greateacheropke

[greateacheropke]

Personal and Professional Challenges Ahead

Faithful readers, as you know I have lived the last five years of my life overseas. Herein I would like to reflect on this time and what lay ahead.

Five years - that’s over 15% of my life away from “home.” Yes, I spent much of that time living in the expat bubble that is hard to avoid while teaching in American schools abroad. My language skills have not grown as much as one might expect, because my entire work life is in English. To develop beyond the basics requires either a serious commitment to language study or an investment in the local peoples and culture. These are all great things to do, but instead I have spent most of my studying time in mathematics and most of my social investment in my adopted family members (roommates).

I’ve already written a bit about my social life here in Spain (and words will never do justice to the home that I had here - the best home that adult-me has lived in). I have not said much about work other than “gosh I’ve been so busy.” I spent the first half of my career - five long years - teaching in NYC public schools, where more complicated problems exist than I know how to solve. Moving overseas was the breath of fresh air that I needed, and provided the stimuli I needed to become a better teacher and a better mathematics. Damn, I’ve come a long way.

In NYC I considered myself to really be moving up in the world when I was allowed to teach algebra 2 / trigonometry. When I moved overseas, I hoped that I might be able to start around the level of algebra 2 / trig and then eventually move up to teaching AP courses once I was established. Instead, I was hired to immediately begin teaching AP Calculus AB in Egypt. I was not prepared in the least. Sure, I took a summer AP training seminar, but that only gets you so far as a newcomer to the course. Throw that on top of moving to Egypt and having to also teach 3 other classes, and it was a lot to stay on top of.

I think it takes three years to get good at teaching a high school course of that magnitude. The first year you just make things up, try to survive. The second year you can begin to actually develop good ideas of your own (along with some bad ones), organize your files and calendar, etc. The third year should hopefully go well.

So I spent an entire year making stuff up for AP Calculus, learning many topics alongside the kids or just ahead of them.  A lot of really late nights trying to figure out how the hell to solve a particular problem set. My second year, I actually knew how long I wanted to spend on topics, which ones were to be prioritized, what the common mistakes would be, what early warning red flags to watch out for, etc. It felt good.

I was rewarded in my third year by teaching AP Stats - another course that was going to be brand new for me. At least calculus I had studied in high school and college - albeit it was years prior and I was not very good at it at the time. But statistics I had actively avoided in college. I’m glad I did - I’ve heard so many horror stories about people hating it, it would have been a shame if my experience had been tainted. Instead, I spent a year making stuff up for AP Statistics, learning many topics alongside the kids or just ahead of them.  A lot of really late nights trying to figure out how the hell to solve a particular problem set. And it turned out that I really love stats now!

I left Egypt after that year, with my sights set on IB as the next step to building my resume. I hoped that I might be able to start by teaching Standard Level and then eventually move up to teaching HL once I was established. Instead, I was hired to immediately begin teaching both years of HL in Spain. I was not prepared in the least. Sure, I took a summer IB training seminar, but that only gets you so far as a newcomer to the course. Throw that on top of moving to Spain and having to also teach 3 other classes (including AP Stats again - so two years of HL and an AP class, talk about a serious courseload), and it was a lot to stay on top of.

You may be sensing a pattern here.

My career, while arcing upwards, was just throwing me into more and more challenging situations without ever giving me an opportunity to get comfortable. Yes, I think it’s important never to become complacent - that’s how you become a shitty teacher real fast - but there would definitely be some value in actually getting to say “ok, I actually taught this course really well this year. I know what I am doing. I am an experienced teacher.” No, instead, I was thrown into AP Calculus, then thrown into AP Stats, and then thrown into HL while trying to actually get a handle on AP Stats.

Well, I managed to survive my first year teaching IB, while figuring out AP Stats.  Then this year, I actually felt really good about how my stats class went (three years, right on time), and got to get a little comfortable with HL.  I didn’t sleep at work even once this year (cannot say the same for last year...).  I have learned a ton of mathematics along the way - I cannot believe how much better of a learner I am now than when I was in university. The past two years, besides just being the guy teaching the highest level classes offered at the school, I was also the guy that teachers would send students to when they couldn’t help them. I would get called into classes and shown puzzling problems that no one could work out. I have become, as they say (but usually not about me, in most contexts), “the man.” And believe me, I hold my colleagues in Spain in very high regard - they are just more than happy to let me have this one I guess.

So now what? Well I mentioned earlier that I’ve been away for five years. They’ve been nothing short of life changing in many ways. But ultimately, I had to make a choice. I do not feel at home in these places. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I enjoy traveling, and I can land on my feet and get along in most situations. If I had to continue teaching overseas for the rest of my life, and change country every few years for a change of pace, I could do that. Plenty of my friends do it, some have literally made their careers out of it and others surely will continue to do so. But I miss being “home.”

I don’t know where exactly that is. That’s a problem, potentially. It may be nowhere. I may be searching for a place that is just going to feel like home, but if you asked me to list out its characteristics, I couldn’t even begin. But I decided a year ago - actually a year ago yesterday, as of the date I am posting this - that I was going to give it a shot in the US. I figured that with my AP and IB experience, I ought to be able to find a good school somewhere and continue teaching the caliber of student that I prefer. I wasn’t sure when I would go, but I knew that I would. As it turned out, Emma happened, and she was also looking into moving back to the states.

We began looking in the Rockies and in New England. I just want to be able to ski again, really, and have a life that is perhaps a little quieter than it’s been. I am ready for life to slow down a little. There are lots of great schools to choose from, public and private, and many of the fancypants boarding schools even offer university level courses such as multivariate calculus and linear algebra.

I hoped that I might be able to start by teaching AP or IB, and then eventually move up to teaching some of the university classes once I was established. Instead, I was hired to immediately begin teaching the most intense courseload of my life - two sections of non-AP calculus (my “easy” classes), one section of senior year HL, and one section of AP Calculus BC in the fall followed by, let’s go, college level linear algebra in the spring. I am not prepared in the least. There isn’t even a summer course for me to take.

Three schools in a row I have been thrust into an academic situation that I am not quiet ready for, and have been forced to just do my best. So far, I guess I’ve done well enough. No complaints from administration, and lots of students with whom I’ve made real, hopefully long term, connections.  I hope I can continue, and I hope I get a chance to rest somewhere for more than two or three years, and really get a chance to get good at teaching some courses, before being forced to learn something new (spoiler alert, HL math is due for a major curriculum update in 2019, so joke’s on me).

I don’t know what else to say about all this right now. It’s been a very emotional week of packing and goodbyes, some said out loud, others merely thought. I am leaving wonderful people behind, but hopefully am yet to meet others. This has been a ramble without a core thesis, part reflection on my past work and its challenges, part rumination on my future work and its challenges, part trying to calm my nerves about not knowing where I belong, if anywhere, and whether I should stop being such an angsty teenager about it.

So, yeah. I wrote this whole thing while sitting in the airport for the move across the ocean. I am no longer nearly as hungover as I was when I began. In some ten hours, I will be in NY with my birth family, far from my chosen family, dispersed as seeds on the wind. In a week, I will visit the supposedly lovely state of Ohio for the first time, to visit Emma’s family and help her move east (she is teaching about 40 minutes drive from me).

And on 1 Aug, I’m officially moving to exotic Connecticut to teach some very smartypants kids at a very expensive boarding school. I don’t think anyone ever plans on living in CT. I know I didn’t. But I guess, looking back on the past five years, I didn’t plan on most of this.

[greateacheropke]

Welcome (Me) Back (?)

So things have been a bit... negative in the last two posts here.  Just like last year, I had a rough 2/3 of the school year (in that I felt inundated with work and didn’t have time to write) but the topics of the last two posts didn’t really help motivate me to say anything positive here.  So let’s write about some positive things.

First of all, what a school year it has been.  Yes, there has been a lot of work - I am writing something about that, for later - but it’s also been a lot of fun!  Just like in Egypt, where I only really found a social circle that worked for me in year two, things really clicked this fall.  No offense intended to all of the other beloved members of La Sagrada Familia - Caitlin and Jacob, friends who still live in Madrid; Carolin from Hamburg, who learned how to share and hug; Virginia aka Maria aka Grace from Athens, applied mathematics student; Thør from Copenhagen, whose name was never Thør but no one could pronounce it, conspiracy theorist like no other that has ever lived; Karina from Toronto, with us for only a few short weeks; Rollie, Martin, the Turks, travelling Irish guitar guy, and all the other couch surfers who have stayed with us for only a few nights - but the apartment eventually became the home it was intended to be, with Caroline and Maura joining forces with Jonny and myself, as we planned to do over a year ago now.  We’ve done just about everything but bathe together, but it’s come close.  This is the home I have been missing since leaving Egypt.

There have been many adventures this year!  Here are just a few from 2016.

In August, following the events previously commented upon, I traveled to Portugal to see Lagos on the southern coast.  Many people travel to Lagos to party, I guess, but I went to scuba dive and see the southwest corner of continental Europe.

There are lots of places to stay, but João from Lagos4U runs a very friendly and open place, as long as you don’t mind crowded rooms.  I think I was in a 10 bed dorm and the bathroom was inside the room, so there was a lot of noise between people coming in and out at night and using the restroom and showers. Since I was diving, I was asleep pretty early every night, but I dealt with the noise fairly well (Egypt training still paying off).  The town itself has got a nice marina and long stretches of beach, and lots of fresh, cheap, delicious seafood (go to A Barrigada) and a seriously great burger (”Toucan Burger” from Nahnahbah).

It’s just a pain to get to, as I took a bus and had to transfer in the middle of nowhere, with no easy way to communicate with the drivers other than me saying “Lagos” and them pointing at an empty street corner where, thankfully, another bus showed up in a few minutes to take me the rest of the way.

After Lagos, I took a bus to Portimão and did a few hours tour of the area through the company Bike My Side - a fun dude drove me around in a sidecar of his motorcycle and took me up through Monchique to the top of Fóia, the highest peak in the Algarve region.  It was a fun time, something different to do, but was a little pricey.

From there I went back to Lisbon to see Scott and Jen, two friends from Egypt who were staying in an airbnb for most of the summer.  I had visited Lisbon briefly in May and had some sense of the city, but they had experienced much more and shared with me some of its wonders: Bifana, a pork steak sandwich that we topped with mustard and hot sauce, would be #1.  I love these things (on a more recent trip back to Lisbon I had 5 of these in 48 hours).  I can personally recommend O Trevo, Ginginha Popular, and Zé Dos Cornos.  All are dirty, cheap, and cater to locals.  With vinho verde on tap, you can get an awesome meal for under €4.

Lisbon is somewhat famous for the pastry known as pastel de nata, said to have originated just outside of the city, in Belem.  There is no need to travel to Belem and wait 20 minutes in line for these (although Belem has its own sites to take in), just go to Manteigaria Fábrica de Pastéis de Nata in the city, below Bairro Alto.  Lines are not that long, although there is no seating.  €1.70 for a pastel de nata and an espresso.

