Today I'm getting on an airplane (or I'm on one or I'm arriving home--and not getting stuck overnight in Denver like I did last year), so you might not see me today. (I'll be around tomorrow, or Thursday if... Well, I'm planning on being around Wednesday.)
So, like last Tuesday, here's another Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This one is about Bari Weiss being put in charge of CBS News. This happened months ago, but this episode is from when it was new. How well has this aged? Hmmm....
I am currently out of town visiting my brother and his family. I wrote all my blog posts for the time I'd be away ahead of time. That's been easy for everything except my "current events" day, or the day I scream into the void about how angry I am about the latest outrage.
So, for today I'm just posting an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This episode is from May, and it's about AI Chatbots.
Scary stuff, isn't it? (I'm still around visiting blogs. I'm not out in the wilderness or anything.)
But I did a funny thing this week. I actually sat down and watched the crochet oval video (that I linked to in this post) all the way through. When I found it, I hadn't done more than quickly preview it. It looked like the right shape. Once I took the time to sit down with it, I knew it was what I wanted to try.
And look how far I got! It's almost perfect.
The issue? See how that oval doesn't lie quite flat? It kind of lettuces out (not a real crochet term). It means the increases are increasing too fast in the outer rounds. My mistake was listening to the video saying that the increases continued in the same way as the thing gets bigger.
I know how to make a flat crochet circle. You increase every round by the same number. So, if you start with eight stitches, you increase eight stitches for each round, but only eight stitches.
The video had us increasing every other stitch for every round. That doubles the number of increases every round. So, eight increases becomes 16, becomes 32, becomes 64...
I ripped that back and started doing the increases the way I know they should be done, but I don't think I ripped back far enough. And I'm wondering if I should do a round even between each increase round.
Minor irritations. That above oval? That's only a few hours of work. Once I have the increasing formula figured out, it'll be smooth sailing until it's as big as I need it. (That's when other issues will crop up, but I'll worry about those when I get there.)
I'm thrilled. Now that I know what to do, I can do it. It's the figuring out what to do that flummoxes me.
"So far, despite their best efforts, it's not working out for them."
One of the things that I've been so afraid/angry about is the attempt to build more concentration camps. Rachel Maddow had something to say about these last week, and it's very good news. It seems I'm not the only one who absolutely is against these things.
Normally my Saturday posts are just some picture that I can fit to the letter of the day. But V?
I'm sure something obvious will occur to me after I hit post, but at the moment, I'm blank. And I have been pondering this for days. But with my pondering, I thought, why not video? Why don't I post a music video? There's bound to be a good song that starts with V.
But, off the top of my head, nothing was coming. So, I consulted the Google, and found this website with a list of a bunch of songs that start with V. I didn't have to scroll long before I stumbled on "Valotte" by Julian Lennon. And I knew that was the one.
I loved this song back in the day. And until running across it for today, I hadn't heard it in years.
On election day, California voters had one thing on the ballot, redistricting. Because of what they did in Texas. And then Texas' redistricting got overturned in court. For now. We'll see what happens when the case gets to SCOTUS.
In case you haven't been following, today I'm posting a video with one of the lawyers explaining what's happening. It is over 30 minutes long, but it has some interesting bits. (It also has the requisite "like and follow" bits as well as a couple ads.)
Some good things are happening. More bad things, but sometimes it'd good to hear about what's going right.
It's spring break, so I am holding my subbing posts for the week I return to school. That means today is video day (by my self-imposed schedule), or rather What to Watch Wednesday.
I was at a loss as to what to post about today until I saw an email from one of the librarians in the school district. He has a little YouTube channel. When I noticed that his channel is called "The Nerd Librarian", I realized I had my N. His latest episode is "The AI Episode".
Yes, that is the librarian at one of the schools I sub at. He's even made the blog before. The English/journalism teacher appearing with him I have yet to sub for, although I have subbed in his classroom (for the teacher that had the room prior to him) and I have subbed for his neighbors. It's just a matter of time.
The video is about twenty minutes long. I hope you enjoy it.
