The Lawrence Arms were very good. I like American Steel (the band that came on before them) but Laura wasn't so much of a fan.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, were somewhat less than good. They're currently down 1-3 in the series, which is a tenuous situation in a best of four series. Hopefully they can pull it off tonight and bring to a more manageable spot, but they need to win three straight.

Tim and I went to Metro last night. We warmed up on three 8's, then I jumped on two 10's, and an 11 (which I sent cleanly) before my arms went to shit. I climbed another 10, a 9, and an 8 but they were all pretty poor showings. Still, nine climbs in less than three hours is a lot of climbing and hopefully I can maintain that pace and get stronger. Tim wants me to focus on my footwork and try to take rests during climbs so I develop good habits.

This man set the world dyno record, but it has been questioned since he took a second jump off the hand hold. I'm pretty sure that he should get more points, and not less, for his second jump, but apparently I am in the minority.

I am pretty sure that I am an athlete. I have been active my whole life (soccer as a youngster, soccer and track in high school, ultimate, casual running, rock climbing, and bicycling in college and beyond) and constantly try to be as fit as I can be. However, since I stopped participating in competitive sports I don't have the constant desire to be better that I had before. My athletic pursuits are more recreational and social at this point, which doesn't give me the same sense of achievement that I had come to expect.

To that end, I have some new athletic goals.

Climbing:
At the end of February, I would like to be confident top-roping 5.11 b/c indoors, and bouldering at least V4 indoors.

Running:
I would like to run a 5k under 18:00 minutes on Thanksgiving, and run 1000+ plus miles in 2008. I am also toying with the idea of running the Boston Marathon, but that would be more of a fringe benefit than an actual goal.

The Plan:
I am going to MetroRock on Wednesday with Tim. This is the best gym in New England, and Tim is the best climber that I know. I hope to use this quality resource in conjunction with this quality facility to start focusing my climbing and learning how to improve myself. I'd like to start climbing at Metro once a week, and supplement it with at least one other night climbing at the BU gym.

I plan to start running three days a week, starting today. The idea is to run no less than 4 miles per day and work myself up to 7 miles. This should give me an excellent base for running that 5k, and more than allow me to achieve my goal of 1000 miles. To put that in perspective, I'm going to need to run 2.74 miles per day, or 19.18 miles per week. Running 6 miles per day, three days a week gets me 18 miles per week, so adding another mile and change to one of those days would allow me to hit my mark. If I decide to run 4 days a week, I would only need to run about 5 miles per day.

Laura and I saw the play The 39 Steps on Friday night. It was based off of an Alfred Hitchcock movie and was very entertaining. Even though the tickets were free, I was pretty apprehensive about going, so I was very happy to have been wrong. The play was very well acted and witty, and we had a very good time.

Yesterday Laura, myself, and several of our friends took what will probably be the last trip to Rumney of the season. It was almost too cold to be out at all, so no one was particularly motivated to be climbing very hard. I lead a 5.8+ called Junco, which was the route I had climbed for my second outdoor. This time around it was a lot less terrifying. I also lead one of my favorite climbs, a 5.8 called Bolt Line. The holds are smaller than you want and not particularly obvious and the bolts are a bit run out, but the slabbiness of the climb makes it just right. Our group also took the opportunity to climb (or, perhaps, hike) Clip a Dee Doo Dah, a two pitch 5.3. The view from the top was fantastic and we spend a while sitting at the top enjoying the scenery.

Me actually running up Clip a Dee Doo Dah.

Laura, myself, Cassie, and Marynne at the top of Clip a Dee Doo Dah.


The view.


Some more of the view.


Me on Bolt Line.

Spoony turned 23 last week, and a few days later X turned 24. Spoony's party was on Thursday but I was unable to attend due to illness. Apparently Spoon won his party, despite early reports that Mark had won. X's party was Friday night and even thought I wasn't much healthier I went out anyway. We went to some bars downtown and ended up at some weird, loud, dance club thing. X had fun, I had fun, and I think everyone else had fun so it seems like a successful birthday weekend.

Saturday saw Spoon, X, Laura, and myself finally putting the apartment in order. We moved boxes and bags out of the kitchen and hallways and down to the basement. The place looks much better with all of the open space and it feels more like someone lives there with all of the boxes gone. We bought a bench for the foyer and then instituted a no shoes in the house rule to keep the floors clean.