If you’re thirsty, obviously Lisbon has plenty of wine options, and is famous for the green wine (which, while refreshing and is what I always order with my cheap meals, I could honestly take or leave).  The beer scene in Portugal is still emerging, and Duqye Brewpub and Beer Station both have plenty on offer.  The local liqueur should be sampled at A Ginjinha, apparently a pretty famous, well established shop (sells one type of drink, served two different ways, and is about the size of my bathroom). It was recommended to me even down in the Algarve region as a place the man speaking to me had never been to but had always heard about.

The church known as Igreja De São Domingos is one of my favorites on earth due to its unique looks - there are still many signs of a 1959 fire.

Finally, the LX Factory is a little out of town but is hope to some nice hipster stores and restaurants, and some good graffiti.

Really, I love Lisbon. One of my favorite cities to visit, hands down.  Cheap, great food and drink, on the water...what isn’t to love?

In late September, Jonny and I went to Hamburg to visit the aforementioned Carolin (we took no pictures! sad face).  Hamburg was a nice little German city to take in with our expert local guide and host.  The red light district, while famous, pales in comparison to what can be found in Amsterdam, although the forbidding gates (stupidly male only) are a nice visual touch.  Good company and of course good food and beer, the trip was not without its surprises and bad memories - suffice to say, Cohen’s “Hallelujah” has been ruined for me. But overall a trip that we are all glad happened. And the Germans have great parks! Look at how happy this guy is.

In November, the four of us went to Rome, ostensibly for a work trip, but really used it as an excuse to see a bit of the city and stay in a hotel room for free.  We didn’t really get to see or do too much, but we had a lot of fun sharing a room together.

For Thanksgiving, we all went to Budapest. Here we were joined by Ryan (Caroline’s friend) and Emma, the American that I met in Spain who, at this time, was living in England... I am dating Emma.  Here is a terrible photo of us together.

Budapest is a rad place, ripe for making bad puns on its name, mixing beautiful old history with soviet grunge. The food was good; I don’t remember specifics, just a lot of fried dough and meat stews. Really hardy stuff, for hardy people (you’ve got to be strong to drink the local pálinka). They have these neat “ruin bars” which have very artsy hipster feels to them. The biggest that I saw was called Szimpla Kert, and it was a shit show, so I did not get to explore much. Definitely seemed like a cool place to go back to during the day to try to take it all in. But if you like salvaged furniture, what you really need to do before your Budapest trip is look up the official schedule for "lomtalanítás" - “gypsy christmas” is my favorite translation - and walk through any districts that are having them. We found one by accident, and it seemed as though the refuse spread out before us like an endless sea of scraps. Teams of people went through it with backpacks, headlamps, I think I saw one person taking notes in a book of what they had taken or left behind for a second pass. Must see.

In early December, I had an opportunity to go to Athens to visit Virginia, and as an added bonus see Bob from Egypt, along with a group of former students he was leading on an AP Art trip. It was great to catch up with some of my favorite people from around the world! It was a quick weekend, so again I didn’t get to eat or do too much. Obvious items were checked, like the Acropolis. Extra thrilling points were getting to vote on where to get beers (imagine my exuberance: practicing democracy in its birthplace; now imagine the despondency of the Greeks I was with: “see how far democracy has gotten us!”), checking out  Exarcheia (the anarchist neighborhood), and The Neon Exhibition: Flying Over the Abyss (seriously the best art exhibit I’ve ever been to; I felt feelings and want to go back very badly - http://neon.org.gr/en/exhibition/flying-abyss-athens/).

See, it was an art trip! And the teacher even drew me!

So anyway, yeah... it’s been over a year since most of this happened. But it happened. So I wrote some things. I might write again sometime.

[greateacheropke]

On the Election and its Fallout

I have seen a few really thoughtful posts from both sides of the aisle, have taken some time to collect my own thoughts after the election, and offer you this (reading this over a half year later I still stand by almost 100% of this).

1) ELECTORAL CHANGE NEEDS TO HAPPEN.  For the second time in five elections, the Electoral College will (presumably) elect the candidate who lost the popular vote.  I would never advocate for the popular vote to directly elect our president, but I have been a supporter of electoral process change for years and I remain so.  Regardless of whether you are a democrat or a republican, voted for Clinton or Trump or anyone else, it is a fact that the vast majority of Americans did not want Donald Trump (or Hillary Clinton) in the White House when compared against all the other options that fell during the primary elections.  We have an electoral process that inherently supports extreme candidates and punishes centrist ones (although the DNC certainly has done their part to combat this through super delegates and anything else that may have happened to not let Bernie get nominated... but I believe these efforts are ultimately misguided and lead to the wrong ends).  I voted for Clinton in the end, but she was far from my first choice.  I know there are a lot of people out there who, like me, voted for her more because we wanted to stop Trump; likewise, I imagine there are a lot of Trump voters out there who voted for him more in an effort to stop Clinton.  This is really unfortunate any way you look at it - people should be voting for whom they want, not against whom they don't want.  If you are interested in the mathematics of voting and how we might improve our system, I would love to talk to you about it.

2) PIGEONHOLING STRANGERS IS A BAD THING.  On a related note, in a nation so divided, we can't pigeonhole each other.  There are, in my opinion, plenty of awful reasons to have voted for Donald Trump.  There are also quite a few of his platform items that I agree with.  I would love term limits for congress (heck let's even extend it to the Supreme Court while we're at it).  I would love to create separation between lobbyists and government.  I don't know a lot about global economics, but my opinion at present is anti NAFTA and TPP.  There are also reasons to have voted against Clinton.  She's very hawkish and interventionist - Iraq, Libya, Syria... we can only have expected further foreign intervention and loss of life with her in command.  Now there's also a lot of awful reasons to have voted for Trump, and good reasons to have voted for Clinton.   But we all weigh these items differently, and look at each other as being equally crazy when we disagree.  Maybe we can have conversations about these issues instead of yelling, because there are definitely other issues besides the singular ones that each of us has decided is the most important one. Immigration is a no-brainer for me, but so is gun control, and the funny thing is that both of those issues come down to safety versus personal liberty. 3) BEING A HYPOCRITICAL DICK IS ALSO A BAD THING.  Continuing with the divisiveness, I have read a lot of my conservative friends talking about how much Obama divided the country over the last 8 years.  Maybe I missed it, I don't know.   Let's assume he did, fine.  Those of you now posting your snarky memes and laughing at the upset liberals have no right.  Look at yourselves right now and recognize who is being divisive in the present.  I won't tag you but you should know who you are.  You hypocritical conservatives are not helping.  And liberals, a lot of you have been talking the past few weeks about unfriending anyone who voted for Trump (maybe conservatives were too, but I just don't know that many on facebook).   How is that progress?  Unfriend the people who are blatantly racist sexist xenophobes, unfriend the people who are on the alt-right or who are trying to push laws rooted in religion instead of ethics.  But make sure you're right about why they voted that way.  Talking about how to insulate yourselves from ideas and other people?  Why not try and build a physical wall to do it.  You hypocritical liberals are not helping either. I don't know.  That's it for now.  I sincerely hope that we've all learned a few things over this election cycle.  If you read this, thanks; if you are going to use my wall to post something angry or divisive I will remove it but encourage you to engage with me privately or to publish to your own page.  Positive thoughts would be great.  A recommended exercise would be to sincerely complete the statement "I voted for (my candidate) but I understand that someone might vote for (the opposition candidate) because (leave a good reason, because if you claim to have supported Trump or Clinton 100%, then I think you are a liar or delusional or ill informed).

[greateacheropke]

I Don’t Want to Write This

But I feel like I have to say something.  I don’t have any fantasies about having a large or loyal reading base - see my “five readers” comment in my last post - so I can’t say that this post is for you, nor can I really say this post is for me either, as will be explained, yet I feel I am being disingenuous by not saying anything at all.

I referenced a mix of emotions in my last post.  I have also referenced in many of my previous blogs my partner Katja, and it is with a similar mix of emotions that I must report that we have parted ways.  It was ultimately my decision, and I believe we both know in our hearts and minds that it was for the best for us both in the long run.  Out of respect for this woman who has been such a cornerstone figure of my life for the past few years, and who I sincerely hope will continue to play a role in my life to come, I will go into no further details here.  Although I recognize that writing down my thoughts and feelings is probably the only way I will ever fully process this on levels deeper than Mike Ropke usually does (and believe me, I’m already crying and I haven’t even said anything!), this is not the venue for that.  If I ever do examine myself, it won’t be in public.

Oddly enough, one of the reasons I realized that I probably should write anything at all here is because of another, totally separate topic that I never wanted to write about.  A recently graduated student of mine acknowledged that they had stumbled across this blog months ago, and knowing that my high school students are potentially actively reading my inner thoughts is... well, it’s a good thing that I only write a small fraction of the things that I think (those of you who know how tiny my filter is with regards to what I say out loud will appreciate this as well).  This explained some comments this particular student had made way back, said with a tone of voice that screamed “wink wink nudge nudge” to me at the time, leaving me wondering just how exactly they knew what they seemed to.  I guess I should have been watching my traffic stats a little more closely to see who was checking this and from where.

Submitted for my own sense of self worth, some of their comments: “By the way now that school is over, your blog is really good [...] I enjoy your writing [...] trust me a lot of people in class found it but no one made fun of it in the slightest [...] seriously though, you would not imagine how some teachers' stuff has been roasted over the years.” It also made me realize (1) my readership is actually somewhere on the interval [6, 14] people; (2) some of them even appear to enjoy reading it (and with no grades involved, so this seems very sincere) ; (3) I should probably consider a bit of editing on the post I have drafted about reflecting on the last school year; and (4) I still have a lot to say, whether it’s for you, or for me.  So I guess I should get writing.

In closing, and tying together the two themes of this post, to Katja and to my recently graduated HL class, I will briefly reflect (again, whether for you or me, I cannot say): you were seriously great in more ways than I could ever write down, greater than I could have ever hoped for or imagined, great in ways that I aspire to be, and I know you will continue to be great.  Thank you.

[greateacheropke]

Firefox Crashed Before I Saved This Draft.  Balls.

June is always a time of introspection.  This year in particular has been one of great personal and professional growth, and one that has set me on a series of unexpected courses that I have had no choice but to embrace or to succumb to failure.

But this post is not one to reflect on all of that, at least not externally.  No, this is one of those posts that I need to write (twice, now) for myself, to begin the catharsis.  If I don’t make myself sit here and write a few sentences about what I’ve done and where I’ve been, I will undoubtedly remain emotionally constipated.  So let’s just deal with the facts for this post, shall we?

My home - affectionately referred to as La Sagrada Família - has been fantastic.  Jonny and I continue to be a power couple at home and work.  Carolin, our German Erasmus student, is moving home in a week and will be sorely missed.  Caitlin and Jacob, teachers of English at Spanish schools, are moving out a week later but will at least remain in Madrid.  Virginia from Greece is already here and no one has a clue how to pronounce her name, and we have one or two more ready to spend some time with us during July and August.

Back in December, Katja and I spent xmas in sunny Sweden with her parents and came back to Madrid for nye.  This included a brief trip to Valencia, where we were graced with the presence of Bob and Ana from Egypt (along with baby Ximena and Ana’s parents).  She and I also explored Barcelona in February, a city that I would say we both prefer to Madrid overall.  It has the real Sagrada Família (one of my favorite pieces of architecture for sure), has its beer game on point, and we ended up staying mere blocks from a legit cronut bakery.  Gaussdamnit do I love those things.

