last day

Sometimes the train takes up the whole living room (from the summer).

A public school student leading the one who is not (yet).

May stuff

Theo had a little preschool graduation ceremony in May, and despite my purposeful indifference toward it, I still managed to cry a little bit.  They walked in to pomp and circumstance!

A great picture of the water table at our old downtown house.  I don't miss the space or the landlord, but I do miss the downtown frolicking.

Bros pt. II

I don't know if all brothers do stuff like this, or just my pair, but butt jokes, maneuvers, and general fascination dominate my household.

Kinder to the garten

This is a red letter year for many reasons, one of them being our inauguration into the public school system as parents.  Deciding where to send Theo to school was a huge journey that involved visiting many schools, registering in two different lotteries, applying to a private school, and moving.

Theo ended up getting off of the lottery wait list for one of the best public charter schools in the state and it has been absolutely amazing.  Intellectually and morally, I understand the educational problems inherent in the charter school movement and its impact on public education, but, for what it's worth, this charter is not a rocketship, or other corporate-backed entity.  It's more like a small, alternative elementary school that is year-round.  It is also almost completely run by parent volunteer hours, which is evidence of the real power in community organizing to make things better, and also a sad reminder that in our current economic system, those in most need of a strong community-run school can't have it because they don't have the time necessary to build it.

There was a star party last weekend which had crafting booths, hot chocolate, and expensive telescopes. Last week, Theo had one of the most amazing 3-day lessons I've ever heard of (would be John Dewey approved).  He went on a field trip to a pumpkin patch, followed by a day of "pumpkin science" where the kids tested out each of their pumpkins in a tank of water to see if they would sink or float (all floated).  Then they counted the lines on the pumpkins (Theo's had 19) and measured its diameter (14 inches, a fact he was able to recall a week later).  The next day, they took the seeds out of a small and big one in order to see which one had the most seeds (small).  It was totally engaging for all of the kids and I only know about it because he told me about it (unlike some days, when he can't tell me anything he did in school).  Also, I've seen parents wear kilts at the school, and I had to attend 9 hours of positive discipline training. AWESOME!

Here's his K picture:

Bros

These two are either playing together nicely (most of the time), or instantly angry about some perceived injustice.  I love watching the beauty of sibling negotiation and am saddened that it's only like this--the non-negotiable roommate--for a brief time in their lives.

Kwazii and the pirate

It’s nablopomo, and I’m in a temporary life phase where I am so busy that I don’t have any decisions to make about my time.  It’s sort of freeing—not making decisions because I have between 5-10 different places to be every week and I just sort of shuffle around, do lots of homework, fulfill requirements, and then sleep about 6 hours/night.  I’ve had a hard time deciding if I’m happier right now because I have no decisions to make about my time, or because I’m on the precipice of career changes that are very exciting to me.  As usual, only time will tell! 

I have no time to write about our life, but I am going to try to at least post a picture every day, in honor of this thing I used to do when I had full control over my brain.  Don’t worry, friends, I’m in the home stretch, and will get my brain back within the next year. 

After 8 years of living on the Delmas in downtown SJ, we moved!  We live in a house, in a neighborhood, with a yard, a dishwasher, bath tub, air conditioning, actual bedrooms, garage, and closets.  This is the first time in my adult like that I have all of those things together in one dwelling!  Since we are in the bay area, we do not own this house, but rather pay the equivalent of the mortgage for a small office building.  It’s absurd, but I think we’re chill with it for now because it’s just so delightful and grown-up feeling.  We have a park right across the street and there are no drunk people on our lawn. 

I say all this to set the stage for another first in my adult life: trick-or-treaters!  I had no idea what to expect, so I bought some finger bubbles, cheese balls, fruit snacks and chocolate.  I ran out after about 30 minutes, at which point I hunkered down and nervously listened as children incessantly rang the doorbell and turned the knob on our door (?) to try to come in (?).  At various points, I considered other things to offer, like trains, oranges, leftover chicken fingers, the kids’ gummy bears, a slime making kit, grapes, edamame, and handfuls of trail mix.  All in all, a success! 