Merry Christmas. I doubt I'll be around, so rather than a post, I'm linking to my favorite Christmas movie (although, I haven't previewed this, so I have no idea of the quality. I doubt anyone is going to click through and watch the whole thing anyway. I'm sure you all have better things to do).
If you care to comment just to say you stopped by, let me know what your favorite Christmas movie is. (If you don't have a favorite, pick a winter movie you like.)
It was the penultimate day of school, and I had caught a gig covering a special ed co-teacher. Her sixth period class was eighth grade English.
The eighth graders were officially done. All that was left were the end of year activities. On this day it was a trip to a water park. (The general ed teacher was out too; she was chaperoning the water park trip.) So, any eighth graders left behind...
Well, they had excuses for not going. It was too expensive. (Likely true.) They had a season pass to a water park, so why go with the school? (Also likely true.) They had a doctor appointment that day. (The student was wearing a knee brace, so likely true.)
Also likely true: they did not qualify to go. To qualify, they had to be "promoting" (passing GPA, etc), no recent behavioral infractions, and no excessive absences.
Because of this, the students in class were few. And they were a bit wound up. They had no assignments (they're done for the year), so they had free time. Once the initial flurry of activity subsided, most of them were on their phones and they settled to pretty mellow.
One girl went to the class TV and changed the music that was playing. It was some rap something that didn't sound very school-appropriate, but I didn't have a chance to chide her on it. She changed the music, and then she left to go hang out in a different class. (This was okay per the teacher.)
So, I looked at the remaining students and asked if that was the music they wanted on. It was not, so they changed it...
And I was floored by their choice. They left this artist on for the rest of the period.
Seriously, take a listen. I commented that the music sounded like it was out of the '40s. What decade does it sound like to you? (And if you're intrigued, check her out on YouTube. She's got dozens of songs all in a similar vein.)
Last week I covered an eighth grade U.S. history class. Two periods of "advanced" classes and two periods of "regular" classes.
Mr. C left very reasonable lesson plans. The students had a lot of bookwork. They had two chapters to read along with questions in a workbook. But, to break up the monotony of that, he also assigned a video that I was to split over two days.
(Although, second period was not so enamored with the idea of a video. They whined that taking time from class to watch the video wouldn't leave them enough time to complete the other assignments.)
The video was on YouTube. They had questions to go along with it.
As you may be aware, YouTube will insert commercials from time to time. I tried to minimize these by getting things started before class (catching the commercial before the kiddos arrived). But, alas, I could not set things up so there were no commercials for them to see.
Unfortunately, YouTube's algorithm decided to show the worst possible commercial, not just once, but for each of the four periods...
I mean, it's not like I'm actually actively working on anything (except for the string lights, although I wouldn't call that "actively working" as it's more like I'm-going-somewhere-where-I-need-something-to-do-with-my-hands-and-this-is-available). I have some ideas, but not the push to get them started.
Anyway, Liv (who turns 23 in June) sent me six screenshots of things she liked. I went on an internet hunt to find patterns, and ended up one for six.
(And she really buttered me up. She texted: "i love when you make me stuff. it's my favorite stuff in my wardrobe")
Although, the first pic in the bunch was the one she really wanted (the others were to give me options). And while I did not find a pattern for the sweater in that picture, I did find something in the spirit of the sweater.
First, what she found:
And then the "in the spirit of" video tutorial I found:
(The video is over two hours long. I have not watched all of it. And I probably won't. But it's a good start.)
Ultimately, it won't look like the reference picture, but it'll be close. Maybe. We'll see.
Now, I just need to acquire yarn, get her measurements, and see what I can cobble together. Wish me luck.
The first block. Ryder was punching in the air. I was far enough away that I didn't get hit, but I was close enough that one wrong move and I could. I gently mentioned maybe not punching the air. But Ms. S, one of the instructional aides, informed me that Ryder used to punch walls. Punching the air was way better. Agreed.
Ryder had a pretty constant monologue going. Sometimes I could follow his train of thought, sometimes I couldn't.
Ryder wanted to write "superhero" on his paper. Ms. S said he could write it on the back. Later in the day, he wrote it as his last name (although he knows his last name and could spell it when he was prompted to put it on his paper).