In March, she came back to Madrid again, as did my family.  We took a nice day trip to Toledo and they got to see at least a little bit of Madrid.  After 9 years of teaching, my mom finally got to see my classroom.  She cried, natch.

Katja returned yet again in April, coinciding with a trip from our American/Israeli friends from England  Julian and Anya, their baby Muppet Avocado (who almost definitely has a real name), and Julian’s brother and his girlfriend.  It is always a sign of a good night when you stumble home at 1:00 on a school night in the complete wrong direction, even while holding open a map on your phone.  Thank you guys for letting me help you finish all of your wine before you flew out.  Bob and Ana +3 also visited Madrid during April.  After nearly two years apart, I was extremely grateful to be able to see them both twice this calendar year.

In May, I returned to Dresden after a long absence, saw some of my favorite people there, and of course had lots of ice cream.  A week later, I had the pleasure of crashing the senior trip from my school in Egypt, as they were visiting Lisbon.  The kids had no idea I was going to show up and were super cute and amazing when I just walked up to the group loudly asking Bob (yes, again!) if he knew anywhere good to go for a fados show.  It was amazing to reconnect with lots of the kids and to explore the wine scene with someone knowledgeable like Bob.

Anyway, to my 5 readers out there, that’s the short version of what I’ve been up to.  The year is coming to a close, and I expect I will write something reflective on it soon.  I am, as always at this time of year, feeling a whole mix of emotions right now, only some of which I fully grasp.  But I need to think and/or drink more before they flow from my fingers.  Goodnight for now.

[greateacheropke]

157 Days

New psychological thriller starring, I don’t know, probably Daniel Radcliffe, as a depressed expatriot teacher trying to make ends meet while teaching in a high stress environment without any access to internet in his home.  Watch as he slowly loses his rationality, develops imaginary friends and other complexes, and only when he tries casting the magic spell “QUATERNION” (that’s actually the subtitle of the film, why not) from the ancient Numbernomicon book do you realize that the whole thing was an allegory for his descent into mathematical schizophrenia.  There will be a song riffing on Rent with 226080 minutes.

Do you see this maniacal rambling?  This is where I’m at right now.

Anyway, I didn’t have internet in my home for 157 grueling days in this country, and I actually had to move to get it.

So the update is basically that I moved in with a coworker named Jonny.  Long story short, we have some other roommates from now until August, and will have two other coworkers moving in with us after that.  My life is so incredibly improved now in so many ways.  I have respectful friends in my home all the time, I have friends who live nearby.  I am starting to rebuild a community in my life, something that I think I took for granted for a long time until my second year at Schutz when I somehow earned my way into a pre-existing one.  After everyone I loved abandoned me at the end of that year, I worked hard to recreate it with new people last year, was successful, and then promptly abandoned everyone who I loved there.  You give a little, you take a little.

Anyway, I am happy to finally be feeling again like I am surrounded by people who I will be able to consider a family someday.  I know it will be awful in the end - I am already dreading saying goodbye to a few people this June, but for now it’s saving me in a lot of ways.

I would write more, but seriously most of my life is still just work-oriented and boring, so I won’t get into that here.  But if you really want to know about the joys of being a first year IB teacher, feel free to ask.

Peace out.

[greateacheropke]

I Have Heard Madrid is a Beautiful City.  I Would Love to See it Some Day.

Day 89 in captivity... still no wifi.

“There may come a time when difficult decisions must be made, and I'd rather be the one with the knife.”

In short - this is condensing a few months of piecing together Spanish explanations that I have no doubt understood very poorly and messages translated by colleagues - I was very much led on by my landlords as to the readiness of my apartment for wifi.  It needs wiring installed into the walls and it is a big mess.  I am leaving soon and will be moving in with Jonny, one of the two other new boys at work.

Ah, work.  Then there’s that.  As if the internet situation at home hasn’t been frustrating enough.  Work is almost killing me.

Not to say I am unhappy.  In fact I am extremely satisfied by many aspects of my job.  I am being challenged and mentally stimulated in ways I’ve been dreaming about for years.  My students are, for the most part, fantastic.  They inspire and motivate me every day. Even the bad ones - who are very few and far between - are still totally great about it.  Gun to my head, my guess at the worst one is probably a total dirtbag outside of school, but is still really polite and goes along with anything I ask in the classroom.

If anything I am just being challenged too much.  I won’t try to bore you, but in short: I am teaching five classes (standard) of four different subjects (two or three is standard).  They include the three most challenging courses we offer - AP Stats, which I have taught before, and both junior and senior years of Higher Level Mathematics for the International Baccalaureate.  My predecessor left me very little to work with, no one else in my department has any experience teaching the course, and my school’s calendar offers me less than 80% of the recommended hours to teach the course.  It is brutal on the kids and it is brutal on me.  I often spend somewhere between 10-12 hours in my building on a work day, just trying to stay a day ahead of everything.  I leave totally mentally and emotionally drained, and go home to sleep.

I like to tell myself that I got dumped on this year because my administrators just saw how great my potential is.

I am not saying I have broken down and started crying as I have snapped under the pressure of it all yet, but I have definitely come really close a few times.  But then I go in the next day and I can’t wait to see the kids again.  A few have commented about how they love watching me get so excited about the topics I am teaching, how refreshing it is that I am there to teach them mathematics instead of teaching them how to pass an exam, even some parents have passed compliments along to my administrators on my behalf.  This is all very good stuff, but boy would I rather have some hours to sleep or have a social life or something.  Arriving to work before sunrise and leaving after sunset kinda makes that a bit difficult though.

I haven’t worked this hard since my first year as a teacher, and that’s not something that I ever wanted to or thought I would say.

[greateacheropke]

I Madridn’t Forget to Post This Time...

I just don’t have wifi yet.  Right now I’m sitting at work late just to pump this out.  The perceptive reader will notice a new blog name!  Still working on getting a picture of me in some ridiculous Spanish themed outfit.

Anyhow, I have successfully moved to Madrid.  I have a new apartment and am getting settled at my new school.  I am entirely overwhelmed by all of the new people, places, and things that I need to remember.  It is a lot to take in right now, but I also am really getting the feeling that I am going to love it here.

Oh, and before I forget, I now use page breaks...click the link below, Nana.

The streets are very clean and have names labeled.  Buildings are not all sand colored, very tall, and abandoned looking.  I already know my way around this city better than Alexandria after three years.

Apparently some of my new colleagues have already been reading this blog.  Cool.  Hi everyone.

Colleagues and the few kids I’ve met all seem great.  No official students for a week, but new student orientation has begun so I’ve already met a few of my future captives students.

The wine here is cheap but I have no idea what any of the varieties are like.  The beer here is terrible, but I recently discovered a craft beer store online that is near my apartment.

I am developing a lisp.

I bought a bike and ride to work everyday.  It’s about 16km, some nasty hills, and parts of it are along the shoulder of the highway.  If that sounds crazy, I’m not the only one who does it.  Takes 40-50 minutes depending on direction, though I could do it faster if I really pushed myself. Since public transport isn’t much faster, this is way more fun.  But I need to invest in some good rain gear before November (cue G&R?).  Guess I should have looked into that will all the Eastern Mountain Sports summer sales.  Oh well.

For the second year in a row, I managed to forget to pack my work pants, and only my work pants, at my parents’ house.  Way to go, subconscious mind.

There is pork.

It’s definitely going to be a while before I can get myself sorted between work and home life.  I need to finish my residency paperwork and only then can I sign up for wifi (I think?), and I have more than enough to keep me busy preparing for work.  As it is I feel like I am going to end up coming to work one day this weekend to continue putting things together.  Hasta ahora, va bien...

[greateacheropke]

Havasu

After Albuquerque I headed to Flagstaff for a hike in the Grand Canyon (not the national park area that you’re probably thinking of, but a smaller oasis nearby).  My train ended up being delayed by nearly three hours (apparently hitting and killing a cow while on tribal land is a big deal), so I ended up stranded in my hotel lobby, although it did allow me to publish my last post in absolute record time (considering my history of posting months behind real life).  Conveniently, there was another IB training immediately following mine, and the organizers recognized me and treated me to a free dinner at the incoming orientation meeting.

Despite the lateness I was impressed with the quality of the Amtrak ride, and the fact that they note what station you’re going to and wake you up would have been a welcome, if impractical, customer service option many a late night back on the Long Island Rail Road.  Eventually I arrived at Flagstaff and walked to the Drury Inn (recommended, great perks at a good price there) without getting mugged, which was a nice touch.  I got settled, was treated to a quick chat with Katja thanks to the 9 hour time difference, and caught about 2 hours of sleep in a bed before rising for the trip.  Most expensive nap I’ve ever taken, but I also checked a lot of my personal items there for the duration of the hike, so whatever.

Our destination was Havasupai Native American Reservation in the Grand Canyon on a tour operated by The Wildland Trekking Company.  There were 11 customers and 2 guides on the trip, representing 4 countries (USA, Brazil, Germany, Australia) and 3 states (NY, CA, CO), as young as a recent high school graduate and as old as about 50.  It was a good mix of demographics and our guides were fantastic.

The Havasupai (”people of the blue-green water”) are the longest permanent and continuous inhabitants of the Grand Canyon and are one of the few tribes who still occupy their original lands (though not all of them of course).

The name is obvious when considering the colors of the streams and waterfalls there, a consequence of the calcium carbonate in the water.  It also reclaims any objects left behind, like sunglasses, shoes, or floating water bottles by calcifying them and turning them into rock, kinda like the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

After about 2 hours of driving in the dark we arrived in the small town of Seligman (which Pixar’s Cars was loosely based on, and if you’ve seen the movie it is pretty evident from a quick drive through the place) for breakfast and coffee.  2 hour later, we were at Hualapai Hilltop and started our decent into the canyon.  The hike was not for the faint of heart; lots of sun and it lasted a good 6 hours, possibly more.  Eventually the shrubs turn into trees, indicating running water nearby.  We took a quick swim at New Navajo Falls (”new” because they were only created by a 2008 flood), which featured a 50 foot waterfall hiding a secret cave that we were able to explore, but only by diving from a rock underneath the waterfall’s cascade.

A little farther onward are the namesake Havasu Falls, certainly the most popular set.  Nearby is an abandoned mine that can’t really be explored due to dangerous air quality (even my damaged nose could smell the gas).  Back at the falls, you are able to climb a rock wall about 20 feet up and jump into the water.  The fun part is that you need to jump close enough to the falls to make sure you land in deep enough water, but far enough from the falls to not get sucked into the undertow and drown.  Our guides specifically forbade us from doing this, so I waited until the left to make dinner one night to attempt it.  I live.

Farther still are Mooney Falls (which at 190′ are higher than Niagara Falls) accessible through a pair of rock tunnels and down a series of chains and wooden ladders slick from the spray (as my guide remarked, ”you won’t see something like this in the national park, only on the reservations!”).  We explored these and a bit of the creek downstream on the second day.  Mooney Falls are named after a miner, Mooney, who fell to his death and was encrusted in limestone by the time his team could reach his body.  Get it, Mooney Falls.  Ehhhhhh!

