"Standing at the punch table swallowing punch, can’t pay attention to the sound of anyone. A little more stupid, a little more scared, every minute more unprepared. I made a mistake in my life today, everything I love gets lost in drawers. I want to start over, I want to be winning, way out of sync from the beginning." ~the national

Gah! They played The National during Chuck tonight! And I was waaay too excited about it. It was "Slow Show," a really good song from their album Boxer (one of my favorite albums ever), and they played a good, long chunk of it (during a really cute moment). That made my night. Chuck was good tonight. One of my favorite moments (besides hearing The National): Chuck dancing the tango with Captain Awesome. Priceless.

It is way too frakkin' hot for October. Today it reached record temperatures for NYC in October and I don't like it. I want fall to be here. It's supposed to cool down on Wednesday, though.

I went movie-crazy over the long weekend. Yesterday I saw The Darjeeling Limited and The Jane Austen Book Club, and today I saw Michael Clayton.
The Darjeeling Limited was good. Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman played well off of each other, and they're all hilarious. I don't think it's Wes Anderson's best film, but it's still worth seeing.
The Jane Austen Book Club was very enjoyable. It was one of those rare movies that didn't piss me off by destroying the book on which it was based. The strong cast held it up. Emily Blunt, Maria Bello, Hugh Dancy, Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Jimmy Smits...how can you go wrong with them?
Michael Clayton was the best film of the weekend. George Clooney is frakkin' brilliant. His acting is superb; he's at the top of his game. And even though he looks old and tired, he still manages to look gorgeous. Right now I think he's the one to beat in the Oscar race. The writing and directing were also very well done. It was suspenseful and well-plotted and clever and I wanted it to keep going once it ended.

Back to school tomorrow. Ugh.

"And we'll all float on. Alright already, we'll all float on. Alright, don't worry, even if things end up a bit too heavy we'll all float on." ~modest mouse

I saw the Broadway production of Mauritius this afternoon. It's a suspenseful play about two half-sisters who inherit a stamp collection and fight over it. Three shady men get involved in the fight. I'm sorry, that's an awful summary, but that's basically what it's about. It's filled with power struggles and physical fights and excitement and yelling and cursing and anger and tears and drama. I loved it. The New York Times wasn't crazy about it, but this is not the first time I've disagreed with Ben Brantley and I'm sure it won't be the last. I agree with him that the acting is one of the play's strongest suits. Alison Pill is fantastic. I'm a big fan of hers. She was great in my favorite play ever, The Lieutenant of Inishmore (she was nominated for a Tony for that), and her performance in Mauritius is just as strong in my opinion. Bobby Cannavale also does a great job with his character (a role that's perfect for him). And he's definitely easy on the eyes. Overall I thought it was a very good production and I'm glad I got to see it.
After the show I walked to a store on 9th Ave. to pick up Nic's birthday present and then walked back towards 8th Ave., and I passed Alison Pill, Bobby Cannavale, and Katie Finneran walking down the street away from the theater. I love it when I pass famous people. I didn't say anything, I just smiled at Ms. Pill as our eyes met and I kept walking.
I'm now in an Alison Pill mood so I'm going to watch my Pieces of April DVD tonight. She looks so young in that movie. I guess she was. She still is, actually (she's only 21 now). She's changed a lot, though. After the show Nic commented that she was afraid the girl was going to topple over because she looked so tiny. She has gotten really skinny.

" Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd. His skin was pale and his eye was odd. He shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again. He trod a path that few have trod did Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of fleet street." ~sweeney todd

I've written about my anxieties regarding the movie version of Sweeney Todd before. I absolutely love Sweeney Todd. It's one of my favorite musicals ever (easily in my top 5). I cried (during "Johanna") when I saw the most recent revival. So I really don't want Tim Burton to screw up the movie version. I recently became even more concerned when Sondheim said that the movie is only an hour and 45 minutes long (that means they cut out waaay too much) and that they cut out a good deal of the score. The trailer was released yesterday and I'm still not sure what to think. There wasn't enough singing in the trailer to appease my greatest fears, which have to do with the music and the singing abilities of the cast. But visually it's very impressive. I frakkin' love Alan Rickman (Prof. Snape to you HP fans), who plays Judge Turpin in a brilliant bit of casting. Johnny Depp's acting is strong; I'm not so sure about the singing. Helena Bonham Carter certainly looks perfect for the part of Mrs. Lovett. So I'm keeping my hopes up. Here's the trailer.


Today at school was one of the worst days so far. It was fine in the morning, but in the afternoon the kids went crazy. In the middle of class they shoved one boy in a locker (we have lockers in the classroom), wouldn't stop running around the room chasing and pushing each other, and basically acted insane. On the Friday afternoon before a long weekend I suppose I should have expected chaos, but it still wasn't fun. After I wore my voice out from yelling at them to pay attention to me as I tried to teach them about latitude and longitude, I finally just passed out the worksheet they had to do and told them I was grading it as a test. Of course none of them knew how to do it because they didn't listen to me when I was trying to show them. I hoped it would teach them a lesson. We'll see how they react when they get their scores back. The sad thing is I'm afraid most of them won't care.
On the way home from school, though, one kid made it all better. We left the building at the same time (he had stayed for detention with the dean), and we walked about 6 blocks together. This kid, C, is one of my favorites, but he's also one of the most difficult students. First of all, he's absolutely adorable. He's tiny and still just a kid and most of the time I want to scoop him up and hug him (don't worry, I restrain myself). He has so much energy, though, and I usually spend most of the day yelling at him because he's always chasing someone around the room or being chased around the room for annoying someone. He's the class clown. He's loud and cannot sit still. He has two phrases that he constantly says. Whenever I'm trying to teach, he'll keep saying, "Yo, Ms. B., are you serious?? Are you serious??" after everything I say. Sometimes I ignore him and sometimes I'll tell him yes, I'm serious. He also likes saying, "Yo, you're funny, Ms. B" whenever I ask him to do something that he refuses to do (like do his work). But I can't stay mad at him for too long because he's really a sweetheart, even though he makes my day impossible most of the time. Anyway, we were walking down the street together and we talked. He said he felt bad for me today when the class was going crazy and that he's going to try to be better. He asked me if another student, D, made me cry when she cursed me off. I told him no, but then admitted that sometimes I cry once I get home. He said it must be really hard when I'm trying to teach and they won't let me. I wanted to hug him. So that conversation made my day all better.

