Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

"Happy birthday old man" - Pearl
"Thank you. I get to spend my birthday marking! What fun..." - Jon Wong
"Why don't you just give them all zeros and call it a day!" - Pearl

Tempting...

Don't wish me a happy birthday on days leading up to my birthday.

Unless you are someone like Christian, who will literally be unable to wish me a happy birthday tomorrow (and I also know that Christian knows my date of birth independent of facebook), just don't do it. I would rather you forget entirely. It's insulting. As if it weren't bad enough that you write some plain, generic birthday message on my wall when we hardly even know each other, you can't even get the date right? That tells me one of two things:

1. If you acknowledge that you know it's not my birthday but you're doing it early anyway, it tells me that I'm not even worth signing onto facebook for on the DAY of my birthday.

2. If you don't even acknowledge that you're early, it tells me that you can't even READ the date on my profile and I assume you're only wishing me one because facebook has warned you that my birthday is coming up... except that you haven't even taken the effort to process whether or not it says "today" or "tomorrow" on your homepage, thereby making you illiterate.

Seriously, don't even bother with these insincere displays of goodwill. At least if you do it on the day of my birthday, I can allow myself to be fooled into thinking you're actually wishing me a happy birthday.

I was listening to music the other day, as I am wont to do whenever I can spare the time between lesson planning and more lesson planning (actually, this is a gross exaggeration regarding the amount of time I actually spend planning lessons at home... but that is a rant for another time (and possibly another blog)).

Ok, so I was listening to music the other day. And I was designing a playlist for my poetry unit. As I lurked around my music files, looking for good classroom songs, I stumbled across an old gem from back in first year: Hustle Rose, by Metric. Listening to it again, I am still struck by what a wonderful little piece of music this is. But more than that, I realized that it's impossible for me to listen to this song on a consistent basis anymore because all it does is make me think about first year.

I think this is one of the saddest parts about good music. You can never be happy with the gems you have in your collection because you realize, sooner or later, that you can't listen to them beyond a certain time in your life. I think back to the Hustle Roses, the Konstantines, the Sidewalks, the Everglows, the Dark Blues... and I remember just how amazing and powerful these songs were during their heydays atop my personal music charts. How I could actually lose myself in them if I turned the volume up and just let the songs wash through me. But now...

Now I can only listen to these songs with the memories of how great they were. I mean, objectively, they're still great. But they're already part of a memory. And no matter how much I wish I could attach new memories to these songs, that will never happen. So I continue to look for new music for me to attach new memories to. And I'll always know when my life is stagnating because my music stagnates too. I mean, if there's nothing worth remembering, then the music becomes unnecessary... or worse, good music attaches itself to bad memories.

And like Grant, I worry about the day when music is no longer required to color my world because I am incapable of creating new memories that are better worth remembering than my old ones.

According to wikipedia, Selena Gomez is OLDER than Miley Cyrus? Since when?

You know what they should design? A search function for malls. I think that would be infinitely helpful to a lot of people. Say I was looking for a canteen (I am). Wouldn't it be cool if I could go to say shopmarkville.com, type in "canteen" and it gave me a list of all the stores that sold this product? Or if none of the stores sold it, it would tell me and save me the trouble of driving to the mall just to find out that it's not there? That doesn't seem so unreasonable.

I think one of the most notable things about being a teacher is the way I look at holidays. This may seem odd considering how there are so many differences between being a student and being a teacher but I think it makes sense from a psychological standpoint. I mean, what are some of the things you do as a teacher? You lecture to a bunch of people, some of whom aren't smart enough to realize that they should be paying attention, you judge them based on what they're able to convey to you (i.e. marking), you walk down halls shaking your head at some of the more ridiculous things you see, and you talk to a certain group of elitists (i.e. other teachers) about ways to cope with the inanity that surrounds you.

Doesn't that sound an awful lot like what I do on a regular basis at Queen's?

