whoopsie-doozie

Johnny called me this morning, and when I picked up said, "I need you to find something funny so that I don't end up killing Eoin." Luckily for my nephew, I think the fact that he tried to give his sister "a haircut just like mine" is hilarious.

According to the photo Johnny sent me, it's sort of a faux-mullet, but Nola thinks she looks "so pretty." Maybe I should preemptively nominate her for What Not to Wear, so that when she get to the buying-her-own-clothes stage, we don't have any problems. This young woman needs some Stacy and Clinton up in her life.


UPDATE: Now she and I have the same haircut!

wise beyond their years

No school today, so I've been running some errands this morning. As I was walking through my neighborhood, I heard a few sevenish-year-olds chatting as they rode bikes.

"Did you just say something mean about my teacher?"
"He said 'expectations.'"
"Yeah, and actually that's a good thing. Teachers should have expectations."
"It makes us want to obey them."

ha I don't know about that "obey" stuff.

HI-larious.

Almost makes me want to have a kid. So that I can drug her//him, videotape it, and post it on the Internets.

Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!

When I was little and my Mom was on the phone and I wanted to talk to her, I didn't care that she was on the phone. I would call her name, and then when she didn't answer, I would start tapping her gently on the hand or the leg, whisper-shouting, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!" as if she didn't hear me the first time. And most often, I'd really need to tell her whatever it was when she was on the phone with Conor's doctor, or Ireland, or some other clearly important call.

I saw a little girl doing the same thing tonight to her mom at Target. The mom was clearly just trying to think. The little girl didn't give a shit. It was hilarious. The mom looked at me all frustrated but smiling, and I was like, "Um, I think she's trying to get your attention." Then I turned to the little girl, who couldn't have been more than five, and said jokingly, "Well, if she'd answered you the first time..." The little girl goes, "Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I know. I mean, sometimes I have to ask her the same thing eighteen times! It's so annoying!"

WHAT!?

Last night, as I was walking down the street, there were three little girls playing in a front yard. Their game seemed to require that one of them have a blanket over her head and chase around after the other two. Anyway, as I was walking by, Blanket heard me and thought I was one of her friends, so she started walking after me. Then her friends, giggling, yelled, "No, that's not us! That's a woman!"

A woman? I'm not old!

The Dark Side, right here on W California Ave!

As I was walking home this afternoon, the kids that live across the street from me were out playing in the snow. There are three little boys, and two of them were rubbing snow in each other's faces, the only parts of their little bodies not bundled over. The third boy was building a snow fort on his own until he coaxed his brothers over to help him, saying, "Help me build a snow fort! Come over here to the dark side! We have cookies!"

little kids are SO weird

As I was walking to the local library early this afternoon to sign up for a library card (ever since Mobile, I've been sort of in to collecting library cards?) and to get some finals work done, I happened to be passing an elementary school when the students were at recess. The whole playground there is surrounded by a six-foot- tall chain-link fence, and there were these three little fuckers pressed right up against it. They had to be in about second grade. They were standing on their tippie-toes with their heads tilted upwards and their tongues out, licking the tiny icicles that had formed on the horizontal bar running across the middle of the fence.
So I said: "Hey! Your tongues are going to stick!"
cute kid 1: "Huh?"
me: "Your tongues are going to stick to the pole!"
cute kid 2: "No they're not."
me: "Okay."
cute kid 3: "Are you going to tell?"
me: "No. What do I look like?"
cute kid 1: "We like to eat these."
me: "Well what about the germs?"
cute kid 2: "We like to eat these."
me: "Okay."

told me to tell you

When I was in second or third grade, my best friend and I, charged with a duty to fundraise for our school and motivated by the chance to win a frantic minute in the flying money box, set out one afternoon to sell some World's Finest Cholocate. For whatever reason, we decided that her block would be better than mine, tragically unaware that the lack of foresight that we demonstrated in not coming up with a thorough plan for the distribution of our labor was about to cause catastrophe.

One of her neighbor's bought three chocolate bars from me; that is, six dollars into my manilla envelope, and not hers. And she was pissed. An argument over who had the right to sell candy to that particular neighbor ensued, escalated, and culminated in my hair getting pulled. (I'm going somewhere with this, by the way.) This is the way that I remember the incident, although I'm sure she recalls it differently.

Anyway, I ended up running home crying, and darting down to my parents' office in the basement to relate my tale of woe to my mom. I can't remember her advice, but it must have been sufficient for helping me to move on; because, I was making my way back upstairs to my room when I passed the back door and happened to engage in what was to be one of the most poignant scenes of my life. My friend stood there, her cheeks stained with tears. "MY MOM SAID TO TELL YOU I'M SORRY!" she said, in a kind of heavy-metal sing-song. "FINE!" I responded. And it actually did end up being fine, much to both of our relief.

Yesterday I had the honor of attending an awards banquet put on by the College of Education for the purpose of recognizing outstanding scholars and giving them a chance to thank their scholarship sponsors. I was seated at a table with my parents and two of my brothers, a classmate, her father, and the grandson of the sponsor of a scholarship I was given.

Throughout brunch, my sponsor's grandson told me about his grandmother and her commitment to education. She sounds like a really interesting and admirable woman, and so when it was time for me to accept my scholarship and say a word of thanks, I was sincere in my gratitude for being awarded in her name.