I'm so glad I have a long weekend (we have Columbus Day off). Tomorrow Nic and I are going to see Mauritius, a Broadway play that looks really good has an amazing cast. Last night we say A Feminine Ending, which I enjoyed for the most part. We were in the front row and it felt like we were sitting on stage because it's such a small theater and the stage is almost at ground level and very close to the seats. Right now I need to go collapse.

"Saw the world turning in my sheets, and once again I cannot sleep. Walk out the door and up the street, look at the stars beneath my feet. Remember rights that I did wrong, so here I go. Hello, hello. There is no place I cannot go, my mind is muddy but my heart is heavy, does it show? I lose the track that loses me, so here I go. And so I sent some men to fight, and one came back at dead of night. Said he'd seen my enemy, said he looked just like me. So I set out to cut myself, and here I go..." ~james blunt

That's from "Same Mistake," one of the stronger tracks on All the Lost Souls.

The fact that I don't speak Spanish just keeps posing more difficulties. I had to deal with my super today, but he doesn't speak a word of English. Not a word. He's very nice and we managed to communicate through hand signals, but it wasn't easy. I asked him to drill a hole in the wall between my room and the living room so I could hook up my TV to the cable. I kept trying to signal 'drill,' but he didn't understand. We worked it out eventually. And we bonded as we fixed the toilet and cleaned up the water that flooded the floor. He taught me a few Spanish words and I taught him a few English ones.

I'm very upset that Andruw Jones won't be returning to the Braves next year. When I found out I cried. I'm seriously pretty distraught about it. I love Andruw. The Jones boys are my favorite players. Chipper Jones is my absolute favorite, and he's still on the team so that's something, but it won't be the same without Andruw. I don't deal with losing good, loyal players very well. There was an article in the New York Post today arguing that the fans care more about the game and the outcome of the season than the players do. I'd like to believe that's not true, at least for the Braves. A lot of fans are pretty intense, though. Right now tons of New Yorkers are devastated because of the Mets' unbelievable collapse. I mean devastated. On the cover of the New York Post the day after they lost was a picture of a little kid at Shea Stadium with tears flooding down his face. A lot of fans who attended the game just stayed in their seats at the stadium, processing the whole thing, until they had to be asked to leave. I understand how they feel. If it had been the Braves I would feel the exact same way. I would cry and scream and just feel awful. But the more invested you are, the greater the payoff is when your team does well. It can be such an amazing feeling that's worth all the frustration that you sometimes have to suffer.

The third episode of Gossip Girls and the second episode of Dirty Sexy Money air tonight, so I need to finish my lesson planning before they start. Wednesday has replaced Tuesday as my big TV night.

" Simona, you're getting older. Your journey's been etched on your skin. Simona, wish I had known that what seemed so strong has been and gone. I would call you up every Saturday night, and we'd both stay out 'til the morning light. And we sang, 'Here we go again.' And though time goes by, I will always be in a club with you in 1973 singing 'Here we go again.'" ~james blunt

I've been listening to James Blunt's new album, All the Lost Souls. It's okay. Not great, but not terrible. The first song on the CD, "1973," is definitely the best track. I'm predicting it will be the new "You're Beautiful." I listened through the whole album a couple of times and now I just keep listening to "1973" over and over. "Same Mistake" is also a good song. And "I Really Want You." If you click on the album link above, it'll send you to Amazon where there's a video of an acoustic performance of "I Really Want You." But none of the other songs hooked me. Here's a quote from Rolling Stone's review of the album (they hated it):

"What's more, too much of 'All the Lost Souls' is just pleasant ether, with Blunt showing a gift for drabness on forgettable ballads that make Coldplay seem like the Arctic Monkeys."

I think that's hilarious. Not necessarily true (I don't think anything can make Coldplay sound like the Arctic Monkeys), but a funny comparison. I guess it's interesting that I like both Coldplay (sometimes) and the Arctic Monkeys, despite the fact that they're such different bands. And it is true that James Blunt is even more different from the Arctic Monkeys than Coldplay is.

I'm settled into my new apartment and I love it. My roommates, Sandra and Katya, are incredibly nice. Our kitchen is nice and new and huge. My room is huge and bright. It's wonderful.

Today was a rough day at school. Well, every day is a rough day, but Tuesday is one of the days I have my kids for four periods, and they always hate that. I had a parent come in to talk to me today and that went fine. Her daughter cursed me off yesterday and is always rude, disrespectful, and disruptive. While I was talking with her and her mom today, she cried. It made me feel bad, even though this girl has been making my life miserable. The mom only speaks Spanish so an aide translated for me, which made it slightly difficult, but the mom was very nice and supportive of me.

I need to go plan lessons. Ugh.