the street, crossing the street, and re-entering (and re-paying) on the other side of the tracks. And no, there is no token machine there. And no, the attendant can't give you a transfer or let you in, even though he saw you get off the train and knows you already paid, and is laughing at you from his union-secured spot in the booth.

I am counting down the days until we move into our new condo, and I can walk to work


* My other complaint is that the street grid is rotated 90 degrees to the left of how it should be.

** To be fair, you can also order them a month ahead of time online. You know, because when you are going to visit a new city, your first thought is to go to their transit department's website a month in advance to order a pass that there is no reason you shouldn't be able to buy from a vending machine.