Cheer on Team USA

my ankle hurts

Such misrecognition is a normal feature

What a wild, wooly week its been, feather 2 pixels fans. And I'll just start out by saying that if you could see me right now, you all would be justified in transmitting your clenched fist right through my face. I will tell you why: I am sitting in a Nob Hill coffee shop called "Nook," blogging away on my laptop, blending in perfectly with the five other white people in here doing the same exact thing. I am now a complete parody of myself, folks!

Not that justifying myself on a blog doesn't make the whole thing twice as disgraceful, but while my apartment is a lovely place to eat and sleep, it is a fucking cave and I can't get anything done in there. And if getting more done means logging on at "Nook," so be it--I will swallow my pride. So last week I bought a laptop on Ebay on here I am. That was a big step for me. Plane tickets and psychotherapy notwithstanding, I don't buy anything expensive.

The Exploratorium retreat was indeed ridiculous. So much so that I felt bad for my two bosses. A lot of people got completely wasted, which of course is OK, but I couldn't believe how little self-control was displayed. I'm serious. I usually defer judgment of others to the good Lord Jesus Christ, but there were people puking over other people's shit and people leaving early because they felt too sick to work. One girl (from Germany, interning with us for a few months) blew me away. Real nice person, but it was as if she was eight years old. She seemed to make no connection between all her drinking Friday night and her complete inability to move on Saturday. She woke up at 6AM and puked on Dizzygirl's sweater, which she never even mentioned. It was only later that week that we found out it was her. Not only that, but for some reason she hadn't thought to bring house keys with her to the retreat, so when she refused a ride home from her boyfriend who had come to get her the next morning, she was stranded, crying in the Mission for the whole day. A helpless little puppy.

As for me, I was too focused on an intense series of games to get too loaded. At some point, I was embarrassed at what I play when I am handed a guitar these days. Dizzygirl quietly downed the better part of a bottle of Jack, which seems pretty normal for her, and we sat in the kitchen till 6 writing a song. Fascinating.

And there was much profusion of feelings, including my least favorite activity of "describing this experience is one word." God help me. I realized, though, that there is a good possibility that my two supervisors are the coolest bosses I will ever have. They lay the West Coast ham and cheese on thick, but I look up to them and respect their intentions. And to a large extent, those intentions are achieved. The retreat reinforced that for me. That weekend probably didn't go as smoothly as they would have liked, but the mere fact that they have trained a pack of such obviously disturbed baboons to willingly advance their educational goals on a regular basis for $13 a hour is amazing.

Speaking of wild baboons, Monday night was the semi-annual Ivy West recruiter appreciation event in the Venice of the Bay Area, Foster City. (A great thing about working at Ivy West is frequency that we are being appreciated). The event is held just for office staff and a handful of others, like me, who help recruit and train the never ending flow of new tutors shuffling in and out of the thug life that is Ivy West Educational Services. Anyways, the boss has been away on maternity leave for a few weeks now and I think its starting it's starting to show. Not that producing the world's longest rubber band at is in any way a waste of time--I'm just envious that I am not more a part of the slow collapse of all order at headquarters.

But I did get to karaoke with a select few after dinner at Millbrae Karaoke House, which is as great as it sounds. It was my second job-related karaoke experience in two weeks which is an experience that I now highly recommend to every employed person in the developed world. Nothing brings you together in quite the same way and its a surprisingly revealing activity.

We will catch up on the rest of the week at a later date.

Here's a new strum

Spring is by far the busiest time for field trips at the Exploratorium. Within a few weeks, 2000-3000 kids will be a regular day. Compared to what we usually deal with, that's a lot. In reality though, it's still a pretty easy job. The fact that people start to freak out about it to me underscores some of the more ridiculous aspects of being a field trip Explainer. Last week, for example, we received a little foreshadowing of things to come in the form of some massive school groups and a 2000+ free day (first Wednesday of every month). This is almost too boring to get into, but long story short: on one of the days it rained and employees were getting very agitated about the mass of kids eating lunch in the cafe, which they arent supposed to do unless they make a purchase. Shouldn't be a big deal, but it gets escalated to an unnecessary level.

