West = Best

Hi blog! Due to a still unexplained series of ideks, my whole student teaching schedule has been flipped upside down. On the plus side, every single side effect has been insanely positive! I'm now at West High School every morning and holy cow, I love it. My CT is a cool, comic book loving dude who is super prepared but still into the think-on-your-feet teaching style. West is in the Madison School District, so now my commute is palatable and my days are actually shorter! This is my third semester in the WLE program and we're supposed to be logging an average of 4 hours a day, so ~ 20 a week. In Middleton I was clocking like 30, 31 hours a week. I can't believe I actually have some free time during the day now! And by free time I mean absolutely necessary put-my-life-together time. So thankful. I'm in the process of taking over the German 2 class which is a great group of 13 kids (another relief- previously I was working with 29 kids per class!!). A friend I met through my roommates teaches at West and helps with their Forensics team and we're totally having lunch together every week :] Hopefully I'll get to stay there for the rest of the year. I've already been asked to advise and re-start the German Club and I might travel with the German exchange students to South Dakota over Memorial Day weekend! My CT gave me his Teachers Edition copy of Komm Mit 1 the other day. I think this is one of those official steps in transitioning from student to teacher- having the teacher's edition of a textbook, and actually enjoying reading it haha.

All in all, my day/week/life has been extremely enjoyable lately. I'm officially going on a Birthright Israel trip this December for 10 days and I can barely wait. I've wanted to see that country since my JCC times, for real. Plus after traveling, I get to spend a week in Toledo with my fam before having to head back to Madison for teaching. Even then, I'll have two weeks of half-break without additional classes before UW starts back up. To help prepare myself, I've been meeting with a wonderful woman named Shira from JEM, the Jewish Experience of Madison. They just bought and converted a frat house over on Langdon and it's so beautiful in there. We read passages from physical and online resources and talk about topics that interest me, like how to be happy and properly judge others. I definitely enjoy JEM's program one billion times more than the Bible Study I went to for a couple months last semester. Before you get too shocked, no, I am in no way questioning my preexisting beliefs. I just really enjoy learning and discussing religious history and its effects :]                          

Tel Aviv <3

Tonight I continue my tradition of seeing a shit ton of concerts this year with Of Montreal with Heller at the Majestic! Look for a post soon on  http://ihaveashittyphone.blogspot.com/ In the last couple weeks I've seen Les Claypool from Primus, Oh Land from Denmark, The Meat Puppets, and Why? for my 3rd time in Madison. Going to a rock concert just makes my day better, no matter what happens, no matter how tired I am, no matter how stressed I am. Live music is unbeatable for me. 

I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving. My roommie is from Michigan and she's kick ass enough to drop me off in Toledo on her way up. Then the Cregos and I are driving to New Hampshire to visit our other friend from way back when Sarah. She's starting grad school in NH so we're having ourselves a little orphan T-givs. Also, she just got engaged!!! This is going to be such an exciting holiday :D

Work is still too great to explain. The staff and people in the Communication Arts Department are just so great and engaging and nice. Every shift I work is a pleasure. One of my bosses took staff pictures of all us Media Assistants for the Comm Arts website. It's so fun having a picture taken of you with a fancy camera. I cannot escape my alfalfa hair however :/ Blame it on the wind?

Hello, LinkedIn prof. pic.

I would definitely classify this semester and the time I got into punk music. I've always been a fan of the few Dead Kennedys tracks I inherited on my iPod from my dad, but never delved into the genre until recently. I checked out The Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo from Four Star at the end of summer and it inspired me so much that my current radio show is punk/post-punk themed! If you want to tune in, you can listen to my show Jar. on wsum.org every Friday night from 10-11 pm central time. I wrote a little show review after I saw The Meat Puppets that the station posted on their brand spanking new blog if you'd like to check it out: http://wsum.org/2013/10/07/meat-puppets-concert-review/ It's pretty short, don't worry. 

