whoaie

Chillin' with the gang at Z'otz Cafe (my new hangout) tonight was very fun. Just played some Bananagrams (stolen from Providence Matt) and talked about nerdy things, no big deal. Let me tell you about how I've been passing these unemployed, summer days since I've moved back:

- hanging out at Z'otz. One time (circa 5pm on July 5th) it was closed and I didn't know what to do with myself.

- job searching and job applying. I have two unpromising prospects. One - a job at Tulane working with Adam Beebe coordinating service learning opportunities in the community for Tulane students - I had my second interview for this past Monday. It seemed to go fine, the dude told me I was in the top three, but then proceeded to tell me how impressive the other two candidates were. The second one involves evaluating an early college program for public high school students. It's basically my ideal job except it is only part time.

- swimming a lot. Usually with Kara and usually at Pocket Park.

- riding my mom's bike around town. It's a shitty new Schwinn but it gets the job done.

- hanging out with Melanie and Patrick, who are FiNaLlY back in town. Phew. A lot of this hanging out has been at kickball games, where I spectate/cheer my ass off but DON'T PLAY, even after months of courting the second worst team in the league for literally ten months. Let's not talk about it; I'm very bitter.

An option better than finishing this entry exposed itself to me, so, as they say in the biz', "To Be Continued..."

During my job search, as unfruitful as it may be, I'm constantly reminded how my entire life I've had a string of opportunities handed to me on a silver platter. I feel sympathy bitterness for all the kids in New Orleans who have unstable family lives, their basic needs are not even met, are thrown into school expected to follow orders and do well, and no matter how much resilience they exhibit, would never have the kind of opportunities that I've been presented with simply because of the situations they were born into. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't had it this easy, my lazy ass would have taken absolutely no initiative to change my circumstances and I'd be working some shitty job somewhere.

This Thursday marked the second time a job I applied for was cut. Fuck the following two things: 1) "The Economy" and 2) the recent trend in education to transfer autonomy onto individual schools, creating a lean central office and therefore fewer jobs for me. #2 I disagree with beyond selfish reasons, so let's really fuck that one.

Can't someone just pay me to create better outcomes for our students already?!

Here's my latest predicament: my only definite career prospect is about the only thing I am overqualified for, a measly summer internship that would probably just end up being slave labor in launching a school and is financially a joke. It could potentially be good experience and open up post-summer opportunities for me. The prospective employer needs a commitment from me by next Friday. I have no other really promising options as of now other than two other jobs I've applied for and haven't heard back from and a couple important people I've connected with who say they will try to find something for me. Do I commit to the internship and be relieved that I have at least a solid plan for the next few months or refuse and keep looking? I'm leaning toward the latter, but I need your advice please.

Other than the job search, I'm just sitting here avoiding the 40+ pages of papers I have to write and writing Marie love letters instead.

Another thing I want to know is this: who has read volume one of Darin's book and what did you think of it??

Re: the birthday email I sent her:
"Lauren!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just getting message. Sorry. We miss you so much. Please come to Norco. Anytime. Really.
Love, Ms Terry"

Oh, and if you think she's joking about "anytime," think again. One time we showed up there at 2 am and she woke up to welcome us and then proceeded to cook us delicious vegan treats.

I am returning home from a sweet victory this evening in flag football. It's a good thing we won, because one thing I'm learning about myself is that I am a very bad sport. Luckily, my constant harrying of the opposing team was warranted because they were total assholes. Listen, I am a feminist of course, but am also pretty traditional about some things when it comes to gender roles. Basically, it does not take a lot of physical force to get passed me on the line of scrimmage. If you are a big dude, it is completely unnecessary to elbow me in the clavicle or clobber me with all your might. And even if you are going to take that route, then it is completely necessary that you apologize for it. But we didn't hear a peep out of anyone on the other team when they committed these transgressions, or even when one of their players kneed a girl on our team so hard that it gave her a terrible, debilitating muscle cramp and she was laying on the field crying for several minutes. Instead, they mockingly clapped and cheered, "Chivalry isn't dead!" when Matt carried her off the field. Fuck those dudes. We beat them. And I didn't go out on the field to shake their hands at the end, either.

I got a $2400 tax refund this year. Well, I haven't gotten it yet, so I guess I could be jinxing myself. That Hope Education Credit is somethin' else.

I only left the house once today and for a very brief period of time. After doing my taxes, I immediately did a bunch of online shopping to see how I could waste away that $2400. I also completely cleaned my whole apartment. So even though I broke my gym streak, ate about 3 servings of mac and cheese and probably also that much of unbaked brownie mix (but it's the fat-free kind you make by only adding yogurt!), I still feel sort of productive.

Here's a question: what is the acceptable time period to allow to pass before following up a resume/cover letter submission to a prospective employer? I emailed this dude my materials last Monday. Andy says he's heard two weeks but I want to let this guy know I'll be in New Orleans soon. And what is the best way to phrase a "follow up" email and not sound too pushy?

I have more or less been in bed all day long. I feel like my muscles are about to atrophy. Actually, my muscles are all completely sore from skiing for the first time on Saturday. That sport is DIFFICULT. The painful part isn't falling (although I had some pretty cool tumbles), but getting up. It really worked my core!!