After pictures with the Dean, I went back to my table and handed the folder with the certificate in it to my mom so that she could have a look. Amused, she handed it back to me, calling my attention to the flyer inside that reads in CAPS locked, bolded italics, "PLEASE MAKE SURE TO HAND WRITE YOUR NOTE TO YOUR DONOR" It goes on:

SAMPLE:
Dear Dr./Mr. or Mrs. Donor:

1st paragraph

• tell why you are writing
• refer to scholarship by its name

2nd paragraph

• talk about where you are from, year of study & your major/focus
• you may want to reveal why you chose to attend UIUC
• point out your accomplishments, professional affiliations or oranizational involvement

3rd paragraph

• close by sharing your goals & future plans
• be sure to thank the donor for their generosity in providing this scholarship and tell the donor how their support has made a difference

Thank the donor again.

Sincerely,
Your name

Give me a freaking break; this is hilarious. Recalling the World's Finest adventure, I've got this image of myself standing slouched at this woman's back door, apathetically mumbling, "The College of Ed told me to tell you I'm grateful."

"Next year I meet the world."

The last time I was home, I had a good laugh with my brothers about a timeline that Neil, the youngest of us, made for a school project. Here are pictures of some of the best parts:

(a little blurry, sorry)

1990: Next year I will MEET THE WORLD!
1991: I start shooting rubber bands.
1993: I ran a race with my dad. [Dad's wearing a t-shirt that says 1994]
2000: 9th birthday, New millenium, went to Boston, started school at Redeemer [... you know, the usual]

Neil put this timeline together when he was ten years old, so what he'd put on his timeline now might make it look radically different. What's important to the Story of Neil might now be different; although you'd probably still mark the first rubber band you shot, right Neil?

I wonder how interesting it might be to look at timelines and play with them as a medium for demonstrating progression. By definition, they're formally linear, so does that mean that the stories they tell must also be linear? Or might the form antagonize the content in interesting ways? It would be kinda cool, I think, to look at timelines in K-12 history textbooks. What's important enough to be included? What must get left out in order to clarify the progression? Maybe I could create a lesson plan that asks my students to timeline out some odd, seemingly unrelated stuff, and then see if by cementing events in a line we can make silly connections across them to tell a story.

talking to kids

Last night as I was going to sleep, I listened to this week's episode of This American Life, called 341: How to Talk to Kids. It starts off totally hilarious. Ira's hanging out with these fifth-grade kids and they're telling him all about the general nature of the way that grown-ups talk to them and how it's largely ridiculous. They lament the incessant, "How's school?" and "So, do you have a booooyfriend/giiiiirlfriend?" And rightly so, huh?

I started to have a little bit of trouble falling asleep, though, as I thought honestly about the things that I know I've said to my young cousins and other random kids. I'm totally guilty of "How's school?" Fuck. How can I avoid falling into the trap of being a lame adult who doesn't know how to have a conversation with a kid? So I'm thinking of drafting a list of interesting and respectful questions for kids so that I have a reserve of good stuff to say whenever I come across a young'n. Suggestions are welcome.

escalation

Today's gotten progressively better.

Initially, I was crabby as hell, but Kasey sent me this ecard:


...whatever. (Kind of hilarious.)

Later, as I was walking past Presidential Towers, which is a high-rise apartment building on campus, I saw a little boy, couldn't have been more than four, look up, become dizzied by the tallness, and fall over.

And the best thing about today? I just got an email from the Library Catalog about a cool new book that just came into the University's library system that I can use for my upcoming project on language and hip-hop. I didn't really know what the deal was -- how the card catalog knew what kinds of books I would like -- so I used the new "Ask A Librarian" feature at the library website. Here's the conversation:

Hi. We are here to help you with your research. Ask us!
aimguest1550036: Hi! I just received an email from the
Library Catalog Boolean Search. I'm confused.
AskUIUC: hmmm. what's the email subject?
aimguest1550036: The book the email is telling
me about is relevant to a search I've performed recently, and sounds really cool. Can you tell me more about this system?
aimguest1550036: Library Catalog Boolean Search Search for GKEY Black AND KEY Language
aimguest1550036: (That's the subject.)
AskUIUC: oh sure -- you can save searches (and it sounds like you must have saved this one)
aimguest1550036: hm.. inadvertently
aimguest1550036: but very cool
AskUIUC: and then receive email updates when we get new materials
AskUIUC: that match your search terms!
aimguest1550036: ahh... you answered my question before I could ask it
aimguest1550036: very cool
aimguest1550036: thanks!
AskUIUC: you're welcome.
AskUIUC: you can see your saved searches by logging into your account
AskUIUC: in the library catalog.
aimguest1550036: oh okay. good to know
AskUIUC: there's a button labeled "My Searches" on your account page
AskUIUC: so you can add more searches or change preferences or whatever.
aimguest1550036: great
AskUIUC: anything else i can help you with tonight?
aimguest1550036: that's should do it! thanks very much!
AskUIUC: you're welcome. have a good night. :)
aimguest1550036: you too
AskUIUC: thanks!
AskUIUC: bye!

I happened to be accessing the site from a computer lab on campus, so it didn't have AIM or any other messenger system installed. The "Ask A Librarian" site, though, has the messenger built into the page, so it's easy as pie. I don't care how dorky it is to admit, I'm bowled over by the efficiency, usefulness, and coolness of our library right now!