Theo dressed up as his favorite character on Octonauts, and went trick-or-treating with his friend.  Charlie was a pirate and helped me hand out candy at home—a job for which he’s a natural as he likes greeting people (I do not).  

Synesthesia

I am a color and a number. Actually, I am three different numbers. One describes my relationship to the corporation, another to the room, and the third to a part of a standardized test. My color is goldenrod, which I like because it can be used as a pH indicator. Sometimes, when you work for a multinational testing conglomerate that may be a cause (symptom?) of the loss of the ideological meaning in education, it’s the little things that get you through the day (even if you only have a total of 8 to get through). But we don’t talk about that here. We don’t talk about much, though I try. My first day was stunning--the machine-like nature of this human enterprise. I have consumed a lot science fiction, and much of it centers on the future of work (how could it not given that it constitutes most of our waking hours?). My mind went to Metropolis, then Black Mirror and Her. I decided this felt like living in a dystopian work nightmare, so I tried to share that idea with other workers in my position (one color and three numbers). There were many chuckles, but no one really ran with it, you know? I treat it like a litmus test. My people would have loved to run with it. I guess that is to say that I haven’t found my people here. They’re usually hard for me to find, and probably only a handful come to mind (Rose, Katy, Paulina, Natan, Rachel, Eric, Jesse, Jon). When I thought about this, I was sort of sad. I’m forty, and there are really only eight people who I’ve met who would have run with it? Who would commiserate with me about the dystopian nature of this place? Would they now anyway? We’re old and mellow. Maybe railing against capitalism is only for the young. Maybe making connections is only for the young?

But back to the basics. We start at 8, and are not to be one minute late. Breakfast officially closes at 7:45, to ensure your proper arrival in your seat. If you’re still getting your food at 7:50, they send other, different workers (colors, but no numbers) to the line to spoon out your oatmeal for you so that you can still be in your seat on time. I know this because they tell you so in a chipper voice. Being late is practically written into my DNA, so this part of the day is particularly challenging for me. I cannot get to breakfast any earlier than 7:42. I was turned away one day for arriving right at 7:45 (on the dot; to the second), but I didn’t really learn my lesson. A tiger can’t change its stripes, you know?

I eat breakfast really, really fast, because if I am to be in my seat at 8 sharp, then I need to leave the dining hall at 7:55. There’s always a line at the top of the escalator going down, which can make you late. Workers of another color get a two minute window, but not goldenrod. If we’re one minute late, the room leader sits in our chair to shame us and our table leader looks panicked. I know this because I am always 30 seconds late, but never one minute late. But always later than the rest of my table, which is not a pleasant way to start the day. They can’t fire us because it’s a temporary job and they need us more than we need them (let’s face it).

There are exactly 2 minutes of announcements at 8 am, including encouragement to “keep up our pace” and “make sure to balance speed with fair grading”. It’s at this point that I think of the The Circle. How nauseating that book made me, as I have developed a pretty healthy disgust of the tech world. In particular, the mad attempts to quantify a human…a living breathing carbon-based lifeform with a soul (I think. Or a spirit as Theo calls it). The future of work: where people have no autonomy and their every external decision is recorded (as a proxy for their mind? For their worth as a worker? For their worth as a human? If mind-reading were real, would multinational corporation want to do it? Dave Eggers thinks so.) One of my numbers generates lots of data every day: my speed, accuracy, reliability. It doesn’t capture the moments when I think about something that makes me happy. They’d probably have to develop eye motion detectors to do that. Maybe someday they will. Today I thought about walking across a river with Theo and Charlie. I could feel the cold water and see the cute little knobby legs of cute little boys. It was brief, but a break from the cog-like feeling of every other moment of the day.