Other than that, it was just minute after minute of lush creeks, stunning falls, blistering sun, and very warm, humid tents at night.  It was cool to see a different area of the states, and technically now I’ve visited the Grand Canyon.  It was also neat to see a region very similar in its nature to the background of Fallout Las Vegas come to life in front of me.  My mind actually kept wandering between that and The Hills Have Eyes.  Maybe it was the sun, but I am pretty sure I saw someone up there watching me.

We spent a full rest day just exploring the area, and departed the next morning around 3:00.  Hiking out in the pitch dark enabled me to stumble upon a young bark scorpion (the most venomous scorpion in North America).  These are things you don’t think about when you’re stumbling about in the middle of the night to take a piss.

It was a great hike and an amazing part of the country to explore.  My only regret is that not one person said “havasuper day” or something like that.  Excellent opportunity for a pun there, and we all missed it.  Thankfully it was only a few days long, because seven days without a pun makes one weak.

Anyway.

From Flagstaff I flew to Oakland by way of Phoenix.  My best friend had moved there a month and a half prior and it was most excellent to see him again.  I finally got to fully experience the Exploratorium on adults only night.  Some of the vendors will sell you more than one beer at once, but your best bet is to befriend someone who is not drinking and ask them to pretend you are buying one for them, as the lines can take a while.  The scotch ale is delicious and strong.  I cannot recommend this enough as your Thursday night itinerary in San Fran.

Friday we enjoyed a hike at Muir Woods, as I did with Katja almost a year prior.  Armed with the knowledge of what I was actually doing this time, we were able to plan a fun hike through the woods, which could only have been improved had we woken up earlier and found better parking.  Defying all odds, no poison oak was disturbed.  Just like my last time at Muir, In-n-Out was the reward at the end of the day (this time was my friend’s virgin experience).  We ended the night at one of Oakland’s many bars.  They have a cool scene over there, quite a few beer gardens; the place we went to allows you to brew your own in house and offers classes, which is pretty sweet if you’re just learning.  

The next day we spent at a bbq and someone’s home in Berkeley.  The Bay Area is just about the worst place to go for fireworks, as they are mostly covered by fog.  But you can hear them, I guess.

The next morning I flew back out of SFO.  You know you’re in San Francisco when the airport has signs leading you to a yoga / meditation room.  I flew Virgin America, which I’d never done before.  Interesting airline.  At check-in they were blasting Gangnam Style... what the fuck.  Boarding the plane, it was illuminated by purple lights as if to make it appear like a nightclub in the sky.  But it had live tv from runway to runway, which meant I got to watch the amazing Women’s World Cup final in its entirety.  Other passengers and I pumped our fists silently in the air, respectful of the fact we were on a flight but all searching for some human contact with whom to celebrate.  I also finally got to see one of those song and dance safety videos which, while no Richard Simmons or Middle Earth, certainly kept my attention.

Thus ended my adventures in the western reaches of the country.  I came back to NY and took another AP Stats training class, saw some friends in the city, and even had my first “reunion” with a colleague from Egypt (we just missed each other too much after half a month apart).  I owe a great deal of gratitude to my wonderful sister for letting me stay with her, use the massage chair in her office, for singing a lot of Disney songs with me in the car for our trip upstate, and in general for myriad other things that probably go unnoticed by me on a daily basis.  Christine, you truly are Wonder Woman, even though you don’t have to be.  Thank you for everything.

I remain unsatisfied sitting still for long, however, and I miss my girlfriend, so a few hours after posting this, I am off to Munich/Dresden to see her and other friends once more.  Bis bald...

[greateacheropke]

Wacka Wacka Doodoo Yeah.

This has been a very hectic summer thus far.  I was only given 4.5 days with my family before having to go back to work - ie, before flying to Albuquerque for an International Baccalaureate training session for next year.

Almost everything I know about Albuquerque I learned from Weird Al, which is to say that I should fly the whole way there with my tray table up and my seat back in the full upright position.  I also took Bugs Bunny’s advice to heart, and was prepared to take that left turn (in fact, I took many).  The rest I learned from a couch surfer who stayed with me earlier this year, who thought that there was probably more things to do in Alexandria than in Albuquerque.  This was a bad start.  “...Oh, wait!  We have a movie theater!”  And that was where it ended, as her husband and I broke into laughter and ridicule.

So I was really excited to arrive and seize the weekend, but first I had to get there.

At LaGuardia, there was a group of interns (or “fucking idiots,” as their group leader called them) for some company on my outbound flight to DFW, and they managed to leave behind both a laptop on a chair and a drivers license on the ground.  I like it when other people make me look good.

DFW has some god awful tap water.  Drink up on the flight because you do not want to be parched during your layover.  On the bright side, there is a barber shop.

Yeah I’m gonna avoid the lines at my usual guy in town to get a quick cut at the airport, where I know the real talent opens up shop.

Big thanks to my man Foley for the online detective work exhibited below.

Would you let this person cut your hair?  She can’t be trusted with her own, definitely not mine!  I can confirm this is the exact barber I saw, except her wig is sitting on her head a lot straighter in this pic.

Some people were even helpful enough to leave reviews:

When I eat in an airport, I am expecting to overpay for mediocre food, because airport restaurants prey on people who are hungry and desperate and I am just desperate enough to go along with it.  Who needs a haircut this badly?

On my second leg I sat next to a uniformed flight attendant for a different airline, which seemed odd at best and like outright spying at worst.  The working flight attendants, in an act of blind duty or bigoted bullying I do not know, specifically targeted him to put his seat up for take off.  He was also totally using 3G on his phone while we were descending.  Figures.

Sadly, due to the working nature of my trip, I didn’t get too much of a chance to explore Albuquerque beyond learning how to spell it.  The food is a Mexican / Native American hybrid - ”New Mexican,” you might call it - and is quite good, especially washed down by one of the many local craft brews.  I took a chance and made some connections with good people at my workshop and we checked out food in Old Town and bar hopped in Nob Hill.  I couldn’t recommend many particular spots over others, but I will say that there is a beautiful free sculpture garden at the Albuquerque Museum in Old Town, with a mix of abstract and realist pieces.  Both Friday and Saturday night we ended the night across the street from our hotel at a high fidelity, ie low quality, New Mexican ripoff of Hooters called “Ojos Locos.”  It is exactly as classy as you imagine.

Our 15 year old illegal immigrant (I mean I could be wrong) waitress and 100oz of Negra Modelo in our personal tap.

The trip wasn’t all fun of course; I had to work a bit.  I learned a lot just from interacting with other teachers.  Some have taught IB, some have taught both IB and AP; comparisons and insights were readily available.  I also hung with some IB coordinators, who were able to give a much more global view of the program and a bit of a hint into the administrative side of things.  

My training, held at the Albuquerque Marriott (sadly not the “Holiday Inn, where the towels are oh so fluffy”), taught me a lot about the content I need to brush up on this summer (which will be challenging but manageable and rewarding) as well as assessment (about which I am deeply panicked).  Just like with the AP program, it is crucial that I can give feedback throughout the year as to how my students are progressing with regards to the standards in place.  In fact, there is an internally assessed piece which I need to grade and then mail away to make sure that I am grading accurately, so it feels somewhat high stakes for me as well.

I’m thrilled though; IB looks like it is no joke.  I can’t wait to teach these kids, and I hope I can be proud of our work together.

[greateacheropke]

Dirty Thirty

This year, I turned twenty-ten, which is an age that is awkward to write out in numerals without making yourself seem centuries old (210), or making yourself seem 30, which sometimes can feel like the same thing.

If you know me, you know that I hate birthdays.  I usually don’t wish people a happy birthday and generally when people wish me a happy birthday it just annoys me, which is really the opposite of what anyone wants.  I am a man of extreme introversion and extroversion at different times, and this is one of those things I am very introverted about.

It’s ironic, then, that this trip was largely made possible by a very extroverted man totally invading my personal space on my flight back from London in January.  This guy, George from Texas, insisted on telling me all about his frequent trips to Sinai to stay with the monks, and the history I didn’t know about it, and other facts about his life.  I really just wanted to sleep, and I don’t like talking to people I don’t know, but he just kept talking, and managed to pique my interest a few times.  He gave me his card, and I ended up emailing him a few months later to put me in contact with his Bedouin friends.  So thank you, George from Texas.

Anyhow, my past two birthdays I was lucky enough to avoid people in general and spend with Katja on the senior trip (foreigners don’t count as people to avoid as they’re not really talking to me, my co-chaperones were generally understanding of me, and do high school seniors really count as people at all?  I have my doubts).  This year I did not have that opportunity, so instead I decided to really avoid people and go wander the Sinai desert for a few days.

I mean, there were Bedouins.  And spiders.  And Russian tourists.  And probably parasites (jury is still out).  But again, I considered myself generally alone, which was the best way I could spend my birthday (aside from being with Katja, who took this weekend to attend a German reality television gay wedding and get hit on by a member of Saxon parliament - but that’s another story I suppose).

I had to wake around 4 to catch a morning flight, arrived in Sharm el Sheikh by 9, and made it to St. Catherine by noon to meet my guide, Suleiman.  After lunch, we began hiking Mt. Sinai.

Generally people take a night trip from their hotel in Sharm el Sheikh or Dahab or somewhere, arrive at the mountain by 2 or so, hike up for sunrise, and head back.  I paid for the full Moses experience.

We took an alternative route, up a beaten path of dirt and lose stones not frequented by daily tourist groups.  Along the way I was treated to lots of cool historical sites.

First we stopped by the ruins of a building that his people, the Jebeleya tribe, used to inhabit.  Just outside, we found the corpse of a headless falcon.  Strangely, the rest of the body was still there, mostly intact.  Suleiman surmised that it must have been a sick bird, which was why scavengers had not eaten it (except for its head I guess).

A sick, headless falcon.  Not a good omen for the country!

We continued on, passing a number of old hermit churches and caves.  We stopped by one that is still occasionally in use by an elderly Russian named Natasha, who visits a few times each year.  We found her cave stocked with supplies and well furnished.

Talk about a vacation home.

We continued our trek, eventually meeting up with the main path at Elijah’s Basin, which was the first time on this trip that I made the informed decision of drinking the water.  A month on and I still feel strong though.

From there we walked the final 750 steps to the peak, where I was rewarded with great views and a peaceful sunset.

Just a little below the summit is a small Bedouin camp where we spent the frigid night with other Jebeleya.  The temperature dropped from around 35 during the day to around 5 at night.  On my way to the toilet, I made a new friend.

This dude spanned about the size of my palm, and if anyone knows what it is, I would be excited to hear (my best guess is something from the Huntsman group of spiders).

My sleep, while deep, was not long enough, as I rose before dawn to see the sunrise from the peak.  I was excited by this, except for the fact that I was joined by a few hundred tourists.  The moment was a bit spoiled, but still a wonderful view.

After breakfast we headed down the thousands of stone steps hand carved by St. Stephen to St. Catherine’s Monastery, where I saw an alleged descendant of the burning bush.  It is, disappointingly, no longer aflame.

