Our trip in pictures

Krys, my old friend from Boston, and impetus for Machu Piccu hike, also becomes my impetus to try "cuy" - or the Peruvian speciality guinea pig (I did not like it all that much)

The infamous andean alpaca 

The natural dies used to make traditional Peruvian clothing

crazy salt mines in the sacred valley

Beautiful lake on day 1 of Salkantay Trail - well worth the exhausting 2 hour steep hike

Our hiking group on the glacier near the top of day 1 with load carrying donkey

Frequent switchbacks hiking to the cloud forest

Classic Maccu Pichu shot with one of Krys' friends - Stephanie

We tried to do an "Adam" and "Eve" type shot at the top of Macchu Pichu mountain but we got in trouble from one of the park workers

Bike trip with Ecuador Pure Life at one of our first lodges

Lunch break

The terrain was incredibly varied depending on the day as well as the weather and temperature conditions

Maya mountain biking down a hill

Overlooking a lake near Imbabura volcano

Otavalo town - this place was famous for it's market

And meanwhile back home...Havi taking Sherlock for a walk (my brother dog sat while we were away)

Maya preparing for 'superman' zipline

Go-Pro on the zip line

Traveling to our jungle lodge Ithamandi - only accessible by boat

Ithamandi Jungle Lodge

Lunch break during one of our Amazon treks 

Monkeys have overtaken the town of Misahualli, fun for tourists, a nuance for locals

And the day after we came back to Boston my friend Pam got married - our first gay wedding!

Going for a walk with Sherlock and my friend Ben we stumbled upon my cousin Rachel's wedding beautiful site the Codman estate in Lincoln, MA

South America

This blog used to be mostly about travel and when I look back to my first entry---- I see a lot of evolution. Travel is still my Passion and the nice thing about becoming a teacher is having summers again.

Maya and decided to go to South America for a three week trip since neither of us had been to the continent before. We made a last minute decision to join some old Boston friends on a Machu Piccu trip in Peru first. We hiked the Salkantay trail for five days and some beautiful landscapes. Peru seems like an awesome place to travel and probably most popular tourist destination as well in South America. They've got every micro climate in Latin America in Peru and even though our hike took us through jungle, mountain, glacier, cloud forest, rain forest, meatball forest

- ok well all of those except the last one -there were plenty of others we didn't see. 

The food in Peru was great (better than Ecuador I'd say). I love the "soup" course and tried many delicious varieties. I also tried cuy, which is guinea pig, and found it to be very strong and greasy in taste. It was not my favorite, especially at the expensive price here of $20-$30. Alpaca on the other hand was delicious. Both Ecuador and Peru seem like they have more variety than Guatemala with their rice, beans, and tortillas at every meal. But really I spent a few weeks here, I really don't know what I'm talking about.

Back in Peru, I got a little altitude sickness at about 15,000 ft at the top of our mountain/glacier component of our hike but it was worth it for the views (coming soon). Being on a glacier was probably the most different thing of the whole trip. Machu Piccu was certainly impressive but I have a hard time when I'm doing things that seem so utterly un-special or rather over frequented by tourists. Which is ironic since I bet MP is on a lot of peoples' bucket lists. This is probably a reflection of my privilege and experience with global travel. 

The next component of our trip consisted of one week cycling in Ecuador with a group of 6 American gringos (well one was of Hispanic American origin). Our trek was also all american. The landscapes were also quite varied and beautiful. We did a great chocolate tour (plantation and manufacturer bean to bar) in beautiful Mindo. After a short bird watching experience we climbed about 8,000 ft on mountain bikes one day. This was the most exhausting day. 

We've been also cycling around volcanos and moving between asphalt, cobblestone, dirt, grass, and rock surfaces keeping things interesting. We made a quick visit to the equator line as I did in Uganda so now I just need to get there on the Eastern Hemisphere line (so I think Jakarta ish area?). Next up, Prime Meridian? Poles? 