Laura, Spoon, and I fired up the grill Saturday night. We made beer burgers (and beer veggie burgers for Laura), and grilled peaches and red peppers. The peaches were interesting, but the real winners were the peppers and beer burgers. Both of those experiments turned out to be delicious, and they were even better when combined. After a hurried dinner we rushed over to Kennmore to see the Kingdom, which was a very intense, very good movie.

On Sunday Laura and I went bouldering at Hammond Pond. We didn't do a whole lot of climbing (bouldering outside without a pad is pretty scary) but it was fun to be outside for the afternoon. Afterwards I went home and built a nightstand / cabinet thing and watched football with the roommates.

Also, Halo 3 is phenomenal.

How bizarre is this?

http://www.ojar.com/view_12972.htm

Apparently untrue .

These pictures are all from a trip I took to Maine with Laura and a bunch of other friends. These are going up more for archival purposes, but they are also very pretty pictures so I hope someone enjoys them.

Mike heads down on the first climb of the day.

Erin climbs a 5.4 while Pete helps from the bottom.

Me climbing one of the best climbs I've ever done.

Three of us taking in the view on a ledge.

Laura climbing in the chimney.

Otter Cliffs, Acadia National Park, ME - June 29th to July 1st, 2007

Apparently I forgot about August. Opps.

Three weeks ago I was hired as the Executive Secretary / Assistant to the Director of Residence Life at BU. The job has been fantastic. All of my co-workers are friendly and helpful, and the job itself it enjoyable. I am responsible for general office upkeep, managing the work study students, and keeping the Director on track.

Also three weeks ago, Spoony, Christina, Beth, and I moved into our new place in Jamaica Plain. We have the first floor of a pretty large house. There are four large bedrooms, a big kitchen, and a living room with Spoony's giant television. So far living there has been a lot of fun but we are still not unpacked.

I haven't gone running in a few weeks due to some unexplained pain in my left foot. It hasn't gotten a whole lot better, but I'm planning on giving it a whirl on Monday and seeing what happens. I played in the first annual alumni game this past Monday night. I played horribly because I was afraid of hurting my knee, so I think my decision to retire was a sound one.

This weekend Laura and I are going to Rumney to climb on Saturday. I haven't been climbing in several weeks since I lost my FitRec membership, so this should be an adventure. I am also planning on playing little men with Spoon on Sunday, so I hope that it will be a quality weekend.

2007 Sam Adams Division Champs - Wildwood, NJ

On Friday I got hit by a car while on my bike. It was a very minor collision and I had enough time to jump off of the bike and land on my feet. The man's car was fine but my front wheel was wrecked. The drier was convinced that he was responsible and I wasn't going to argue with him; he ended up giving me a hundred dollars in cash and a handshake. I used the money to purchase a 30 dollar wheel, so I ended up with a new wheel and 70 bucks.

Since I have to be out of my current apartment in a week I have started packing my stuff. I hate packing. The room looks torn apart, I don't feel like anything has been accomplished, and I wonder where I acquired so much crap that I don't want or need.

Applying for jobs is stressful, and it doesn't help that the few hours of free time I have in a day are also occupied trying to go for runs and pack as well.

Whenever I try to explain why I have my tattoos and piercings to other people I am not usually able to come up with a reason that satisfies them. I know why I have them but I wish I could explain my reasons to other people as well.

I was out running Tuesday afternoon down by the Commons. It was pretty warm out so I had taken my shirt off and I noticed a lot of people looking at my tattoo as I ran by I love the way my tattoo looks, both as a piece of art and as a part of my arm, and I love showing it off. It occurred to me then that I had been spending a lot of time this summer without a shirt on; almost any time I go climbing or running I do it without my shirt. This is a total 180 from my usual behavior. Last summer, when everyone would climb shirtless or I would go running with Mike I would refuse to take off my shirt because I was self conscious about how skinny and pale I was. I am not currently and less skinny or pale but I can't seem to keep my shirt on this summer and I know that the reason is because of my new tattoo.

I don't think I could have asked for a more crystal clear example of why I have my tattoos and piercings; they make me more comfortable and proud of my body.

I ran seven miles today. I haven't run that much since high school.

On Sunday I went up to Rumney, New Hampshire and spent the day climbing with Tim, Alex, and Ryan. This is really only my second time climbing outside (I am not counting the afternoons at Hammond Pond and Quincy) and I was really excited to get out with some of the most skilled climbers I know. I can't really decide if I am dissapointed in the weekend or not.