After, we continued our journey towards our next camp, in the ominously named Wadi Arb3in, or “Valley of the 40 Martyrs.”  Along the way we stopped by Meribah, where Moses supposedly called water out of a rock.

We slept that night at the remote home of Sheikh Ramadan, who is famous in the region for taming hyraxes, a rodent-looking desert animal actually more closely related to the elephant (don’t ask me).  His garden included one of many rocks I saw with ancient Nebataean (the people who made Petra) inscriptions on it.  Quite a place to live, or just to spend the night.  Here, I drank more ground water and also met another friend when I closed the door to my “room,” which was just four walls and a roof covering a dirt flood (I loved it).

There I am, pitch darkness except for my headlamp, and I close the door and see this dude at eye level.

Hi there!

I chased him out and managed to wake up without any harm done.

We set off the next morning for the peak of Mt. Catherine, highest point in Egypt.  Suleiman was convinced we were blessed with good luck because we saw a white partridge on the way, seen only once or twice a year.

Everytime I hike now, or walk up a hill or even a flight of stairs (I do not jest), my mind tends to drift back to Kilimanjaro.  Helps me keep a good pace with high spirits.  I enjoyed Suleiman’s company a lot, but his pace was not “pole pole” as they say on Kili.  He basically sprinted up the mountain, then would rest for a long time, resulting in poor body temperature regulation.  But we solved this on the last day, when he took a break to use the bathroom, and told me to keep going (since I walk so slowly).  I did not see him for about 20 minutes, and began to wonder whether he was alright (he had said he felt ill the day before).  I also wondered how I would explain myself if I came across any other Bedouins wondering why this white dude was hiking alone.  But Suleiman caught up to me eventually and we continued to the top.

The peak of Mt. Sinai is just to the right of my forehead.

At the top, my pen exploded while signing the summit book, so if you ever go and see a bunch of purple splotches, that was me.  I apologize in my note, if you find it.  The current book seems to be a few years old and still has lots of empty pages, so this isn’t as far fetched of a scavenger hunt as it sounds.  Send me a photo of my note if you go.

Thus ended the journey.  I won’t lie, I am a bit bummed I was not chosen as the next prophet.  We walked down, I drank some more water and caught my flight back here.  After two full days in the wilderness and sleeping on the ground, upon arriving home I was treated to my first shower in about 75 hours.  Dirty Thirty, indeed.

*****

Below are some advertisements on behalf of my guide and taxi driver, if you ever want to plan your own trip to Sinai.  They speak English well and are good people.

www.hikesinai.com/

https://www.facebook.com/hikesinai

https://www.facebook.com/sinaitaxis

[greateacheropke]

Career in Review / Goodbye Egypt

It’s the final countdown.

I leave Egypt in less than 5 days, and for the first time in my life, I’m starting to feel like what I do Sunday to Thursday (it’s gonna be weird going back to Mon-Fri workweeks!) isn’t just a job anymore, but a career.

As you may know, I taught for 5 years in poor NYC public schools, and didn’t care much for it.  These were schools whose kids had real problems, problems that, quite frankly, I didn’t know how to solve.  And I teach AP (get it?)!  They need high quality educators, but the systemic issues holding them back - many ultimately stemming from centuries of explicit and implicit racism - extend far beyond the school, and whatever little I could do was never going to fix all of it.  I never felt like I made enough of a difference to enough people to justify the fact that I was turning into a functioning substance abuser and was not so secretly depressed.  And so this Atlas shrugged.

Some readers might be familiar with some personal issues I was dealing with during my final year in NYC, but I assure you, these problems started much earlier.  During my fourth year, I started looking for work outside of the classroom but still related to math education - camps, museums, math circles - but nothing panned out and I stayed in schools.  After all, I always knew that someday I would leave NYC far behind and teach overseas.  Also, I had no other choice.

Leaving NYC my teaching resume went up to Algebra II / Trigonometry, a standard 11th grade course, and included some assistant coaching and after school clubs.  Now I’ve taught AP Calculus (AB level) and AP Statistics, almost reaching the highest peak of subjects taught in American schools.  I got trained in new software, learned a little about how student councils can be run, and picked up head coaching experience leading two JV boys football teams and running small self defense / jiu jitsu clinics - although my time working with my colleague (dare I say amiga) Samarie on varsity girls volleyball was the most valuable coaching experience of all (and I can’t omit how much she coached me as a player too).

And next year I’m headed to an IB school and will be teaching HL 1 and HL 2, which are almost the highest level math courses available in that system (I don’t think my teaching load includes “Further Mathematics,” although I could also just be new and confused).  Out of three new teachers hired, I am the only one teaching any HL courses, and I am also the only one teaching an AP course (stats again).  If the next three years go well, I will be really spoiled and will probably be choosing future employment based on the requirement that I teach high level courses, instead of the hope.

It’s been a great three years, and there is more to come.

Looking ahead is exciting and fun, but I can’t help but look back as well.  For three years this place has been my home (according to the saying that home is where your heart is, however, my home is of course in Dresden).  Some of my coworkers have become friends; some of those friends have become family.  There are students who I cannot wait until they graduate so I can respond to their facebook invitations.  I’m not saying I cried last year, but I cried last year, and I might have a few times already in the past few days.

And I know there’s more to come, because it’s been a great three years.

[greateacheropke]

I Did a Fair Job at the Job Fair

Lots of this one is teaching related information, much of which will be very familiar to teachers, especially in international schools.

I think somewhere in between the last post and this one I visited my friends in Dubai and my family in New York.  Heart warming all around, ate beer and drank pork, saw lots of tiny humans that I am increasingly becoming fond of.  Convinced Katja to come back to the US, and treated her to a photoshoot at Planting Fields Arboretum (recommended location) thanks to the always fantastic Mama Deuce, Bette.  We drank milkshakes, played with dogs, had a romantic private weekend away for New Years Eve, and Katja enjoyed her first “authentic American Chinese takeout dinner.“

But me?  I barely remember any of these events.  Not only because I have a terrible memory, but also because this period of my life was a very dark time.  A cloud hung above my head all day every day, and that was the impending job fair in January.

Ah yes, the international job fair.  Not nearly as bad as my first experience, since I knew what to expect, but still awful.  Let me give you a quick taste of it.

Leading up to it, my entire life was in turmoil.  I had already told my current job that I would not be returning in August.  But where would I go?  Ideally, a school would hire me without my having to attend a fair.  This miracle has graced some people I know, but every school I emailed seemed disinterested.

I had received an offer from the Walworth Barbour School in Israel (we’d interviewed together quite a bit three years ago as well) and some interest from Shanghai American School (one of the best schools in China).  Both were good schools with good positions, so accepting would have given me a lot of peace of mind, but I wasn’t terribly excited about either, and I’m a gambler when I’m betting on myself.  I decided to risk a job fair, even though that meant that the Israel and Shanghai might not wait around for me.  The date approached and I knew that I needed to accept a job, any job, within the span of one hectic weekend of in person interviews.

As an aside, many people get hired after the main wave of job fairs in winter/early spring, but I was not willing to continue my personal torture of not knowing where I would live later this year.  Too many question marks, I don’t know how people live that way unless they are independently wealthy and can afford to just take a year off in case nothing comes around.

I currently teach AP Statistics, and I taught AP Calculus AB the past two years.  These are the highest level courses you will find in most American high schools - occasionally a special school might include computer programming, Calculus BC, or some other individualized course, but Stats and Calc AB are the two benchmark courses for teachers.  So I had that going for me...which is nice.  But would it be enough?

I’ve coached and advised activities, I have a very good recommendation from my boss, and I stuck out a full contract and even stayed an extra year in the very tumultuous Egypt (indicating that I am not a concern to break contract and leave a post).  Still, I felt concerned going in.

I want to teach in an International Baccalaureate school.  IB is similar to AP, but is more common in more “international” environments than “American” ones.  I am not an expert in IB - I’ve done a little research and talked to a few teachers and students who have experienced aspects of both.  In short, I believe IB is better suited to mold well rounded students who are ready to become global stewards, and also that the more integrated approach to mathematics can, if done well, be more enriching to the student.  I want to be a part of it, at least to see for myself what all the hype is about.

Also, many of the schools in the more appealing locations on the planet are IB.  Since I want to move to western Europe, where many (I would guess a strong majority) of the best schools are IB, I need to be willing to get involved.

But IB is a business.  The schools need qualified, trained teachers.  They don’t all want to take a chance on a new teacher, or want to spend time and money training one.  Without IB experience, many won’t hire you.  But how do you get the experience?  Such is the eternal paradox at every entry level position out there.  But, if I could find a job to take me, and I teach a year or two of “High Level IB Mathematics,” then between that and my AP credentials I ought to be able to get a job pretty much anywhere I want down the road.

There are a few job fairs throughout the year bringing together teachers and schools from around the world.  The University of Northern Iowa hosts one every year, and there are other small ones in various places at various times.  But the two big names in the game are International Schools Services and Search Associates.  There are plenty of sites out there that will compare them better than I can.  I did my research in 2011 and chose SA for reasons that I no longer recall.  Both are similar in that once they accept you as a client, you have access to all their files on schools and available positions, and the schools have access to your file as well.  Additionally, you can be invited to a job fair.

They host some large fairs and some smaller ones for niche markets.  The London job fair is geared towards European schools, with a heavy emphasis on IB schools.  This is well published and I was warned ahead of time that I might not find something.  But I know I am well qualified math teacher, and I also know just how charming I can be.  I was going to get a job...but would it be the one I wanted?

The fair featured about 650 candidates and 160 schools.  I had a list of 10-15 schools going in that I considered “acceptable,” including many who had ignored my prior applications.

No matter how much you prepare for this kind of thing, and you absolutely should prepare a lot, everything goes to shit as soon as the weekend starts.

For starters, you need to get into the country.  Heathrow, again, did not wish to make this easy for me.  “Why are you coming to England?”  “To attend an international job fair.”  “Yeah?  What are you going to do there?”  “Uh...hopefully get a job overseas?”

The hotel had two large conference rooms.  Each room had tables lining the walls, and aisles of more tables the full length of breadth across.  Each table was for a school, organized by country, and each school had a list of their openings on a big piece of paper hung behind them to help teachers identify who had a new opening and who might have just filled theirs.  Plenty of new schools had openings that hadn’t existed the night before, which is good, since half of the schools I had researched had somehow filled their positions already.

The morning was a marathon session of waiting in line after line in loud, crowded rooms (not pleasant at all for an introvert), trying to sell myself to earn a real interview.  Many schools straight up told me “yeah, we know it sucks, but if you don’t have IB experience, we’re not interviewing you.”  This was expected, but life goes on.  I scheduled a few warm up interviews for early in the day with schools I didn’t care much about, and was able to lock up some others I was very hopeful for.

The rest of the day, and the entire next day, were dedicated to short interviews held in the recruiters’ hotel rooms.  They generally lasted 15-30 minutes, and as soon as they were done, I had to race out to find my way to a different floor for the next one.  Of course, the elevators were a disaster, and the stairs didn’t go to every floor.  There were additional outdoor stairs, but then I had to walk outside in London winter.  This was nice for a quick of fresh air, but when I ended up getting locked outside and missed an interview, it was kind of frustrating, and quite cold.  Thankfully, that was a school I never intended to go for.