Overall my impression of this one part of south America has been favorable and it's a relatively comfortable poverty tourism experience. Things just seem to be going a little better, they are slightly more organized, than in the African countries I've visited. The hotels have big jugs of free mineral water. You don't see quite as many street vendors and random piles of trash. Locals take out money from ATMs, not just the foreigners, more people have cars but yet public transportation like buses is still very functional - because it has to be for a majority (whereas it doesn't work great in Atlanta and doesn't have to since it's not a majority population base of users - although I wish that would change). 

Even though Ecuador is similar to the size of Colorado, two weeks was not enough time to see that much. The terrain is so mountain-e that you have to fly places to really move around efficiently. Cuenca in the south is over 7 hours from Quito driving. We really wanted to do the Galapagos but it takes a surprising amount of time to do it.  So instead we take off for the jungle tomorrow. 4 days at a remote lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon, will report back soon.

Savannah Memorial Day 2015

My friend Thomas came to visit for the long Memorial Day weekend along with Maya’s friend Noga from Chicago. I hadn’t checked out Savannah since going there with the Macalester tennis team before I was of age and had been meaning to get out there since we moved to ATL. I wasn’t sure we could top off the New Orleans jazz festival trip from a few weeks ago but we made a good effort.

Our trip’s theme song was Mark Ronson’s ‘Uptown Funk You Up’ and we listened to it at least 4 times a day. We stayed at the Thunderbird Inn (amazing retro. place) and enjoyed popcorn and lemonade upon arrival along with 1960’s-70’s soul music playing in the background. Besides Krispy Donuts for breakfast both mornings, we also enjoyed a short 10-minute walk or so to River Street and the nightlife.

The nightlife is surprisingly vibrant in Savannah. It’s a very good place to barhop. We started at Dubs, which had ping pong, and nice cheap beer, moved on the Smiles Dueling Piano Bar. I’ve heard of other piano bars and kind of doubted how much fun they would be with all of the bros and annoying sing alongs. But this place was fun and had a good vibe with some talented piano players. I also am sick and tired of getting a hard time from Thomas about drinking these girly drinks like the frozen strawberry daiquiris I ordered. I really don’t care about assigning gender roles to drinks and/or conforming to norms. If I like the drink than that’s all that matters right?

So we moved on from there to a cool dance club 500 feet away and then Chuck’s, a gay bar with $1 jello shots. We sang a horrible karaoke rendition of the horrible Meatloaf song: “I would do anything for love.” Our delusional friends thought it went pretty well though (I am pretty sure the DJ laughed us off) but that’s sort of the point of karaoke I think. We ended up a noodle bar with $1 drafts at about 2 in the morning, which was great. The nice thing about all of the nightlife in Savannah is that it keeps the prices down and if you know were to look you can find lots of great deals. By choosing to go on Memorial Day weekend though we also had to contend with 8 million bachelorette party’s: They all looked illegal.

We enjoyed Tybee island the next day and a day at the beach. We also checked out Skid-a-way Island which has a really cool little park with marshes and lots of overhanging Spanish moss trees. Along with our friend and dog who live in Savannah, we had our dog Sherlock who loved the park. They ran and played together and made all of the tiny little low-tide crabs scatter.

After a day at the beach with surprisingly warm water I think we had our Savannah trip down pat. It also reminded me that school is finally out. Let summer begin!

Photo Booth with Lola on previous trip to Minnesota

Historic Savannah with friends all in green

Skid-a-way Park

BBQ on Tybee

Maya and her friend Noga in Old 4th Ward Historic parc on our Friday night out

Teacher Appreciation

Two weeks ago was Teacher's Appreciation Week and every day that week different businesses had different promotions going on for teachers. The corporate shitty pizza buffet chain (I guess that idea sounds good...or does it?) Cici's gave me free dinner one night and I remember thinking, "wow, not bad being a teacher." There was never a 'salesperson appreciation week,' because that's not a job people appreciate. It kind of validates my decision to do what I am doing this year. One time earlier this year I was late for a doctor's appointment and when they found out why they were so much more sympathetic because everyone knows or has a child or family member where someone is in school. If not, at some point they themselves were in school and remember how teachers changed their lives.

