Wolf Blitzer: I'm Wolf Blitzer and you are in the Situation Room. We have an update from the Situation Room in the West Wing of the White House. There's a situation there.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Situation
Wolf Blitzer: I'm Wolf Blitzer and you are in the Situation Room. We have an update from the Situation Room in the West Wing of the White House. There's a situation there.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
new test strategy
I spend a fair amount of tutoring time teaching test strategies, many of which I have down pat. Here is my new strategy that I won't be sharing during tutoring sessions: before every test, for the rest of my life, I aim to listen to Metallica's "Enter Sandman." That includes before the MCAT.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
what i'm listening to?
Here are the songs and albums I've been listening to or returning to quite a bit recently.
Newer stuff:
Owen Pallett's new album Heartland: beautiful instrumentation and storytelling, favorite new album at the moment
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck's song and video for Heaven Can Wait: Just watch it. Hard to listen to this song just once. I've listened to the whole album once or twice through (when it was out on NPR) and thought it was very good.
songs from Surfer Blood's new album (listened to on their myspace page)
"Steady Love" by DC band Title Tracks (myspace page): plain pop
"Friendly Ghost," "Sometimes," and "Beautiful and Very Smart" by Harlem (myspace)
The Antlers' "Epilogue" on Hospice: last track from an album about loving someone who is dying of cancer; because the album is so sad, I shouldn't want to listen to it, but it's arresting.
La Blogotheque's videos of Phoenix in Paris
The Thermals' songs "I Might Need You to Kill" and "At the Bottom of the Sea": neither are the best songs on their albums, but they both capture the fun of the band (the body the blood the machine is a rocking album)
Also, I've enjoyed Vampire Weekend's new album and a few cursory listens of Beach House's new album
Older stuff
John Doe's song "The Golden State"
Sufjan Stevens' "Vito's Ordination Song" on Greetings from Michigan
Video of Stevens covering Lakes of Canada
Josh Ritter's album Golden Age of Radio
Rolling Stones' "Let It Loose" from Exile on Main Street
Video clip of Gui Boratto's song "Beautiful Life": I love the expressions on the people's faces. The full version of the song (no video) builds for 8 great minutes, and I enjoy getting lost in it.
Newer stuff:
Owen Pallett's new album Heartland: beautiful instrumentation and storytelling, favorite new album at the moment
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck's song and video for Heaven Can Wait: Just watch it. Hard to listen to this song just once. I've listened to the whole album once or twice through (when it was out on NPR) and thought it was very good.
songs from Surfer Blood's new album (listened to on their myspace page)
"Steady Love" by DC band Title Tracks (myspace page): plain pop
"Friendly Ghost," "Sometimes," and "Beautiful and Very Smart" by Harlem (myspace)
The Antlers' "Epilogue" on Hospice: last track from an album about loving someone who is dying of cancer; because the album is so sad, I shouldn't want to listen to it, but it's arresting.
La Blogotheque's videos of Phoenix in Paris
The Thermals' songs "I Might Need You to Kill" and "At the Bottom of the Sea": neither are the best songs on their albums, but they both capture the fun of the band (the body the blood the machine is a rocking album)
Also, I've enjoyed Vampire Weekend's new album and a few cursory listens of Beach House's new album
Older stuff
John Doe's song "The Golden State"
Sufjan Stevens' "Vito's Ordination Song" on Greetings from Michigan
Video of Stevens covering Lakes of Canada
Josh Ritter's album Golden Age of Radio
Rolling Stones' "Let It Loose" from Exile on Main Street
Video clip of Gui Boratto's song "Beautiful Life": I love the expressions on the people's faces. The full version of the song (no video) builds for 8 great minutes, and I enjoy getting lost in it.
Monday, September 7, 2009
catching up
I suck at blogging. I'm also bad at to do lists. They just get bigger and bigger. So I'm going to try to blog more often by keeping everything short. Fewer long epic stories, like those from my first year of teaching or bike trip in Central America.
I'm presently semi-inspired to write because I received what I consider a ridiculous text from a friend today: "so, what's new, josh arkin?" Text messaging is not my preferred method of communication for updates of my life. So here's what's new, in tidbit but not tweet, form. (By the way, I'm saving the most ridiculous thing I've seen for the end.)
I went with my dad to give blood a few weeks ago. The nurse who checked me in, when she took my name, both verbally and by looking at my id, remarked, "Oh, that's an interesting spelling. Most people don't spell your name with a U." I kept a straight face and did not respond. There is no response possible that could do justice to the comment.
