This morning around 6:30, while picking up the Times-Picayune and letting Jacques Chien out to pee I saw a renegade garbage truck. Not one of the blue ones from Richards Disposal which comes twice a week and picks up huge trash cans. This was a white one. I waited for it to drive down Lowerline and found that PhoenixRecylingNOLA was painted on the side.
Ok, found the site. It is a full home and business pickup service for glass, plastic, metals and paper. But. It costs $15 a month for once a week pickup. I would fill maybe one milk crate sized recycling thingie a week when in California. Course, I couldn't fill a 30 gallon trash can for a weekly pickup either, while here we get a 55 gallon can which is picked up twice weekly. That service is mandatory, a city contract.
Why is every household given trash pickup service sufficient for a small restaurant, but no recycling service? There are not even any drop off recycling centers and Louisiana has no bottle/can deposit system. There is lots of trash compared to Kalifornya.
31 March 2008
24 March 2008
10 March 2008
daylite sucking time
I hate daylight savings time. this time of year is about the only thing i like about arizona; they do not honor daylite savings time there. It saves no daylite. It makes the school bus start pickups in the dark. It makes the sun set go way past dinner time.
In Swahili land noon is numbered as the sixth hour. Because it is the sixth hour of the day. The day meaning actual daytime, starting at daylight. And Galileo used the Egyptian year with a full 365 days inside 13 months, same as Ptolemy and 4000 years of astronomers before him.
No daylite is saved. It is sucked out of the morning and vomited up at vespers.
In Swahili land noon is numbered as the sixth hour. Because it is the sixth hour of the day. The day meaning actual daytime, starting at daylight. And Galileo used the Egyptian year with a full 365 days inside 13 months, same as Ptolemy and 4000 years of astronomers before him.
No daylite is saved. It is sucked out of the morning and vomited up at vespers.
08 March 2008
Louisiana Educational Assessment Program
Louisiana has something called a LEAP test for fourth and eighth graders. Students are required to pass it to graduate and attain the next grade. I am currently unclear if this is part of No Child Left Behind or if it was implemented separately. Louisiana Educational Assessment Program
On friday I went in to Roxanne's school Bauduit Elementary to deliver her backpack (supplied by the school) and pay $32 for field trips next week. Every day there is a field trip because the whole school will be given over to conducting tests for the LEAP. I have been paying attention to elementary school lately and the LEAP is what everyone at Bauduit has been talking about since we got there. All the schools are talking about it and articles in the newspaper abound.
As I left schoool there was a pep rally for the fourth graders in the hallway. The big gurls were dressed in cheerleader outfits (sixth grade cheerleaders?) and the classes had prepared chants to root on their LEAP testing teams. Interesting. It might have seemed bizarre, but producing a social imperative to do well on an academic test may be pedagogically sound. I like that, pedagogically sound.
Rather than social pressure to wear flashy clothes (they use uniforms at Bauduit) or acting tough they substitute an entire manufactured enthusiasm for passing a test.
On friday I went in to Roxanne's school Bauduit Elementary to deliver her backpack (supplied by the school) and pay $32 for field trips next week. Every day there is a field trip because the whole school will be given over to conducting tests for the LEAP. I have been paying attention to elementary school lately and the LEAP is what everyone at Bauduit has been talking about since we got there. All the schools are talking about it and articles in the newspaper abound.
As I left schoool there was a pep rally for the fourth graders in the hallway. The big gurls were dressed in cheerleader outfits (sixth grade cheerleaders?) and the classes had prepared chants to root on their LEAP testing teams. Interesting. It might have seemed bizarre, but producing a social imperative to do well on an academic test may be pedagogically sound. I like that, pedagogically sound.
Rather than social pressure to wear flashy clothes (they use uniforms at Bauduit) or acting tough they substitute an entire manufactured enthusiasm for passing a test.
02 March 2008
Lusher School
Settling in to New Orleans has involved searching for a school for Roxanne. She started kindergarten in Trinidad this past Sept 2007. She was out of school for two months, joining Agnes Bauduit Elementary in early February. Just this past week we got a form from Bauduit asking whether she would be attending next year. That was a problem. It is a long way, but we have bus service. I've submitted an application to International School of Louisiana for the french program next year and we did apply to Audubon Charter trying to get into french language kindergarten this year. They wouldn't let her in; they may allow her into french language kindergarten next year. That would make her a six year old starting kindergarten. For the second time.
Well, this all has been weighing on my mind; what to do? What to do? So I stopped by my actual local school on friday to drop off an application. That school is Lusher School. It is a charter school about four blocks away. Turns out we are in fact within the attendance district, which functions as a normal school; if you live there, you get into the school.
Lusher is one of the few schools in New Orleans which gets good ratings and good test results. People resort to blackmail and bribes to get their kids in there. But it does not have a french program. We wanted to get into Audubon french program or the International School program so that Roxanne could claim her birthright Haitian citizenship and run for Prezidan d'Repiblik.
What to do?
Well, this all has been weighing on my mind; what to do? What to do? So I stopped by my actual local school on friday to drop off an application. That school is Lusher School. It is a charter school about four blocks away. Turns out we are in fact within the attendance district, which functions as a normal school; if you live there, you get into the school.
Lusher is one of the few schools in New Orleans which gets good ratings and good test results. People resort to blackmail and bribes to get their kids in there. But it does not have a french program. We wanted to get into Audubon french program or the International School program so that Roxanne could claim her birthright Haitian citizenship and run for Prezidan d'Repiblik.
What to do?
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