A lot of the stuff I've been loving most I only own on vinyl, which means I get to play lots of records on air, which is addictingly fun! It sounds so good to hear the crackle and crispy crispy sound. I give myself a fair amount of freedom in terms of what I 'allow' myself to play on Jar. I love that I get to play lots of old Beastie Boys, some Man Man, Au, and of course The Residents. But I'm constantly on the search for new (/old) punk to play. I've gotten more into Wire, X, Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Clash, and Le Tigre. As for new bands (or new to me), I'm rocking to Hunx and His Punx, Broncho, Bratmobile, Suburban Lawns, and so much more. Every time I go to Four Star, I try to rent a music documentary. Now I'm focusing on punk ones. My latest was Hated, a documentary about legendary crazy insane notorious punker G.G. Allin. He's quoted as saying he wanted to make rock and roll dangerous again. You can actually watch it in its entirety on youtube, as well as We Jam Econo!! 

The Minutmen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmKGusadv08

G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piEQGeyiE-k

These are AMAZING resources and I strongly recommend both films. They'll rock your world. WARNING THOUGH: GG Allin was a crazy dude. I cannot stress that enough. When I went to the counter with it the Four Star employee gave me a whole ten minute spiel about how intense he was and I am about to watch something batshit. The doc can be a bit disturbing. Like, eating poop, breaking his own bones, breaking parole, and OD-ing on heroin disturbing. But I like his music ;]

Other than constantly listening to music as always, I've been keeping myself busy busy busy with teaching, UW classes (all three of which are going quite well), misc. meetings, and trying to have a social life. On my horizon, I want to complete the Leadership certificate, buy my plane ticket to NYC for Birthright, get all my homework done for next week, and do some leisure reading. I'm still working through The History of God and have lots of chapter cliff note entries in half completion over at http://disseminatedthinking.blogspot.com/ I'm also starting Y The Last Man and just started Volume 3 of Alias, two really good comics that have been lent to me. So much to do! But I'm so happy to do it :]

Mein wunderschönes Zimmer

Finally, after a semester of bunk beds and a semester in a doorless closet, I live in an honest to goodness awesome amazing cool apartment, and I love it. Now, if only I could clear my schedule enough to enjoy it...

No windowsill of mine is complete without a few candles and a stray pair of earrings.

Hey, Felix

Watch that throne.

"Look at all my stuff!"

The poster theme for my room this year is music, if you couldn't tell already. My desk space is surrounded by four of my favorites- my signed THL, signed Why? + Astronautalis, my beauuuuuutiful DMB one, and a Dead Kennedys collage I found is one of their record sleeves heheh

This has everything "me" is one shot- a couple of sudokus, The Residents, and an X record. <3

My life in a nutshell!

Middleton Teaching + Miscellany

This year I'm continuing in the World Language Education program by student teaching every morning at a couple schools over in Middleton. I've been working with a 7th grade German 1 class, 9th grade German 3, and seniors in German 5. Not just by grades, but each class has a different personality and energy and enthusiasm, so let me tell you no day is boring. 

While I was figuring out my crazy schedule, I worked a little bit with this 6th grade exploratory group. They were so fun! We took a walking field trip to an authentic European bakery just down the street from the Middle School. 

On the first day of school, German parents give their children Schultüten filled with treats and goodies to wish them a sweet school year. Ist meine nicht schön? :]

The big beginning of semester project at work was bar coding every single DVD that we own in the IMC. I actually thought it was pretty fun, because I stumbled upon lots of rarities that I now really want to watch.

For example, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey sounds pretty rockin'.

I took this shot of a UW Bookstore mannequin to send to my golfer brother. What kind of stance is that?? I love awkward mannequins. 

Transitory Life

I've been so satisfied with my current living situation, I almost forgot about the photos from my last days at Buttercup, my old apartment.

To Princess Buttercup:

with your holes in the wall

unlimited supply of coffee filters,

and really quite wonderful sunset views.

When I was packing up, I realized I had left a circle of influence around all my schtuff.

Look at all my shit!

I also found one of my old watches, which I got a kick out of. I'm of the temperament that I like the designs of these two watches equally. Pink, blingy and oversized or tiny, black and modern. Me gusta. 

