I only have two hands and two feet

I'm about done waiting tables. I've always liked it, but last night might have been the moment when I stopped. It just wasn't fun for me to run around serving people things.

Late in the evening, a table of seven came and sat outside. They were a desert table, which means double the work for me (I get all the desserts and drinks) and about a quarter of the tip. I bring glasses out to the them. I fill up their water. I bring silverware out to them. They order 4 decaf coffees and 2 regular coffees. I bring the four decaf coffees out first because I only have two hands. As soon as I put them down, they tell me they need more water and are ready to give me their dessert order. Oh, and cream and sugar as well. I want to tell them that I only have two hands, that all that stuff is on the way, but I just smile and rush back for the rest of my load. I bring out the two regular coffees, and one guy asks me, Didn't you hear me change my order? I wanted decaf. So I run back in, dump his regular, and add decaf. By the time I return, they need more water, and I still haven't taken their dessert order. I repeat the desserts. They order two desserts to split amongst seven people. They need more water. Fat man on the left has already drunk his coffee. I refill these, then run back and make the desserts. I bring the desserts out, and make five separate trips back to get more coffee because they just don't get that it would be a whole lot nicer to tell me all at once that they need refills. These people had no concept of what it is like to wait tables, and didn't realize that I was doing everything I asked them to do but I only had two hands and two feet.

I charm them and they're fine by the time they leave. Their bill is $23, and they leave $5 tip, meaning they were the hardest table of the night and I made the least amount of money off them.

I worked all Saturday night, and the slow Memorial Day evening made me make just $7. Ugh.

I've given my notice that I'm done in August. My $$ situation is good, I'm too old to be working two jobs during the school year, and, frankly, it doesn't seem like I'm enjoying the whole waiting tables thing anyway anymore, which is the most important thing. Waiters who hate their job can't be any good. I've always like it, which is why I've been pretty good for so long.

I've got a troubled, a troubled mind, and you've got a heart, a heart so kind

Teachers really know how to happy hour it up, and, now that baseball season is over, I'm able to join in again, or at least with more frequency. Today, we headed out to DuClaw on the water in Fells Point, and had a great time; afterwards, a couple of us headed over to Maggie Moo's, where my former student, who was working there, hooked us up with some free ice cream.

I want to accomplish a lot this weekend. I'm concentrating on getting myself healthy again. My body hasn't been treating me well in the last two months, mostly because I haven't been treating my body well. I've been to the gym every day this week, though, working out long and hard, and have already noticed a difference. The Stadium Place YMCA also now has televisions hooked up to the cardio machines, which makes working out go quicker than it ever has before, or maybe it's just the novelty.

Next Friday, no happy hour for me: Catie Curtis, one of my favorite singer/songwriters from back in the day, is performing in the basement of a church on Harford Rd. I'm doing that thing I do with my friend, where we bring the other to an unknown concert as a surprise. He brought me to see John Gorka a couple of months ago; I brought him to Suzanne Vega a couple months before that. I'm excited.

Below is "Troubled Mind," which is my favorite Catie Curtis song, at the moment (I really like "Magnolia Street," "Larry," "What's the Matter?," and "Radical" as well, but this one always seems to get me... just listening to the first six lines or so just gets me entranced, and thinking, "Yeah, that's it", and I think it's been this same song since I was about a junior in college:)

Come to class

Today has been HSA testing week at school, and a fairly frustrating one for a teacher. Our schedule has been testing all week, and classes in the afternoon. I expected my students to come to the classes in the afternoon every day, but they haven't. My attendance has been around 5-15 in every class, and that's such an imperfect number: not small enough to ignore for a study hall, but not big enough to teach a full lesson to that I can expect the entire class to get.

What's worse is that I feel like the school, and several of my colleagues, are doing a wink-wink, nudge-nudge thing with the kids, like they don't really need to come. There are days like these - for example, after final exams - but for the HSA? Please. Only one grade level takes it every day in the mornings, and, while these kids might be forgiven for at least being tired in the afternoon (not for skipping), the rest of the students should be there. No questions asked.

All my non-attenders will be receiving zeros, as promised. Along with my scorn. When you're 14 or 16 years old, you're simply too young to be deciding which days of school are important and which ones are not. And, as for my IB 3 students, we've got to finish Othello in two weeks; they better be damn sure there will be consequences for not being in class when they're required to be.

