More of the Wonders of AIM

A conversation with Dominique (aka LillacPuma).
JoieTang: how are you?
LillacPuma: I'm doing well. Did I tell you I'm going to get braces?
JoieTang: no!
LillacPuma: I get the braces put on next Thursday.
LillacPuma: So in two and half years I'll have paid for the equivalent expense of an old used car to be in my mouth.
JoieTang: dude
JoieTang: yeah...i'm so deep
LillacPuma: I know it. :D

Dominique is also to be commended on her timeless reply to those three little words.
JoieTang: i love you
LillacPuma: Excellent.

AIM Away Message

medolie: hi
Auto response from JoieTang: Joy is not here. She is out dancing with men with large bellies.
medolie: why men with large bellies joy? why?

Cheer from the Tenacious Ten

Bkgd: In TFA, we are divided into working groups. My group lovingly refers to ourselves as the Tenacious Ten. The Tenacious Ten was forced to come up with a group cheer for Cornelius (our school's) end of the week meeting.

(The Tenacious Ten huddle together in the middle of the cafeteria. Ryan, the lone male, leans into the huddle and yells, "123 Break!" The Ten quickly fan out into a straight line.)

READY, OK?!

(Our hands clasp in front, cheerleader-style. We begin to clap rhythmically.)

I say JOURNAL/You say OUT
JOURNAL (point to selves) OUT (point to audience)
JOURNAL/OUT
I say NORM/You say OUT
NORM/OUT
NORM/OUT
I say SHARE; you say OUT
NORM/OUT
NORM/OUT
Journal it out! Norm it out! Share it out!
CORNELIUS!

(Saturday Night Live style Jazz hands)

You may have to be in TFA to understand how truly brilliant this cheer is.

A TFA Math Lesson

Imagine,if you will, 700 sleep-deprived recent college graduates living together in a concrete box. Imagine that approximately 3/4 of the 700 sleep-deprived college grads are women. And now, imagine that this living situation has lasted for four weeks. It's the end of the month.

The women of TFA are on the same cycle. It is indeed the end of the month; we live in a concrete box (aka Moody Towers), and none of us sleep. I'll let you do the math.

Inside TFA

Teachers have to put lesson plans in these big binders and set them in a noticeable area of their classrooms so that observers and higher-ups can flip through to the lesson plan being given on that day and key in on the teacher's thoughts and methodologies while watching that teacher perform his/her lesson even though teachers (or at least THIS TEACHER) happens to write a lesson plan and revise it ten times before the lesson ever makes it to the front of the classroom.
Despite this fact, the unnamed "they" still want that lesson plan in that binder in that area of the classroom so that "they" have the security of knowing the secret failures and foibles of the teacher as he/she stands in front of the room of wide-eyed students and promptly forgets the lesson plan so neatly tucked in the binder.
Thus, it is a mere statement of the obvious to say that while this process allows observers a great deal of security, it dooms the teacher to continual insecurity because "they" know everything that you are not doing because everything changes as soon as you begin doing it.

The "they" say that it is to assure preparation.

I say that the BINDER is the MAN. I know the MAN. Do you?