NYC Blog

So, I was going down into the subway a couple days ago and saw this guy doing a puppet show. I had never seen anything like this guy’s performance in the subway before, so I have to post the vid:

After the video stops, he walked over to a girl and started to serenade her. It was quite epic.

So, yeah, hope that makes y’all laugh.

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Ok, so, for those that read my status on Fbook, you know what I’m about to write.  But for those that don’t or want more of the story, this is for you…. well, for those that don’t care, I don’t either.

SO, I just learned that I no longer have my job in the Bronx.  As cited by the hiring freeze of new teachers in NYC, only schools that are new, within their 3rd year (of expansion [meaning, next year's expansion], which isn’t said ANYWHERE) can hire up to 50% new teachers, meaning that these “new” teachers come from outside the existing pool of Department of Education teachers.  This includes me and the numerous other recent grads from my program.

For established schools, ones that aren’t expanding or are to their 4th year, are NOT considered new.  This means that because my school is opening up to their 4th year, I don’t have my job.

This wouldn’t be as much of a HATEFIELD moment if indeed I was told after the initial hiring freeze was initiated. No, a couple months go by and I hear nothing.  I tried to call the fucking Bronx center to talk to the woman that’s the agent for my school. She is off the grid visiting schools.  So, I have to play personal investigator to find out what is going on.

I finally get her email address and ask her if she can finally help me and tells me the VERY NEXT DAY that I don’t have it.  So, this whole time I have been sitting back and thinking about my first day of school and how it will run, I could’ve been ACTUALLY finding a job.  Isn’t that special?

Basically, I want to drop kick the Department of Education for this!

Applegate has the first reservation to joke on me about this…. so please, proceed!

I didn’t check this for spelling, so if you find something, fuck yourself. Happier post to come soon.

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So, for the past couple days, I have been hitting the apartment search really hard.  It has been a confusing process and one that I think if I put any less than my full attention, my head would implode.

There is a constant state of realtors and agents calling me as if they had something scheduled with me for over a week, and I keep thinking…. “who the hell is this?” I try to keep everything organized and orderly.  I keep everything separated and as much information written down as possible, but it still slips my mind.

Today, for example, I was going to meet 3 agents (realtors) and we were going to look at the respective apartments they had.  I thought all three of these people were going to only show me one place, but instead, the first woman took me to 10 apartments.  The first 6 sucked quite a bit.  But the last 4 she showed were amazing.

They got better each time and the second to last one had this as the view:

Continue reading…

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Well…. if I were one, then it’d feel pretty good.

ANYWAY, so, I’m back (quite clearly). I have been on vacation for the past month, where I stayed in KY for about 2.5 weeks and then went to California to visit my brother for 5 days. I must say, this is exactly what I needed. I was really happy to get out of the city for a while and relax in an environment where I could walk around inside and not bump into anything after 4 steps.

So, for those whom know me on F-Book, you’ll have to check out the album I will post shortly, but some highlights:

-I was standing by a car dealership called Zap, the electric car company. So, I was taking pictures of some of the cars because they looked pretty cool.  Out of nowhere, 2 guys in a run-down grey (more like metal and a lack of paint) and peach splotched Volkswagon Beetle, yell at my mom and me, “Why don’t you take some pictures of a real car!”  Now, if I wasn’t laughing so hard, I would’ve retorted to the guys, but I was on the ground at this point.

-My brother, mom and I were at a liquor store (much like Liquor Barn) and there were two registers open.  We move behind this guy whom is standing back in the middle of both lines like he’s making one line. My brother asks which line he’s in and the guy responds (in severe arrogance), “Whichever line opens up first, and then you’ll be after me… Sound good?”  Now, as most of you know, I’m not that great at ALL at come backs, but I really wished I were at this moment.

I think that is about it, well, at least all I can think of. But I want the readers to tell me in the comments what they would’ve said to the two respective parties, if anything, that would’ve been extremely witty and clever.

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Not much will change in the few weeks to come except that I won’t be here to update anything.  Hasn’t really been a lot for me to post about lately, but when I return, I’ll be ready to get back down to business and “hopefully” regular posts.

In the meantime, feed the internet’s AI by playing some games over on gwap.com. As you play games with other people online, the computer records your input and will use it to try to solve all the world’s problems by reading our minds or something like that.  Anyway, the tag a tune is my favorite because you get to listen to music.  Have fun and I’ll see you in two weeks.

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Beat Boxing is really popular right now apparently with the whole World Championships coming up and all.  Here’s a video I happened to stumble to which combines it with a cappella to create a very unique sound.