Finances and house-buying

My Master's Degree hopefully will allow me to do other things that I have been wanting to do for a while.

For example, I think I'm ready to buy a house, at least by the end of the calendar year. For a long time, I didn't feel like my financial situation was ever right enough. It's still not perfect, far from it, but I see light at the end of the tunnel of debt that I've been in pretty much since I ended college. I current have about $3200 in credit card debt, which feels manageable. I'd like to pay it off all the way (tuition reimbursement will help... I literally used credit cards to pay for my Towson University classes, and since I got at least a B in them, I get 75% reimbursement) before I start applying for mortgages and stuff like that, and I think I can do it by the end of the school year - or close to it. I also have about $4000 in savings. It's pretty much designated as summer money, but it's not like I'm going to be taking the summer off; I'll be working and bringing in enough to survive on. It's pretty cool that I have more savings than debt (at least non-student loan debt, but I've decided not to count that... I am current, though) for the first time in my life.

My credit rating has jumped about 20 points this year, depending on which credit agency you're looking at. It's in the low to mid 600s, and I think I can get all of them in the mid 600s or higher in the next few months, especially if the aforementioned credit card balance becomes zero.

The two or three hitches are as follows:

1. I will almost certainly need to buy a new car sometime in 2008. My 8-year old car has 130,000 hard city miles on it, but that's not the real reason. The rack and pinion and power steering are shot. I have to add power steering fluid every week or so, or else the steering wheel groans like an old man. It's never hard to turn the wheel, but feel like it would be if I ever let the power steering fluid thing go. The estimate to fix this was $2400. My car also has long-deployed airbags (a $2500 expense to fix), no car horn, no side mirror (just plumb fell off this past summer), and a crack through the middle of the windshield (just appeared overnight), it's probably a bit of a death trap. But it runs really well, so well that the last dealer I brought it to asked if I had had the motor rebuilt. Still, it's certainly not worth the $5500 in repairs or so that I'd have to put into it to really save it. So I've decided to run it into the ground, which will probably be whenever my power steering becomes totally shot (I'm trying to figure out if this is dangerous or not... the last dealer that it was not, but the Car Talk always seem to have a kiniption when anyone calls about power steering). Anyhow, long story short, I'll probably have to buy a new car this year.

2. For my Folger Shakespeare Institute this summer, they highly recommend a laptop computer. I'm thinking I might have to break down and buy one. I kind of hate laptops - think they're too breakable - but have been thinking about one for a while. It might be kind of fun to get one. I haven't yet paid off this desk computer from November, though (that's about $400 of the $3200 in credit card debt, although that one is my Dell Preferred Account, which I'm not sure counts as credit card debt), and it's certainly not money I want to spend heading into the two months of the summer without a real paycheck. Nahmean?

I sort of wish I had a financial advisor right now to help me figure out what to do. I feel like most people's advice of "You've got to buy a house!" is knee-jerk, because they don't/didn't know my credit situation (it's been real bad in the past, and I'm talking 5-digit credit card debt bad). But now I'm ready to hear it more.

Masters

As of 6pm or so tonight, I had finished my last presentation of graduate school. Judging from the professor's positive comments, I now, for all intents and purposes, have a Master's Degree in Secondary Education.

My final project ended up being about 100 pages, which I had to condense into one 15-minute presentation. I did it, barely, talking just a little bit too fast at the end.

Now, I'm going to try to sleep for at least 6 or 7 hours tonight. It's been a while.

Anyhow, phew... this is a relief.

Tomorrow, I have been selected at random to proctor the Biology HSA, which I'll be doing instead of attending my graduation. It's okay, I didn't really want to go anyway (though I heard it was a free day off... I never really investigated it.)

The 42-game mark

I just have to stop watching the Tigers. Nobody needs the depression of watching them every night.

This is worst than 2003, when they lost 119 games. Expectations were high, and they're playing horrible, listless, boring baseball. These aren't lovable losers; these are overpaid, slow, old, difficult-to-watch bores.

I'm the eternal optimist and am holding out some hope that things can turn around. But I'm already calling for the head of the hitting coach and the pitching coach; Leyland's will be next. Maybe he just can't win with high expectations.