Even more recently I had a similar experience. It was funny asking Maya and then taking Maya to prom at 30 years old (actually the first time she been 'taken' to prom) for my school. It was a little bit awkward being there as the adult seeing my students all dressed up and grown up. Add to that the music (trap: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_music) and our whiteness and we kind of stayed on the sidelines and ended up not staying that long. However, we stayed just long enough that we got back to our car at the meter 3 minutes late where a parking attendant was writing us a ticket. The woman was sympathetic and swore she couldn't change it once it was written but we could try to appeal it. We both knew that wouldn't work (since we were still in the wrong) and I pleaded with her and told her I was a teacher coming from our school's prom. Once she heard those magic words I could see her face change, soften, and she told me to give her back the ticket. Just amazing.

We are in the home stretch now and my job has improved for the moment somewhat but it's been a long year. One of the longest I can remember for a long time. As the school year winds down I've started to think about my options for next year. What type of place do I want to be if I am going to continue trying this crazy thing out? How can I make this thing more sustainable? How much do I really enjoy it? What age and type of students do I want to teach? Can I tolerate another year of having my students fail at watching a movie for example? I showed Selma recently and told my students that all I wanted them to do was watch the movie (I've actually not shown any full movies this year besides most of Glory and they always complain about not watching enough movies). They didn't need to take notes or do a worksheet, and they would get a 100% on a class assignment for successfully watching a movie. Most of them couldn't actually do this and a few of them failed even. I took 10 points off for talking, being on their phones, listening to their headphones, sleeping, playing cards, or causing disruption. I can't imagine this being a scenario back when I was in high school but this is a different world.

Race & Teaching

I knew teaching US History as a white man to a 99% black population would be interesting this year. I am one of 4 white teachers at the school and none of my students have met any Jews from Vermont so there's been an interesting cultural exchange. Although I don't know really how much of it is an "exchange" as it's hard to get a sense of what impact my presence and identity has on them. Sometimes students will accuse me of being racist because I give them a bad grade and they really do play the race card all the time in ridiculous ways. I get the sense that they think the "White man" is out to get them. Sometimes it's funny and it creates opportunities for learning and sometimes I see a lot of truth (and sadness) in their perspective. Students are curious about my viewpoints and what I think about race and I am also interested to learn from them.

With Michael Brown and the other events of the year I have not shied away from race either. Some students have expressed boredom with slavery and are sick of talking about. I don't think I've taught them about slavery anymore than another US History teacher, after all it's a huge part of the story...and a shameful part and I don't shy away from this dark chapter of our history either.

Yesterday I did a lesson on Martin Luther King as this week we are talking about the civil rights movement. One student commented that she had never read MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and expressed a lot of amazement to me about it. This was touching. But then I had a real downer later in the afternoon when another student complained about having to read his "I have a dream speech" yet again one more time. And I'm sure they have read it before, although many of them would probably get questions about MLK on a standardized test wrong or forget other important details despite this being Atlanta. And I'm not going to skip arguably one of the most influential people ever in US History whether or not they've learned about MLK before or not.

I was telling this student that we should all appreciate what he did and how he impacted other movements and helped created a more fair society. She told me that I wasn't the one that should be appreciative because I'm white. I actually found this offensive but looking back on it maybe I was being naive. This is a very tough thing to think about. I have no idea what she's learned from her grandmother and the stories she's been told about racism and discrimination from her own family. I can't really understand that, and no, I'm not going to play the Jewish card. Jews have had it very good in America for a long time now. How can I possibly understand her perspective? Eventually I showed her the lyrics to Macklemore's "Same Love" which talks about oppression to one group being oppression to all groups and that discrimination to one group is the same as any discrimination so we should all care about it. But perhaps this was not the right approach...