You never know who you’ll meet at job fairs.  Last time, I met my current boss, whom I’d met 5 years prior at his job in Chile on a graduate school trip.  This time, I ran into a man who had been principal at a school in which I student taught in NYC 9 years earlier.  While we had a good interview, in the end it didn’t work out (his head of school took too long to contact me for a skype interview, or I could have ended up in Barça...).  Still, one must be perceptive in order to not miss an opportunity.

Ah yes, perception.  It can be the difference between interviewing with the American International School of Bucharest and the American International School of Budapest.  It’s too confusing to really explain here; I’m still not sure what happened, but I actually almost corrected the recruiter from Budapest for saying the wrong country’s name almost 10 minutes into an interview- an interview in which I had said a bunch of things that I believed were very specific to Bucharest, a school I had researched but was not actually interviewing with at that moment, but were actually relevant to...some other school I had researched, I don’t know which...but were also relevant to Budapest!  I looked like a genius and we had a great interview together.  His cousins were even Ropkes!

Going into the last leg of the fair, things were looking up for me.  The Israel offer still existed.  I also had an offer made by King’s Academy in Jordan early on the final morning of the fair.  Things were going strong with the team from Budapest (or was it Bucharest...no, no, it was Budapest.  I think.).  I was having a great string of interviews with Anglo American School of Sofia, in Bulgaria (who had been ignoring me since I applied to them in October).  And things seemed to be going well with the American School of Madrid, a dark horse school that had flown under my radar until the very end.  In the end, I walked away with offers only from Israel, Jordan, and Spain.  As the only IB school of the mix and the only one in Europe, of course I chose Madrid as my future home.  If you don’t read my facebook often, this might be news to you, so there it is, then.

Words will never capture the insanity and stress level that one encounters at these job fairs.  You have to experience it to understand.  I didn’t see anyone crying this time, but I did at my first one.  I was a lot calmer this time, partially because I knew a bit of what to expect ahead of time, but also because I had a great team of supporters in London with me (not that Dave and Katherine weren’t amazing for me in Boston back in 2012, too).  I had linked up with a Canadian teaching in the UAE through facebook, so we looked out for each other throughout the weekend.  Speaking of Canadians, my ex-colleague from Egypt, Joseph, changed my life by introducing me to the Aeropress coffee maker, which made every morning of this trip just bearable.  And speaking of ex-colleagues from Egypt, Carrie was at the fair as well, and ended up taking a job outside of Frankfurt.  It was great to see her again and occasionally use her hotel room as a strategy room / toilet (I stayed at a cheap ass hotel 10 minutes away from the fair; she sprung for the fancy hotel room with a desk and everything).  Hopefully we run into each other from time to time over the next few years in Europe.  I also got to see my London friends Julian, Anya, Jen, and Alex again, though only for one night each this time.  Most of all though, it meant the world to me to have Katja there by my side (at least after the fair ended every day) keeping me calm and buying me really good donuts.

[greateacheropke]

London Part Onedon

Disclaimer 1: I’ve tried really hard to use terms like “England,” “Britain,” “British Isles,” “UK,” and “Westeros” as accurately as possible here.  But please correct me if I’ve mislabeled anywhere.

Disclaimer 2: This post is intended to be read with the BBC Sherlock theme playing in the background.

This past October, Katja and I visited London, somewhere we’d been talking about going for a long time.  She had lived in England for some time (and still speaks with somewhat of a British accent, uses some British vocabulary, and spells lots of words with the letter S instead of Z [which she, of course, pronounces “zed”]) and always talked about how much she loved London.  It had never been high on my list, but within the past year my friend Juian and his wife Anya had moved there and I had met Jenn and Alex on my Kilimanjaro trip, so the time seemed right.  Throw in a day trip to Southampton to see Helen, whom I met in Beijing in 2009, and an evening with Lucy, whom I met in Berlin in 2010, and the trip was packed with friendly faces I was happy to see again.

We slept a few nights with each pair in London, and spent plenty of time wakling around seeing free touristy things from the outside, most of which I won’t bore you with.  I will say that there were a few art exhibits and I really enjoyed walking through the Greenwich foot tunnel. 

Pervasive cultural stereotypes had already informed me that British food would be slightly more appetizing than a dirt pie.  But there are stereotypes about my own nation’s food as well, and I won’t have any of that.  Truthfully, I don’t think I had enough local samples to get a feeling for what British, or even English food, really is.  The jury will remain out until a future visit.

I will say this though: London afforded me the opportunity to sample some of NYC’s biggest fusion sensations.  I finally got to eat the famous Cronut.  It was worth the wait.  This donut, bought from some random donut stall in a market that I’d never be able to find again, might have been the best I’ve ever had.  I also got to eat a Ramenburger, which has apparently been around for quite some time without my knowledge.  It was also incredible.

Further on the topic of stereotypes, immediately upon exiting the tube in Finsbury Square (on my first day in the country, mind you), I felt I had been transported back to Egypt.  Muslims everywhere, no one driving on the right side of the road, and no one speaking English.  I soon remembered that they drive on the left side in England and, though it took some getting used to, most of the people actually were speaking English.  It was just...British.

British, and varied.  Listening to people talk really kept me on my toes.  People always talk about the different regional accents in the UK, and even within the city of London itself.  Similar comments can be made about unintelligible regions in Germany, Spain, and I imagine a lot of other places, but I’ve never felt it to such a strong degree in the US.  Yes we have many accents (and the Deep South is very difficult to understand, to be sure - though more pleasant to the ear than a thick New England accent), but we’re so damn big compared to these other places, and I just don’t think the dialects scale up proportionately with geographic area.  I feel like there is a thesis paper in there if anyone wants it.  My guess is that the immense amount of media generated in the US keeps us all from straying too far from “general American.”

For comparison, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language lists around 10 more dialects for the British Isles compared to the US, although it is about 1/30 the size and about 1/5 the population.

Language is not the only sense in which London possesses a very nebulous identity.  One must only look at the tube map to see a city that truly has no idea what it wants to be.  Hammersmith.  Knightsbridge.  Arsenal.  King’s Cross.  Queensway.  Imperial Wharf.  These are Game of Thrones locations.  They inspire fear and respect, and challenge any opposing empire to attack this mighty capital.  Headstone Lane and Harrow-on-the-Hill sound a bit more like settings for a horror story, but still badass.  Piccadilly CIrcus, that was named by an eight year old.  Shepherd’s Bush and St. John’s Wood, a weird pervert in high school.  Cockfosters, too, I imagine, though it stands apart as both the silliest and most fun to say out loud - go ahead, try it, bet you can’t say it just once - and it’s also as the end of the line!  So, like you, the robotic voice on the tube doesn’t say “Cockfosters” just once, but over and over again.   As an added bonus, this is what every visitor to London taking the tube out of Heathrow Airport is greeted with: taking the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters.  It is nearly impossible, at this point, to take this city seriously.

Except for the immigration control at the airport - they make you take this city very seriously.  Katja has often complained about how long the process is for her, an EU citizen, to enter the US through JFK.  I felt her pain as I waited in line at Heathrow.  The thing takes hours, because they are busy interrogating every single person.

“What are you doing in London?” “I’m visiting friends.” “What do they do here?” “Um...one works for the US military, the others are in auditing and...finance?” “What are you going to do here?” “Visit...my friends...” “What are you going to do with them?” “Eat...food?  See the...things there are in London?”

This was how it went for everyone.  In fact, one reason the line was so long was that they were busy trying to interrogate a bunch of Japanese tourists without a single agent who was able to speak Japanese.  I know this because they were asking the rest of us in line if anyone spoke Japanese.

Say what you want about racial profiling, but at least you can plan ahead to speak the language.

We only had a precious few days to spend in London, and spent the rest of our time together during my vacation in Dresden.  We would return to London again a few months later, but that is another story.

[greateacheropke]

bosnychisf

I should probably just give up writing this blog, as I regularly take months off and then forget most of the interesting things that happened.  Thankfully, most of the following post was saved in a draft from when I almost got back into the habit a while ago.  The following events took place in July/August 2014.

I took an AP Statistics training course this summer, which was frightening, since I've never taken a statistics course in my life and now I am supposed to be teaching one for college credit.  The class was held at Fordham University Lincoln Center, which meant I either needed to take the LIRR every day or find lodging in NYC, which I did thanks to my sister letting me crash there and give me space in her closet for clothes for a week.  Then I worked out a pretty sweet system in which I would get drunk with friends at night, sleep on their couch, go to class in the morning, then head to my sister's apartment to shower and change my clothes.  I had fun and, more importantly, I learned helpful things about statistics and the teaching of statistics.  Most importantly, though, was that I could finally put the two premier automatic hand dryers head to head.  But since I was at a stats course, I am obliged to acknowledge that (much) more data is needed to make a meaningful statement about them...but it's 1-0 in favor of the Xlerator.

Admit it: you have always wanted to walk into a bathroom and see this.  I lived that dream, five days in a row.  One hand in each - don't mind if I do.

Now, while DC/Kentucky was the big road trip of my summer (that I already remembered to write about!), I completely overlooked a shorter one that I took with Evan to Boston, which departed on the last day of this class.  We were hosted by my friends Dave and Katherine, aka the only friends of my ex who didn't blacklist me or otherwise apparently try to avoid me as much as possible (in fairness most of her family is still pretty cool to me, all things considered).  We got to share the house with some of Dave's family in from Düsseldorf for the first night, which meant Evan and I got to share a bed - thankfully, we are expect engineers in bed splitting techniques.  Highlights included eating Blue Ribbon BBQ (fantastic btw) and washing it down with some Porter Square Porter, taking a Sam Adams brewery tour, and checking out a Sox game.  I even rooted for the home team, against the current World Series contenders KC Royals (note from the present day: what a let down).  I had always wanted to go to Fenway, and that leaves only a few remaining ballparks that I would really want to check out.  Honorable mention of cool moments will go to trying to find the girl that Katherine saw with the incredibly short shorts, but as that was not a specifically Bostonian activity I will not officially label it an official highlight of the trip, despite the fun we all had trying to find shorts "above the fold."  Dave and Katherine are always a great time and I hope I can host them in NY sometime (or Egypt or - spoiler alert - in Madrid over the next few years).

Technically, the day after I got home from Boston, I left for DC.  But I already wrote about that because I am not good about blogging.

But let's skip ahead a few weeks to when Katja came to visit me in NY.  This was a big step for her, as in her eyes the United States lacks pretty much any culture or value whatsoever aside from comic relief.

I wisely began our journey by visiting my cousins and grandmother in upstate NY / PA, knowing that that she would be captivated by nature's bounty there.  It was a short visit, punctuated by playing with some wonderful large dogs, a trampoline, a zip line that nearly crushed my testicles, and a children's ballpit (because my cousins live in a giant playhouse).  Of course, apparently for Katja, the highlight was apparently attending the Sullivan County Fair, which was apparently being held while we were there (see what I apparently did there?)  I couldn't figure out what she was so excited about, but she had a good time getting to experience that little slice of American heartland "culture," so that was good.

