while most classification of insects orders is truly complex, i'm guessing odonates remain mostly simple. anisoptera on one branch and zygoptera on the other. which makes me really wonder what the need for both a sub- and infraorder really is.

i guess it turns out i really know very little about the order. I'm in awe of the speed and agility of dragonflies, and the ease with which damselfly will land on your kayak paddle, and in some cases simply let you place them on your finger (something my niece and I recently practiced on a lake in california.)

oh, and i'm now single.
while I guess I have been for quite some time, i'm thinking now its official.
don't really know what to do with myself about that.

maybe i'll look into other insect orders.

I found this online from some movietome listing from google;
http://www.movietome.com/users/winterbehaviour/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25646722&print=1

"So for the drinking game these were the things that we decided we would take a shot on:

Every time Chuck flashes

Every time Captain Awesome says "awesome"

Every time Casey growls"

I'm gonna try this out tonight.

so, i was like calling my family to tell them about this AWESOME
recipe i made tonight for this super-fresh fluke we caught.

and they were like, your sister had her baby today.

i was totally pwned

pwned by Ada Margaret Wimmer, who weighs in at only 8lbs 9oz.

So, i'm an uncle (again, after the kaba side) and for this first time,
the mullane family now has grandkids.

woah. woah. woah.

I hope I can be a pillar of shining marble support for Eric and Tucket.
I hope I will get to San Francisco to see Aim sometime soon.

I hope, someday, to tell others about the great job i did cooking the fluke.
(i mean, i sauteed fresh garlic, onion, green-chili, and thai basil. then layered the filets over the onion sauce, and baked them with a coating of flour, salt, lemon and rice-vinegar. Rabi added a corn-tomato salsa over the top. I tasted it as soon is came out of the oven, and was like... oh man...
my brains, they fell out.)

last time i was in maine was ten years ago

and its as comfortable and soothing and beautiful as i remember

maybe i can find a school here?

so GOALS;
1. learn more about web design
2. get some helpful hints about film making and photography
3. acquire more focused understanding of the design of a
learning expedition - specifically about the chronology of each element.
4. find specific links to student projects related to sustainability.

I wanted to remember some of the stuff that came up in class during this year's past regents exams. I know there's more efficient and productive ways to list this, but I'm here, with a computer on my lap, and not much else to do.

DNA - in depth knowledge of how discoveries and new technology in gene identification and replication has changed medicine and health care. Knowing how to cut strands with enzymes and how to do gel electrophoresis.

ENERGY CYCLES AND FOOD CHAINS - knowing the difference. I thought this was an unfair question this year. Basically were are talking about the same observation of ecological systems.

PANCREAS - don't know why there was this very specific question about the pancreas, but it pissed me off. So many of my students knew about liver functioning as waste removal and blood as both an element in the respiratory and excretory systems. They knew how insulin functions, but very few of them knew the specific role of the pancreas. Why should they? The class is called, "Living Environment" not human physiology.

SAFETY - i was kinda surprised how many students didn't put down specific safety procedure when asked. I mean, all they had to put was "wear goggles" or "wear gloves" and instead i got answers like "walk away from the area."

COMPETITION - i read the past regents and knew there questions about natural selection and evolution as well as adaptive radiation. I was a little surprise by the freaky carnival wheel of finches used on one of the C.R. questions. I mean, the question was really about whether a student could interpret this crazed zodiac chart of bird beaks and their foods (which were written in point 2 font.) I did have students who i wished were in the room for me to slap upside the head once I read their response... the question was something like "of the warbler finch, grain finch, and bubble finch, which one will have the least competition with the other two." I know, I'm getting the names wrong, but I honestly had students who were like, "the crunching finch, or the mammoth finch." What the? So I guess we have to work on more of the damn ELA stuff.

