By Corinne Flax

May 9, 2006

How To Look Like You Got Hit By A Bus

Have I mentioned my love of WFUV 90.7 recently? If I haven't that is an oversight on my part because this radio station brings me a lot of happiness and joy. Plus when I donated to them they sent me a tote bag, which is pretty sweet. I used the tote bag to get my final projects to and from school, so it feels like the donation has already paid for itself in usefulness. I'm listening to it right now, and I love it.

Yesterday I opened Sbux and proceeded to move through the rest of the day like a zombie, waking up at 3:00am will do that to a person. When it comes right down to it opening is barbaric. I know that people have to get up that early, and that they deserve their coffee, but it just seems so wrong to force someone to serve it.

I had to catch a train around 3:30 am to get down town in time for work. The people on the train were a mix of blue collar workers on their way to and from jobs, young couples who looked drunk on love, or possibly alcohol, guys who appeared to be leaving their lover's homes, crack heads, winos, and prostitutes. I couldn't help but stare at everyone, imagining their back-plots. The guy who looked like he was my age in the retro Pumas, artfully distressed jeans, and silk screened hoody; where was he going? Further he got on at 125th, off at 96th, does that mean he goes to Columbia? I actually ended up at work about half an hour early, and rather then go inside I wandered around Chelsea, continuing to stare blatantly at people.

4:15am is when the midnight taco trucks close up, and the morning bagel and donut trucks show up.

Sadly my manager just hadn't scheduled quite enough people, and this meant that I didn't get a break from 7:30 till 12:30, which was physically exhausting. I didn't really mind though because it made the day fly by, at least I didn't mind while I was there. By the time I staggered home at 2:00pm all I wanted to do was sleep. Which I did for about an hour, and then it was off to Bank Street to return over-due library books and register for my classes. Before my nap I felt tired, after I felt drugged. I felt like I'd been hit by a bus and I must have looked as awful as I felt, because people kept on asking me if I was ok. I wasn't, not really, but how do you explain that to people?

"Oh I'm alright, just so tired I'm seeing stars."

That just doesn't go over well.

My conversation with my advisor was so complicated and incoherent, we ended up arguing about the fact that I was agreeing with her. She wants me to work in a classroom a few times before next fall, I want to do this too. When I told her I wouldn't be able to do this until June she seemed to think I was telling her I couldn't do it. Back and forth we went, her telling me how important it was for me to get the experience, me agreeing. I don't even know how we left it, except that I told her I'd email her.

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April 28, 2006

Friday Morning Round Up

Last night roughly 69% of the people I work with descended upon my house. We played board games, ate nachos, listened to hip-hop, hung out on the roof, and in general had a lovely time. Being able to spend time with my coworkers outside of work is great. I really like them, and I feel like I learn a lot from them. My sister said that it was great meeting people who aren’t NYU students (although one of my coworkers is an NYU student, but whatever), because she doesn’t normally meet anyone who’s not at NYU.

One of the nicest things about my coworkers is the many different places they’re from. I know I’ve talked recently about the cultural divides, about how my manager is made uncomfortable by guys eating ice-cream cones. Here’s another one: one of my guess said “I wouldn’t be caught drinking a Rolling Rock on the street” Apparently Rolling Rock just doesn’t have the cachet of Heineken or a forty ounce Colt 45. I don’t get it, but I did point out that my house is not the street.

The gathering was a celebration of sorts for myself. I was celebrating the fact that I handed in my five week fantasy curriculum in my Introduction to literacy class. My advisor suggested I look for an extension but mostly I just want to wash my hands of the whole thing. In a way it was a great project because I learned so much, and in another way it was an awful project because I basically had to fight for everything I learned. I just can’t believe that there are no classes on basic lesson planning at Bank Street!

I’ve talked to a lot of students who are in the Teach for America program and they get a intensive course on lesson planning before they actually start taking classes. Teach for America is a super intense program. I tried to get into it and failed, they said I wasn’t serious enough, and that was probably correct. Still though, I bet a class on lesson planning wouldn’t be wasted on me, despite my habit of seeing the humorous in all situations.

I have to finish two more projects by Tuesday and then my first semester of graduate school is over. I can hardly believe it. In the past I would have been chomping at the bit to finish the semester, but now I feel differently. This is probably because I’ll be starting summer courses in June, and they meet twice a week for three and a half hours a class. That is just so long! I’m not sure how I’m ever going to be able to sit still that long. Actually I know how I’ll do it: I’ll fall asleep. Sad but true, sitting still for long periods of time makes me fall asleep. You can just call me grandma.

Anyway I’m going to the Hunter open house tonight to check out my friend Bryan’s exhibit. Check him out at 1. http://www.zanisnik.com

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April 20, 2006

Fanatasy...Reality...I Don't Know

So many things have been going on lately that I hardly know where to begin. Coming back from vacation is always difficult; you always feel so out of it for the first few days. Luckily I arranged to have a couple buffer days between actually physically being back in town and having to begin the daily grind again. As it is the daily grind is making me feel like I may be trapped in the gears.

