Erika S. fun stuffs

going paleo

I love carbs.  I really do.  I love carbs so much I would marry carbs.  I am a rice queen, pasta addict and bread lover.  When I gained 20 lbs “out of the blue” after high school, it was because of my bread and butter diet.  Then I started baking a lot and that didn’t help. The first thing I bought when I moved out of my mom’s house in my early 20’s was a rice cooker.  I eat carbs for every meal, and lots of it even in between meals.  So when I met B — who is 6’4″ and rail thin, I was shocked when he told me that he doesn’t eat bread.  He claims that bread in Australia (where he’s from) is superior in taste and texture, and he just doesn’t like the bread we have here in the US (even amazing Tartine/Acme bread). “What a freak”, I muttered under my breath at the time.  Guess who’s been on a carb ban for the last 15 days?  me.

30 Days: only whole foods, no sugar, no grains, no potatoes, no beer.

Now anyone who knows me well, also knows that I do not have the greatest level of self control ever when it comes to food and alcohol (and in the past, cigarettes).  My willpower is basically crap.  So I’ve cheated.  Pizza and beer in DC, beer on 4th of July (and the day after), and a handful of Swedish Fish the other day.  So my 30 day challenge is turning into a 26 day challenge, but I’m ok with that.

I miss noodles and rice the most.  I can eat carbs again on July 23rd.  I plan on changing my diet permanently though and eating less carbs over all and trying to stick to a low-glycemic diet (thanks Eric, for that article!).

Some visuals of what I’ve been eating lately:  10+ veg stir-fry, chinese greens with mushrooms and bacon, chicken-kale-cabbage-zucchini-yellow squash-onion-pepper curry, aussie style breakfast

To date, I’ve lost 0 lbs.  Fat or otherwise.  Maybe I’m doing it wrong.

Erika S. outfits

summer uniform

New York is HOT.  Today it was like 100˚F out (it’s now 11pm, and it’s 83˚ outside).  I’m used to 50˚-65˚F weather every single day in SF.  This whole summer/fall/winter/spring weather thing was foreign to me, till now.  So now I have a summer uniform.  Every morning, I throw on one of two pairs of denim cut-offs, a tank, sunnies, and I’m done. Granted it’s not very exciting, but it’s functional on my bike, maximizes ventilation, and provides enough surface area for sweat evaporation without making me feel like I’m a stripper too naked.

These jeans used to belong to B till I saved them from the Goodwill pile and chopped the legs off.  There is a hole in the back pocket created from years of packing his “daily carry” knife, so I almost lost my current favorite lipbalm the other day.  I’m planning on stealing patiently waiting for B to get rid of another pair of jeans so I can stop wearing these everyday.  

sunnies: f21 – tank: h&m – shorts: levis 501’s from b – bag: freitag – sandals: dv by dolce vita – watch: marc by marc

Erika S. outfits

the 4th

B is actually working today till 2pm.  So i’m heading to IKEA to buy yet some more stuff.  Our entire apartment is now IKEA, no joke.  It’s functional, actually decent looking and most importantly, it’s what we can afford.

It’s 84˚ F outside right now, so I’m trying to delay the sweaty mess that I’m inevitably going to become.  Party later tonight to watch the fireworks.  Looking forward to it.  Maybe I should patriot it up and change into some red/white/blue and sing “america, f— yeah!”  Then again, maybe not.  Happy birthday, America!

tank: hanes – skirt and sunnies: anthropologie (old) – belt: h&m – sandals: swedish hasbeens for h&m

Erika S. fun stuffs, teaching

techy stuff and pretty pictures

I’m a ’90s kid, coming of age in a time when 14.4 kbs modems were the shit, webpages were super basic and Yahoo ruled the interwebs (Netscape still only had 3 colors). Iomega ZIP drives backed up my documents, I wanted to be Acid Burn, and Logo was so 10 years ago.  My parents bought our first home computer (Apple, of course) in 1986, and that was when I first learned to spell my full name correctly, without the big huge letters.  Like any other 5 year old, I just wanted to type my name over and over and watch the little turtle cursor go across the screen.  So it should go without saying that I’ve always felt at least comfortable with technology.

