Tuesday, October 21, 2014

enjoying the ride...

It's been a long while since my last post, not surprising given the hectic pace of quarter 1 2014. I picked up a new prep this year when I started teaching AP English 12, so those eleven weeks were tough ones.

Now we've reached the idyllic quarter break. This year, Chris and I opted to stay home and chill, which is just what we needed. We're both sick (figures), but at least I can spend all day in my PJs.

This week is a time to slow down, but last week was a time for exploration.

From 12-18 October, I found myself in the company of 18 lovely G12 students and two charming colleagues, Jonny and Linda. We spent the week rambling around Rajasthan, a northern state, looking at beautiful ancient things, roaming chaotic markets, and eating as much as possible.

First stop: Jodhpur, one of my favorite places in India. After a 22-hour train, it was great to have our freedom back! We only stopped in this city for a day, unfortunately, and explored Mehranghar Fort quickly. It was my second time there, but it was just as enchanting as I remember.

Still, the highlight of the stop (for me), was the camel safari we took. Camels are pretty awesome and also terrifying. They're tall!

two of our tiniest girls on a giant beast - shivi (on the left) is one of our advisees
Though the ride was short, it reminded me of horseback riding, which I really miss.

Second stop: Ajmer. I'd never been here before, but it's a popular destination for pilgrims who go to visit this huge Sufi shrine. We had a rather discombobulating experience at the shrine, one that involved many people asking for money, but afterwards we visited a very beautiful old mosque. Old, indeed -- the oldest mosque in India! It was built out of pieces from Jain and Hindu temples, so it's a bit of a mishmash. But it felt peaceful and wonderfully ornate.

check out all the carving!

an airy and spacious interior
Third stop: Jaipur, Rajasthan's capital city. It's huge and much more modern than Jodhpur / Ajmer, so we did take in some nice cafe time. But we also had fun exploring City Palace, Hawa Mahal, Albert Hall, and finally Amer Fort, a sprawling complex a bit outside of the city.

this is how royal guests used to ride up... we could have too, for about $20

selfie in the hall of mirrors; lots of "swag," as my advisee pranit would say
Last time I was in Jaipur, Chris had a crazy flu, so it was nice to do more around the city and see some of the sights we missed last time.

After many days of touristing and absorbing culture, it feels great to be off trains and back in one place. Chris and I plan to take some little day jaunts and explore Mussoorie further, once we're feeling better, so I'll post soon...

You can find lots more Rajasthan photos on my facebook page. :)

PS -- Chris spent activity week in a village with G9 students. He was jealous of me, but I don't feel bad considering his trip to Austria last year!!!

Monday, June 9, 2014

high stakes

At one point during a professional development workshop geared toward AP English Language teachers, my workshop leader noted that the external exam is a “high stakes test”. For him, this meant that the exam was designed so that most students would find it impossible to finish within the given time requirements. The students who do finish – and who do so well – are truly “exceptional” in their English skills. This in itself could be an entire blog, but instead I want to focus on the idea of high stakes in general.

I could simply apply the term high stakes to teaching because we are meant to accomplish so much within a short timeframe – just like the kids taking the dreaded AP exam. Teachers also feel the constriction of minutes per week x weeks, a formula that pushes against the ever-expanding list of skills and knowledge our students must learn. By the end of the year, I’m worn down from this pressure and from all the negative parts of teaching: watching students plagiarize, listening to grade complaints, organizing paperwork, chasing down lost books, policing the hallways, etc.

With such a stressful job, I sometimes lapse into cynicism, bemoaning the fact that our work is pointless. My former students still have issues in argumentation (our major focus), some continue to make poor personal decisions, many seem to dislike learning in general. Why work so many hours? Why put in so much effort?

