28 Elul/7 September, 2010

Today is 90 degrees outside and I had to wear teacher clothing which did include black pants. I did put on my purple shirt that was more weather appropriate. But I knew I was heading to the city tonight for dinner with my friends and a movie, so pants were really necessary for all the air-conditioning.

I woke up early, before my alarm clock, which often happens on teaching days. So I read more of Stephen Fry book.

Today was a teaching day and my students and I were discussing the first reading: an excerpt from Jane Goodall called “In the Forests of Gombe.” In her article, Goodall talks about a transcendent moment that happened to her in the forest when she was grieving her husband’s death. She felt outside of herself, a part of the larger world. Her article is really about her religious beliefs and her certainty that the religion really does not interfere with being a scientist. She mentions an encounter with a bellhop in Texas during a fundraising trip. He loved her work but, since he was religious, he was concerned with how religion fit with evolution. She reassured him with her own ideas. Personally, I do not see the conflict between religion and science. I think people can’t separate their beliefs. However, I also don’t think that scientists should be extremely religious to the point where they impose their own beliefs on their work or refuse to accept information that would contradict their beliefs. Region needs to be flexible too. Most of my students never heard of Jane Goodall. The discussion went ok, I think. One class found the article dry and boring, the other liked it. I find that is always the case.

I need to drink more water before my classes. By the second class, my unsteadiness was coming back for the first time in months.

After my classes and getting pizza, I went to one of the program directors and showed her a writing sample of one of my students. The girl was really misreading. So we looked up her scores and decided that moving her to a reading class would work well. We sent her emails but I don’t know if she would respond. That actually took quite some time to sort out.

I took a bus to the history department to give the secretary the Health form to take care of. Our university decided that part time students don’t deserve health insurance unless they are half time or supposed to graduate. So I have to go around with forms. Since I was on the main campus I also picked up my check (which looks right this year) and some of my stuff that Medusa left in our office before she left for a new adventure.

I took the train into the city much later than I originally planned. It didn’t help that I just missed train as I was coming to the station. On the train, despite feeling all kinds of tired from a long day I graded the reading homework from one of my classes (I forgot to collect the homework in one of my sections) and then I read more of September issue of National Geographic. I started the article on King Tut’s Tomb and the new DNA analysis done of mummies. Most fun fact - there is an Italian Institute of Mummies and the Iceman.

I met Marianna and Yeva for dinner at a sushi restaurant at midtown. It was a decent place, but I think I like the Brooklyn one better. I got a bento box since I wanted a little bit of everything. After dinner we went to see “Eat Pray Love.” Yeva and Marianna both read the book and wanted to see the movie. I haven’t read the book nor did I have much interest in the movie (I’m neural on Julia Roberts) but I did want a nice girls night out. I actually liked the movie. I liked that the main character felt like a real woman with lots of faults and that her decisions were not perfect all the time. And that she was learning to get control of her life back. Since the movie and the book were based on real life, I can forgive the happily in love ending too. To me the movie was not about the romance at the end anyway. It was really about this one woman’s journey to feel happiness in her life. And I found it amusing that the movie starts by acknowledging that most people are mostly worried about personal relationships even if their lives are horrible by our standards. If was a nice movie and it was perfect for an evening out. I felt happy just to be with my girls.

Janna was going to join us for our evening out but her husband got really sick a few days before with a mysterious illness with high fever. She took him to ER instead and kept us updated through the evening. They suspect meningitis which is really crazy!

I got home by 12:30am. The bus had to do a bit of a detour, but still it took about an hour, which is nice. Today was a very good day.