It’s always shocking when I meet other teachers (around my age or even younger!!) who have no clue how to use simple technology such as an electronic grade book, email, or PowerPoint.  Throw in an electronic whiteboard and you’ve just introduced a dinosaur to a spaceship.  #facepalm

There is a plethora of educational technology out there now, from test score tracking and school management to online courseware and curriculum sharing.  I’ve yet to find one that I love, is aesthetically pleasant and blows my mind with its capabilities.  There is so much crap out there, from Blackboard to ilearn to Moodle, and I haven’t adopted a single one.  Am I just behind the times?  Am I missing something here?  In terms of using technology in my classroom, I rely on the basics: PowerPoint (Prezi!), TED/Ted Ed, YouTube and other videos like these, animations like these and my favorite, PhET (amazing science simulations, fun to play with).

One of the requirements for teacher cedentialing in California is a technology requirement.  Prospective teachers could satisfy the requirement by: taking a 6 week long course (and paying $600 for it), take a semester long course (and paying $1500 for it), or take a technology exam that would give you a waiver ($60).  You can guess which option I took.  That exam was a total joke — there were seven tasks: print a page from the web, set up an Excel grade book using functions, format a prewritten letter in Word with proper font size and margins, find something using Google search, write 2 paragraphs on appropriate technology use, create a PowerPoint slide using a graphic from the web, and the last one was to send an email.  I was in and out within 30 minutes, even though the exam allowed up to 4 hours.  The clincher?  Everything about the exam – registering, score reporting, payment – was paper based.  I had to snail mail in a money order!! #facepalm

Anyways, I digress.  Hanging out with B and his crowd this past year, it’s pretty obvious that I am not part of the tech industry in-crowd.  I don’t know any languages, I don’t know what they mean when they talk about developer stuff and I’m like WTF, mate? when B jumps on my computer and pulls up Terminal.  I use wordpress.com, not wordpress.org.  I may get there one day, with B’s help.

In the mean time, I’ve discovered a few really fun web-based photo editing apps.  Technology is kewl. By the way, don’t try using these sites with Chrome.  Shockwave crashed every single damn time when it came time to save my work.  So I started using Safari, and it works fine.

befunky — stupid name, cool effects and filters to make your photos look better/hipper/artier/prettier.  It’s like Instagram (you can find me on there as akires), but for your desktop, and with more stuff like adding text, frames and stickers with a bit of basic Photoshop style editing.

gifpal — exactly like the name, it makes animated gifs using either your webcam or pics from your computer.  Super fun, just like my two t-shirt twins here, Nelson and Matt.

pixlr — basic Photoshop on the web.  Layers, cropping , blur, select, adjust, etc.  I use it to create photo collages, which is not ideal and time consuming, but I haven’t found a better app for just that yet.  (top MBC photo taken from here)

Any other cool apps I should know about?

Erika S. fun stuffs, trips

weekend snaps

B and I took the bus down to Washington DC (4 hours!) for the weekend to visit my sister Kris and her hubby Dave.  We were blindsided by a freak storm friday night, just after we arrived.  The storm and it’s 80 mph wind gusts knocked out power to Kris and Dave’s house, felled a tree into their backyard, and freaked us me all out.  They just got their power restored (a full 3 days later).  So we were stuck all weekend with no AC, 100˚ plus heat, cancelled plans and a fridge full of slowly rotting food.

All wasn’t lost though, we busted out the camp stove to cook, cuddled with the doggies and played candlelight Scrabble.  We also attended the Japan Embassy’s annual BBQ at the Ambassador’s residence where we stuffed our faces, melted in the heat and hobnobbed with various DC peeps.