I almost sent what Tim described as a difficult 5.9 on lead (I fell once), I top roped another 5.9 (not cleanly), got my ass kicked on the second half of a 5.10d on lead (and didn't make the top), and couldn't get through the crux on a final 5.9 on lead. All of those climbs were above my previous outdoor marks (I had previously lead two 5.8's), and I was amazed that I made it up through three clips cleanly on the 10d, but I was still frustrated that I didn't send a single climb all day. I was also frustrated that the hardest thing I tried to climb was a 10d while everyone in my group was attempting stiff 11's and things upwards of 12d.

I realize that I haven't been climbing even two years at this point (less if you factor in my ACL recovery time) and that everyone I was with has been climbing for at least six years. I also realize that I am coming back from an injury and I am not at the place physically where I want to be. Even telling myself all of that though, I still can't figure out if I am disapointed or wildly happy with my performance.

I can't sleep anymore. When I try to go to bed I lay awake. It is too hot or too cold or I am not tired, but for whatever reason I don't fall asleep. When I do fall asleep I can't stay that way for more than six hours at a time. Saturday night I was out drinking and dancing until 3am; I woke up at 9am and could not fall back asleep. It happened again this morning, and now it's 2am and I've been in bed for an hour and I can't go to sleep.

I spent an hour and a half tonight on a 10.5 mile bike ride around Boston in the rain. I went to the Reflecting Pool (which had no water in it), Government Center, the park in Post Office Square, and I rode home on the MIT side of the river. The rain made it cool outside and all the water on the roads made it perfect for skidding. I was feeling really antsy in my room and when my residents started making a lot of noise I figured it was time to get out of the building.

Lately I've been feeling more alone than I have in a while. I don't feel like I have a very long list of people to call when I want to hang out, and it seems like the list of people who will call me is even smaller. It doesn't help that summer ultimate is starting and that many of my friends are moving away. Maybe I'm just not used to having this much free time on my hands after student teaching, and maybe it is just a weird time for everyone; I hope it gets better as the summer gets going.

Last week I sat through the second session of my tattoo. This one was a lot less painful at times and more painful at others. Chris does some pretty awesome work though and the whole thing looks a lot larger and more like a finished piece than it did before.

The outline of my koi is healing up nicely. The lines aren't raised anymore and most of the dead skin / scabs have come off in the shower or while I'm sleeping. I am starting to get used to seeing a giant fish on my shouler when I wake up in the morning or when I get out of the shower. The more I get used to it the more I love having it on my arm. I am really happy that I decided to go big on this tattoo, it looks so much more impressive and exciting than a smaller one would look. I still need to go back to schedule another appointment for the shading and coloring.

Tomorrow night Laura and I are going to attempt to make sushi unsupervised. Usually I call Heather and she comes over and directs the cooking, but we're bored and under a bit of a time cruch, so we decided to tackle it outselves. Hopefully it works out because I could potentially have sushi for lunch at school which would be delicious.

Speaking of school, I am done in less than two weeks. A week from Friday is my last day (I'm hoping to celebrate by getting more of my tattoo done) and I really couldn't be more excited. I turn in my last paper for my last class tomorrow and after that I have eight days of student teaching left before the summer. There is still that damn class I have to take over the summer but really I think I'm done in nine days.

I had the past week off of student teaching and Laura and I spent most of it being rather sick. Aside from that, it was a pretty nice vacation.

The first Sunday I went to MetroRock to see where my climbing is right now. I climbed several V2's and 5.10b's without much trouble, which was exciting because I'm very quickly getting back to the level I was at before I tore my ACL.

A few days ago I took the derailers off of Laura's bike and turned it into a single speed. I was pretty surprised I could do it, since I've never dealt with any of those parts of a bicycle. She likes it and we took a really relaxing and fun ride yesterday. We were damn cute it I do say so myself.

Today I finally went and got my koi tattoo. The artist's name is Chris and he works at Good Faith Tattoos in Brookline. I was a bit put off when I got to the shop because he had drawn it really big, but after he scaled it down a bit and put it up to my shoulder it looked awesome. Once the fish itself was on my shoulder he started to freehand the finger waves right onto my chest and back. Seeing how calm (and skilled) he was while doing that really put me at ease. The outline took an hour to do and in a few weeks he'll start the shading and color.

