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 :]