The nurse who took my blood, however, had an expansive vocabulary. She referred to my arms as hirsute. Which reminds me that my friend has the picture to the left on her Flickr site. It is titled, "Josh's hairy arms." It has 140 views, which is about 10 times more than any other picture in her albums. Which means people search for images with hairy arms.
Other hair-related information: I now have a beard. People I've recently been told I look like: old school Kenny Loggins (by some guy at a coffee shop in Santa Monica) and soccer player Xabi Alonso
My college friends say my dad
looks like Donald Sutherland. Doesn't make much sense to me. See them on the left. On a semi-related note, I went to a hot yoga class with a friend recently. There was a guy there without a shirt on. He looked exactly like my dad. It freaked me out.
What else am I up to? I decided to start putting my wallet in my front pocket to regain buttock balance. I'm taking premed courses at community college. Biking is my preferred mode of transportation. I ride around a mountain bike/hybrid that I claimed and fixed up after it sat around in a garage for at least 6 years. Between a wedding at the end of May and one at the beginning of August, I gave up alcohol. It was difficult (summer grilling sessions especially) but wonderful. Never would've guessed I'd say that. I felt healthy and was able to do things I love, like read, late at night and still wake up in the morning feeling good. I can now drink more moderately and don't want a beer on a weeknight (or at least not as much). It spurred me to give up caffeinated coffee too. Three weeks now without coffee. What's the next challenge? Reading the entire Bible in daily doses. Also, I volunteered last month building houses for St. Bernard Project in New Orleans Great organization with great people. I'm trying to go back down at the end of December and beginning of January. Feel free to join me.
Now that I'm a student and am independent and am not on scholarship, I'm trying to learn how to live with debt. It sucks. I tutor and substitute to try to pay the bills.
Community college is great. The teaching is much better, plus I'm better prepared for learning than I was in college. I spent some time adjusting my schedule this past week, which meant I switched out of my organic chemistry lecture and lab taught by 2 female organic chemists and into an orgo class taught by a male. So traditional. I also switched to a distance learning calculus class, which is great because I don't have to go to class every day, making my schedule easier, but isn't so great because the professor was great and his name was Dr. Duty. To find his web page, he said to google his name, being sure to include his first name Paul. He said if you don't, you get a proctologist. Which isn't true.
Here's the dumbest thing I've heard in class. During our first orgo lab class, the professor asked why do we need to use pen and not pencil? Obviously so people don't change or make up results. But one kid said, "Because of the carbon in the pencils." In his defense, we had spent some time discussing the volatility of organic chemicals, but still . . .
I felt old on the first day of class. This is my first time back in school full-time. And day classes at community college are much different than night classes or summer classes. At one point during my summer class I was sitting outside with a bunch of people and this one 19 year old girl says, "Josh, I'm sorry but I have to ask. How old are you?" She added in a quiet whisper, "You're not 30, are you?" I said, "You don't have to whisper. And no, I'm not 30, but I'm close. Thanks."
I am not a fan of monkey backpack leashes. Your kid thinks they are awesome because they have a monkey backpack. But the tail is a leash for the parent to hold. Shameful.
More shameful than monkey backpack leashes: a truck with a picture of an aborted fetus on the side. If there's one way not to change someone's mind, it's subjecting them to that image. Last year, some of my friends saw a kid walking around with his parents on the National Mall and wearing a pro-life shirt with a picture of an aborted fetus on it. I feel like there are some cool ways to subvert this image. What if you put a picture of that kid wearing that shirt on your own shirt?
After those two tidbits, here's some stuff I liked this summer or in the past year or two.
Favorite magazine to read: Seed. It's a science magazine. Check it out online at www.seedmagazine.com
Favorite podcast: The Moth. It's just people telling stories. Give it a shot, and if you don't like the first story you hear, try a few. The website is http://www.themoth.org/ The Sing Sing tattoo story is a great place to start. WNYC's Radiolab is a really cool science and philosophy-related podcast.
Favorite summer album: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix.
Album I'm presently enjoying: XX by The XX.
Favorite start to an old album: the first six songs of Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha
Favorite music of the last year or two: Los Campesinos's first album and The '59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem (not a bad song on the latter album).
Happiest band ever in concert (I'm not kidding, the leader singer, Craig Finn, radiates joy): The Hold Steady. See them.
Favorite gmail status message: my friend who gave an update on his successful effort quitting smoking.