That's what teaching is though - you get lots of different problems where you have to think of solutions very quickly and later on you wish you had spoken differently or taken a different approach. This day will stick with me.

The Teaching Blues

I'm breathing again. That's how it feels early April at Spring Break and our one week off. Not having a break in February like other schools was tough as all we had was MLK day and President's Day off in February since Xmas in December. It's weird to have a job where you just think about breaks and summer, and it's grueling to go too long without a day off. I mean maybe that's most most jobs that people hate, but for teachers it's less about not liking our jobs and more about just how exhausting the job can be. And this is coming from someone with a lot of energy who doesn't often 'slog' through life although I know I am still new. And then you have people like Success Academy (just written up today) and KIPP who preach needing more time in the classroom...

I've been exploring options for next year and went to a teacher job fair a month ago. Leaving my newly minted resumes on the table brilliantly in my house, I hit the road and arrived ready to shmooze feeling a bit naked without my credentials. A few interviewers were shocked when I told them I could email them a resume and told me if I was looking for any info. I could check their websites. What's the point of having a job fair where you just drop resumes when you can do the same thing from the comfort of your home? Working in sales I learned that paper is often just a crutch. A true professional has all of the info. in their head - you are the product and you just have to convince people of whatever it is they are interested in. Besides, isn't anyone interested in actually learning about each other anymore? And why is the discussion of fit often missing from job conversations? I didn't realize that my first employer Equal Exchange was more of an anomoly in this sense but after Fenix this is one of the most important things to me I am thinking about at this point in my life. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest fit) I would say I am currently at a 5. 

But the bigger question is what am I doing with my life? Maya is starting as an attending next year with Grady Hospital, the big public hospital in Atlanta, like every other hospital - operating under the Emory umbrella. She is way more set in her career than I am. Coming up on the finishing dash of my first year of teaching, I have no idea if I could do this as a career. At the moment my intuition suggests no. Out of anything I've ever put so much effort into I've never seen so few results (I bet I could get more results learning Japanese). Yes there is the intrinsic reward of helping young people and doing something that matters in the world, but it just doesn't pay enough for the amount of work required of a truly good teacher. I am no martyr and while I am passionate, sometimes I feel like I don't actually have enough of it in me for teaching in particular. It still seems just like one option among many of important work out there. And yes, I know it will get better, the first year's the hardest, yada yada yada, everybody keeps telling me that. And that's why I'm trying this again at least for another year. But what type of career asks you to endure a  bunch of shit for awhile until things get better? Most? Law and banking probably - except in those cases you maybe are more likely to work your way up a ladder. Besides becoming an administrator or principal, you don't start making a lot more money or getting a lot more opportunities necessarily as a veteran teacher...do you? 

One good thing about teaching is that people respect the profession, way more than sales at least. Everybody always has something positive to say and conversation is easy with new people. Sometimes there are perks too; I mean beyond the free gas station coffee for teachers in February or discounts for Hawks and Braves games that I've gotten. I was running to a doctor's office about 10 minutes late last month and they cut me slack because they knew I was a teacher and they knew how hard it is too leave school in the middle of the day. That felt good. 

On the other hand, earlier that day, one of my students finished an assignment early with 10 minutes left in class so I asked them to do another reading and with all of the teenage attitude she could give, she responded stubbornly, "I'm not gonna do anything more than what's required." With the amount of sleep I run on and the dozens of more serious problems I face every day, I just don't even always have the energy to try and fight that. Take one student, let's call him Frazer. He comes to class 30 minutes late with no excuse the other day, asks if he can go to the bathroom 2 minutes in, I say no (which is also by the way a weird position to be in; I have the power to tell another human being whether or not they can urinate?), he leaves anyways and I'm responsible for wherever he went and whatever he does now while I'm still trying to manage the 8 other things going on (it's the ridiculous amount of multi-tasking consistently that is exhausting). So I call his mother as I've done many times, since write ups very little consquences at my school and I can't figure out how to reach this one student, only to hear her say in disgust: "I'm so sick of this child" and hang up before hearing anything else. I guess that's better than being hung up on in a cold call during a sales conversation but inspiration can be hard to come by in any industry I guess.