And yet.*

We watched the class of 2014 graduate on Saturday. Last year’s graduation had little effect on me; it was my first year at the school and I only taught a handful of the students in yearbook. This year, however, I knew many of the seniors because of AP English and yearbook and other various interactions. Some students I knew very well, and respected as individuals and thinkers. Watching them step across the threshold to adulthood was such a cathartic moment. Woodstock seniors take part in this strange tradition – the wailing wall – in which they stand in a line and say goodbye to guests/teachers/each other. About 50 students in, I congratulated myself for my dry eyes and fortitude.

Then I got to some of the students I know best, and it destroyed me. I’m fairly sentimental, so it didn’t take much to tip me over the edge. When I got to the end of the (literal) line, Chris escorted me away from the wall as I hyperventilated and sobbed. Keep in mind: I am not a pretty crier. I looked so distraught that a G11 student came over to comfort me.

Anyhow, looking into the faces of so many accomplished students reminded me just how high the stakes are in this profession. No matter how small our impact on an individual student, we’re in the business of people –people who do actually notice our teaching and our efforts. This attention is both comforting and terrifying. While it’s nice to be noticed, the constant attention also means I have to work doubly hard to bring my best effort every day. So, yes, the stakes are high. Thankfully, unlike the AP exam, the rewards are enormous too.

*I realized after I posted this that I had this rhythm of "And yet" in my head because one of our students published a piece with this phrase woven throughout it. Here's to you, Setse Bush - your writing is in my head!*

Saturday, April 19, 2014

suck it up, make it fun!

Life has been hectic lately. We're more than halfway through our squished and shortened semester, and packing all of our curriculum into a small space has been challenging. Woodstock has also scheduled seemingly thousands of events / activities into March and April, which means we're often on campus late for extracurriculars or performances or study halls or whatnot. I reach each weekend at a dead sprint, then fall exhausted into Saturday and Sunday.

Don't worry -- the rest of this post is not a list of complaints, but the opposite. Here's my point: Our work schedule often makes me want to sit alone and zone out over the weekends or any breaks, but what I've tried to do this semester is resist this impulse and take advantage of every opportunity at my disposal. For instance...

More coffees in the buzz with my best friend, the amazing Julia! She's leaving at the end of this semester, and I'm sad. So it's no more lazing at home alone, but finding ways to spend some non-work time together.

Finally chaperoning a weekend hike! At the beginning of every semester, I would tentatively agree to be on the female chaperone list, but then I'd demur whenever Zach or Pants actually asked me if I'd volunteer. Weekend hike during this chaos? I'm too busy, I'd reply! A few weekends ago, I finally agreed to go - to ignore my pile of work - and it was a blast!

how can i resist views like these?

Going somewhere fun for Quarter Break! We contemplated having a peaceful break at home in early April, but that would mean missing out on our last chance to travel with Julia, so we went to two new cities: Amritsar and Dharamsala. It was an exhausting trip, for sure, with many long hours on nausea-inducing bus rides, and my own tango with a horrible stomach virus, but in the end it was worth it. The week was packed full of tun times with friends (and some awesome students) exploring some new locales.

looking awesome at one of the "7 wonders of india" - the golden temple

Of all my resolutions for the year 2014, this is one I hope I make my new philosophy on life.

(If these photos interest you, I've posted plenty more on my facebook page...)

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

a typical vacation day

We <3 Malaysia, and it's not because of these awesome ads we see all the time on Indian TV. Tomorrow, we leave for our final country -- Singapore -- and it'll be a sad farewell.

I'm feeling pretty lazy lately, so I'll keep this post photo-based and focused on Pulau Pangkor, a cheap tropical island off Malaysia's western coast. We enjoyed our time in Penang and KL, especially because of the delicious eats, but we had a long and relaxing stay on PP. Here's a typical day, in photos.

getting ready for the day -- late, of course. it's vacation!

from the cool bungalow to the hot sun

we always start the day with coffee. always.

one of the many PP street kitties.

we stopped at this "convenient" store at least 3 times per day.

morning language study and general work time.

off to the beach, for some reading...
(can you tell i find posing for photos awkward?)

and reading... we like to read.

post-swim tiger beer and crosswords = mel's paradise.

one of the many hornbills we encountered in PP

our favorite hang.

late afternoon, insanity work out,
resulting in .... this.

cornettos and 30 rock, the perfect way to end the day.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

thailand

Now that we’ve made it to Malaysia, country 4/5, it’s time to reflect back on Thailand.