A few days ago I recieved and e-mail telling me that I had passed my MTELs (the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure). Today in the mail I recieved my official notices about my scores. Since I passed they didn't tell me my exact scores but they did break down each test (Math and Reading) into sections and give me information about each of those. The sections were scored by saying that I had given correct answers on "most or all items", "many of the items", "some of the items", or "few or no items". Four of the math sections (out of six) were "most or all", as were seven (out of ten) of the reading sections. The other five were "many", which I take to mean I did a damn good job.

This is interesting to me because today I realized that I'm skating on thin ice a lot of the time with my students. Especially with the Algebra II kids, but also sometimes with the Algebra I kids, I realize that I don't really know the math as well as I should. They will ask questions on the homework or while I'm lecturing that stump me and usually one of two things happen. I can either make up an answer that I realize is correct as I make it up, or I will realize that I really have no good answer and make something up that isn't incorrect, but doesn't really answer the question either. I think I've managed to do well so far but I find it odd that my test scores say I am quite qualified to teach math while my math skills seem to suggest otherwise.

I think I am done with being a student teacher. At this point, I've been there for 6 weeks (I think) and I feel as though I've taken everything I can from the experience. The kids don't really respect me and while sometimes they sit and listen and learn, often they don't and it is very frustrating spending so much of my own time and energy planning lessons and teaching when I'm getting so little out of it. I really do think that I want to be a teacher, but I am finished with the whole student teaching thing. I mentioned this to Jessica on Thursday and I think she took it the wrong way (as in, I wasn't enjoying anything and that it was somehow a reflection of her), which made me feel pretty bad. I tried to explain what I meant but I don't know that she fully understood what I meant.

I had Friday off from teaching so I took the opportunity to go out to some bars on Thursday night. Alex and I wandered around Allston and Brookline drinking until around 2:30 in the morning. I haven't had that much to drink in several monthes; it felt really good to just let go completely and not worry about the next morning. Friday night I saw Grindhouse with Laura, Steve, Spoony, and Drew. I thought the whole experience was a lot of fun. I always enjoy Tarantino's movies, and I certainly enjoyed this one, but it is probably my least favorite. After watching Robert Rodriguez's movie about the zombies, Tarantino's movie just seemed to drag on for me.

Last night I watched UFC 69 at Alex's apartment. Some of the fights were entertaining, some were boring, and others were so unexpected that I'm still not sure if I enjoyed them or not. The highlight of the evening though, was playing Guitar Hero. I had never played before and it was a damn lot of fun.


A week from tomorrow is Marathon Monday which is the best day of the year, in my opinion. I also have that entire week off from school (their spring break) so the whole week is going to be marvelous.

This past Thursday was probably the best day teaching that I've had so far. Since it was MCAS week I had my A block kids for half an hour right away and then for two hours straight later in the day. They were very attentive for the short block and I got through an entire lesson quickly and efficiently. I was pretty nervous about the two hour long block, but they all did their work relatively quietly and when they were done, managed to amuse themselves in ways that weren't loud or obnoxious. This was also the first day I attempted a full lesson with my new honors class and it went phenomenally well. Teaching them is so easy; they ask intelligent questions that drive my lessons and even if they aren't motivated to learn math for math's sake, they're at least motivated to learn for their grade.

Laura and I went out to dinner at Addis Red Sea on Saturday night to celebrate our being together for 9 monthes. That's a damn long time. Her parents are coming up this coming weekend and I'm a little nervous. I've only spent a little bit of time with them and I don't feel as confident being around them as I'd like. I guess the only way to make that better is to spend more time with them, but it doesn't make me any less nervous about it.

I went to Shaw's this morning and brought along the bucket of change I've been collecting for several years. It totaled out to 35 dollars, which I used to purchase my groceries. I think it is important to note that there were no quarters in the bucket (they get used for laundry), so that was 35 dollars in pennies, nickels, and dimes.

My St. Patty's Day weekend turned out to be pretty entertaining. Meg and Tom were supposed to come visit but the snow storm detered them from driving from Jersey to Boston. I ended up hanging out with Coco on Friday night and taking an awesome bike ride in the blizzard. Saturday afternoon saw me at Sunset drinking green beer with Steve and Drew and then watching 300 and cooking dinner with Coco. I had heard a lot of negative things about 300, specifically about the dialouge, but I loved every second of it (the dialouge was essentially spoken comic book speech bubbles, which tend to be overly dramatic, but I love comics so I can see why it didn't bother me). We then went to a bar with some people and finished the evening drinking whiskey sours.