Yeah, so in a lot of ways, my mindset hasn't really had to undergo too great of a change just yet. But I realized something about holidays, what with this being Thanksgiving and all - the first real holiday of the school year...

The one difference between being a high school student and being a high school teacher is that as a high school student, if I had my choice as to what day of the week on which a holiday would fall, I would choose Friday. No questions about it. I would prefer my week to end early. As a teacher, on the other hand, I have realized that I would infinitely prefer to have holidays fall on a Monday (like Thanksgiving). In other words, I would prefer my week to start late. And I think this is the first big difference to have struck me. And I thought about it for a bit because this, to me, seemed interesting. What exactly is happening? I mean, it's a 4 day week either way. But I realized... in very basic terms, it amounts to this: as a student, I liked the end of the week more than I hated the start of it. And as a teacher, I hate the start of the week more than I like the end of it.

Part of this, I think, has to do with delayed gratification. As a student, with my underdeveloped frontal lobe and my amigdala going at full steam, Friday gets to me faster than Monday. So naturally, I want the short week sooner. As a teacher, my frontal lobe is beginning to understand the values of holding out on instant gratification and I think, "Yeah, I'll have the full week now but it's going to be so nice to just bask in Sunday without having to worry about work the next day".

Getting back to the psychological part though, I thought, how exactly did I view the week, as a student? Ok, so...

Holiday Monday Scenario: A student's perspective
Well, the week before is a full week. No real change there. But I've got this Monday off. Awesome. Alright, so I've had Monday off... and now it's Tuesday. Well, it still feels like Tuesday. I mean, yeah, I got Monday off but now that it's over, today as a Tuesday still feels like a Tuesday; after all, I've already acknowledged that I got Monday off. And tomorrow will feel like Wednesday and so on. I mean, the fact that I got Monday off doesn't make Tuesday feel like a Monday. I look forward and the weekend's 4 days away. So today just feels like every other Tuesday. Yesterday was a blast because I didn't have school but that's over and done with. So in conclusion, a holiday Monday pretty much only gives me gratification ON the actual Monday (and maybe on the Sunday before).

Holiday Friday Scenario: A student's perspective
Alright, it's Monday. But the weekend's only 4 days away so really, it's like today's Tuesday. Man, isn't this awesome? And then tomorrow, even though it's Tuesday, it'll feel like a Wednesday. And Wednesday will feel like a Thursday. And Thursday will feel like a Friday! And THEN, Friday will feel like Saturday, Saturday will feel like Sunday, and Sunday will feel like Monday... except we don't have to go to school! So it's like I get 2 days off! So in conclusion, a holiday Friday gratifies me every single day of the week when I wake up and realize I'm one step closer to the weekend than I should be. And on top of that, I feel like I get 2 days off!

Holiday Monday Scenario: A teacher's perspective
Ugh, bad case of the Mondays... except it's not Monday! It's Tuesday! Just knowing that makes me feel better. It's still the first day of the week though so I'm going to teach my classes as if it were Monday - gotta get them out of weekend mode and everything. So Tuesday will feel like a Monday, Wednesday will feel like a Tuesday, Thursday will feel like a Wednesday, and then Friday... hey, would you look at that! It's like one of my days evaporated and I'm standing next to the weekend, even though it feels like a Thursday. w00t! 4 day week.

Holiday Friday Scenario: A teacher's perspective
Well, Monday's a Monday, Tuesday's a Tuesday, and so on... except now it's Thursday and they don't have school tomorrow. Not bad. Except half my kids are skipping class and it's like the other half suddenly developed ADHD in anticipation of the long weekend. So do I teach my normal lesson? Is today shot? Great, so now I'll be 2 days behind because I'll have to spend Monday re-teaching Thursday's lesson. Not only that, but half of the time, the students get Friday off because WE have a PD day. So not only is Thursday a write-off, but I have to come in on Friday too. Wonderful.

See, things are different as a teacher.

I've written my latest blog post on facebook.