Tuesday, May 20, 2008

oprah parody

saturday night live did a great parody of the crazy oprah audience a while back.
it is virtually impossible to find a good copy on line to reproduce--SNL is strangely a bunch of heartless czars when it comes to sharing their material on the information superhighway.

one maverick blogger has caught a bad copy of it here. click for a good laugh. the humping, limb ripping, and spontaneous human combustion get me every time.

Monday, May 19, 2008

i heart america



you know, oprah kills me. i have had many a heated discussion about oprah--in doctorate level education classes, in teachers' lounges, with friends--everyone debating if oprah's acts are beneficial or superficial.

regardless of the oprah effect, people go bonkers over her, especially when she gives away free shit. for oprah to give away all this crap is the equivalent of me giving a street musician a dollar, but lord have mercy, her studio audience goes buck wild.

what could oprah do that would make me lose my shizz on national television and act a fool? hmmmmm.......

oprah, you could:
1. buy me a brownstone in brooklyn and let me renovate it with an endless budget
2. pay off our college loans and the loans of everyone who takes them out study education (because we'll never make enough to pay them off ourselves!)
3. fund my school, but let ME make all the spending decisions
4. buy out all SUV makers so that those asinine cars get abolished
5. totally fund a non-profit i'd love to start that sends inner-city high school students on international travel/work trips

oprah, i promise if you did the above (probably even ONE of the above), i'd cry, pee my pants, scream, and wriggle down the aisle to you like a snake to kiss your wrinkle-less face! i swear!

The Dream Act

Yesterday, as I was waiting for the bus with my in-laws, one of my old students emerged into the daylight from the large and dark Catholic church on 4th Avenue and Ninth Street. I run into my old students frequently, and my first questions is always " Are you in school?"(Yes, the broken record the teacher quality plagues me.)
As soon as those words escaped my mouth, this young woman's situation reemerged into my mind, and I thought, "Oh, shit...NOT the question to ask."

This student--we'll call her Lucia--is from Mexico. Her parents moved her here when she was a toddler. She was raised in Brooklyn, has the rough Brooklyn demeanor, speaks Spanish at home and accent-less English at school, was in all honors and gifted classes during her 12 years of public education, and is an astounding artist. BUT, Lucia is an undocumented immigrant. She cannot received Federal Financial Aid to go to college b/c she is not a citizen. Her family cannot afford to send her to school. Therefore, she is bussing tables at a busy restaurant in SoHo instead.

Lucia is one of the students who got me interested in one area of my doctorate research on what happens to undocumented immigrant students once they finish high school. To ask a student their immigrant status is an illegal act, but at the end of high school (when college looms heavy in everyone's minds and conversations) many students will begin to offer up the information to their teachers in order to ask for help. Lucia was one of those for me.

While many states have granted in-state tuition for undocumented students (NY is one of them), they are still unable to get the finanicial aid they need. There is legislature out there to legalize these students so that they can go to college and start careers here. It's called the dream act

Please familiarize yourself with this, and when it comes back into the political dialogue (both Barak and Hillary support it) voice your opinion that ALL students deserve the educational opportunity to attend college.

Gracias ;)

Thursday, May 15, 2008

blindness


have you read this book by jose saramago?

the one thing i have most enjoyed about breastfeeding is the amount of reading i have accomplished this past year. i think this is the best book i have read in terms of an innovative structure, mind-boggling content, and thought-provoking themes....and it is being made into a movie! i am wondering if i can teach this book next year. with bloomberg proposing over a million dollars in budget cuts in the department of education, it seems as if we won't be ordering any new books. i think i'll post some proposals on donorschoose.org and maybe some of my rich friends (ha!) can fund some books for my AP class!

but i digress. (motherhood induced ADD is brutal).

i highly recommend reading it. it blew my mind. the movie is getting lackluster reviews from cannes, but i'm going to see it nonetheless.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

chuckle



somecards.com always makes me laugh. here are a few of their cleaner examples.