Overall, we enjoyed our time in a beautiful country. We saw many gilded temples and Buddhas, continued to eat amazing things, and had our first tropical beach vacation in the South. We also need to shout out to Fuse Chiraphisit and family; Fuse is one of our students at WS, and he and his family very kindly took us to dinner while we visited. Thanks!!

Since I’m getting tired of the typical “this is what we did” blog post, however, I’ll keep this one short and speak via words/images in a pseudo poem on our time Bangkok. The photos on FB should speak to the rest of our time in Thailand – a quick stop in Phetchaburi and a few days on a beach in Koh Lanta.  

Consuming Bangkok
Steamy sidewalks push sunlight everywhere.
We break into the frigid AC of a 7-Eleven,
those ubiquitous pockets of temporary winter that dot the city.
We consult our map, buy water and ice cream, succumb again to the street heat.

We are lost in Chinatown, its twisting streets and tangy covered markets,
our map defenseless against Mandarin signs.
Few landmarks guide us, and we spit venomous sighs
at each other and the city.

Around a corner, we find the lost temple,
beautiful against the dropping sun, golden arms stretched to the sky.
We stroll around the Buddha, disturbing the faithful for our photo ops.
We leave quickly.

Next day, lost again –
this time among millions of cell phone covers,
fluorescent lights and neon colors, patterned over with eager hands,
reaching always for the next deal.
We wander with wide eyes through these malls,
monuments to a different god.

Ferried across the brown Chao Phayra River,
we lose ourselves in scientific oddities
in a dusty, quiet room at a bustling hospital.
We peer into glass bottles holding parts of limbs, cross-sections
of preserved bodies,
of fragmented selves
held captive for science’s sake.
Candy bars rest near jars of malformed babies,
strange tokens of unlived childhoods.
We are uncomfortable with this intimacy:
the body torn apart.

In between moments of loss, we seek sustenance,
greedily slurp down noodles,
soak our rotis with curry,
sip iced mochas between bites of grilled meat.

We always find space for one more bite. 

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

cambodia

In some ways, Cambodia felt a bit like a homecoming after Vietnam. It was much closer to the India experience, but we weren’t as enamored with the country as we had hoped to be. We talked through this, trying to figure out what it was. Part of it was our crappy guesthouse area, which was lackluster but also much, much more expensive than India or Vietnam. But overall we felt that the food wasn’t as good as other places, and that places like Delhi or Hanoi were much more vibrant and engaging.

Still, we discovered some amazing places during our short time in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

Cambodian history is bloody and disturbing, something neither of us learned about in U.S. schools. I won’t spend a ton of time summarizing it, but in the 1970s, a communist dictator – Pol Pot – came to power for a handful of years. He and his cronies purged Cambodia of ethnic minorities and any people suspected of being political dissidents. A lot of people. The Khmer Rouge (KR), in other words, committed genocide, killing over a million of their own people (though estimates vary greatly from 1-3 million).

One of the benefits of visiting Phnom Penh is learning about this tragedy. It’s hard to stomach, but we saw two exhibitions on the genocide. One was a school that became a prison for people suspected of being against the communist government. The classrooms were eerie. On the walls of several rooms were wooden boards painted green, some still imprinted with the remnants of chalk writing. The only other items in those rooms were empty bed frames and a photo of the final prisoner’s corpse – which was found when the KR left. Other rooms held photos of the prisoners, row upon row of eyes staring back at you. Some exhibits detailed the torture techniques, and displayed whips and cuffs.