We had a good time playing around NYC in Coney Island and meeting a few (very few) of my friends (finally!).  We even finally checked out MoMath, which I've been looking forward to for a very long time.  Special thanks to my uncle for scoring us a sweet deal at Gild Hall Hotel in the financial district, which freed up some budget space for us to go on a fancy dinner date together.  Special thanks also to my mom's friend who handed us each a $100 bill and told us to enjoy dinner.  Considering we spent about $500 (not a typo) at Daniel's on east 65th, every little bit helped.  Dinner was really good, don't get me wrong, but I am not sure anything was going to be $500 good, at least until I am earning 1000 times that a year.

We said goodbye to my family and headed west to Chicago, where we were met by my very first friend from university, Emily (it was great seeing Liz for a few short hours, too!).  We stayed with Emily and her lovely dog Beemo (or "Laser Beemz," as I lovingly call him) for a few days, and this is where the tide turned for Katja.

Look at how happy we are lifting our legs and screaming together.

Yes, Katja apparently found a city she enjoyed in Chicago.  She found the buildings to be pretty, the food to be delicious, and the people to be very friendly.  She was genuinely happy almost the whole time and did not complain about stupid Americans (besides me) constantly, so I think I really started to warm her up to the United States with this trip.  We may have to go back to this fine country someday.

My take on Chicago is also pretty positive.  Unlike many other large villages that claim to be cities, Chicago actually is a city.  As a New Yorker, I have standards for these things.  Chicago makes it.  But as they say (they don’t), visit Chicago for the architecture, but stay for the food (they don’t actually say it because their mouths are full).  I knew this, as I had visited the city a few years earlier.

If you visit Chicago, obviously you will try the deep dish pizza, probably from Lou Malnati's or Giordano's.  I would prefer not to take a stand in the NY v. Chicago pizza war because I honestly think they are just two very different approaches, each with something to offer.  I will say, for the casual tourist who doesn't know what to expect, that Chizza takes a very long time to prepare and is an extremely filling sit down meal, compared to the NY grab-and-go offerings.  Katja, of course, prefers Chizza.

Chicago is also home to some fantastic brunch spots - Yolk and Bongo Room are no joke.  But the biggest hidden gem, for me anyway, has got to be this place called the Silver Palm, featuring the 3 Piggy sandwich: smoked ham, pork tenderloin, bacon, gruyere, onion rings, and a fried egg, on some sort of buttery bread whose name I forget.

LOOK AT IT.  One of the best sandwiches I've ever had.

There are, of course, also some great parks and museums.  Here I visited the Museum of Science and Industry, which was the second hands on math/science museum of the summer for us.  I finally got to appreciate Buckingham Fountain for what it is (the Married With Children Fountain).  And thanks to our excellent host, we were led to Headquarters Beercade, where Katja struggled with playing free (they were FREE!) arcade games.  She was a really good sport and I'm very thankful she came along and gave it a shot even though she was out of her element.

After bonding with Emily over a shared love of singing Disney princess songs, we left her behind for the left coast.

(note from the present day: the draft ended here, so the rest of this is being written some 8 months later...oops)

We arrived at sometime after midnight and successfully found our rental car - which was, in a disappointing but somewhat comic surprise, a big red Ford truck.  Just imagine me rolling in one of those bad boys and try not to giggle.

I had booked a very competitively priced hotel, which before the trip I did not know was located in the middle of SF’s most exciting slum, Tenderloin.  Rancid wrote a song about it.  It’s pretty well known for being where all the junkies and prostitutes hang out, from what I have found out after the fact.  It’s always interesting how the entire tone of a city neighborhood can change just by crossing a street, but not interesting in a good way at 2am when you realize you’ve crossed over in the wrong direction, and here’s your hotel, and here’s two guys standing on the corner in front of it yelling at you and tipping over garbage cans.  Thankfully they ended up leaving us alone, no doubt intimidated by my manly presence, and we tried to get some sleep.  Coming from Egypt, I am used to sleeping through honking cars and mosque loud speakers, but not to screaming hobos throughout the night.  I felt like I was in Gotham in that part of the movie when Batman isn’t around.

As it turns out, most of the junkies, prostitutes, etc. in the area are totally harmless and kind of entertaining.  Nothing bad happened to us the entire time and most people, day or night, ignored us.  My intuition says that it’s probably still one of SF’s worse areas, but that I’ve been in far worse in NYC.

We toured the city, doing all those west coast things.  I finally ate In-N-Out Burger, which was...well, fine, but nothing special.  It was priced incredibly cheaply, I’ll give it that.  But I think I spent way too much time researching the secret menu for that lackluster of a meal.  I guess if I was a regular the effort would pay off in multiple cheap food outings, but, I don’t know, I just wasn’t feeling it.  We also ate some SF Chinatown Chinese food, which is just about as authentic as I suppose one is likely to find outside of China, or that’s at least what my cookie reassured me of.

A trip to SF would not be complete without a day trip to the Muir Woods, just north.  These aren’t nearly the tallest redwoods around, but they are the closest, involve a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, and there is an In-N-Out along the way, so you can check them all off.

So many panoramas were taken...

Other things we did included sunset over the Pacific Ocean, visiting the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, seeing the Full House house (from the opening credits), walking across half of the bridge (it was very long and much farther away than google had suggested...), escaping from Alcatraz, walking up and down a lot of fucking hills, and visiting the third and final hands on math and science museum of our trip - The Exploratorium.  Every Thursday, this joint is open to adults only for four hours, and they serve beer.  This is incredible and would make every museum everywhere more enjoyable.  Sadly, there was so much left unseen at the Exploratorium because we were only able to be there for an hour or so, as we were having too much fun across the bay in Oakland with blast from the past Ben of Vermont NYE fame.  We also got to see people playing Spikeball on the beach before Starshine’s wedding!

Ah yes, that’s why we were in SF to begin with.  Chris and Kate had a beautiful wedding overlooking a Pacific beach, with a good playlist and supporting cast.  This signified that they have people who care about them, they have good taste, and that Chris is definitely making a lot of money.  Yes, a man I met as “Socialist Starshine,” whose undergraduate degree is best summed up as “bardic studies,” is really doing well for himself.

It was great to see Foley, George, and Jess the Internanny again before I left for Egypt again.  Jiggy and Chino were around too, but mostly busy. It was also interesting to finally meet some of Starshine’s childhood friends, and at least see his family from across the room.

For reasons yet unknown to us mere mortals, Katja and I were unable to travel on the same flights from SF to Frankfurt, despite leaving at the same time.  So it was in SF that we had to say good bye yet again.

Who knows when I will post in this blog again?  For the time being, if I can offer you one takeaway from this blog post, it would be this piece of information I received at the wedding from someone with insider knowledge of the situation: Gonzo the Muppet’s relationship with Camilla the chicken is, in fact, “purely sexual.”  Oh, the nose...

[greateacheropke]

Bury Me Upside Down, So Anyone Who Don't Like Me Can Kiss My Ass

One of my best friends is named Adina.  I have no idea why she likes me so much (as the Germans say, "Freunde sind Menschen, die dich mögen, obwohl sie dich kennen."), but she's housed me and house-trained me quite a lot over the past 7 years of my life (negative reinforcement works, people).  She moved to Kentucky because...well, there probably aren't that many good reasons to move to Kentucky, but anyway she is living there for the time being and I went to visit her and managed to see another very good friend, Christopher Starshine H., Esquire.  Yes, what I just said.  (Beth, one of my surrogate mothers from grad school, was supposed to host me, even said she had room in her home, then bailed on me when I actually agreed to take her up on it...typical Beth.)

I departed from my home on Monday afternoon for NYC.  The plan was simple.  Park the car, meet my friends at the bar ("Drinking Monday" as it is called, or DM for short), let myself into my sister's apt on the UES (she isn't in the country), wake up, drive to Washington DC.  I rolled into NYC, found free parking on my sister's block (!!!), got out of the car to carry some stuff upstairs - and realized I forgot the key.  This was lame, but was resolved by later drinking beer and forgetting about it.

DM went great as always.  Two of my former students came out to meet us, one of whom is even 21.  I don't feel weird about this at all.  Found a spare room to crash in (after another bar), and the next morning was a mess but I eventually made it to my car.  Met up with one of the previous night's students at the deli she operates (had to see what she was doing for herself, also figured I'd need to use a toilet on my way) and even got a free breakfast sandwich out of it.  A brilliant maneuver (get it, BM?) on my part.  Onto DC.

I want to take a moment to give a shout out to the Walt Whitman Service Area in NJ for having (1) very attractive clientele purchasing Roy Rogers and Nathan's and (2) one of the friendliest, happiest, gas station attendants I've ever met who was not also clearly mentally impaired.  I don't know, seemed like a college age kid, maybe trying to work for the summer or something, point is, man he just looked like he loved his job.  Made my day a lot better to let him him pump my gas for me.  He was the first of many people to ask me about my toe shoes that day.

I rolled into DC around 15:00 or so, which only gave me a few hours to walk around before dark.  The first (and arguably best) thing of note was, while walking around one of many statues/fountains that day, I heard some sort of grunt/yelling coming from around the other end of it.  I had to check it out, and was met with a group of homeless looking folks.  One was a lady (I use the term loosely), who, as soon as I turned the corner, picked up her shirt to bare her breasts to the man next to her.  He, in turn, grunt/screamed again, and started slapping them.  She maintained a very straight face through all of this, kinda like she was daring him to continue.  While I knew in my heart that this, truly, was a national treasure, even my inner Nic Cage told me to get the hell out of there.

I had no time to check out any museums, although I did stroll through the outdoor Scultpure Garden of the National Gallery of Art.  This was a really cool, free find, and a great spot to enjoy some weird art and cool off a bit.  Aside from that, I walked around the mall and saw all the major monuments, only entering the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.  I did a full stroll around the capitol building, even commented to myself about how "it's not even white!  I'm colorblind and I can tell.  And I really thought they'd have more security here!" before realizing it was not, in fact, the White House.  I never fail to disappoint even myself.

DC is a nice little town.  Like Boston and many other non-NYC cities, it is cute they way it tries to act like a big kid, but still had a very friendly, comfy vibe.  I don't know what the nightlife or single life is like there, but I thought it was a decent spot for a young couple like Chris and his fiancée Kate (whom I apparently met once, years ago, and was very inappropriate around, surprising no one).  Lots of museums and parks, all conveniently located together and yet not super crowded (at least, not for this one data point I sampled).  Tons of grass and public fountains too, which was perfect for me so I could kick off my shoes and splash some cool water on my smelly body.

From what I am told, DC food has a ton of variety, which is all good, but not great.  Thriving Ethiopian scene, though I didn't check it out.  I ate at two restaurants with Chris and Kate (one was technically on my return trip, but I include it here for simplicity).

First was "The Big Board," which is a bar that prices its draft beers based on market fluctuations.  The more people buying a specific beer, the more expensive it becomes.  This isn't the first time I'd heard of the concept, and with none of the prices looking very happyhourish, I wasn't jumping at the opportunity to participate.  However, they did offer the "Great Chicago Fire Burger," dusted in chipotle, topped with fire-roasted chili and mango salsa, habañero jack cheese, and chipotle aioli, which was a terrible life decision.  Tasted great, destroyed me in the morning.