Anyway, the reason I've been in bed all day is because for some reason I am most productive when I'm in bed (as opposed to other work areas in my apartment) and I need to get my resume and cover letter out to the Recovery School District STAT so I can get this teacher recruitment job. But aside from making me feel like the grossest laziest person ever, staring at the computer all day is burning my eyeballs out of their sockets. I'm worried that being bed ridden has put me in a mental state that makes me feel my resume is ready to send out when in fact it could be watermarked with crazy expletives and I wouldn't notice. Then again, neither would the RSD probably.

There are no simple, understated business card templates to order on the internet. Who is going to make me a business card design so I can effectively schmooze at this conference I'm going to in March? Have you ever seen AMERICAN PSYCHO? Do you know the part where they are all showing off their elegant business cards and then Paul Allen comes in with his tasteful "bone" business card and it makes Christian Bale crazy? That's what I want.

Here is the information it must have:

Lauren Goldstein
Research Assistant
Annenberg Institute for School Reform

then, in a separate spot for my contact info:
Brown University Urban Education Policy Program '09
Box 1938, 340 Brook St.
Providence, RI 02912
TEL: (you know it!!)
FAX: 401 863-1276
Lauren_Goldstein@Brown.edu

I'm just sitting here waiting for the pizza Sarah and I are making to be ready (we do that a lot these days - make pizza) and I'm thinking about all this stuff that I've accrued since being in Providence. It's built up enough now that there's no question of whether I'll take it back with me; I'm definitely going to hitch a trailer onto my incapable vehicle and haul this shit back to N.O. in May. I'm so close to persuading Marie to fly up and drive down with me it's not even funny. She'll probably flake out at the last minute, but I'm tempting her with thrift store and vet school visits. Any other takers??

The other things I need upon graduation are: a job and an apartment in New Orleans. It's less than three months away!!! Who is going to help me with this!

What New Orleans neighborhood would you want to live in if money were no object?

Having a king cake delivered would cost me $45. That is TOO expensive. Although as I'm learning in my economics of education class, economists would say that me not buying it means I don't really want that king cake and that I prefer to spend my money on other things that give me more utility. Well think again assholes, because I would get hells of utility out of a king cake right now but maybe I have bigger things on my agenda, like not perpetuating the overpricing of king cake shipments by supporting that industry.

Wouldn't that be cute if instead of a little king cake baby there was a little plastic panda in king cakes???

But if one child is allowed into a gifted class because his parents can afford to pay $300 to a private tester and another child is left out of that same class because his parents are poor, then it's not accurate to say those children attend a public school. If a school is truly public, then poor students should have as much access to a school system's academic programs as better-off students do. And administrators would be sure to have policies in place to prevent better-off parents from buying extra-special seats for their children.

However, it appears that one can essentially buy a seat in a gifted program in New Orleans. During the 2007-08 school year, an evaluator with the Orleans Parish School Board's central office determined that 5 of the 153 prekindergarteners tested were gifted.

By contrast, a single private tester -- who charges parents a fee -- sent the school system the names of 64 prekindergarteners she had determined met the definition of "gifted."

That tester wouldn't reveal to a reporter how many children she tested to find 64 gifted children, but unless she tested 1,957 students, her passage rate was higher than the school system's. And officials in the Orleans Parish schools ought to be skeptical of that higher pass rate.

This is precisely the reason I'm in the ed policy program. Yes, obviously there are very complex social issues beyond school reform that need to be addressed...but please!! There's tons of shit like this that could be so easily fixed!!! It's not even a HARD THING to do a better job than we currently are! We are doing probably the WORST job!

And Scott, I will get back to your inquiries about Arne Duncan. It's not even that I have such a problem with him - he has done some good things with Chicago schools - but I have a problem with the fact that most of the fixtures in the "current reform landscape" have no experience as educators. We'll have a discussion about why that is (quick answer: pedagogical knowledge is not institutionalized as expertise). I think the party at Half Moon tomorrow would be a perfect backdrop for this conversation. Sound enticing?

In super exam mode here. I have to write 2 20 page papers this weekend. No big deal. This just happened: I'm working on this one about monetary incentive programs to increase student achievement, writing about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in middle schoolers, when I start paying attention to what's on shuffle on itunes and hear these lyrics from "Longview": "I've got no motivation, where is my motivation?" How appropriate! Looks like Billy Joe should've received some external incentives when he was in school. J/k, actually, he probably received inappropriate external incentives and that's what got him in this whole mess of diminished motivation in the first place.

Anyway, I'm examining certain cases of incentive programs that pay kids for getting good grades and stuff, and it's pretty crazy. It's like when rich parents bribe their children to get good grades, except brought to scale on a district level and with poor children. What I want to know is how bad are these children going to freak the fuck when they get to the 11th grade (most of the programs go no further than 10th grade) and no longer are receiving biweekly paychecks for doing well/behaving. Are they going to have a mass protest by failing and behaving awfully? Or do you think high achievement will be ingrained by then and they'll figure "I got this far, might as well round out my high school career with good grades"?