Hoop Dreams Passover

I can now see how my dad got so hooked into teaching and caring for his students. I'm having a really good time teaching this class, but it is such a time sucking machine.

Yesterday, I taught the class on the week's theme - racism and discrimination - based on the students viewing (and writing about) HoopDreams. The freaky thing was that my class was videotaped by Hrvd's Center for Learning - where they give support and advice to teaching at the university. It's a great resource, and I'm sure I will learn a lot from it, but it was a little intimidating being videotaped.

I got off to a rocky start, not having my routine established (it was in another space), but we soon got into a groove. I started out by posing a question to the students about how the flic was not even nominated for an Oscar, despite rave reviews - and how that, as well, fits into our racism analysis. The conversation eventually delved into the students wondering if the filmmakers cameras affected the players' aims and ambitions - I then asked them if their being videotaped was affecting what they were saying. They also had indicated in their papers that they didn't think explicit racism was addressed in the film, which I challenged. Overall, it was a good discussion. The only drawback was we had some technical errors - thank God for Reed, who, again saved the day. It's hard to try and teach and deal with laptop/projector/image issues - that's why I rarely played music during my yoga classes.

Speaking of which, my practice is so rusty these days after the blur of having the flu and being so crazy busy with this class, though last Sunday's full practice felt great, especially after that fabulous massage in Newport...so much to update everyone on.

Anyway, after class, Chris and the kids picked me up and we headed over to Joel and Lani's for Passover. His parents and some close friends of his were there. It was our first ever Seder - Chris was trying to get Liam to say to our hosts, "I am a gentile." - but only because Joel has a sense of humor and Liam was trying to wrap his brain around what being Jewish meant. We clearly weren't doing a good job, but the rituals certainly did. The kids held up great, despite it being a very adult function - we had to leave at the end of the meal, but Kalian got addicted to Kugel before we left, and Liam got a car for finding the Matzah crackers.

Then back home to write two papers and read for today. The tough thing about my schedule this semester is that I am in class all day long and am scheduled to the hilt so don't have much time during the day to study. Here was my sked for yesterday:

8.30 - Leave house/stop by to pick up bribe b'fast for study group because I got them to change our study group time
9-10 - Stats/Regression Study group
10.10-11.30 - Stats/Regression class
11.30-12noon - Bus to MIT
12noon -12.30 eat lunch and do readings for pending class
12.30-2.00 Great ComparativeMediaStudies class on Cultural Studies Vs. Sociology
2.00-3.00 Bus back to Harvard - bus late so sat on steps of MIT and organized papers
3.00-4.50 - Prepared for teaching class
5.07-6.00 (yes, that's the time Hrvd classes start) - Teach class
6.10 - Chris and kids pick me
6.30-9.00 Passover Seder
9.00-1.00am Write Papers and Study