At 8:02, we begin grading. The room is silent and it takes, on average, 35 minutes for me to need my sweater. We are to sit, or stand if we need. Bathroom breaks during this time are discouraged, because we have federally mandated 15 minute breaks every 2 hours. I’ve started taking additional breaks anyway. I know it’s frowned upon because there is a sign that helpfully lists our break schedule that’s taped to the door of the bathroom. I think it’s to help us plan better for the rest of the day, so that we don’t need additional breaks. I don’t care though, because I’m a super-fast reader, and I don’t think they’ll see anything suspicious in my data. I luxuriate in those breaks. It’s a time of autonomy. I walk past our helper-workers (red, no numbers) and get jealous of their homemade and whimsical chair signs (why do goldenrods have to have a computer generated sign? I would prefer to make my own. It would have a volcano with a slugma on it). I peek in to the other reading areas, and walk slowly past the lead reader’s office. All “rooms” are made with semitransparent curtains held up by interlocking metal poles, so walking slowly gives me a chance to decipher what’s happening in there. She stares at a computer. I assume it shows a stream of our data, automatically plotted in three different ways (speed, accuracy, precision), so that she can pick out anything unusual. Sometimes our table leaders get called away. Then they come back and have quiet conversations with one of us. Luckily, it’s never happened to me. I bet my r-squared is pretty high.

When I return, I know I can’t take another bathroom break until after the next scheduled break, so I usually hunker down and focus. Occasionally I think of something that makes me happy. Today I stretched and stared at the ceiling for approximately 5 seconds. We have circular fluorescent lights on the ceiling. I was reminded of the X-Files and those circular fluorescent lights that they have in various FBI warehouses and/or alien examination rooms.

There’s a break at ten, and we are served beverages and a snack. It’s only two hours after breakfast, so I’m not really hungry, but who can turn down a chocolate chip scone, you know? One of my table mates just puts her head down and sleeps, but I can’t do that. I need to walk in order to make it to lunch. I don’t walk far, and I walk slowly. It more the principle of the thing, I think. I check my phone to see if we’re in a war yet, or if he’s been impeached (at which point the future of work would start to look like Gilead, I think--with Pence at the helm? …our bodies as property of the state/corporation more than they are now. But perhaps our bodies as more important than our minds...the opposite of now?). A lot can happen in two hours, and we are not allowed to have our phones out, so the break is my only time to assess the current state of world affairs. There’s a group that plays hacky sack, but it just seems too complicit with things to me.

I’m all for making your own happiness wherever you are, but I’m also for revolt and the small ways you can express your discontent. I guess as a cog in the wheel of a for-profit company that may or may not be ruining education, I’m more for revolution. I don’t want to enjoy myself AT the job. I want to enjoy myself in spite of the job. I’m sure there’s a difference there and hacky sack is absolutely where I draw the line. The hacky sack makes me think of Katy, which in turn makes me mad at the hacky sackers. How could they?

I have to be inside the outside room door by 10:13 or I won’t make it to my seat in time, and you know what happens then. My question number is the first one inside the door. I bet the other question numbers have to be in even earlier. Suckers! Their break is probably technically only 13 minutes. Why don’t corporations account for small discrepancies like this? Is it because the binary can never really apply to the real world, with carbon-based soul-having lifeforms, no matter how hard we pretend it does? This mid-morning stretch is easier, since there’s only 1 hour and 45 minutes until lunch. When I am within five minutes of lunch, I feel my pace slowing down. I do things like bubble in the grades slowly, or write my name in the boxes. It’s my way or winding down while still performing work. At some jobs you can stare at the wall for a little bit, or do some stretching in your chair. At multinational educational grading company, you don’t have that luxury. Your body (hand, really) has to be in motion until the man on the microphone tells you to break.