The second place we ate at was "Tune Inn," as featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  It looked terribly unhealthy ("deep fried burger" was listed in the review), and it didn't disappoint.  True to the reviews, they also had bad service, but the food was good.

I headed for Kentucky after a long, post-chicago-fire bathroom episode.  The drive was long, but mostly traffic free.  Lots of rolling hills.  It's a nice feeling to be able to just throw your car into neutral for miles at a time and just coast at 140km/h, although the uphills definitely killed the gas tank.  Some thoughts from the drive: why does Virginia find it necessary to put "one way" signs in the middle of a highway?  I saw more than one.  Very odd.  Also, one of those many hills is along the tristate border of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and is called Negro Mountain.  I was pretty surprised to see that in 2014, until I remembered that I was driving through two slave holding, though Union, states.  Also, apparently a church in Maryland is rebuilding Noah's Ark (and has been for over 35 years), and I was privileged to drive by it, though I didn't take the time to stop in and meet the nut jobs at the church.

Arriving just outside of Louisville (I use Louiseville as a general name for where we were throughout the trip, though not strictly accurate at all times, as it is the only well known location worth mentioning), I was rewarded with Bourbon and Dairy Queen in the second state I had eaten it in that day.  No use going to Kentucky and not drinking and getting fat.

The next day I accompanied Adina to her job, which involves taking care of three boys, one with autism.  This was difficult for me, as I had to maintain the illusion of being mature and responsible with three boys yelling about "so-and-so farted in my face" and other things which I found hilarious.

The day after that was officially Bourbon tasting day, as we toured the Four Roses and Wild Turkey distilleries, sampled a bunch of stuff, and got ourselves 25% of the way to our free Kentucky Bourbon Trail t-shirts.  While at Wild Turkey, we had the honor of meeting with Master Distiller Jimmy Russel.  Pics or it didn't happen.

BOO YAH.

The final event was to visit "the quarry," which was confusing to me because I didn't think a stone quarry sounded like fun, and I was told to bring a flotation device.  Apparently this one was filled up with water and the owners throw parties during the summer.  We had a fun time hanging out, swimming, and eating hot dogs with the Derby City Whisker Club (as emasculated as I did feel in their presence, they were great guys).

Louisville food was everything I dreamed of.

Mark's Feed Store.  With a name that includes the words "feed store," I had my hopes set high for this bbq joint, even if it was a (small) chain.  I saw a lot of potential in my meal here, although that is not a glowing review.  They offered a sizable mixed bbq basket featuring brisket, honey wings, ribs, pulled pork, texas toast, and two sides, but most of my meat was lukewarm when it arrived, and the waitress forgot my beer.  They also repeatedly sat people at a table where the a/c dripped on them, and the people repeatedly got up to change tables.  On the plus side, they had three different flavored sauce bottles on the table (I love it when places do that), and my poop in the morning smelled just like them, which I guess is a good sign?  They have other locations, maybe they're better on the whole.

Claudia Sanders' Dinner House.  You may recognize the name...this joint is named after Colonel's wife.  Apparently this is where Kentucky Fried Chicken grew into an international food powerhouse.  The grounds served as the corporate headquarters before the company was sold, and soon after the Colonel and the Mrs. opened up their own restaurant, featuring everyone's favorite eleven herbs and spices, but in a sit-down mansion of an establishment.  Like, they host wedding banquets there, and I would totally go.  The soups were on point and the salad bar did not disappoint.  I had something called a "hot brown," which is apparently famous Kentucky food.  It was good, although this particular one was far too cheesy for me, if such a thing is possible.  Adina got the unlimited fried chicken, which comes with 8 different vegetables including bacon-infused creamed spinach.  And they totally encourage you to share your unlimiteds.  For desert, we had the Kentucky Pie, which is the same as a Derby Pie except not trademarked.  Basically a pecan pie, but with chocolate chips, and it was incredible.  Service at the joint was hit or miss.  Our waitress wasn't very good and seemed fairly stupid at times, but the table next to us got excellent service.  If you are near Louisville, you have got to check this place out.

North End Cafe.  Everything I had there was good.  Lots of things involving cheese, can't go wrong there.  Daily specials on omelettes and pancakes, and you can order a la carte.  This is definitely a must-eat, both for the food as well as the after-dinner entertainment.

So we left North End and Adina pointed out a house literally across the street she always wanted to take pictures of.  It appeared to be some sort of a junk store at first, except we noticed that there were no opening hours posted anywhere or signs to indicate the shop's name, and eventually we considered that it might have actually just been some crazy guy's house.  Indeed, it was.  I noticed the name "Jerry Lotz" on a metal plate set into the driveway, and with the same googling skills that you should now employ, discovered a number of articles about this dude and his junk yard that we were standing in front of.  We continued to take pictures...and then, there he was.

All of a sudden we were his best friends, he was telling us stories and showing us pictures, and eventually showed us into one of his five junk filled houses.  In particular he was showing off one of his many cars and a piece which he seemed a bit too proud of, what seemed to be a regulation KKK outfit.  He also had a singing buck head mounted on the wall, and was very adamant that while others may have singing fish, his deer head was much more rare and valuable.  He bestowed upon Adina a stick-horse head and some mint to plant at home (which she promptly murdered).  I don't want to call it yet, but I think Adina got a new boyfriend.  This post's title is a direct quotation.

After you eat, you much drink.  For this, you should check out Sergio's World Beers, currently ranked #21 on Rate Beer's beer destination list http://www.ratebeer.com/places/top-rated/.  Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the place.  While it felt like a magical little fantasy beer world I had stumbled into, I couldn't see myself hanging out there unless I was to become close friends with Sergio himself (who, I am told / read online is very cool to talk to, but I didn't personally engage with him).

Pros: over 1000 bottles.  Yes.  It's like a beer distributor, only they have more, and places to sit and drink them.  An extensive tap list as well.  Beers of all styles, origins, sizes, and prices...I found a few bottles on sale for $43!  I assume this is because Sergio has to pay retail price for a lot of these things (I think the $43 were collectors items that are no longer brewed).  There was even a walk in beer fridge.  If you want a particular type of beer, or just are feeling adventurous, Sergio will have it (and I hope he could help you find it in his bar, although I can't vouch for that).  Also, you pay at the end by walking up to the bar and telling them what you drank.  There is basically nothing stopping you from leaving other than the fact that, by virtue of you being there, you must be part of the in-crowd, and you wouldn't go and spoil all the good times for everyone, would you?  No, you're there to enjoy beer culture.  And maybe sing, as well.  You could get away with singing "Hey Sergio, it's getting kinda hot in here, and so I say hey, Sergio, you gotta help us find a beer" and I, at least, would give you a lot of credit.

Cons: Really dirty looking, I felt like I was in a real shithole.  Like worse than even I want to be in, which is saying something.  It really just felt like I was in someone's damp, dirty basement...only with lots and lots of beer.  I read that the food is bad, but I can't speak to that.  Expensive...with no posted happy hours, no cheap wing nights, and only one tv, it was definitely a no-frills experience, which makes me wonder why people wouldn't just go there, buy beer, and leave (unless they were chillin with Sergio).

Miscellaneous: One of the appeals, for me at least, is how low key the place was.  Located in downtown Louisville, the place still had empty tables on a Friday night.  I hear he does no advertisements locally.  I can say for certain, there is no advertisement on his own building...there is literally just a white sticker on the door (home made label maker style) that says "Sergio's."  This makes it very difficult for the first timer to find the place, and it's almost like an exclusive club in which you need to know someone on the inside already so that you can find it.

I may have had low expectations, but Kentucky and DC both impressed me.

There are more pictures that I'd love to share, but Adina takes like 7 years to email people photos she took, which is real cute, given that she insisted that I immediately upload everything I took to her hard drive before I left.  Yeah, that's right.  I'm putting you on blast here, what are you gonna do about it?

[greateacheropke]

More Hiking!

I got back from Kilimanjaro and spent two more nights in Egypt to do some laundry (all by myself, as the maid service does not extend through the summer) and swap out some mountain gear for summer stuff.  Watched some world cup games as long as the power didn't cut out on me, which of course it did.  Interesting to see the summer work that goes on here on campus in progress.  After that, it was definitely time to say goodbye to Africa for a few months.

I flew into Berlin and managed to navigate the S-bahn to my long distance bus to Dresden.  This ended up being a few hundred bucks cheaper than flying through Frankfurt to Dresden.  Katja met me at an Irish pub where we very quietly watched the Germany/USA world cup match.  I attempted not to betray my origins, and was at least mostly successful.  Thankfully, the future champions won the match, and everyone left in good spirits.  It was neat to watch the match in Germany, but I wish I could've been somewhere crazier like Berlin for it.

That night would be the last time that I saw "nighttime" for over a week.  The next day, we flew off to Sweden together to see her parents (trust me when I say that making a one day layover in Germany was actually only marginally more expensive than trying to get from Alex to Sweden on my own the next day, which also had very annoying travel times and would have left me sitting in an airport by myself for like 8 hours...so definitely worth it already, plus I got an extra night with Katja).  The two of a us rented a car and drove into Norway for some hiking and camping.  I'd like to take a moment to say that Katja did a most excellent job planning our route, choosing supplies, and cooking our meals, and pitching the tent, only trusting me with more pedestrian tasks of driving (a manual transmission!!!  How I miss them!), cleaning, and carrying heavy things.  Of course this all meant some great scenery including general viewing of fjords and the second glacier I would see in a week.

Words and the occasional picture won't do justice to the scenery we passed by, but I'll throw a few your way.

We spent our time in and around Olden, Norway.  A popular cruise ship docking point (they looked really out of place, made for interesting juxtaposition), it is only a few km from the Briksdalsbreen glacier, which is part of the Jostedalsbreen glacier (which is apparently the largest in continental Europe).  Further fun fact from Wikipedia: there are two churches in Olden, and one is actually named "the Old Olden Church," which I can't believe they seriously chose.

We didn't see any whales, but overall it was a great time experiencing nature, sleeping on the ground, and making fun of all the Germans we saw vacationing there.  Except when we were watching the world cup matches with them in the common room at the camp site (the Algeria scare was a very tense evening, as was the USA loss, for some of us anyway).

After we got back, we spent a few more days with her parents, which is always fun.  Her dad continues to crack me up with his humor (once it's explained to me) and her mom continues to stock the fridge with all the foods that she knows Mikey enjoys.  We visited a moose farm, rode a pretty damn long zipline, and attacked a quite challenging ropes course together all at Dalslands Aktiviteter.  Katja had attempted - and quit - the course in the past, so I was very proud of her for sticking with it this time.

I don't think I could every seriously function living so far north for too long at a time, at least not with a conventional job.  Having been there in the winter, when there was basically no daylight, just a few hours of "dim" instead of "dark," and now experiencing the summer, when you can wake up in your tent (which blocks very little sunlight) at 2:00 and think that it must be 9:00, it must just drive people insane.  That and - beautiful as the nature was - the lack of mostly anything to do, would be difficult.  I will stick to vacationing for now, and perhaps retirement someday.