There were worksheets (on the calendar, on telling time, etc). There were activities. Ryder was a little hard to direct, but he eventually got his stuff done.
At lunch, he disappeared into the bathroom and returned in a Batman costume. I had seen him in this costume on previous occasions, and as no one commented on it, I gathered it was a usual thing. Ms. S later told me Ryder gets to have lunch in the costume. Whatever works.
But by math class, Ryder was kind of done. There was a coloring worksheet that he was in a hurry to complete, but I could not get him to do it properly. I directed as best I could, but he wouldn't slow down enough to follow directions. But it was the afternoon of the Thursday before a four-day weekend, so we were all a bit burnt out.
After that, we got to do "fun Friday". (We had a science lesson in the lesson plans, but the IAs said Ms. H had texted them to shift us to a wind down for the weekend. That was fine by me.) Ryder got to hum along to whatever songs he was listening to on his computer. (They got out a Nintendo Switch and connected it to the big screen TV in the classroom. Several students enjoyed that.)
It was a pretty standard day in that kind of classroom. I've definitely had worse.
You want to see a bit of their math lesson? We started class with two videos. These were the same two videos I showed the last time I was in class. (They do a lot of repetition. It helps them learn certain concepts.) After the videos, they had other work. But the tunes are kind of catchy.
On The Daily Show on Comedy Central, they end each episode with a "Moment of Zen". As we have reached the end of April and the end of the A to Z Challenge, I thought it appropriate to end my A to Z posts with my own "moment of Zen", mostly because this is a Sunday, and I don't really post on Sundays, so there's nothing in the schedule for me to do.
And here it is, your moment of Zen...
Today's final A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter
Back in October, when I finished four weeks of Mrs. B's success seminar class, I was done with "long term" assignments. I wanted to relish the day-to-day randomness of subbing. And it's been a nice run.
It was about mid March when the secretary asked if I would be interested in taking over a "long term" for another sub. The teacher's out on maternity leave, and the sub was going to reach his maximum number of days in the class.
I hemmed and hawed. Did I want a "long term"? (I keep putting it in quotes as it's only for three weeks. The previous sub has been in the class since January. So, not a day assignment, but not a month, either, which is more what I think of when I hear "long term".)
Ultimately, I decided, why not? It wasn't really going to be that long, and it'd be a nice break from day-to-day.
The eleventh grade English class was reading The Great Gatsby. They had read chapters one and two. But, then they had state testing. And spring break.
Immediately, I assume that there's no way the kiddos are going to remember what they had read.
But what to do? I don't want to reread chapters that they have read already.
Luckily, that class that I took over from Mr. P two years ago was also an eleventh grade English class at roughly the same time of year. Guess what we were reading?
While we were on distance learning, I couldn't be sure the kiddos were following along with the story, so I found some YouTube videos to help. Finding them again was a simple search.
My first day with them, I asked them what chapters one and two were about. And they couldn't tell me. Time for a video summary...
And then I gave them questions to do. *insert evil laugh here*
I leaned heavily on the videos during distance learning. Now, I don't need to do that. But now they know about the videos, so if they're needing the extra help, they can find the videos on their own.
It's much easier to teach a novel in person.
It's an interesting set of videos. I'm posting chapter two, mostly because it has a very interesting take on Nick, the narrator. I did not show that portion to the kiddos as it wasn't germane to what they needed to know. (I only showed them the five or so minutes of "summary".)
Occasionally, I'll take an assignment out of sheer curiosity. When eSports popped up, I just had to know. What was this class?
It turned out the class was exactly what I was expecting: they play video games.
(It's affiliated with an after-school occupational program that includes things like culinary arts, health career intro, cosmetology, and firefighting.)
The two days I was there, they were having a tournament. They had a bracket they were working off of. It appeared to be a double elimination. And beyond that, I'm clueless.
The teacher had appointed class leaders, and they directed the rest of the class on who was playing whom and on which computers they were assigned. I did my job by taking roll and supervising the room.
Third period. Tuesday. The class leaders put on background music.
I don't mind background music. It helps students work, usually. (Not me. I need silence to work. But when in a class, if they need music, I'm okay with them having music.) And instead of the usual inappropriate rap songs that they usually pick, the boys put on video game music.