At least they're still only 6 games back. Ugh.

And I hate interleague play, too.

baseball season over

Well, we lost. Our season is over.

It's too bad, because the game itself leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. We made - count 'em - four horrible baserunning gaffes in just the first two innings. They set the tone for the game and cost us at least a couple of runs. Later in the game, we eliminated these problems, but left the bases loaded twice. In fact, the bases loaded with the full count. They resulted in a pop-out and a K.

My pitcher, the best athlete on the team, who arguably was our MVP this year, is also the most emotional. When things are going bad, he begins to look like he's on the way to a funeral, like playing baseball is the last thing he wants to do. It gets into his head. He deserved this game, and pitched well, but I need to figure out a way that this emotional problem doesn't persist next year.

My starting 9th grade right-fielder made two key errors. That was sad.

But it was a team effort. It was a decent game, considering our opponent and how we played. I wish we could have kept it going... but we didn't.

I choked up a little during my post-game speech. My SS/2B combination are a couple of kids I'll remember for the rest of my life. They've been starters pretty much since they were 9th graders, and have done me proud. I really liked this team a lot.

Finish the season 12-4, including 1-1 in the playoffs. Not bad. Could be better.

Now I can start thinking about having a life.

Cloud 9

That we won.

That we beat a team that earlier in the season mercy-ruled us, 13-1.

That the fact that we were mercy-ruled in March against them and beat them in May means I've done something right as a coach.

That it was a great game.

That we've now advanced to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

That we came all the way from the city, that we were the severe underdogs, that we were playing on a well-manicured field that obviously has a decent baseball budget, that we beat a county team, that I overheard one of their players say, "I can't believe we're losing to these guys!"

The victory turned into a crisis of conscience when it meant we have the second round of the playoffs tomorrow, when I'm scheduled to give my final presentation for graduate school. I had not expected it to interfere with playoffs, but because of the rainouts, it is. I called my professor and left here a heart-wrenching message, right from the field. She called me back, saying she could adjust, that she has another class I can present to. That's so nice.

Sendler's List

I'd never heard this woman's story, and it's too bad that it took her death for me to hear about it. Pretty amazing.

Polish Holocause Hero Dies at age 98

St. Foo Girl and Othello

I have a student who, when I tell stories about her, I call "St. Foo Girl." Because about two weeks ago, she told me to shut the fuck up in class. Get it? S.T.F.U = St. Foo. Anyhow, she said it multiple times. I think it's the worst thing I've ever been told by a student. I usually do well with the generally unpleasant girls, because I'm generally laid back and am not a confrontationalist but a talk-to-you-after-class-or-in-the-hallway kind of teacher. She, however, took her generally unpleasant self - and she comes to class only half the time - and then was not only rude to me, but to her classmates. I asked her a couple of times to be quiet, and then I very clearly told her to be quiet, and that was her response. I'm still dumbfounded by it.

In other news, I'm starting Othello tomorrow, and am pretty damn excited. I've never taught it and barely knew the story until about a week ago, but love it. Teaching Romeo and Juliet to 9th graders is one of the highlights of my school year every year, and now I'm excited to use the same Shakespearean teaching strategies with the more advanced Juniors.

Lastly, I've been up and down about the Juniors this year, but now I'm decidedly up. There are two classes of advanced Juniors at our school, and it seems like the other class of them is always embattled with their teacher, who is my friend. My kids, though, are cool and chill* and still work pretty hard. Or, at least, they read well (much better than they write), and it's fun to delve into the literature with them. Or at least about twenty-five of them. I've got pretty good at ignoring the ten who bring me, and the class, down.

The beginning of Persepolis went awesome. The kids are hooked.

*Probably because their teacher is cool and chill.

72 hours from a Master's Degree

I nearly pulled an all-nighter last night, working on my project, which is now nearly complete. I have to receive back from two colleagues some feedback, then incorporate those comments into my introduction, as well as assemble the pieces of the Appendix.

The presentation is Wednesday at 4:15. After that, I'll be completely done with my Master's Degree.

Until that point, I have the playoffs, and starting two new texts (Persepolis and Othello that I've never taught before), and a Mother's Day night shift at the restaurant.