Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year's Eve!

For my Christmas present to my mother this year, I took all our old home movies and edited them into one DVD (thanks, iMovie!). There were about 25 hours of footage and it took forever to get it down to 45 minutes of interesting things, but it was totally worth it because amidst the hours and hours (and hours and hours) of me and my sister as babies just lying on the ground and drooling, there was the occasional gem like this:



Yes, that is my parents giving me beer when I'm less than a year old. My favorite part is the face I make right after I take the second sip. Anyway, I figured this clip was most appropriate to the holiday since people like to drink on New Year's Eve - happy end of 2010, everyone!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Dumpling UPDATE

Right after I posted those pictures, I got an email from Tim's mom with the subject line "Dumplings Certificate for you." It contained this awesome creation:

 (Original pdf here)

According to google translator, it says:

Certificate
Students: Ben and Caroline
Won the junior class Dumpling Certification
Achievements of Qualified Graduate Student
President: Caroline       Vice President: Ben
Dec. 26, 2010 Hyde Park, Chicago
Certificate Number: 000000020101226

I am very proud of the fact that I am president to Ben's vice president. I am definitely going to print this out and hang it up in my cube at work!

Dumplings!

We went to Chicago to be with Ben's family for the first half of break, and while there we went to his friend Tim's house to learn how to make dumplings!


Actually, we didn't really learn to make dumplings so much as we watched Tim and his mom make perfect dumplings while we mauled everything we touched.


In the space of time it took Ben and I to carefully form one hideously lumpy dumpling that fell apart as soon as we set it down, Tim and his mom could each turn out like 20 beautiful ones. After much effort, Ben was able to at least roll out a somewhat decent wrapper:


Despite our incompetence we were eventually able to produce a steaming plate full of intact dumplings, but at that point we were too busy gorging ourselves to take more pictures. They were insanely delicious and Ben and I have grand plans to make them ourselves at home, so stay tuned for a post wherein we destroy our entire kitchen and cover ourselves in dough in a misguided dumpling quest!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Best Chrismtas present ever!

Look what my mom made me!

I hope I never have to kill and eat her to survive...

Thursday, December 23, 2010

My Big Break

A few days ago I got this email:
Dear Ms. Rubin:
Pearson Education is preparing the following title for publication:
Title: Writing in the Disciplines: A Reader and Rhetoric for Academic Writers, 7th ed.
Author(s): Mary Kennedy, William J Kennedy
Publication Date: 7/15/2011
Number of Pages: 640
Estimated First Printing: 4370
Proposed Price: $57.00
We request non-exclusive rights to include the selection(s) listed at the bottom of this letter in the format specified.

Sincerely,
W. Hall
Permissions Researcher

Selection(s) Requested:
Caroline Rubin, "The Gendered Language of Gamete 'Donation." (text only). Kampf Prize essay, MIT Program in Women's & Gender Studies.
After checking with the MIT Women's Studies Department and the Professor I wrote that essay for, it seems that this is legit. I guess the editors of this textbook somehow found the essay I wrote that won the Kamp prize in 2008, and for whatever reason want to include it in the newest edition. So basically, I am getting published despite never having submitted anything, which I'm sure means that I am just famous and wonderful in every way. Or something like that.

Anyway, I emailed the guy and asked if I could get a copy of the book for granting my permission ($57 is a lot, even if it's for tangible proof of my awesomeness) and he said no problem. So come July 15, expect an entry with a photo of my name in a table of contents!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Cubism

I had my camera at work today for something random, and thought since I posted pictures of my classroom for the last two years, I should post some pictures of my current workplace.
My cube!
My cube makes me so happy, because it is the first time I have had my own desk as a working adult. Plus, it is climate-controlled and has lots of drawers and is surrounded by people I like. I also have lots of pictures and decorations up:
Check out my electronic "Manny the Menorah"
My favorite decoration was made for me by my cube neighbor. I am in charge of sending out multiple weekly email "blasts" - one to all our teachers, another to our staff - and so I am frequently muttering and complaining about blast-related issues. To make me feel better about all the time I spend blasting, he made me this poster:

Apparently this is a real video game (not including the part about me).
Also, since I am basically the team Mom, the outside of my cube has lots of things on it for people to pick up:
This way I get to pretend I am very popular because people are always coming over to get things they need.