At lunch, we ride two sets of escalators up to the third floor of the non-descript warehouse “conference center”, the likes of which resides in every major population center, but is, in fact, an unremarkable middle finger to the notion of architecture and beauty. It is efficiently scaled for thousands of people, not meant to make them happy, or bring out some deeper meaning in the universe. Corporate data analysts would probably see the beauty in that if they were to look at the cost/person to run the thing. I think of The Geography of Nowhere, and the travesty that is most of the US landscape (except for San Francisco, which is the most European, and therefore beautiful, city in the US. I also hear Minneapolis is nice).

Speaking of the travesty of the US landscape, the dining hall is approximately the size of a football stadium and has three movie theater screens projecting cable news all day long. Not Fox News (thank goddess), but it doesn’t really matter under our current political leadership, as all news kind of seems like Fox News now. Constant vapid analysis of the terrorist attack in London and screenshots of Trump’s tweets are on constant display. It reminds me of the Black Mirror episode, “Fifteen Million Merits”, except in that case, work allowed you to turn the constant noise off. There’s no way to turn it off in the dining hall. I choose to eat my lunch facing the doors. I don’t really know anyone here, so I usually pick a table that’s almost empty or has introverted people at it and just try to go with the conversation. One time, I talked to people who taught in rural Kentucky. I decided it was my duty to try to understand how the most desperate people in our country could vote for Trump. They told me that all their community members care about is guns, and they’ve been convinced that all Democrats want to take them away, so they will always vote Republican. That’s a different analysis than the other ones we hear, so I was mildly interested. They also told me their student’s plans after high school are to 1. Fight chickens and 2. Go on welfare. This plan made me very interested to learn more, but they weren’t able to offer much additional analysis except to say that the families are all (parents and students) addicted to heroin and hopeless. When I went home that night, I read this New Yorker article about heroin in West Virginia. The bay area is truly a different country.

One morning I talked to a teacher from Virginia, and told him about my summer fellowship to spend a week at Monticello with free reign over the historical site. He was an older white guy, and in fact, the fifth older white person this year who I have really educated in the ways of Thomas Jefferson. I like to disabuse them of the notion that he’s a constitutional purist (they never know that he wanted to rewrite the constitution every 27 years. I read his letter about it in Boston). I also like to play devil’s advocate about old TJ and his awesome philosophical beliefs, but horrible real-world decision making. They have all excused him of that, though I don’t. That’s the problem with John McCain, right? Words are meaningless until you do something on their behalf. Anyway, he seemed relatively bemused by me, and then I saw him later and he seemed downright enjoying the company of another group, which made me feel awkward. It’s a lifelong problem (except with my people, you know?).

After lunch, we head down the two escalators for the hardest stretch of the day, from 1-3:15. It’s longer than any other work period, and if you’re not careful, a real case of the food coma can set in. It’s during this period that I definitely take an unauthorized bathroom break. The thing about grading 500 tests/day is that you really start to see how humans have a sort of hive mind. I remember being shocked to learn that the three most common submissions to the New Yorker caption contest were the same themes that 95% of the contestants riffed on. It’s amazing that we all kind of come to the same conclusion/perspective given the same input. It’s definitely true in these test answers. What really separates them out seems to be their ease with the written word, not a difference in understanding the academic content. There are some that are funny—long essays on their prom date, or a cute drawing of an elephant. Out of the 2500 that I graded, there was one that was a manifesto on how the multinational testing corporation was ruining education and developing courses requiring teachers to teach to a test. I really liked that one, and I let myself sit there for a minute with a renewed hope that the kids really ARE going to be alright. But then I read a few about how global warming was a hoax perpetuated to vilify capitalism, or about how people should be given the death penalty for shooting elephants, or how we can control nature and fix extinction with gene therapy/elephant vaccines/selective breeding. Those kinds of answers are all so very American—the true pathos of our culture that I really don’t think would make any sense in someplace like France, say. Let’s just say it renewed my resolve to raise my children elsewhere.