Oh, and here's me having a beer on the terrace after giving blood like a normal person does, right? I miss summer.

"Turn your blood into beer!"

I had a fairly crazy moving week in August where I had two consecutive 'homeless' nights crashing on E Heller's couches. My boss let me stash a couple bags of stuff at my work so I just carried my huge-ass backpack around campus and lived off the clothes on my back for a couple. Madison, you're a crazy city for having everyone's leases end the way that they do, lemme tell ya. I knew I'd be posting on my blogs a lot more often during the summer, but I still feel a little bad for neglecting Super Bonn Bonn for all of September! Where did that month even go?? 

Grand 5

I was so proud of the fire we made the last night! Props to Grace. We cut up a bunch of potatoes, mixed in some butter, jerky, cheese, salt, and pepper, threw them onto the first for 40 minutes, and pow, potates!

Look at our trunk! We packed this car so beautifully, imo. Some time in Nebraska we ended up with enough space to actually see through the back for a while! That was great. 

Here's the canyon from the top, which is pretty funky. Like, there's a giant canyon in the ground. 

Red rocks!! All about the red rocks. 

The bottom of this cloud looked redish because of reflecting off the red rocks we think.

On the road againnnnnnn

You don't realize how amazing it is to see mountains everywhere until you get back to your boring mid west landscapes whomp whomp. 

We overnighted in Moab, Utah and had an amazing two-hour long rafting adventure. We paddled on a 10-person boat through a couple of rapids. The funnest part was floating through a rapid outside of the boat. The weather was fantastic and our river guide was really fun. We crashed in a hotel in Sterling, Colorado I think, then spend the last day driving to Minneapolis! We arrived at Heller's house around 8 pm with enough time to shower and eat some warm food before catching the Megabus back to Madison.

What a great summer of road trips!

And now I'm back! I worked that same Monday afternoon and started professional development at Kromrey Middle School Tuesday through Thursday. Can't believe the semester is right around the corner, but I'm really excited. It's a different kind of busy, but my classes seem fun, my job is still rocking, I'm really into working with my cooperating teacher, and I'll be getting experience teaching 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grades!

Grand 4

Thursday was our last full day at the park so we fit in all the miscellaneous places we wanted to visit.

Found this cool cemetery on the walk from the campgrounds to the shuttle. The earliest grave I found was from someone born in 1799 !!

One of the highlights of the day was walking the Trail of Time. Each large step signifies 100 million years of history or something and is designated by a little plate in the ground and along the way they've included chunks of rock from each era/layer of the canyon. One had some cool trilobites fossils.

Walking 'off-road' along the rim was a must-do whenever we could.

Ran into this little guy along the way and I caught this shot of her looking right at me!

I never got tired of looking at rocks.

Emily looks dead

Hiking AND learning!

All in all, we walked from Yavapai Point to Hermit's Rest during our four days. Your perspective is always distorted because I feel you can't fully understand how big the area is. 

Here's a zoom out of the 3D map of the canyon. 

The Geology Museum was really cool! It was originally built because it had some of the best views of the Canyon and was used as a scientific research station back in the day. We learned about the formation of the Canyon starting from an era where North America was down by the Equator. Then we walked over to the Grand Canyon Visitor Center and picked up Junior Ranger Booklets, which were super fun to fill out. We also watched a really majestic short film called Journey to Wonder where we saw clips from the earliest explorers to sail down the Colorado. Their wooden boats would bump back and forth against all the rocks, I can't believe anyone survived it!

This squirrel was contemplating it's life on that edge for a while. 

The Park Rangers said that Hopi Point was the best spot to watch a sunset over the canyon so there we headed.  One activity in the junior ranger book was to sit in silence at the canyon for ten minutes and write your thoughts. We asked Ranger Eric some questions about the river and got him to sign our ranger books. 

Straight up chilling

Maggie was excited to become a junior ranger! ...Grace not quite so much. 

There's the Colorado River way down there.