There’s only two more weeks to my first semester as a graduate student. Two more weeks, three more project presentations, one more paper, a folder of all the work I did in Arts Workshop, and two homemade bound notebooks. Bank Street is not your average school. I was talking to an NYU under-grad student who I work with and she was talking about 18 page papers. I don’t have any of those right now. A friend of mine who’s getting her masters in English at BC is writing a thirty page paper on Shakespear, I am making two notebooks with homemade bindings, one using string the other of my own devising.

Of course I also have to figure out a five week curriculum based on a fantasy rationale for fifth graders. Don’t know what a fantasy rationale is? Well don’t feel alone, I hardly do either. When I’m done writing this it will be time to try and come up with at least part of that project.

I guess the issue I’m having, with my fantasy rationale, is that I just don’t know how to go about it. Our tutoring sessions were supposed to help us think about how to construct a lesson, but mine were not like that at all. Essentially my tutoring sessions were me hanging out in the Bronx with a 12 year old black girl and listening to her boy problems while trying to get her to think of more descriptive words than nice. Most recently the comments I’ve gotten on my write ups were that I needed to be more focused and to actually try and teach something, which I of course thought I was doing.

I’ve finally hung out with one of my coworkers, outside of work, and I’m having mixed feelings about it. You meet all sorts of people in New York, and working at SBux has brought me into contact with a lot of people who grew up in the ‘hood’. Which is of course where I sort of kind of live now. At any rate my AM (assistant manager who I was hanging out with), told me all sorts of things, the most memorable being this: He thinks that guys eating ice cream cones in public are acting very gay. Actually the word he used was ‘faggoty’. Said word made me feel a little uncomfortable, my super liberal politically correct upbringing sending twinges of guilt and doubt through me every time he said it.

How does one relate/react to a person who is 23 years old, has never graduated highschool, has no drivers licence, no credit cards, no wallet for that matter, and is your superior at work? Another coworker told me about beating up a transsexual hooker just a few blocks from our store last Friday night. The hooker had solicited him and his friends, and rather then ignore her they called her acting as if they were going to give her a cigarette. Then when the hooker bent down to have the cigarette lit, they punched her in the face repeatedly.

I like the guy who told me this story, we joke around and he walks me to the subway at night when we close the store together. I also like my AM. They are hard working guys who seem to respect my opinions and my choices. So where is the line that I seem to need to draw between their behavior, their lives, and myself?

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April 17, 2006

Back From Cali

There’s only three weeks left to my first semester at Bank Street. Shocking. I remember when I was younger it felt like time stood still, Sunday afternoons especially. Now it seems that time has sped up, but I’m not complaining. Despite not being sure if time is on my side I don’t feel like I’m being passed by.

Vacation was brilliant. Despite crap weather and a missed connection in Dallas (I spent a night in Texas), Everything went rather swimmingly. Even the night in Dallas ended up being pretty awesome, because my cousin Michael, who I’d never met before, came and met me at the airport hotel. Instead of waiting in line with all the other people who’d missed their connections, and there were a lot of them, we sat in the hotel bar, drank beers, and got to know one another. He was so cool! I would try to describe him but I think words would fail me, he is a vibrant man with a past I can only begin to vaguely picture based on a three hour long conversation.

Texas was actually fun, despite the fact that it shouldn’t have been, which probably made it seem even better. There were men in cowboy hats and American flag button up shirts: and it was not the fourth of July. I ate wings in Texas while drinking Coors Light! I got to stay alone in a hotel for the very first time and eat a complimentary hotel breakfast that included biscuits and gravy! People were very polite! I left my favorite hooded sweatshirt (the one my sister brought me from Japan), in the airport shuttle, and it was there in the morning! So that was my first day of vacation.

After I actually got to California my days seemed charmed with ease. There was lots of walking around, playing with the dog, playing with my cousin Ari, bumming around museums in San Francisco, thrift store shopping, and lots and lots of eating. My Aunt Ellen works for a catering company and Carol is not a bad chef herself. I think I gained ten pounds while I was there. Oh the cheeses! Oh the breads! Oh the homemade pies, tarts, cookies!

Exclamation points!

This was pretty much the most relaxing week ever. Other then visiting family and friends I hadn’t seen in awhile and eating a lot not much was expected or asked of me. Which was a nice change of pace from living in this city where so much seems to be expected and asked of me every day.

One thing about the Bay Area that struck me was how different the homeless population is out there. Maybe it’s because the weather is so much milder, maybe it’s because everyone is a hippy, maybe I was just hanging out on the wrong streets...but the homeless out there are seriously aggressive, and seriously insane. There were so many loud homeless people out there. In NYC there’s tons of homeless people, tons of crazies, but they seem quieter, more subdued, and less prone to gathering together in groups that exceed four. I came across huge gatherings of vagrants, groups of twenty or more camped out at the civic center, or at the bottle depot behind the Claremont Safeway. Perhaps the homeless out there are just better organized? They definitely made an impression on me.

Ok, update done, it’s time to get cracking on a paper I’m supposed to be writing.

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