Author Archives: DELively

The First Day of the Many

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As has become my tradition, the first day after the end of classes is spent planning the rest of the days before classes begin again.

For the first few days I am still, technically working at the school where I work, but starting next week the company I work for expects me to show work even though there is no work for me to do.

Because of this, I’ve already been planning what I plan to do for those days.

The twist in the plot, though, is that the company I work for wants us to write about what there is to do where we live so that, um, because, um, well, I don’t really understand why. Some new guy has a vision of how to help new people get information about towns because, I guess, in his head he lives in a pre-internet world where such information is not readily available. (Or, he’s the new guy and he needs to “build something” to show his worth, and he has an entire army of people forced to do work when there is no work to do at his disposal.)

The only good thing about all this, and perhaps this is the actual method behind the madness, I can take my youngest shopping downtown and call it “research” (Visiting town X with children; Things to do in Town X with children, etc.)

It also means I can go shopping and count it as work, as long as I write something eventually.

Goodbye Until Then

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I did a little dance today, which is not something I usually do. In the end, though, the dance will probably jinks me.

Today was the last day of pass back classes, which means today was also the last day I’ll see my worst class in their current configuration.

The scheduling Gods being what they are, for each grade I teach,  the last pass back of each day was my worst class for that grade. Oddly, the scheduling Gods also conspired to make sure that my last class was my worst class of all my classes.

After I got back to the office, as a half joke/half celebration, I did a short dance I call the happy dance, which is a few seconds of dance based on the AWA Dori.

The problem is, because I have second year junior high school (8th grade) next year, the odds of me having most of the same students in class is very high. This means they’ll be especially bad. Second year JHS students tend to be so bad that they’ve even got their own syndrome. (Note: the link explanation is very good, but it leaves off the most insidious version of the syndrome: “No, honestly, I just don’t give a damn.”

That said, I only see them once a week, and that helps a lot. On the other hand, bad classes tend to be bad enough that they shorten the lifespan.

This means I have a lot to look forward to next year. But not for a couple week, at least.

Field Notes Byline–End of Book Review

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A Field Notes subscription has phases. If you’re lucky, the only phase is “that’s awesome!” joy.

However, many times a year the phases are shockingly similar to dealing with death. First there’s the denial and the assumption that some clever troll with epic Photoshop skills is playing a joke because Field Notes would never produce such a horrid thing. Then there’s the anger that Field Notes would produce such a horrid thing, which leads to a sense of betrayal: “How could they put out a format that doesn’t fit in my leather cover?” Then, there’s a denial phase where you vow to never renew your subscription again once you get your last special edition even though you know you will totally renew your subscription.

Then there’s acceptance because, in my experience, you can also count on liking the horrid thing more than you thought you would.

When I first saw the details of the Field Notes Byline edition, all I could think of were reasons to hate it. When I got it in hand, those reasons didn’t change much:

–It’s spiral bound.
–It doesn’t fit in a shirt pocket. (Well, it does, but it pokes you in the neck.)
–It doesn’t fit in trousers pockets. (Well, it does, but it sticks out and catches on chairs when you stand.)
–It doesn’t fit my leather notebook cover.
–It has a strange format inspired by the mainstream media that proved so useless in the last election.

The Byline compared to a standard sized Workshop Companion.

Once I started using the Byline, though, I started liking it more than I thought I would, but I could also see its limitations.

The paper (Cougar Natural 70# vellum) is very good, although an acquaintance makes a good argument against it. It doesn’t feather and it’s handled all my pens well and most of the inks. (Wancher Matcha is a heart breaker. It breaks hearts.)

Wancher Matcha (the green ink) and a blue ink. (I can’t remember which flavor.) No, really, the picture is right-side up.

The other side of the above. You can see how Matcha bleeds through and breaks hearts.

When I made my Rio Olympics review, I thought it would be a good chance to finally use the Byline. For the most part, it’s easy to hold and the flip top works well when you’re taking a lot of notes. The only complaint I have, as with all flip-top notebooks, is that it’s hard to find things once you’ve got a lot of notes on a lot of pages. Even if you number them, you still have to pages around and the notebook back and forth to find what you’re looking for.