Since Hamby posted a video with of an audition for the wild card of the BBWC, here is the one that actually won the spot. Bonus Vid:

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This week I finished my job as a Lister for the Address Canvassing operation of the 2010 Census.  It’s hard to believe that we worked almost 7 weeks and finished two counties.  Especially since that was 3 weeks earlier than the date we were given to finish by.  We did more than we were required to do in a shorter amount of time than we were given and guess what we got in return.  Three weeks less pay than we should have.  There wasn’t even a pat on the back.  Last week, we were supposed to finish everything by Friday, May 8.  It didn’t happen because of the weather so they told us we had to finish by Tuesday, May 12.  If we didn’t finish, they would take us off of the areas and give them to someone else.

Let’s take this in perspective for a moment.  We were the most efficient team in the state of TN, finishing our area before any other group had 75%.  Then, we had to help with another area because all of them were quitting.  So they send their best team to help finish a job that another team couldn’t finish and then threaten us that if we don’t finish they will bring in someone else.  Huh?

It doesn’t really make any sense to me, but I’m glad I don’t have to work for them anymore.  There are so many things I could say about the job and how it can be improved, but there isn’t really anywhere for me to say it.  They didn’t give us any tools to let them know how things were going.  It was all chain of command and we were at the bottom.  Not a good way to run an operation of any kind.

Now, on to the list.  This contains happenings that occurred while I was in the field.  Some will have explanations while others are self-explanatory.

• Long Political Conversations: 1
  • It was bound to happen, but it wasn’t until my last day that I got caught in a soapbox talk.  At least this guy was grounded and didn’t bash everybody.
• Police Called: 1
  • This was in a very nice neighborhood in Cleveland.  Couldn’t really understand who called them because everyone was very polite when they were talking to me.
• People with way too much $$$: 4
• Kittens: 4
  • These kittens were very cute and perfect for internet vids.  One even fell out of a grill, not the actual grill part, but the bottom below the flames.  I think they had an abusive father who came by later and fought with the mother.  Cat fight.
• Snakes: 1
• Opossums: 1
• Wild Deer: 4
• Pet Deer: 1
  • Yes, I really saw a pet deer.  I came up to a man’s porch to ask him his address and saw it out of the corner of my eye.  I initially thought it was a plastic one since it had a bandanna around its neck, but then it moved towards me.  Needless to say, it sort of freaked me out.  Sadly, I don’t remember its name.
• Threats: 1
  • At the same house as above, I went to knock on his neighbor’s house and as soon as I knocked on the door the man flipped.  He told me no one was there earlier but I have to go get GPS spots for each house so I went over anyway.  Then he tells me to get off of his property.  And you don’t mess with someone who has a deer for a pet.
• Motorized Scooters: 2
• People Having Sex: 1
  • There was a constant knocking at one house, so I don’t think they could hear me at the door…
• Crazies: 1
  • The man answered the door with a phone in his hand.  I gave him my spiel about his address and he said he had a medical emergency.  I told him all I need is his address and he kept on about having a medical emergency, all this time with the phone in his hand.  He never actually talked into the phone but only to me.  I never saw an ambulance go by when I left.
• HHC’s: 2
  • HHC, or hand-held computer, is what we use to verify addresses.  Mine broke one day because it failed to install.  I got a blue screen which comes up right after boot and usually validates your installation before running a virus scan.  The hard disk actually failed and I had to replace the whole unit.  So I got paid for a whole day without doing any work, but talking on the phone with tech support for 2 hours… which if you’ve called any tech support number, you know how painful that can be.

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So, in this installment, I wanted to update the status of my job and all that jazz.

-I contacted my principal and he’s checking on whether I have a job or not.

-My school is opening it’s 4th year, which according to the website, I’m still under the 50% possibility of keeping my job.

-I have a written document which states that they hired me, but I couldn’t get the DOE to get the paperwork through because they were waiting on the budgets, go figure.

-I’m flying back home for a month which means that if I don’t keep this job, then I’m screwed.  Basically, I think I’m going to send my resume to every charter school out there in NYC and hope I get a bite at teh apple.

I’ll keep you informed.

Oh, side-(but relavent)note: Friday, a teacher at the school I was just teaching at came in talking about the freeze and was talking about how great it was and all that jazz. He then looked up at me and was like, “oh, well…. it’s great for us, sucks for you.” then walks off. Now THAT sucked.

Karma’s a REAL bitch

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Though this isn’t my normal bag of tea post, it had to be done.

*special thanks to michael lee for posting this on facebook…. I just stole it*

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So, yesterday during my second to last day of student teaching, I receive a call from a friend in my program (she’s also a math person), freaking out about getting a job.  I stop her and ask what’s going on.  She proceeds to tell me that today she was doing a demo lesson (basically it’s for doing interviews at school, in front of a class) and after, the principal told her, “Well, we were planning on giving you the job, but literally during your lesson, the chancellor declared a hiring freeze.  So, we can’t hire anyone right now.”

So, I’m listening to this and thinking, oh, that’s just Cheryl being Cheryl.  I get home and look it up. Can’t find anything.  I later get a call from another friend of mine.  He’s now freaking out also. Continue reading…

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