And to all a good night...

Halloween night, that is.

I got my first trick or treater! I was so excited and she was so cute! Only one, but still better than the zero trick or treaters the year before.

A miso mistake

A while back I purchased miso and mustard salad dressing from the local Japanese market. I finally got a chance to use it, and I must say that I am disappointed. I somehow expected it to be, well, mustard-y.

A trouser tragedy

So, in my section for the tutoring class they recently brought up appropriate dress. Apparently, there have been some complaints, but luckily not about our section, which is entirely science people. The problem is probably one of those English hoochies. Anyway, following this discussion I actually make an effort to dress nicely the next day. I put on my one pair of trousers (my "grown up" pants, also known as the pants of authority), and, what do you know, they no longer fit. Apparently my new exercise regime has done some good, as the pants have a ferocious gap in the back. As nice as that news is, it also means that, unfortunately, I need new pants. Considering how hard it was to find these pants in the first place, I think I'm totally screwed. I'm so envious of the other people in the program that spent years in the real world before deciding to become teachers. They already have nice wardrobes, whereas I'm essentially starting from scratch.

A relevant rant

This basically sums up my feelings about a whole lot that we've been learning about lately. Everything has to be relevant, kids not learning is all the teacher's fault, we need to be more culturally sensitive, the education system is biased towards middle-class values, yadda yadda yadda. Couple that with every single person I talk to having an opinion on how to fix the system (or what is wrong with the students and the culture they come from), and teaching college is really looking like a nice prospect. People respect professors. Higher education isn't in need of fixing, and not everyone has gone there so they don't all have a fucking opinion about it.
Gah! So frustrating!

Academia at its best

I think I hit the jackpot with the class I'm assigned to tutor. Not that they're nice or easy to be with, far from it. They scare the crap out of me and have me thinking about getting a PhD so that I will never ever have to teach middle school children. No, I've hit the jackpot because they've been going on so many field trips, which makes the time I'm required to spend with them much easier (or at least more interesting). So far, I've been to the Museum of Photographic Arts and the community lab at Biogen Idec, where the students got to go a BCA assay, which measures protein concentration (something I didn't get to do until college). Friday, we're going to the opera to see Beauty and the Beast, and next Friday we're going back to Biogen Idec to do a gel electrophoresis on some DNA. Joy!