Exercise Makes you Sick

Yes, contrary to what all those healthy people want you to believe, exercise makes you sick.

Those of you who know me know that I have been wrestling with the last hunk of baby weight that stubbornly lingers, therefore I decided that midwinter break would be the week that I got my lazy bum on an exercise routine. If I could only keep it going for one week I could prove to myself that it was feasible and it would continue. Also, in one week I'd shrink back to a size 6 and magically be able to fit into about 90% of the clothes in my friggin' closet.

But no.

You know, I held up my end of the bargain. It looked like this:
Wednesday = ran 3.5 miles in the park pushing my 20 lb babe in the jog stroller, Thursday = spin class, Friday = an hour on the elliptical machine, Saturday = a 45 minute run on the treadmill doing intervals and hills.

Sounds good, right? I was kickin' ass and takin' names in the exercise world. I had visions of myself rockin' a cute little JCrew bikini in a skinny minute (pun intended). But noooooooo. My next week was not full of more exercise, but....

Monday night = Do I have a fever? Why do I have chills? Fall asleep on couch at 9pm. Cough. Tuesday night = I have a fever...cough cough. Snot. Fall asleep on couch again. Wednesday morning = Huh? 102 fever. Adam walks me to doctor. Get drugs. Fever gets to 103. Thursday = Fever breaks. Comes back at night to 101.Friday = Feeling better, but guess who's got the cough cough now? Adam and Alexandra!

The moral of the story is: Exercise is bad for you. Stay slovenly. Bake cookies and watch movies instead!

dis iz heaven 4rm klass

There is a whole new generation of language going on out there and I am not privy to it. I received this email from a student last night and Adam and I had to read it a few times before we actually got the entire thing. Try for yourself:

mrs ung. i can't get to da blogspot 4rm my computer do it onlii work on da skool computa? now i cant watch da film n answer da ?'s. imma do it again to check but dis stupid thingy iz not workn..okay thanx mrs u hope u get dis message..im not harrassn u!!!lol

While this might just seem annoying and/or crazy to you (with a strange sense of irony since this email was written to this young woman's ENGLISH teacher), it actually raises a lot of very interesting questions regarding literacy in the lives of teens. Undoubtedly, kids of all ages are reading a lot more on the Internet via surfing, blogging, texting, emailing, etc., but when they choose to write in this IM-speak, is it hurting or helping their overall reading and writing skills? How does reading Wikipedia and other online sources compare/contrast to reading literature? Will these students be more well-versed in non-fiction than, say, my generation who were schooled in straight-up literature (and canonical literature at that--not much multiculturalism going on in the late 80's/early 90's in my suburban high schools)...

A lot of questions out there. I find this stuff fascinating....

why we don't go to museums

adam had president's day off and we just purchased a membership to the Museum of Natural History for our nanny (it's her fave), so we decided to make the pilgrimage to the Upper West Side to make use of it.

i am very close to calling myself a new yorker, but not quite. i remember upon moving here some random person told me you had to live here 10 years in order to make that claim (it'll be 9 for me in june). however, everyone who doesn't live here always asks if we go to the MOMA, the Met, etc., all the time (and we don't). it makes me wonder why we don't do more museum stuff in our illustrious city. the events of this past Monday explain why:

The Museum of Natural History:

1. although there were no signs, we got yelled at for trying to carry the stroller into the main entrance
2. then we got yelled at b/c adam almost went in through the out door at the rose space center entrance (god forbid you are handicapped here; the handicapped entrance is about 1/2 mile from the main entrance)
3. the museum was so packed, there were literally a dozen strollers waiting for the one tiny elevator down to get tickets, so we carried the stroller down three flights of stairs
4. okay, tickets scored. coat check line is approximately 50 people long. not sure if they check strollers...it's also 60 degrees--no exaggeration. we are sweating like pigs but decide to put our coats in the stroller and put alexandra in the ergo carrier on adam's back instead of wait in that line.
5. several people bumped into alexandra on adam's back as if she were a backpack. adam gets miffed. baby could care less.
6. we enter the exhibit (finally), but then decide we need a map to try to find a small corner of the museum less full of tourists and B&T folk (that's Bridge & Tunnel folks for you non-NYers)
7. we make our way back to membership (like salmon swimming upstream) and get a damn map
8. we carry the stroller back upstairs (again, elevator line too long) and make our way through to get out of the space exhibit and hopefully into a less-crowded space
9. we get to entrance #2 into the main museum and its even more crowded than the space section. the stroller is being kicked around by rabid kids whose parents have obviously abandoned them. security guards stared at the ceiling and pretended they were somewhere else.
10. adam and i look at each other, abort the entire mission, and go share a peanut butter chocolate milkshake at EJ's.

and that, ladies and gents, is why we don't go to the museums!
the moral of this story is: Don't leave brooklyn on the holidays! For real!

ps: the best part of our day was the dog run in prospect park...the photo is of a pup who was cooling off in a mud bath.