The weekend snaps: 1)  somehow (and it’s happening more often than I’d like lately), B and I managed to dress independently and still end up looking like twins  2) downed tree, hot sad pups, Scrabble by candlelight (I got 4th place!)  3) Embassy of Japan judo and martial arts entertainment, yummy food 4) me and B trying not to look like total sweaty messes in 100˚ heat 5) Kris and Dave, at the Pig 6) feeding my caffeine addiction on the way home to Brooklyn from the Bolt Bus drop off

Erika S. teaching

job hunting/cool hunting

With my recent move to Brooklyn, it goes without saying that I’m on the search for a new school to call home.  The job search process here with the NYC Dept of Ed has been a stressful, ego-busting and confidence-questioning experience.  I suppose that is the usual experience with every sort of job search, and I know that finding a school that would be a good fit both ways takes persistence and patience, but I’m finding that as an outsider, it’s especially difficult to break in to the system.  First up, people don’t know me and I’m not very great at selling myself.  Secondly, there are about 4,000 potential openings for the coming school year and 10,000-30,000 applicants.  Thirdly, there are significantly more Teach For America and NY Teaching Fellows (fresh from college and backed by their programs) here competing with me.

I know SFUSD – I have a network, I know what the hot issues are and what counts.  I know that I’m a pretty good teacher, and with every passing year I get better.  Coming to NY though, I am a little fish in a really really big pond.  There are so many high schools, each one of them small (>300 students) and with their own philosophy, expectations and vision.  It’s no longer just “preparing students for post-high school success”, it’s now “infuse curriculum with green experiences, applied mathematics and teaching our students to be  independent life long learners and critical thinkers with the skills to make solid career choices”.  These types of missions are great and all, and we have those too in SF, but here, with these small schools, they actually stick to them.  At TMAHS, our vision had a focus on social justice.  I personally included social justice topics within every unit.  The school as a whole did not.

I’m learning quickly though.  Surprisingly enough, nobody cares about test scores.  Considering the fact that teacher evaluations are dependent on test scores, and that 24 schools closed due to low test scores, I expected more conversations about how to raise them.  Instead, each school I’ve visited or spoken to focuses on learning through inquiry and experience rather than relying on direct instruction.

While I’m all for it and would advocate for more inquiry/exploratory based lessons, I find myself in somewhat of a panic.  Are my lessons, the ones that I feel so good about and have worked well for my students in the past, actually just total crap?  Do I have enough inquiry in my lessons?  Am I even creative enough to come up with a way to teach evolution without actually teaching evolution directly?  I’m doubting myself and my lessons… I’m really great at direct instruction.  Ask any of my students and they will tell you about all my PowerPoints and notes followed by some activity that supports what they just learned.  So therefore, I’m a shitty teacher who propagates the memorization-regurgitation method, without teaching my students anything long lasting.

Designing a good inquiry-based lesson is incredibly hard.  It takes a lot of brain power, creative juice, innovation and time.  Imagine you need to teach 30 high school students the next day (and it’s now 5pm) that “Evolution does not necessitate long-term progress in some set direction.  Evolutionary changes appear to be like the growth of a bush: Some branches survive from the beginning with little or no change, many die out altogether, and others branch repeatedly, sometimes giving rise to more complex organisms.”  How are you going to do this without lecturing about it, and in a way where students can discover and reason out the answers an their own, therefore making it an authentic learning experience?  This is just one day out of 180.

I had a 2.5 hour interview and demo lesson with a panel of 9 teachers/administrators yesterday at a small high school here in Brooklyn (they are all small, really).

Outside I tried to look like this:

but inside I was really like this:

I have until september before I give up and find a McD’s job, though I would settle for Walmart.

Erika S. fun stuffs, outfits

horsie

There’s my favorite horsie shirt again.