Children's author whose every book I would like to read: Daniel Pinkwater. His most recent books, The Neddiad and The Yggysey are romps. The characters are intelligent, clever, funny, nonconformist, and constantly moving, as are the plots. The books are filled with the characters spouting off interesting facts just because the facts are interesting and not necessarily connected to anything. The slogan of the books could be, "Don't worry. Be happy." No kids struggling with personal problems in these two books. Just kids saving the world or going to ghost parties in alternate parallel worlds. The latter is a sequel. The first is a bit better.
Favorite book of the last two years: Terry Pratchett's beautiful, moving Nation.
Great music-themed (and adult) novel I finished last week: The Song Is You by Arthur Phillips. Very powerful book. Should win an award.
Things I'm excited about:
Sherman Alexie's upcoming book and tour (http://fallsapart.com/schedule.html), if you get a chance, see him, he will make you laugh and cry and empathize and think and wonder
Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. I reread the book a few times a year. I'm not sure I've ever been as excited about any movie.
Seeing Andrew Bird in concert.
Biology II. I'm a geek. Evolution is awesome.
The final story of this blog:
Last week I sat down at a table on campus to eat my lunch. All the tables were occupied, so I sat across from an Asian kid. He was talking on his cel phone. When he finished talking a few minutes later, I watched him lick his cel phone screen and wipe it along his sleeve. Has cleaning your cel phone screen by doing that ever crossed your mind?
Peace out,
Josha (I'm gonna try it like most people, without the U)
I'm presently semi-inspired to write because I received what I consider a ridiculous text from a friend today: "so, what's new, josh arkin?" Text messaging is not my preferred method of communication for updates of my life. So here's what's new, in tidbit but not tweet, form. (By the way, I'm saving the most ridiculous thing I've seen for the end.)
I went with my dad to give blood a few weeks ago. The nurse who checked me in, when she took my name, both verbally and by looking at my id, remarked, "Oh, that's an interesting spelling. Most people don't spell your name with a U." I kept a straight face and did not respond. There is no response possible that could do justice to the comment.
The nurse who took my blood, however, had an expansive vocabulary. She referred to my arms as hirsute. Which reminds me that my friend has the picture to the left on her Flickr site. It is titled, "Josh's hairy arms." It has 140 views, which is about 10 times more than any other picture in her albums. Which means people search for images with hairy arms.
Other hair-related information: I now have a beard. People I've recently been told I look like: old school Kenny Loggins (by some guy at a coffee shop in Santa Monica) and soccer player Xabi Alonso
My college friends say my dad
looks like Donald Sutherland. Doesn't make much sense to me. See them on the left. On a semi-related note, I went to a hot yoga class with a friend recently. There was a guy there without a shirt on. He looked exactly like my dad. It freaked me out.What else am I up to? I decided to start putting my wallet in my front pocket to regain buttock balance. I'm taking premed courses at community college. Biking is my preferred mode of transportation. I ride around a mountain bike/hybrid that I claimed and fixed up after it sat around in a garage for at least 6 years. Between a wedding at the end of May and one at the beginning of August, I gave up alcohol. It was difficult (summer grilling sessions especially) but wonderful. Never would've guessed I'd say that. I felt healthy and was able to do things I love, like read, late at night and still wake up in the morning feeling good. I can now drink more moderately and don't want a beer on a weeknight (or at least not as much). It spurred me to give up caffeinated coffee too. Three weeks now without coffee. What's the next challenge? Reading the entire Bible in daily doses. Also, I volunteered last month building houses for St. Bernard Project in New Orleans Great organization with great people. I'm trying to go back down at the end of December and beginning of January. Feel free to join me.
Now that I'm a student and am independent and am not on scholarship, I'm trying to learn how to live with debt. It sucks. I tutor and substitute to try to pay the bills.
Community college is great. The teaching is much better, plus I'm better prepared for learning than I was in college. I spent some time adjusting my schedule this past week, which meant I switched out of my organic chemistry lecture and lab taught by 2 female organic chemists and into an orgo class taught by a male. So traditional. I also switched to a distance learning calculus class, which is great because I don't have to go to class every day, making my schedule easier, but isn't so great because the professor was great and his name was Dr. Duty. To find his web page, he said to google his name, being sure to include his first name Paul. He said if you don't, you get a proctologist. Which isn't true.
Here's the dumbest thing I've heard in class. During our first orgo lab class, the professor asked why do we need to use pen and not pencil? Obviously so people don't change or make up results. But one kid said, "Because of the carbon in the pencils." In his defense, we had spent some time discussing the volatility of organic chemicals, but still . . .