I think I am the only person in the world who genuinely loves their cubicle.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Seen on the Bus

You guys, I saw this on the bus yesterday and could not believe it was real:

Sorry it's off-center, there was a Scary Bus Man sitting in front of it so I couldn't get too close.
I thought it must be a prank or something, but I just checked and Justin-Bieber-law.com is real! I wonder if this Justin Bieber was just a regular lawyer until Other Justin Bieber became famous and Attorney Justin Bieber decided to capitalize on the name, or if Attorney Justin Bieber actually changed his name to steal Famous Justin Bieber's thunder, or if it really is just a giant coincidence. I kind of want to call Attorney Justin Bieber's number and ask about it, but I'm afraid he'll yell at me.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Gingerbread Champion

My manager and I are both very competitive, and we both love Harry Potter, so when a friend from work invited us to a gingerbread house decorating contest it could only end one way:

Quidditch!
So technically the only gingerbread is holding up the stands, but I think it still counts. The people are teddy grahams, the capes are cut up fruit roll-ups, the brooms are pretzel sticks and chocolate twizzlers tied together with gold twist-ties, the bludgers are red hard candies, the quaffle is a mini-marshmallow, and the snitch is a dollop of gold icing. We spent a lot of time planning this.
We are the gingerbread champions!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Fancy Pants

Tonight I got to go to a TFA fundraising dinner for work, and all I knew about its location ahead of time was that it was in "the Navy Yard," whatever that means. It turns out that means awesome, because the Navy Yard is where the Navy used to build battleships, but now companies get lots of tax breaks to move their headquarters there and fix up the space. This event was in "URBN," the headquarters of the Urban Outfitters/Anthropologie/Free People brand, which spans several buildings (although we were only in one) and is probably the coolest place I have ever been or will ever be. I didn't think to bring my camera, so all I could get was some low resolution cell phone pictures, but I think they still convey how hip it was:
Fancy sitting area.
A pile of giant chains, of course.
Aqua Buddha? You can sort of see some of a workshop area in the background.
This vase was taller than me, and wearing a knit sweater.
I think this is their Christmas decorations.
Some trendy umbrellas. The bright lanterns are hanging off of old struts, which I guess had some involvement with boat manufacturing.

I have no idea what these machines do. Maybe they make the skinny jeans.
Magic twinkle lights!
I found a neat article about the renovation, which I would recommend checking out if only for the pictures!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

First Condo Meeting

Tonight was the annual condo association meeting, and for some reason I was oddly excited to go. I thought it would be fun to meet other people and learn a little bit about how the building runs, but it turns out groups of people meeting to decide things is never fun.

First danger sign: I was the only person there under 60 - apparently all the young, working people in the building know not to bother showing up at these things. As a result all the attendees are the retired people, who aren't exactly in a hurry to get stuff done.

Second danger sign: There were three candidates running for three spots on the board, and we still had to vote on them. Oy.

Third problem: The budget for next year is slightly (3.5%) higher than this year, but because there was a bunch of money saved up in the reserves, the monthly fee we pay will actually be lowered. What's not to like about paying less money? Plenty, apparently. People were so confused about paying less for a higher budget, and upset that we didn't get copies of the line item budget, that they made the building manager go back to his office and print them out.

Next problem: The big building project for next year is to redo the hallways, since they have been the same since the building was built in the 1970s, and are kind of dark and dingy. Tonight they introduced the architect from the firm that will be designing the new hallways, and the goal was just to tell people that by next summer he'll have drawn up sketches we can vote on. Instead, there was a full 30 minutes of people getting up and sharing their opinions about hallways - ranging from, "I was in a building once and they had really lovely red hallways" to "why can't each floor have its own theme?" to one gentleman's impassioned speech against the "disturbing homogenization" of hallways across America. I felt really bad for that architect.

I finally gave up and left over an hour into the meeting, since by that point I was starving and the conversation had moved on to an argument about hallway temperature between the residents of the top floors ("they're far too hot!") and those on the bottom floors ("they are freezing!").

As far as I know, the meeting is still going on. I think this will be my first and last experience with attending.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Meeting My Hero, and Miscellanea

One of my personal heroes is Doug Lemov, founder of the Uncommon Schools charter network that I am so obsessed with (the one that made me cry when I visited it as a first year teacher). So I was beyond thrilled when I found out that he was coming to Philadelphia to lead our first year corps members in a session on classroom management yesterday. I didn't actually get to see the session because I had to be outside doing boring administrative stuff, but afterward I got to actually interact with him for a full thirty seconds! I told him about visiting his school and it transforming my beliefs about what was possible for my students, and he thanked me for sharing with him - he said it was the most rewarding part of his job! My friend took a picture with my cell phone, and it motivated me to figure out how to get pictures off that thing for the first time ever:
You can only see Doug Lemov's back, but you can totally tell how awesome he is.
Also, now that I know how to get pictures off my cell phone, here are some random interesting pictures from the past year:

This was in the bird room at the Camden Aquarium, where we went for our staff retreat.
Our old carpet floor with our new wood one, when it was still in boxes.
I saw these at a random gas station once, but was too weirded out to try them.

My sister gave us a chicken from the farm she worked at, and Ben was very proud of himself for roasting it.
When Ben and I first moved in together, I couldn't resist the temptation of putting on all of our class rings and giving myself Brass Rat Knuckles.