Thursday, September 15, 2011

It's (not really) a hard-knock life

I haven't gone grocery shopping in nearly two months. Eating through your pantry, they call it.

The reason behind my grocery-store boycott is simply because the summer term stopped paying me in July and this new semester doesn't start paying me until October. So I decided to cut out my grocery budget, because who needs food, right?

I thought it was going to be hard. I thought I would grow thin and bony and my ribs would poke out and my concentration would be nil and I would waste away to nothing. I imagined reading books about starving artists and finally being able to empathize. "Ah, yes," I'd tell the characters in those books. "Our lives are so very hard." Maybe I'd even be able to write my own book about my experiences or something.

Turns out, though, you can eat through your pantry pretty comfortably for quite a while. Bummer. There goes that bestseller.


Even after two months without the grocery store, my pantry's still pretty full

I've come up with quite a few go-to meals that fill me up and don't make me gag. (Those are the two requirements, of course.)

Oatmeal: The old stand-by. Oatmeal, mixed with brown sugar and raisins, or maybe peanut butter and cocoa powder if I want some protein. Filling.

Toast: I've got zillions of half-eaten loaves of bread in my freezer that I was saving for the ducks. (Sorry, ducks). If I stick them in the toaster and smother them in peanut butter, I don't notice they're freezer-burned and stale.

Smoothies: Like the bread, the fruit would always go in the freezer once it got too old to eat. So now I'm eating it. Stick it in the blender, mix it with a bit of water and some honey, and you're good to go.

Pasta: I don't know why I have so many boxes of pasta in my pantry, but there they are. Sadly, my pasta sauce is pretty old and nasty, but beggars can't be choosers, right? Plus, a bit of wine and some freshly grated parmesan help to make it bearable. Yeah, I know; I'm really roughing it.

Peanut butter and banana shake: My favorite meal of all. Frozen bananas and chocolate protein powder and peanut butter and ice. It's like a milk shake. And it fills me up for half the day.

And of course, because I can't go more than about 10 hours without something sweet, I've got a list of go-to desserts as well:

Reese's pretzels: Pretzels, dipped in melted peanut butter and chocolate chips. So delicious.

Reese's Grape-Nuts: Peanut butter and Nutella (Yes, I have Nutella. Hard life.) melted together. Grape-Nuts stirred in. Crunchy goodness.

Graham crackers with Nutella: You can probably figure that one out.

I have plenty of other food too. Tortillas and energy bars and protein shakes and goat cheese and jam and popcorn and applesauce and cereal and baking supplies that I can't use because I don't have eggs and milk. And plenty of vitamins that I'm actually remembering to take for the first time ever. This little experiment has made me realize just how much food I have and how picky I usually am.

I'm a bit tempted to find out how long it would take before I actually started starving. But I don't think I'd have the patience to wait that long.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

On teaching: 3rd grade vs. 13th

I've been teaching college writing for about two weeks now. Which makes me an authority on the differences between elementary school and college, of course.

Harry Wong says that the first week of school is the most important, and I imagine that's true whether the students are eight or 18. The first few weeks are about setting up classroom procedures, going over expectations for the year, establishing a safe learning environment, and laying a good foundation. This looks a bit different in college than it did in elementary school, however.

As I reflected at the end of the first day, I realized how glad I was to be done with some of those annoying first-day procedures.

I noted that I hadn't had to march my students in a line around the school to practice hallway procedures. Instead of making our own class puzzle to illustrate how we all fit together, we just introduced ourselves. I didn't collect any paperwork from the parents telling me how their students would be getting home from class. We didn't practice taking bathroom breaks or discuss why it's important to keep the bathrooms as clean as possible. I didn't pass out name tags or assign a place for backpacks or tell students what they needed to do if they wanted to blow their noses. In fact, I didn't even set up a classroom procedure for blowing noses. Hopefully that won't come back to bite me later in the semester.

Some differences are a bit more inconvenient, though.

For example, today I needed my water bottle filled. I nearly asked the students if one of them would mind running down the hall to refill it for me when I caught myself. They probably wouldn't be as honored by that grown-up task as my eight-year-olds were.

Last week two boys started whispering during class. I started thinking of possible discipline options -- keep them in from recess, make them write me a paragraph about why talking in class is wrong, phone home to parents, take a conduct point away, lunch detention. None of those seemed like effective options, though. What did prove effective was staring at them until they were quiet. That never worked too well with my third graders.

Today I assigned a homework assignment that is worth almost nothing for the students' grades; it's merely participation points. I was trying to think of a way to motivate students to do the assignment and nearly told them that I would have stickers for everyone who brought it in completed. Then I remembered that they weren't eight and just told them that the assignment was due on Thursday. Period.

While third grade and college have plenty of differences, they have a few similarities too.

The students still ask pointless questions. I even had one ask whether to use a pencil or a pen in class. I'd thought I was done with that question for good. They still don't realize that showering before coming to class is a good idea, although now they don't have mothers around to force them to do it. They still prefer talking and playing games to listening to lectures, and they still love a good story.

So then, third grade versus thirteenth? The verdict is still out. I'll keep you posted.