I like the pocket inside the cover and I like that the cover almost protects the spiral binding. Despite my attempts to be extra careful with the notebook, the spiral still managed to bend.

The spiral to the right is is messed up. It’s not bad, but it changes the way the cover and pages flip.

I still have one more book from the one package I’ve opened and I will definitely put it to use eventually. Because of the size, though, it will remain on my desk at home for random writing notes and random pen and ink tests. I’m not sure if I’ll ever use the other pack or just try to sell it to someone who likes them better.

The Byline, except through quarterly subscription is currently sold out. However, it was popular enough that Field Notes modified it as the Front Page and made it a permanent part of the store.

 

Days Off After the Rush

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Had a surprisingly good day off, but alcohol was involved. And food. Lots of food.

Since I’m finished with all my marking, I tracked down closer to Tokyo to join a picnic one of my colleagues was throwing in honor of his birthday. There was chicken of various sorts, including a jerk chicken that was to kill for, steak, brownies, beer, whiskey and, somewhere, salad.

Unfortunately, all the girls were busy today for various reasons so it was just me there. Granted, this earned me a surprising amount of respect from those at the picnic who thought I’d manipulated events to achieve that end. The truth is, I was learning about events almost as they happened.

I ate too much and drank more than I should have at around noon. (Note: Jameson Whiskey melts the seals on cheap paper cups.)

When I came home, all I did was relax as I’m in the “okay, so now what?” phase of post-marking. Eventually, I’ll know what I should do, and then find something else to do.

Word Searches and Silence

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It was a copy of several copies, it wasn’t something we’d studied and I didn’t have the answers. It kept the students mesmerized, though, so it did its job.

This week and part of next week we have pass back classes for our first and second year junior high school classes. Because the actual pass back part takes only a few minutes, we are left with at least a half-hour’s worth of time to fill.

This year some of us decided to pass out word searches that involved matching capitols and countries and then finding the capitols in the word search. It had nothing to do with anything we’d studied, but it was something to do.

I made it optional, as the students already have homework for the next grade even though they haven’t, technically, finished the current one, but almost every student grabbed a copy and each class became eerily silent as the students tried to finish the word search.

My job was to translate the over-copied words into letters the students could understand.

This means, of course, that complicated word searches will always be a part of pass back classes.

Getting Ready for the Normal

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I’ll be normal again soon, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

I finished marking exams today and even managed to figure out all the final marks. This means I have a chance to fall back into normal rhythms for a while, at least until I have more free time and that’s when things fall apart. Granted, part of that “free time” will be served under a de facto house arrest where the company I work for forces me to work at home because there’s no work for me to do.

The trouble is, that for a few days after I finish marking, I enter an anxious period where I feel as if I should be doing something and that keeps me from relaxing. Oddly, during those periods, I can manage to waste time in a way that’s not even fun. I’d actually feel better about it if I just wasted the time playing games. Instead, the time is just wasted.

Eventually, I settle down and start taking advantage of all the extra time. The trick this time around is to keep the extra time from being filled with planning how to fill the extra time.

That’s not always the case, though.

The State of Zooming Out

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The end is near, but like the vertigo effect, the closer I get, the farther away things seem to be.

Because I don’t always think things through/have aspirations that outshine my abilities and focus, I decided to mark the exams that are due last first and the exams that are due first last. This will, of course, give me a weekend off.

The problem is, that it is also slowly driving me insane–or maybe that’s the Bond movies (more on that in a different post)–by blocking off my chance to do any outside activities.

That said, if all goes according to plan, and we all know what happens to the best laid schemes of mice and men, I’ll finish relatively early tomorrow.

Actually, because of my odd plan, I have to finish tomorrow. If I don’t, Friday will be interesting in the “may you live in interesting times” curse kind of way.

 

The Last There Were There

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Some were still there, but they were cut off by bags and emergency food.