B and I live in Brooklyn now, about 3 (Avenue) blocks from Prospect park, which I would say is roughly the size half the size of Golden Gate park in SF.  We’ve been in and out of this park already, checking out the farmer’s market and riding around the loop on our new bikes.  B snapped these photos the last time we strolled over to the Farmer’s market at Grand Army Plaza.  The park is such a nice reprieve from the noises of the city (even with the 200 family BBQs that happen all the time there, and the crazy screaming little kids on their razors).  I’m thankful to have an apartment close to park.  I plan on getting a lot of use out of my new super awesome park ready timbuk2 bag.

By the way, Saltwater Sandals are seriously the best summer sandal ever.  Super comfy, never rubs, never pinches, lasts forever and super affordable.  Same can be said for these new Native shoes that B and I bought.  They’re like crocs, but way cooler looking.  And, they’re beast free, which I know would please a few of my friends.  They’re squishy (absorbs impact), waterproof (perfect for the NY summer rains), breathable (lots of holes for ventilation) and grippy (great for bike riding).

sunnies and tote: f21 – horsie shirt: urban outfitters (hella old) – shorts: j.crew – my shoes: saltwater sandals – b’s shoes: native

Erika S. fun stuffs, outfits

NYC Pride

I’m thankful to live in a city where marriage discrimination hasn’t existed for the past year. What’s up Cali? What keeping you so backwards? People are people so why should it be?  Anyways, B and I checked out the NYC version of the Pride parade yesterday, and these are a few pics off his camera.

After escaping the crowds, B and I headed over to the Bowery Hotel‘s rooftop bar, where we caught a set by my hometown faves, Geographer.  I’ve gushed about them already here.  I found out about it last minute, from their FB page.  Good thing!  The show was intimate (only about 50 people, max!), fun and all around awesome.  Cool venue too.  I was soo excited to see them play.  I’ve been missing SF loads lately, so their set was a welcome reminder of SF.  I was major SUPERFAN.

It was the perfect cap to our weekend.  So was this awesome mural B and I happened upon while walking over to the Bowery Hotel.  It was fate, these shorts matched perfectly.

sunnies: f21 – v-neck: threads for thought – shorts: unknown/forgotten brand from tobi.com – bag: freitag – sandals: sweedish hasbeens for h&m – lipstick: nars heat wave (appropriate name considering the new york weather lately, no?)

Erika S. fun stuffs, outfits

faith/fate and same/sane

B and I went hunting for the elusive SF style burrito last last Friday in Williamsburg.  We didn’t find it.  Not even at Taco Chulo on Grand St, where they have a “Mission” burrito on the menu.  Not even close.  On the bright side, the Metropolitan Ave station has awesome mosaics.

There’s nothing new going on here fashion wise.  Same same, but different. B picked out my shoes, old faded blue Converse.  Waiting for the bathroom that night, some girl complemented me on my dress, pointing out that the shoes went well with the outfit. I looked over and B had the biggest shit-eatin’ grin on his face.  He was so proud of himself.

Well, three burrito fridays later, and I think we’ve found the closest thing (so far) to a Mission style burrito, at The Original California Taqueria (horrid reviews.  ouch!) over in Cobble Hill.  Seriously, that’s the name of the place.  It’s ok.  Not bad.

Erika S. outfits

out in the city

A couple weeks ago, while all the Automattic folks were in town, we went out for drinks.  It was the end of the night (which is 4am here in NYC!!!!).  B got a snazzy new Canon point and shoot camera for Christmas from his brother Kai, and Hugo (designer extraordinaire) directed this shot.

cardi, belt and bag: j.crew – dress: madewell – booties: Nordstro BP (old)

I really should be enjoying this hot weather while it lasts.  I would more, if my apartment wasn’t permanently hot.  We live above a grocery store, and their refrigeration or air conditioning directs the heat back into the building…floors 2 and up.  So our apartment is at least 10 degrees hotter inside than out.  With little tiny windows to boot.  It is 86˚F in here right now and I can feel the heat radiating from the floors.