Children of the Women

I watched Children of Men this weekend, on recommendation from my next-door neighbor (it's one of their teenage son's favorite movies). I liked it. It had some humor in it, even though it was quite dark. I never noticed Clive Owen before, but he was very good. This is the blandest movie review EVER. I am not working the adjectives. Ah well. I'm just trying to get another post up, and I'm tired. Last week of school. Anywho- The movie even made me tear up a little, when the baby was born and everyone marveled at it. I believe it was based on a book (I am not going to fact check. That's the quality of my blog: very little fact-checking). So what was the deal with the title? Children of MEN? I didn't see any men having babies. In fact, it was a very forgettable title. It was one of those movie titles that I never get quite right, so I sound like an old lady when I'm talking about it. If I had to rate it out of five stars, I would give it a three. There ya go. And now you know why I don't write movie reviews for a living. Good night.

Books Ahoy

Today was Field Day, and I started to write an article about how I am very particular about things (which I will post some time) due to my adorable Field Day outfit. But I am exhausted from being in the sun for four hours in the 87 degree weather, so maybe some other time. Instead, I thought I'd tell you what books I'm reading these days. Just so you know, I read several books at a time sometimes, but I'm a terribly slow reader so it can take me months to finish a book. Right now I'm reading What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones, which is the sequel to What My Mother Doesn't Know. I love Sones' books because they are written in poetry form (and are also very good), so I can read them much faster than I can usually read. This book is written from the perspective of a very ugly nerd boy who is dating a cute girl (who told the story in What My Mother Doesn't Know), and how everyone treats them like crap. The guy, named Robin (Kermit's nephew's name!) is so sweet. I wish I could picture what he looks like. I can remember people in junior high and high school who were tormented mercilessly because they were so unattractive. I wonder how they would look to me now. Anyway, the book is about how much Robin likes the girl (whose name I forgot), but how afraid he is that people's disgust for their relationship will break them up. Will they stay together? I hope so.

The other book I'm reading is Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger. This is another author who I have read many books by, and I just love her. She always chooses such unique topics. This one is about a transgendered teen who is trying to start living life as a boy. It's a pretty heavy topic, but Wittlinger adds lots of humor and creates such wonderful characters, I always want to be their friends. And it's making me think a lot about what I would do as a parent if I ever have a child who i s transgender (transgendered?). I am probably a third of the way through both books, but I would highly recommend either based on what I've read so far and how much I have enjoyed previous works by these authors.

So those are my book reviews. I suppose I could do that more often on the blog, what with me being a librarian and all.

Like Nobody's Business

This was a freakin’ hard week. It was a major work week, with lots of classes scheduled, responsibilities, and meetings. My assistant is getting a new job, so I will have to hire someone new for next year (not so bad since it came at the end of the school year). This morning I had to present some reading awards in front of the whole school, which shouldn’t bother me, but I had sweat stain fears and tripping fears and booger fears, etc. Not that anyone in the audience could have seen. And it went fine. Of course some students were upset that I didn’t give them the awards, which always makes me feel guilty. But I do feel right about my choices, and a couple of the kids I gave the awards to came to talk to me. One said she was jumping up and down. This afternoon I read “The Butter Battle Book” to some eighth grade classes, which was fun but exhausting after the whole awards trauma. The big crapola was a retirement party that was being held in my library. They had to move EVERYTHING, which I was so nice about all week. But it really sucked seeing my library torn apart. I really made that place into something great for the students. Not like it won’t get back to normal next week, but it was tough. And it will require a lot of supervising and moving crap on my part. So I’m in a reflective, depressive state these days-- bad dreams, stress stomach, the grumps. Two and a half weeks left of work, then vacay. I need it. People sometimes like to bitch about teachers, since we get so much vacation time. All I have to say is: get yourself a friggin’ teaching degree if y’all are so jealous, and try working with kids for nine months and then NOT having a vacation. Mmhmmm. I thought so.

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Ha!

I’m at work, and there is a student talking to me non-stop right now about how he has been attacked by all kinds of bugs. Even horse flies. Yeah.

Did anyone watch the season finale of Shear Genius? It sure came and went with little fanfare. I kind of liked it. But I’m totally excited for Kathy Griffin’s show to come on again. Matt and I saw her live show. It was my first standup show, and it was so funny. There were these oldies sitting next to us who were not at all enjoying the raunchy gay humor. I didn’t like the theater it was at, though, because I am very particular about where I sit. When I bought the tickets, I swore we were on an aisle in the center. But it turned out that the only aisles at this place were on the ends of the very looooong rows, so I was stuck in the middle of the balcony. What if there was a fire? How would I get out in a timely fashion? So half of the show was spent having minor panic attacks.

I just saw that Weird Al Yankavic is playing at a theater near my house. I’m trying to decide if that would be fun. Alas, it is on the evening of the New Teacher Retreat, and I am on the New Teacher Retreat Committee. So no Weird Al for me. Speaking of Weird Al, I think we should have a discussion about the best Weird Al parodies of all time. My personal favorite is “Fat,” the parody of Michael Jackson’s “Bad.” That video is beyond hysterical. OMG. I’m laughing out loud as I write this at work. It is parody perfection. So come on. What are your Weird Al faves?