After work today I made a quick run to the last day of the 8th Annual World Fountain Pen Exhibition in the slim hope of tracking down some more bottles of the ink I managed to track down when I went there before. Alas, although there was some ink, the rare stuff was long gone.

The biggest treat was stumbling across the Sailor ink blender Mr. Usamu Ishimaru as he worked with a client. I wasn’t free on the day reservations became available and therefore didn’t have a chance to get a reservation so all I could do was gawk. He’d clearly been there a while and was looking bored. He also gave me a temporary look of recognition as I am a permanent troll at these events.

Usamu Ishimaru, Sailor’s ink blender, works with a client. Next to him is a bag display where Nakaya used to be.

I was mostly surprised to see that the Nakaya table was gone. Granted, the pens on their display have no nibs as part of the Nakaya mystique is that, if you buy from their table, they will let you choose a nib style and then their pen master/mistress will tune it to fit your writing style to help make  the pen yours, but I still expected to see a few for sale. (Then I remembered that they sell a few downstairs in the mausoleum.)

Ohashido and Eboya were still there, but Euro-Box was gone and in their place was a necktie display (yes, this is a bookstore, therefore, neckties). In Nakaya’s place was an emergency food display that included cans of curry.

That, in a nutshell, summarizes what’s wrong with the two department store pen shows. The pens are an afterthought, the sales are what’s important and pens are not more special than neckties. When I went there before, the staff at the LAMY table couldn’t give me any information until the LAMY rep was free.

My next goal is to track down the local pen fanatics and make it to one of the Wagner pen club meetings. (More on them in a future post.) Or, since I have more free time now, if I can overcome the usual resistance, find someone who could help me start my own pen show.

That will bring it’s own problems, I suspect, but that’s fodder for a future post, too.

One More Begin Again and End

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Today was a mix of finishes and starts.

I saw a few dozen for the last time today as I won’t be teaching third year high schools next year. At the same time I picked up two more sets of exams from students I’ll have to see again very soon.

This situation makes this an especially odd time of year as I don’t get to enjoy the satisfaction that pass back classes usually bring as they are just harbingers of more work yet to come.

Granted, the good news was that apparently no one has failed which means I won’t have to write and mark a make up exam, but I do have only a few days to mark the exams I just got–or maybe I have all weekend to mark some of them. It’s all confusing, although the confusion is offset by the shocked looks on many of my high school students when they saw their low scores and realized they should have 1) paid attention in class 2) followed instructions and 3) memorized their speech contest speeches which would have helped them a lot on the exam.

I did get some marking done, but I’m actually doing it all backward: I’m starting with the class I might have the most time for. This will force me to finish all the exams by Friday, and that will give me the weekend off.

That’s the plan, anyway. Who knows what will actually happen.

 

Gradually, Then Suddenly

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Sometimes you don’t get the extra work you want when you want it. You get a little with lots of time to do it and the you get all of the rest with less time to do it.

I had 10 days to finish marking my first five batches of exams. Starting tomorrow I’ll have four days to finish six batches. (Note: for complicated reasons, that’s about the same number of exams.) Because of that I found myself wishing that the junior high first and second year exams had been a couple days earlier. I would have even been happy to come in on Saturday.

Instead the exams are late in the exam period and the first set of pass backs is on the earliest possible day for pass backs.

This wouldn’t be so terrible except that we’ve also got pass back classes eating up time that could be spent marking.

At the same time, there’s been a sudden interest in ink and because I’m in the “yeah, sure, I can totally do that” phase of the business, I’m spending a lot of time fielding emails and texts and taking pictures of ink samples whilst working my phone charger overtime. (Note: I’ve discovered that I’m a surprisingly good up-seller/enabler thanks to the Detective Colombo “Oh, just one more thing” style of sales.) I’ll be dealing with all that on Monday and Tuesday. That leaves me only a couple free days to buckle down and do the marking that is my actual job.

As work tend to expand and contract to fill the time, I’ll get it all done, and hopefully won’t have to pull an old-school all-nighter. Then again, knowing me, I’ll probably do that anyway, I just won’t get much work done. Then I’ll have to do it all suddenly.