...And thank goodness there is the Friday afternoon meeting to hash it out in insufferable detail. Somewhere along the way my big mouth got me a reputation in the group for having no patience for the specific issue of lunch bins, which is to me the quintessential non-issue made issue--the discussion never ends. What they don't realize is that (a) my intolerance only just begins with lunch bins, yet (b) overall I don't *mind* any of it. If I am in a good mood, its just funny. Unfortunately, I am never in a good mood.

Anyways, quickly approaching is the event that takes it all to a whole new level: the annual Explainer retreat. Be afraid, be very afraid. Again, don't get me wrong, I think it will be a fun time, but it will take about a week to mentally prepare myself for 10 hours of such activities as describing with one word how I feel to a circle of people. Worse yet, any redeeming "retreat" value is being compromised cause we are having it at some girl's house in the Mission district. At least last year we were in a cabin by a stream. At any rate, you can expect feather two pixels to follow coverage of this important event as it unfolds.

My anatomy class gave me the collective cold shoulder after Saturday's class. I gave them an exam that they thought was hard, which was enough to kick off a big old long face procession. And fuck that. I happen to like this group quite a bit, but its so off putting to see a group of grown adults act like a bunch of fucking babies. I am constantly aware of the fact that many of these people have not been in school for perhaps decades and the fact that most have no post-secondary academic experience, but sometimes I feel like it crosses the line from empathy to bullshit. Beyond that the fact the exam is curved, open note/open book, and anyone paying any semblance of attention will get a good grade in the class, its just a little ridiculous to be acting like a child to your 26 year old teacher as a 45 year old man.

And speaking of foreshadowing, I got an email that sent a little shiver down my spine:

Date:	Mon, 6 Feb 2006 16:58:48 -0800 (PST)
From:	anica
Subject:	anatomy part 2,when does class begin
To:	"Jonathan Anatomy"

I just would like to know when Anatomy starts in march

so I wont miss any classes. I know it starts around

march but what date

(Obviously, she failed last semester so we are going to have another go at it)

What saved me that afternoon was the very thing I was not looking forward to at all. I had to go back to the Exploratorium to teach a class to 4th and 5th grade children of museum members, which I passionately did not feel like cashing in my afternoon for. But somehow when it was over, my faith as an educator was for the time being restored. The kids were great: so idealistic, uncorrupted, and hilarious. Our class was on snails, which I had about forty of from someone's garden (One girl told me she couldn't participate unless we didn't harm them). We basically did a long quasi-scientific investigation and the kids totally bought it. They were so curious and excited to show me what they were learning, it practically made me cry. When we were making a list of snail questions, one little boy suggested "do snails make love?" Best of all, there were visual aids produced. Here, with some astute observations, is the best one:




















That's right, Thing 1 likes ham.

And finally, the Superbowl. A few people from work met me at the Nob Hill Tavern, which I really thought was going to play it ultra-stingy by offering patrons just the one large bowl of cheap tortilla chips they set out for the first half. It's something they would do (Which is one of the legit reasons I like it there: a sustained commitment to pretty much not giving a fuck about the customer is hard to find these days). A little while after we ordered pizza from down the street, though, the Tavern came through in a big way with enough baked chicken and mashed potatoes to feed an armada.

And how cool was it to see Pittsburgh win it? I don't know if I have ever seen Bill Cowher look so happy. Or happy at all, for that matter. The west coast vs east coast dynamic was a nice touch, too. I actually felt a little like a fraud because there a lot of suspect Steelers fans that mysteriously precipitated out of the San Fran woodwork, and being from PA (West coasters do not identify the fact that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are disparate cities) I was portrayed as more of a Pittsburgh fan than I really am. Like I said, it was great to think of the atmosphere in the Burgh as they won it, but even the totally routine Pitt basketball game that morning had more meaning to me than the Superbowl.

And all kind of strange coincidences later that night at the karaoke bar down the street. Not only did the aforementioned Louise show up, completely unexpectedly, just minutes after we did, but one of her friends was somehow linked to another Exploratorium person we all know. It blows my mind when shit like that happens. San Francisco is a small city.