I don't remember all the stuff, but luckily I have the exams back at school, and we can post the questions onto our huge wall web of biology.

its sunday and i'm still sick.
i thought if i hung around the house all weekend
stay on the couch and not move much
i would get better
no dice

we watched lots of supernatural
so that was cool
and talked about bringing the jeep back home
which is stressful

got news that the apartment complex may be up for sale - eventually
rabi was pretty upset - naturally - this is where we LIVE - but
i had a hard time having feelings about it. i think mainly because the notice was so unclear as to what would happen, and i had a tough time responding to such an unclear prospect. sure
we could fantasize about buying the condo when its available (for 315 thousand dollars! - it sounds like such a huge amount of money. like, something i could never afford in my life.)
we could also just wait and see... which is ultimately what we have to do - aside from telling the owner, "hey, we don't like this weird letter of intent to sell, so bye-bye."

but it is a good deal. really good deal. not that its been offered to us. really.

its sunday and i still haven't revamped my curriculum map
i need to complete lessons for this term (this month... uhm... this week) for general science and living environment classes) as well as plans and meetings for inquiry class.

but its sunday
and really nice to be home, resting.
even though the left side of my head feels like someone
shoved a pastry bag into my left nostril and squeezed 5 pounds of snot into my brain.

ewwww.

i should at least go grade the quizzes for the remaining gen sci sections. grading (planning and teaching) three different preps this year has been a bitch. but... i love easy grade pro. i truly do. it is sweet.
sweeeeeet. there are instant graphs of progress. really.

my brain really doesn't fit 5 pounds of snot.

I got this from Rabi's site. I was rather surprised to find out that's me... but sure. I guess it makes sense.

I'm following up Rabi's post with my own scary listings:

First, the democrats sent me an email request to take a stand against a possible attack on Iran!!?? You can look at this article on Israel and US starting a nuclear war.

Then, check out the nation's article on war signals which is now a reality... the Eisenhower and a bunch of other ships are on their way to Iran, due in by the end of the month.

Also, a fellow teacher dragged me to see the screening of Iraq for Sale which was done by Greenwald who also was responsible for the walmart film. Both an enlightening and disturbing look at Halliburton and other companies' profits and growth after the US attack on Iraq.

Combined with Thursday's news of North Korea, I thinking of changing my job to something a little more active. Teaching does allow some teaching of sensibility, sanity and calm reflection, but its too long term for these immediately horrifying events. One of my students on Friday suggest we go protest in the form of a riot in DC. I think he's on the right path.

In other news, I also have to post the vision hardware now available for ipods. In one world, its sounds friggin awesome, yet somehow, seems so wrong. I can imagine seeing these on subways all the time now, and thinking, wow, we've found one other way to totally disconnect ourselves from the world around us, making us even less concerned with all the above scary things happening.

went to montana
it was beautiful
i think in my past four years in nyc i forgot how much being outside changes me (or reverts me back to my previously saved file.) i forgot how much i like fishing - not catching - just the practice of standing there, watching the currents in the stream morph-twist the reflections of flora into strange patterns of the flowing green and brown and sky. the pure exhilaration of seeing your fly hit the water exactly where you hoped, and the pop and plunge of a fish jumping after it. the strike of a trout and the half-hope it will only tug on the line for more than an instant - long enough to see him or her out of water - and then let go.

i read very little of the four books i lugged the 2500 miles out there. And i don't regret doing more of it because the days were packed. of course i wish there was more time out there.

i sketched only one sad practice mountain out of charcoal conte crayons in black and umber, giving up on the mind-numbing amount of details in the faulted layers of sedimentary rock sides of Grinnel Mountain. i turned to simplifying the thousands of pines and laurels that cover its base into points and squiggles of black lines.

i thought about what it would be really like to live out there, without the social structures the make my home in brooklyn the reason i stay here. i thought how i would feel irresponsible to move to a place where i would not be contributing to the greater good of society (or just to society period.) i thought of what scott would say - maybe - that it would be foolish of me to believe i could have anything more than an insignificant role in the lives of people, and to live my life hoping to do more than that was false.

altogether, the mountains are relatively small, with the greatest peak approximately 10,000 feet. nonetheless, the first hike to apgar lookout surprisingly left me sore the next day. on some ridiculous notion, i actually brought climbing shoes with me, thinking maybe my back injury would miraculously resolve itself. the highest point we hiked to was around 6800 feet, and took an entire afternoon. we stopped for a lot of pictures.



at this point, here's where i have been... (if this works...)



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