We have a break at 3:15, but this time the snacks tend to be savory, which I like. Little cups of cheese cubes with individual packets of crackers, or Terra chips. I check my phone again to feel like I’m a part of the outside world, and I walk slowly to the front door to visually check the weather. I always fill my water bottle with ice, which I can retrieve from a large garbage can, an unappealing way to store it, to be sure. At this point, my mind is numb, my eyes hurt a little, and I feel like a zombie. I can usually feel my own presence in the world….my thoughts and feelings mingling with strangers, taking in the events around us and as a collection of carbon-based lifeforms with a soul. But after working for almost 8 hours at multinational testing corporation’s grading warehouse, I feel nothing. Every day I leave that place, go back to my hotel room, and take a 30 minute nap. I think it’s my brain resetting, making itself able to get dinner, join the world of my people (even if it is through google hangout), and prepare for the next day, when I am again a color and three numbers.

March madness

This is the first day of our dystopian world that has felt…OK? Not side-splittingly horrendous? But only starting in the afternoon when the ACA repeal failed, and only after a night of horrible sleep caused by the knowledge that republicans sincerely hate most people, but especially poor people and women.  I mean, I know there are worse governments out there, but we’ve got to be the bottom of the post-industrial ones, right?  Every day since November 8^th has felt like a peek behind the curtain at the intestines of our country, and they are so very rotten, split open by bird bones and rocks.  At least that imagery gives me pleasure, because our world crisis certainly does not.

I’ve got a few months left of work and class until the summer and I could not be more excited.  I will be half way done with my coursework, which has been a real challenge to pull off, as I have mentioned before.  But half-way is on the downward slope, and I can handle one more year, even if it means I won’t be able to blog (or read, or craft, or spend all evenings with my family, etc. The finishing a degree as an adult struggle is very real).  One of the most ironic parts of this whole experience is how, in the pursuit of more freedom and leisure, one must give up most of their freedom/leisure (though temporarily).  I am told what to read, and what to write about, and where to be several nights a week.  As a person who has been in the working world within the field of education for 10 years, I find this very off-putting.  I wish there were a more innovative way to change roles in the education world, rather than doing more years of school.  It seems like for most jobs, you just do a few months of training to learn how to take on a new role in your field.  In education, you are required to take two years of classes.  At the end of this, I will have taken 4 years of education classes....to be a teacher and a school psychologist.  For two fields desperately in need of people, they sure don't make it easy.

It’s strange that I can’t point to any note-worthy events of the past several months.  I’m out of the blogging routine, so I don’t commit to memory funny things, like I might if I had time to blog.  I’d like to be more regimented about it, but I still have about 40 pages of educationese to write in the next six weeks, so I probably won’t have the mental space until June.  C'est la vie. 

Anyhoo, both boys had birthdays this winter.  Theo turned 5, and Charlie, 2.  I made some birthday crowns.  I am particularly proud of the Pokemon one for Theo.  We went to his school and did science experiments with his class.  It was a great day--even better than a party, I think, because everyone was there and we stayed for the whole morning.  We took a long Poke-walk in the evening and ate Indian food (his choice!).

Charlie's birthday was a little more low-key.  We ate cake and sang to him

These guys really like each other--a fact that warms my heart daily.

They like playing together, laughing at each other, and generally being pals. 

They held hands in the car on the way home from the store this week, totally of their own volition. 

I went to the Museum of Tolerance on a school field trip, which required me to share a room with another person and get home at 2 am, two details that I roundly hated, as I am a 40 year woman with two kids. 

Future album cover

In February, Theo and I went to the Chinese New Year parade in SF, which was delightful.  He was at charm level maximum for everyone around us.

Some other family events of late:  I took Theo to a hockey game, he had his first cavity filled, he rode his big wheel all over San Jose, there were lots of trips to the children's discovery museum, Charlie is talking more (though still mostly unintelligible).

