Socially Distant Cuisine

Okay, so I was spurred by the Didion love to go read some stuff I wrote early in college... so cute! Was I ever that young? Earlier in the evening, she twisted the top off of her first bottle of Bud Light self-consciously, as if everyone was watching. In her mind, this room of strangers just might base their opinions of her on whether or not she could gracefully complete the task. It’s the kind of insecurity that plagues a novice drinker’s mind as she tries to embrace the complicated and nuanced practice of social alcohol consumption. Judging by the ease with which those around her were rid of their lids, she was obviously surrounded by people who had been acquainted with the process longer than she. A guy across the room, a football player type wearing a muscle shirt, had used the skin of his forearm to grip and twist the cap, a move that both impressed and repulsed her. How many beers did he have to drink in order to learn that one? No doubt, many nights of slovenly drunkenness ...

So sad-- just realized yesterday that Joan Didion is doing a reading of her new book at the Folger Shakespeare Library, but that it's sold out. I called to see if I could show up for some standing room love, but no dice. I'm hoping that someone will answer my Craigslist ad for a ticket, but something tells me that the bulk of the PEN/Faulkner Society crowd doesn't use CL. I'm an underliner-- when I'm reading, there are always passages or sentence I want to mark to note... for their beauty, or their truth. When I'm reading Didion, I want to underline everything. Freshman year in college, in my Women and Memoir class, we read Goodbye to All That , an essay she wrote in her early 30's about living in New York as a young woman. Choice bits below in an homage to Didion, and to being young: Quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean "love" in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first perso...

My elementary school, Centennial Elementary in Mt. Vernon, WA, was featured in the PBS special, Making Schools Work . They were chosen because of pretty incredible increases in student performance as a Success For All school. Eduwonk has an interview with the filmmaker . A lot has changed at Centennial Elementary since I was a student there. Though Mt. Vernon is a rural community, Centennial had a largely white, middle class student body back in the day. Now, it has a significant population of children of former migrant workers, 35% English Language Learners, and 75% qualifying for free and reduced lunch. But looking at the school's website, one thing struck me as constant: the teachers. Several of my former teachers were still teaching there: Mrs. Raschko, my first grade teacher, Mrs. Prange, who taught me 4th grade, and Mrs. Moore, who I had in 3rd. Several other teachers also worked in the school when I was a student. I remember these teachers, and the things I learne...

New NAEP data out today. NCES doesn't have up any charts of trend data by race, so I used the NAEP Data Explorer to make my own. Posted them, along with some thoughts over on Kindling Flames . Call me a nerd if you like, but man... do you see any improvements since 1990?

The Times today talks about the "new" popularity of beer pong . Total ridiculousness: The recent tournament in Philadelphia was sponsored by Bing Bong, a company that sells portable beer pong tables for $150. In the past year, Bing Bong has sold more than 2,000. "It was something a lot of people needed," said Tom Schmidt, the 27-year-old chief executive. He added that he wanted to turn the game into a socially acceptable barroom sport, like darts. Now, I love an occasional drinking game as much as the next girl. But one of the main points of these things is that they're completely irrepsonsible. Your future hangover is totally in the hands of fate and the "skill" of increasingly drunk teammates and opponents. Yeah, Schmidt. Beer pong is some good, clean fun--can't wait to transport my Bing Bong table to my next family Thanksgiving. I also loved Anheuser-Busch sponsoring "Bud Pong" promotions, where they supposedly encourage hos...

The arrival of Fall always makes me reassess my life. Maybe it's something about the life cycle of a student--it's the beginning of a new year, and spending some time on self-evaluation and goal-setting is well advised. Or maybe it's that it's starting to get cold out, and all I want to do is sit on the couch and drink cocoa and stare off into space, which gives me plenty of time to think. Either way, I've been in an introspective mood recently. I've come to a few conclusions about my life. Ask me about them, and I'll tell ya. This mood was assisted by reading Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel. It was great. It was outlandish enough and true enough and sympathetic enough... just right. Highly recommended. I started trying to write a review of it, and realized that it's been WAY too long since I took an English class. And most of what I wanted to say, was said already by Michael Agger in Slate last week, anyway. I'm not about to become a Democ...

After attending a brown bag lunch on optimizing Outlook Express, I'm spending some time cleaning out work e-mail this afternoon, and came across this gem, which was prompted by a lunchtime conversation a couple of months ago. I thought it should be saved for posterity: Baby corn really IS immature corn. But baby carrots are, as some knew, long skinny carrots chopped into little pieces . Ask yourself this: how did you ever live without that knowledge?

Reading this post was like deja vu for me! I took a class just like this as an undergrad... (surprise, surprise) in the education department. I made it through that semester by taking solace in two facts: (a) I was also taking The Sociology of Education in the soc department, with a professor who actually taught the material and (b) most of us in my little liberal arts bubble wouldn't end up teachers, thus wouldn't have an opportunity to inflict such pedagogical torture on kids who needed to actually learn stuff. It would appear that Newoldschoolteacher has neither of those to help her out. God save her. The professor in my class repeatedly insisted that we were a "democratic classroom" and that she wasn't any more of an expert on the material than us. WHAT? I paid good money for that course, money that employed her to teach me. I hope that she was more expert on the material than I was! Also, when I "took responsibility for myself" and said that ...

Last Friday, a project I've been working on for the past year released 2 reports. All the hoo-hah around getting it out the door and following up meant that I haven't had time to post about it until now. But it's pretty exciting! It's titled Who's Left Behind: Immigrant Children in High and Low LEP Schools . We break public elementary schools into 3 categories: those with high concentrations of LEP kids, those with fewer LEP kids, and those with none, and compare across the three types to examine differences in student populations, teacher and principal training, and special services and programs. For a summary of findings, check out the press release , or go to the whole thing . The demographic profile, which was done by the immigration group here, also has really interesting info here . This project really turned me on to the wonders of the Schools and Staffing Survey. SASS is a Department of Ed data set compiled from a group of nationally-representative s...

Yes, the life of an undergrad. So filled with useless information! N: there's a cricket somewhere in my room N: it's loud, and i can't find it E: it's a male E: as far as we know, only males sing E: he's looking for a lovely lady E: using trills and chirps that make up the calling song E: with a 5 kHz frequency, and an interchirp rate of 30ms