"anxiety of acquisition"

my downstairs neighbor kat gives me her New York magazines when she's done with them, but this one article she particularly directed me to b/c we have been having the anxiety producing conversation about real estate in brooklyn probably since we met.

i don't know who this joel lovell is, but as someone who moved to NYC right as its mallification began (1999), i feel what he's saying. i am not sure if i am part of the problem or if i entered into a shift already in progress (probably a bit of both), but this article on how a recession of sorts might give us all the swift kick in the ass we need to stop being such materialistic jerks was quite poignant.

read it!

happy valentine's day

i know a lot of folks like to boycott valentine's day due to its commercial bologna, but i have always liked it and i would hazard to say i have not had the most illustrious love life.

if you take away the corny faux roses and such, valentine's day can just be a day to show some love. my favorite valentine's day is probably when i was living in durham with my friend julia and a very strange boy named chris who liked to cook naked. we hosted a black sunday brunch for all our single friends, drank lots of bloody marys, and took a ton of polaroid pictures (which will soon be defunct!) with bizarre props found in the shed of our rental house.

our plans for v-day are to watch "lost" with our neighbors jen and mary. jen is making a heart-shaped meatloaf! we have had a lot of love in our building this week due to the birth of luca (see earlier post). mary made a great video of us toasting the new little man.

and, strangely, v-day = great attendance at school b/c all the kids want to know if someone will give them a valentine--even in high school :)

blue eyes brown eyes

Part of my research is doing auto-ethnography in the Advanced Placement English class I am teaching. This is my second year teaching this class, and right now we're doing what was my most successful unit last year, the unit on race. We have talked and read about race as a biological versus socio-cultural construct, how language promotes these constructions, and this week we're doing the psychological effects of racism and discrimination. I feel that Black History month gets bogged down with lip-service repeat readings of "I Have a Dream" and "And Still I Rise" (Disclaimer! Both very important texts, just very overused...), but this unit really gets the students thinking critically about race in America and in their lives.

I'm attaching a few links to the videos we have watched in class. If you know of any others, please let me know. We have awesome Smartboards in our school now, so I can show streaming video in my class. Woot!

Dave Chappelle skit "The Niggar Family"

Jane Elliot's Blue Eye Brown Eye experiment in her 3rd grade class

Kiri Davis's film "A Girl Like Me" in which she redoes the Clark Doll Experiments in NYC

"Slip of the Tongue"--a film on ethnicity and identity (click on number 1)

luca erickson (sp still undetermined)

today my very good friend kat gave birth to a baby boy, luca. she had a natural delivery and is resting at the hospital with her 5lb, 14oz little bundle. last i heard he was sleeping on her chest. he has a head of hair and looks like eric, her husband.

what is astonishing is that she did this without eric who died suddenly on may 31st. kat has grown this baby and brought it into this world with such incredible strength, love, and determination; it has been mind-boggling to watch her navigate the depths of grief with the joys of growing life inside her. she is undoubtedly the strongest woman i know.

welcome to the world little luca. we have all been anxiously awaiting your arrival. your fan club is expansive and the love we have for you is immense! kat--you know the same holds true for you.

this photo is from the baby shower that kat & eric hosted for us last may. kat was trying to channel the baby vibe from diane (her business partner) and me. it worked!

one degree from tina fey

tina fey is the new kevin bacon, and we are only one degree from tina fey now that we have met anthony, friend to our friend and neighbor mary matthews. anthony is an actor on 30 rock. despite my obama vote last week, mary still introduced us to anthony the evening of super tuesday. we immediately thrust alexandra into his arms for a photo opp. here's the photo. please note the 30 rock hoodie.

i had to resist getting a gold L circle necklace at my favorite neighborhood jewelry store today (you know, like the one liz lemon wears on 30 rock...). i thought that might be taking my fanaticism to a new level. i'm not sure i'm ready for that type of commitment to 30 rock. especially b/c lost is so damn good right now. i think i am cheating on 30 rock with lost. i feel a little guilty... can i still be gay for tina fey but want to get frisky with sawyer in an abandoned zoo cage? these are the questions that keep me awake at night.

as you might have gleaned from this message, my evenings have not been full of gym workouts and typing up data. i am a boob tube addict. i need rehab. will my city health insurance pay for it?