Eve of disaster

Whelp, an awful lot has happened since I last blogged.  I left this space feeling like I wanted to debrief our family summer travels, and now look at us.  Inauguration eve, and I guess there’s no better time than now to jump back in?  I will be teaching tomorrow, dutifully drowning out thoughts of the ceremonial beginning of the end, in favor of making many small decisions all day long (aka teaching, the hardest job I will ever have).  We’re studying water quality, and teaching anything about the environment is just downright depressing these days.  After the election, I gave an impassioned speech to my students about the importance of understanding the science of the environment in times like these, when morally bankrupt rich people hem and haw in front of congressional committees, blissfully lacking in empathy or conscience.  The truth is that it’s hard to be optimistic when you wake up anxious and feel as if the world is made of madmen who see black where you see white.  I’ve been to the parts of Mississippi that are the subject many stories and grew up in the racist milieu of the white people who voted for Trump (SEMO and Arizona, for the win!).  Those places seemed safer when the government was a step ahead of them, forcing them into the present—like they’d eventually get there, to more education, compassion, worldliness.  Now it doesn’t seem possible, like they’re just going to eat up anything with needs that are not their own.  Ever since we visited MS, I’ve been pestering Natan to move there as school psychologists, and make our careers about school change in places that seem unchangeable.  I don’t have that dream anymore.  Now I worry about my kids more than anything, and want desperately for them to have a social safety net and a sense that the people in charge have a moral compass.  I don’t want their sense of the world and right/wrong to be based on chasing money.  I don’t want every single freaking moral decision that is made to be supported with some “economic argument”.  What about making policy because it’s the right thing to do to help people?  There is a toxicity to our culture/political system that I can’t handle right now as a parent.  I’m just trying to make their life experiences happy and removed from the greater culture.  We have a while, still, where we are able to shelter them, and that at least gives me some comfort. 

Life is super busy right now for us, and it feels like I might not be able to blog much while I’m in this big career change.  It’s much harder than I realized to be working, in school, and have kids.  Within each of those spheres are a million little responsibilities and tasks and I feel like I am never without something to follow up on, scan in, or deal with.  We’re in transition right now as a family—Theo’s going to school next year, Charlie will start preschool, I’m taking full time classes for the next year and a half, Natan will be taking classes for a while.  All the moving parts have so many levers to make them work.   It’s maddening.  I miss blogging, and writing out my thoughts, but I have very little time to do anything these days.  

Brief summary and some pics

I finally got to write a paper on The Wire, an activity I didn’t realize I was craving!  I did an analysis of Dukie from a bio-psycho-social perspective for a social work class (that I otherwise did not enjoy).  The paper was fun, though.  In conclusion, the stabilizing benefits of the school system are not enough to make a difference in the lives of kids who lives and communities are chaotic.

I also wrote a lot about early childhood education, which always causes an existential crisis in a fan of the enlightenment and rationality such as myself.  I mean, there are amazing longitudinal and latitudinal datasets available that support the economic benefit of universal pre-K, especially for those in poverty.  Nobel Prize winning work, even!  Yet, here we sit as a country debating its merits.  It boggles the mind.  It likewise drives me crazy when I’m in any meeting where technology in the classroom is being discussed.  I mean, there is actual data to support school-wide policy decisions!?  Why is anything being “discussed”?  Can we not just look at what works and do it?  The answer is no, we cannot, because we like the sound of something and think it would be fun to try, data be damned. 

But I digress, Theo is really into Pokemon Go.  We take lots of Poke walks and he likes to stick eyeballs on things and call them Pokemon.

Charlie is walking, but not talking, and is smitten with Natan, his favorite parent.  He broke his thumb in a fall out of the crib (November was horrendous on so many fronts), but got used to the cast fairly quickly.  

 We had a lot of people come for Christmas!  It was excellent.

We got a family santa picture, which felt really weird.