I felt old on the first day of class. This is my first time back in school full-time. And day classes at community college are much different than night classes or summer classes. At one point during my summer class I was sitting outside with a bunch of people and this one 19 year old girl says, "Josh, I'm sorry but I have to ask. How old are you?" She added in a quiet whisper, "You're not 30, are you?" I said, "You don't have to whisper. And no, I'm not 30, but I'm close. Thanks."
I am not a fan of monkey backpack leashes. Your kid thinks they are awesome because they have a monkey backpack. But the tail is a leash for the parent to hold. Shameful.
More shameful than monkey backpack leashes: a truck with a picture of an aborted fetus on the side. If there's one way not to change someone's mind, it's subjecting them to that image. Last year, some of my friends saw a kid walking around with his parents on the National Mall and wearing a pro-life shirt with a picture of an aborted fetus on it. I feel like there are some cool ways to subvert this image. What if you put a picture of that kid wearing that shirt on your own shirt?
After those two tidbits, here's some stuff I liked this summer or in the past year or two.
Favorite magazine to read: Seed. It's a science magazine. Check it out online at www.seedmagazine.com
Favorite podcast: The Moth. It's just people telling stories. Give it a shot, and if you don't like the first story you hear, try a few. The website is http://www.themoth.org/ The Sing Sing tattoo story is a great place to start. WNYC's Radiolab is a really cool science and philosophy-related podcast.
Favorite summer album: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix.
Album I'm presently enjoying: XX by The XX.
Favorite start to an old album: the first six songs of Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha
Favorite music of the last year or two: Los Campesinos's first album and The '59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem (not a bad song on the latter album).
Happiest band ever in concert (I'm not kidding, the leader singer, Craig Finn, radiates joy): The Hold Steady. See them.
Favorite gmail status message: my friend who gave an update on his successful effort quitting smoking.
Children's author whose every book I would like to read: Daniel Pinkwater. His most recent books, The Neddiad and The Yggysey are romps. The characters are intelligent, clever, funny, nonconformist, and constantly moving, as are the plots. The books are filled with the characters spouting off interesting facts just because the facts are interesting and not necessarily connected to anything. The slogan of the books could be, "Don't worry. Be happy." No kids struggling with personal problems in these two books. Just kids saving the world or going to ghost parties in alternate parallel worlds. The latter is a sequel. The first is a bit better.
Favorite book of the last two years: Terry Pratchett's beautiful, moving Nation.
Great music-themed (and adult) novel I finished last week: The Song Is You by Arthur Phillips. Very powerful book. Should win an award.
Things I'm excited about:
Sherman Alexie's upcoming book and tour (http://fallsapart.com/schedule.html), if you get a chance, see him, he will make you laugh and cry and empathize and think and wonder
Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. I reread the book a few times a year. I'm not sure I've ever been as excited about any movie.
Seeing Andrew Bird in concert.
Biology II. I'm a geek. Evolution is awesome.
The final story of this blog:
Last week I sat down at a table on campus to eat my lunch. All the tables were occupied, so I sat across from an Asian kid. He was talking on his cel phone. When he finished talking a few minutes later, I watched him lick his cel phone screen and wipe it along his sleeve. Has cleaning your cel phone screen by doing that ever crossed your mind?
Peace out,
Josha (I'm gonna try it like most people, without the U)
Friday, September 26, 2008
Oooh awkward
I subbed at JDS today in 5th grade but ended up with a great 1st grade story. First graders say the most ridiculous yet oddly mature things. Developmentally, they can sometimes seem like adults trapped in kids' bodies.
Last year, my sixth grade students were reading buddies with a kindergarten class. We'd go every 2 or 3 weeks on a Friday to read with the younger kids. Today I walked into a first grade class and one girl shouted, "Hey Mr. Arkin. Tell Julianna I say hello." Even if I was still teaching daily at JDS, Julianna would have moved to the Upper School, but I said, "Well, actually I can't tell her because I don't teach here anymore."
Her loud response: "Ooooh, awkward."
Last year, my sixth grade students were reading buddies with a kindergarten class. We'd go every 2 or 3 weeks on a Friday to read with the younger kids. Today I walked into a first grade class and one girl shouted, "Hey Mr. Arkin. Tell Julianna I say hello." Even if I was still teaching daily at JDS, Julianna would have moved to the Upper School, but I said, "Well, actually I can't tell her because I don't teach here anymore."
Her loud response: "Ooooh, awkward."
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