The killing fields lie on the city’s outskirts, about a 30-minute rickshaw ride away. An audio tour took us through the area. We learned that prisoners were shipped to the killing fields every week to be executed. To save money, the KR didn’t shoot victims; instead, they had prisoners lean over mass graves and then hit them on the skull with garden tools. Even more disturbing was learning how they would execute children by slamming them against tree trunks. Over 20,000 people were killed at this particular field, with hundreds of similar sites all over the country. This, again, was a difficult site to visit, and I have no photos. It felt disrespectful to capture it on film.

On a happier note, Siem Reap (about 5-7 hours away) holds the country’s pride and joy: Angkor Wat, a host of temple complexes built between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries by very wealthy kings. We only had a day there, and in that time we managed to zoom through about four temples. The temples were beautiful, crumbling  testaments to the ancient kings’ power. They included Hindu and Buddhist imagery, depending on when they were built and what the king’s religious predilections were. Photos will be better than words in this case, though the photos do not in any way capture how cool it was to traipse through these enormous structures. Let’s try anyhow.

a hazy angkor wat, the biggest temple

bayon - lots of smiles

ta prohm, overrun by trees

intricate carvings at banteay srei

sunset over another temple - name forgotten
Another fun experience was stopping (amid temple explorations) at our rickshaw driver’s house en route. He introduced us to his beautiful daughter and wife, and his father. We watched, awed, as he sent a neighbor up a palm tree to cut down some coconuts… The man was incredibly strong and agile, and made hauling up and down that tree look really easy. The coconut milk was delicious!


Now we’re in Bangkok, just about to leave for the beach. Look for more photos on FB, and a new installment sometime early next week.

Friday, January 3, 2014

hue / hoi an / saigon

The second half of our Vietnam trip continued much like the first. Some interesting sight-seeing, and lots of beautiful, delicious food. (I should take more photos of the food, but then I’d turn into a food-picture-taker and annoy myself.)

Hue was the most disappointing place on our trip through Vietnam. We were there near Christmas, I think, and much of the night was spent trying to sleep through weird techno versions of Christmas classics like “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart…” Not a fun way to spend an evening when you’re old and tire easily like us.
moody skies and old palaces

Still, we had fun walking all over the city, and exploring the crumbling ruins of the old imperial palace. I only have a few moody photos from this place, including this one.

Hoi An hosted some of our best eating experiences. Sweet vegetarian Vietnamese food, delicious banh mi (a cross between French baguettes and Vietnamese flavors), and cheap/yummy street food like cao lao (noodles and pork dish).

The city was super walkable, so we meandered all over the place. The whole downtown area is a UNESCO heritage site full of restored buildings from Hoi An’s time as a major trade port. Of course, one of the most fun things we found was a table full of foreign money. Why? We are nerds, and went through the whole table, row by row, determining which country each bill represented.

Still, there were some beautiful examples of old Vietnamese architecture, too, which we enjoyed between friend bananas and coconut and cheap beers. We were sad to leave Hoi An when it was time to go.

After a 14-hour train ride (and we felt every single hour!), we made it to our last stop in Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City… perhaps better known as Saigon.

I have no photos from Saigon, but it is a bustling and chaotic place. I likened Saigon to Manhattan, and Hanoi to Brooklyn. We preferred Brooklynesque Hanoi, but like Manhattan, Saigon had its charms.

Our few days in Saigon were filled with Starbucks, lots of walking, and some interesting history museum exhibits. The most horrible was the War Remnants Museum, which is focused on the Vietnam War. The exhibits were brutal and graphic, very anti-American, and pretty unsettling. The language and photos were very one-sided. I’m not saying that the Vietnam War was a good decision or that American troops behaved well, but war is brutal on both sides, and the museum did not represent this at all. I think it’d make an interesting area of study for a rhetoric or history class. There’s the teacher in me – can’t turn her off!

In the end, we were sad to leave Vietnam. The country had been easy to navigate, full of friendly people, and one of the best eating periods of my life. We’ll definitely be back.


Our next stop was Cambodia… Will post on this soon. Happy new year, everyone!

Note: most of the photos are posted on facebook