Laura came back to Boston today (Sunday) which was very exciting. We spent most of the day together cooking and napping and catching up on the past week. I hadn't realized how much I missed her until I saw her this morning. I am really happy she's back.

I'm trying to stay positive and motivated about this whole student teaching thing. My lesson plans for tomorrow are pretty thin; I'm planning on showing up and winging it. Coco and I were talking about our classrooms this weekend and she made a comment that really put the whole thing into perspective for me. She said that usually her kids are willing to play along and pretend that she's really the teacher, even though everyone in the classroom knows she's a student teacher, but sometimes they don't feel like playing along and she really has no authority or clout to get them to do what she wants when that happens. I had never thought about it that way before, but I can absolutley see how it applies to my kids. Laura told me to just stick it out for another two monthes and then it would be over, and I guess that's what I'm going to have to do.

Today was a phenomenal day in school. I saw the C2 kids twice today and both times they were very well behaved. The took their quiz (and didn't to terribly) and managed to stay quiet for almost all of A block, and they seemed to enjoy my graphing calculator lesson during D block. That happened to be the block I was being observed, so I'm glad I picked a good lesson. My C1 class was actually way crazier today than I've ever seen them, but I think I handled it very well. I thought I was able to keep them relatively on task and I think most of them understood the lesson.

Despite that, I find myself somewhat unhappy with the whole situation. I am most upset by how restricted my schedule has become. I am a person who values my free time and to have it so suddenly and massively restricted it unsettling to say the least. A huge part of my day is taken up being at school. Another large chunk is devoted to lesson planning for the next day, something that is becoming more and more tedious for me to do well. My evenings are taken up with class and work, and I go to bed early because I have to wake up early. My time with Laura is significantly less than it was last semeseter, and the time I do get to spend with her is not nearly the amount she deserves. It seems like a huge sacrifice to make for a bunch of bratty, ungrateful kids when I'm not being paid.

I also feel generally unfulfilled with my classes right now. I don't do any of the readings and the papers I turn in are a joke. I skipped my first class ever in my now five years of college last night because I couldn't justify why I wasn't doing something useful with my time instead of listening to an old man ramble about irrelevant and useless things (this doesn't could the five or six classes I have skipped for concerts or climbing, which I consider valid reasons).

All in all, I feel like my life has taken a radical shift and I am not at all sure I like where it is going.

I've spent this past week waking up at 6:00am and heading on over to Waltham High School. I took over Jessica's mainstream Algebra 1 class and my experiences thus far have been mixed. The class is made up of almost 30 kids who are all best friends and come to my math class right after lunch. They are all good kids but in general the class is a loud and rowdy place.

On Monday I taught them the last section in Chapter 6, which was about graphing systems of linear inequalities. When I was up there speaking to them they were pretty quiet and attentive, but as soon as I left them to their own devices to do a problem or if I took too long collecting my own thoughts they quickly got out of control and I was unable to bring them back down. Twice Jessica had to raise her voice to gain control of the class and while I was grateful that she helped me out I was a bit let down by my inability to control them myself. Despite my misgivings, Jessica was very supportive and told me that it was a very difficult thing to control any group of 30 freshmen, and especially this group.

Tuesday I saw them twice and I felt much better about everything. My first lesson was a review of the second half of the chapter. They worked fairly quietly on the problems I gave them and while they weren't incredibly responsive to my questions, they weren't out of control either. The quiz went pretty well, with the average being something above 50% and below 75%.

Yesterday was the highlight of the week. After quickly going over the quiz (with excellent class participation) I gave everyone a graphing claculator and taught them how to solve systems with it. They really enjoyed working with the calculators and several of them have asked me to do more lessons with them. Hopefully the material they're going to learn will present me with the opportunity to do so.

Today's lesson was a bit ambitious on my part. It didn't exactly fail but it wasn't nearly as successful as I had hoped it would be. The major problems were a lack of clarity on my part as to what I wanted them doing and the lesson's inherent downtime (a dangerous thing in this class). I did learn some things about what I can and can't do in the class though, and I already feel lightyears more confident in front of the class than I did on Monday.