It's much easier to say that you are someone with high expectations, you would never give up on a student, and you understand that everybody learns differently (as 100% of teachers'schools promote), and another to execute. One of my colleagues constantly reminds me: "We aren't here for the many, we are here for the few." That makes the challenge feel not quite as daunting, but it's a weird reality and much further from the pedagogical non-sense that dominates my certification program and permeates the political rhetoric around education that we hear about on the news constantly. It actually reminds me of time in Uganda when speaking to an international development professional who told me: "Impact a village? What? I challenge you to just impact one person this entire year. I mean truly change their life." Either that man was super jaded, or one of the very few real people around.

I'm still deciding. 

Some scenes from my whiteboard recently...I do not have a teacher's handwriting

Buckhead Blues

A lot of people that visit Atlanta come for a business meeting or some type of conference and will invariably end up in Buckhead, my least favorite part of Atlanta. Buckhead is notorious for awful traffic, being a high rise concrete jungle, having to valet parking unnecessarily, offering more strip clubs than you could possibly visit in a weekend, and being full of rich snobby people (it's where Justin Beiber moved). For some people, this is where they get their highly inaccurate opinion of Atlanta. From a simple Google search:

"Exceptional shopping and dining within a sophisticated urban atmosphere, Buckhead Atlanta offers distinctive retail stores, upscale restaurants and affordable..."

As much as I try to avoid the area and it takes me a good 25 minutes to get over there, for one reason or another I'll end up on that side of town from time to time. Last weekend with my Air BnB guest we had decided to check out Prohibition, one of Atlanta's premiere speakeasies. This was after I had gone to a "Jews and Drink" event at the Chabad In-Town earlier that week and listened to a talk from a mixologist from Bacardi who recommend the place.

Of course I did zero research and just went straight there which was problematic since I couldn't find "there." There's no sign just an old school phone booth with no instructions. Apparently you need a code to get in, adding to the supposed "secret-ness" or "coolness" of the place. A women then approached and put her finger on a small detector on the wall and all of the sudden an opening door is revealed (I am so not "in"). I was like "oh great we'll just follow her in." She actually turns around, looks at me, and without a word closes the door in my face. This was a just a normal customer I guess. The Air BnB guy and I just start laughing, it was too ridiculous. A few moments later a guy from the bar walks out and tells me my shoes aren't classy enough so we get turned around.

Nothing from this experience, especially again it being Buckhead, surprised me. But it did give me a good chuckle. A friend recently asked me if I missed the coffee business and after thinking about it for a bit I told him, "not much." There's a lot of pretentious ridiculousness in all of the foodie related industries. It's not an awful way to make money and don't me get wrong, I appreciate good food related things as much as the next guy, but for thinking I am doing something meaningful in life, even working in Fair Trade it could be lacking. Furthermore, while I'm all for liveable wages, $15 cocktails (probably $20 or more in NYC) seem just as overpriced as the $6 pour-over coffee.

I love these recent skits giving shit to mixology in particular:
1. Portlandia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLxC1bJmF_U
2. Fog & Smog (the Whole Foods Parking lot dudes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_id6i7OBj0
-> This one even has the lyrics: "What's the password...you enter through a phone booth" just like my experience!

And finally this Onion video about foodie chef Tim Allen is great.
A few unrelated pictures from the last few weeks:

My friend Marcos and I with Sherlock at Kennessaw Mountain enjoying a nice winter hike on President's day weekend.

Police "Boda Boda" in ATL. Terror alert I heard