(You can look it up on YouTube. I had another teacher tell me that it's great for background music as it was composed with the idea that someone would be focusing on their game, and it won't distract from it.)
The only problem with video game music (as anyone who's played games for hours can tell you) is that it's repetitive. After a while it gets to be too much.
The boy in charge of the music switched it once during class, and he put on something that came from the Nintendo Wii. And then that got old.
When he got up to change it, a girl in class commented that it was about time. I concurred.
But we only had about five minutes left in the period. He looked for something to play for a short time.
"Kiwi" appeared along the sidebar. 37 seconds. He played it...
And I laughed.
It's not intrinsically funny. Not really.
But...
Well, of course I had to share. The creator definitely deserves the views. And like I said, 37 seconds:
Too cute. (And it totally reminded me of the time I knit a kiwi. Eldest nephew is now 17, so I doubt he still has it.)
I know, I spend a lot of time on this blog writing about the kiddos' misdeeds, but most of the time, the kiddos are all right.
I made some progress on the scarf, mostly because I took it to school with me to work on when I had the odd moment and needed something to do with my hands.
Because the question came up in the comments, I looked for a video to explain what a Möbius strip is. I found one by Neil deGrasse Tyson. It's a bit long-winded, but it really explains the shape:
The fact that one can crochet (or knit) something in that shape satisfies the math geek in me. (There are a couple ways one can introduce that half twist.) What's really cool is that because the shape has one edge, I'm just working around and around and around, and it grows from the center out.
I need to make a video showing off how the thing works in crochet. Maybe one of these days...
It was about an hour before the end of the day. Vera (instructional assistant) suggested we put on some music. I opened up the floor for requests.
I'm not a fan of choosing music. I know what I like, but for the most part, I find no one else really enjoys my choices. And I'm generally quite content to sit in a silent room. So, when in a group, I let others pick what we're listening to.
We started with a couple recent top 40 hits. We got Jayden up, although he was only reluctantly dancing. Vera danced with her student, and a couple students from other classes joined us. We even pulled Penelope into the fun, which is a bit different as she's wheelchair bound. (Jennifer and Jonas weren't interested, and ignored us.)
And, of course, we got Yohana in on the action.
I don't think I've mentioned Yohana before. She's pretty quiet. She follows where we lead. She goes where we tell her. And she's so quiet we sometimes forget she's there.
But, when left to her own devices, she'll dance. There doesn't have to be music. As she ambles around when we're on breaks, she'll dance to her own internal music.
Various aides know what she likes, though, so we put on some music for her. And for the rest of them, actually. Songs that everyone seemed to like.
New-to-me music, but old favorites for many of them.
The students like music. Jonas especially. His favorite band is Big Time Rush.
Penelope likes One Direction. (Although, I introduced her to BTS, and she seems to like them now, too.)
Keyla mentioned to the class that we should do a "dance party", so first thing the next morning I plugged the computer into the classroom speakers, and I let each of the students choose a song. (Natalie chose "Skip to my Lou".)
Jonas really enjoyed this. (There's a reason I'm choosing Jonas as his blog alias.) He likes to sing along to music on his computer when he has free time.
Monday. It was raining, and the forecast was for rain all day.
As soon as the day officially started (they came in early as they have no place to wait that would have been dry), I decided to put on a song that I think about whenever it rains...
Since our CBIs were eliminated due to Covid numbers, I had some time to fill in class. Aide 1 suggested an art lesson using a YouTube video. I did not know there were videos out there going step by step in drawing things.
Apparently, they had done this sort of thing before. And I thought it was a grand idea. Aide 1 sent me a link to one of the YouTubers, and I went through and selected a project I thought would be fun.
The other classes at this school do more art than this class does. I guess because we're more focused on work skills and independence skills. But it's not a bad idea to have them do projects like this.
As they demonstrated each step in the video, I'd pause and give the students a chance to replicate it. In the end we got some interesting finished emojis. (I had planned to take pictures to share, but things happened where I was unable to do this.) Pizza's finished emoji was purple and black and had some wild hair.