Blog Poll!

I was checking my stats page, and it seems like people are checking my blog more often than I thought (which means I should really be updating it more often). If ya feel like it, please take this handy poll so I can get a sense of how often people check the blog. Hopefully it'll kick me in the butt to update it more. And if this works, I can make more polls!

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The Cicadas are Here!

There was a time in my life that I was terrified of bugs. I particularly had a thing for earwigs. Actually, I still have a thing for earwigs. I don’t care that they don’t pinch or crawl in your ears; they’re gross, they come out of nowhere, and they need to DIE. I do not, however, feel that way about the cicadas. We in Northern Illinois have the good fortune of welcoming the seventeen-year cicadas every, well, seventeen years. I work in a town with many, many old trees, which is where the cicadas are at their best. For only a short amount of time (about a month), the cicadas come out of the ground, crawl up a tree, lose their little bodies, grow red eyes and wings, mate, then die! I don’t know if I got that in exactly the right order, but it doesn’t matter (to me. I’m sure some people care. Like cicada scientists). Not that I want to roll around in a pile of them, but I’m not really all that afraid of the cicadas. It’s quite magical that they are here. I love to go outside at lunch and see the cicada shells everywhere. It’s so cool how some shells, although empty, stick to the trees. I took a bunch of pictures to share. While I was taking the pictures, an eighth grade boy who was outside yelled, “Ms. Halpern! What are you doing?” And I said, “Taking pictures of the cicadas!” And then another boy said, while coughing, “Loser.” Awww. Then he said he was kidding. So the two boys came over, and boy number one threw a cicada at the second, loser-calling boy and he screamed like a little girl. Justice.

These are all of the cicada shells on the ground.
These are the empty shells stuck to the tree.

A happy, living cicada!

Julie Halpern's Day Off. While Working.

On Thursday I went on a field trip. I have always loved field trips (which I write about in GET WELL SOON), and I feel very lucky to still be able to go on them as an adult. The best part is most field trips go into Chicago, and now that I live in the burbs, but Matt still works in the city, we don't go into the city as often as I like (Matt's commute is insane, so he'd rather not have to do it on the weekends). But with field trips, I get a free ride into the city, plus free admission into wherever we go (as a chaperon, ya know?). So this week's trip was with forty seventh graders to the top of the Sears Tower, then onto something I'll tell you a little more about in a minute, and then on a walking tour of the Loop. The bus ride took over an hour. It's such a joke that it takes me an hour to drive to work in the morning, and then I had to sit on a bus for another hour. My life is slipping away! Anyway, the Sears Tower was fun. A couple of the boys (I think they're all pretty much 13 years-old) were afraid about their ears popping in the elevator, so I gave them gum. It was wonderful to be at the top of the Sears Tower. I don't think I have ever done that. I'm not one of those people, though, who's like, "I live in the city, but I never do any of the tourist stuff." I have totally done the tourist stuff - walking tours, boat tours, crazy museums, etc. I love Chicago, and I love to go to museums and things. For some reason, though, I had never been to the top of the Sears Tower. It was a perfect day- sunny, clear, a little chilly. We could see in every direction perfectly! I was a little choked up.
The next part of the day was visiting one of the student's mom's office. I don't quite understand what the mom's job was, but she showed us Burnham's original plan for the city of Chicago. Then she showed us the the videos that the company made (again, I'm not quite sure what the company does) to convince the International Olympic Committee why the 2016 Olympics should be in Chicago. One of them can be found here. The coolest video was a computer animated reproduction (pre-production?) of where each Olympic event would take place, narrated in a thick Chicago accent by Mayor Daley. It was so cool! I had my reservations about the Olympics being in Chicago before this, but it kind of sold me. I guess I'm kind of a sucka, but whatever. It was so neat to see the city transformed. It had a little feel going back to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which I'm very into.
In the final part of the field trip, each teacher was given a group of six students to walk around the Loop with. We had several buildings that we had to see and write about. I had the information packet, so I was like an architectural tour guide. It was was so fun! My group was very nice. I took them to the Chicago Correctional Center, which I have always been fascinated with (since my first architectural tour in junior high) because, well, it's a jail, but it has five inch-wide windows to give it a funky, computer-ish look from the outside, but little visibility and no possibility for escape from the inside. It was fun to freak the kids out a little.
At the end, we were running a little late (as was everyone), but I had told the kids that our last stop before we got back to the Thompson Center for the bus was to go to Marshall Fields on State Street (Macy's, you can suck it) to go the jumbo candy place in the basement. As we were down there buying candy, I realized we were already supposed to be at the bus. But the candy counter people were so slow! So then I made the kids run with me the several blocks through the busy sidewalks of Chicago to the bus, all the while me yelling, "I don't want them to get mad at me! I don't want to be that irresponsible late teacher!" And the kids were yelling, "If you get fired, Ms. Halpern, I'll have my mom call the school to get you out of it!" The punchline: when we got to the Thompson Center, all of the other groups were inside AT A CANDY STORE. And no one noticed we were late.
I had such a wonderful day. Being in my favorite city in the world, being with my favorite age group of people in the world, looking at architecture and candy. I hope I get to live a million more days like this one.