Ramil Blog

So, today I started my observations. It's kind of late to be starting now, but better late than never, right? "What are these observations for?" you may wonder. Well, before you can become a teacher in New York, you have to accumulate 100 observation hours at elementary and high schools. And today, I did my first high school observation.

The school I went to was crazy cool. Everything looked new, it had nine floors, and it was huge. I was kind of jealous of all the kids that I met there. They get to go to a great school, and they get to live in New York city. I didn't get to do that until I got to college!

As I was doing my observations, I was struck by all the similarities between what I was doing and what ethnographers do. You see, when you do observations for teacher preparation, it is rarely the case that you just sit in the corner and take notes. You often have to be a bit of a participant observer, just like an ethnographer. Of course, the extent to which you participate will vary, but whenever I observe, I always find that I have to help out in some capacity. Today, when there was some confusion about rehearsal numbers, I had to step in to clarify where the correct spot was. And then there's always the basic disciplinary tasks that I feel obligated to do. I know it's not exactly the same, but treating observations as a mini-ethnography makes them seem a lot cooler.

Well, technically, it's a fungus. The medical term for it is "tinea corporis," but it is more commonly known as ringworm. However, there are actually no worms involved; ringworm is nothing more than a bunch of tiny organisms that survive by eating your skin.

And also, I don't think that I actually have it, making no part of this heading accurate. Although I don't show any symptoms of ringworm, one of my roommates definitely has it. Normally, I probably wouldn't think much of it, but after all that stuff in the news about the superbug, I'm kind of worried.

While ringworm is contagious, it is usually only transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. So, as long as I don't touch the gross, bumpy, pink circle on my roommate's leg, I should be okay.

So before I explain, some background information is required. For the past few years, my parents have been practicing for their upcoming retirement. In addition to being overly health conscious and cycling though various craft hobbies (i.e. beading, knitting, etc.), my parents have been taking frequent, extended vacations. As we speak, they are on a cruise ship somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. With them out of the house, and with my brother, sister and I off at college, this leaves my grandmother at home with only my dog, my plecostomus, and Bill O'Rielly to keep her company. So, for the last couple of weeks, my brother, sister and I have been going home a bit more than usual.

Today, my sister went home for the day to hang out with my grandmother, but since she had to return to the city for a late meeting, I went home to spend the night. It was a little sticky manipulating the LIRR so that we could pass the baton at the train station, but we managed to make the exchange of keys, the car, and the grandparent. I thought it would be nice if I cooked dinner, so my grandmother and I went to our neighborhood Pathmark. However, according to the produce man, Pathmark had just run out of rosemary, and so grandma and I headed back to the car to hit up Waldbaum's. We got in the car, I turned the key, and nothing happened.

I started freaking out. Grandma quickly sensed that something was very wrong, but she kept a cool head and suggested that I call my brother. He suggested a bunch of different things that I had already tried, and we decided that there was nothing I could do. I then realized that, without a car, Grandma and I would have to make the five block walk to the house. Now, I know it's not that far, but it was cold, she's not a very fast walker, and who walks home from the supermarket ?

In a desperate attempt to salvage the rest of the visit home, I went back into Pathmark and bought a chicken. We walked home, I cooked the chicken, and I think we both felt a little better. However, the car is still in the Pathmark parking lot.

So today, my day was chock-full of NYU business. First, I attended my first ever RALI event. RALI stands for Resident Assistant Leadership Institute, and it's basically the first step in the RA selection process. I'm trying to be an RA next year, but since I'm studying abroad in Florence this spring, I have to start the process early. In addition, I signed up to be part of a Steinhardt photo shoot. While I only had to juggle these two things, it was kind of sticky because they were in different places at the same time.

The RA Leadership Institute was a lot less boring than I thought it was going to be. There was a lot of teaching, but also a lot of group work. We got to find out about our True Colors™, experience the program planning process, and play with LEGO's. RALI was actually kind of fun, but they still expect quite a bit of work from you.

So during lunch break, I ran from Palladium to campus to snap a couple of photos. It was cold and the photographer made us take out coats off, so I was unhappy about that. But I really like getting my picture taken, so it all evened out.

After the shoot, I walked back up to Palladium to finish the RALI program for the day. Going into the process, I wasn't really sure if being an RA was for me. But after attending RALI today, and after going through the ups and downs of the dorm experience, being an RA seems like something that I would want to do, and something that I could learn a lot from.

Hey guys. So, I've got a new video coming at you... and it's another hair cutting video! However, this haircut video won't be nearly as exciting because I am cutting my own hair - with a little help from David and Leslie. It was getting kind of long, and I didn't really feel like going to the barber, so I decided to just cut it myself.

In other news, Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and the 4 day weekend is looming over everyone's head. I admit, I have been acting like I'm already on break a little bit (i.e. I should be in class right now.) But I have good reasons why I'm skipping class today. 1: No one is going to go to class today. and 2: I am helping my friend Craig with his shoot by acting in his production. Isn't that cool?

Okay, I'm actually running late to go meet him, but I'll let you know how the shoot goes. Oh yea, and here's that haircut video I mentioned above, Ramil Cuts His Own Hair:

There are a lot of things that make NYU really unique. The campus space is an indefinite area centered around a public park, being nonconformist places you in the community majority, and every morning a small man forcefully reminds you exactly how late you are. So yesterday, in addition to all these things, I got to experience another unique part of NYU life: I got to participate in a Tisch student production.

With the amount of filming that Tisch students do, they often need their friends to help out in small ways. So, it's not uncommon to have Tischie friends ask you to do an interview, make sound effects, or be an extra in their movie. However, when my friend Craig asked me to help him out, his request was a bit different. For his final project, he's making an episode of a morning show, and he asked me to act in his cooking segment -- except it wasn't really acting because I wasn't really pretending.

It was kind of cool to have someone want to video tape me, because usually I have to force my friends to do it for me. I had a lot of fun during the shoot, but it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought. We were shooting live-to-tape, we were having technical difficulty with the sound, and I was working with real-live actors, which made me kind of nervous. Despite all the hard parts, Craig told me that the shoot went well, and that I did a good job. I'll try to upload a clip from the final product, but if I can't do that, then I can always shoot my own segment from "Master Chef Ramil's Kitchen."

Here at NYU, Thanksgiving break and Columbus Day are the only days off you'll come by during fall semester. As a result, pretty much everyone at NYU gets out of the city for a couple days and heads to their or a friend's home. So, I went home to Garden City Park on Long Island for the weekend, but I ended up spending most of my break back in New York City.

You may remember a post from a while back, "Ramil Builds A House," in which I described how my family and I began the renovation process on my sister's apartment. Although we had made a lot of progress on the apartment, there was still a lot left to do. The cabinets needed to be finished, the furniture wasn't moved in, and countless other odd jobs needed to be completed. So, this past weekend was mainly devoted to putting the finishing touches on my sister's apartment, and Thanksgiving festivities had to take a back seat.

While we're on the topic of back seats, I'd like to introduce a video I made over break. It documents how my family and I moved our old sofa from our house on Long Island to my sister's apartment. Now I don't want to ruin the surprise, but during the video, you'll hear my family discuss topics ranging from African wildlife, Western medicine, and of course, sofa quality. So, here's a little taste of what life is like in the Ibrahim family, titled "Ramil Transports A Sofa With His Family:"

If I had to name the most important skill that I've developed since I came to NYU, it would have to be time management. After a year and (almost) a half at college, I've learned that you can get so much more done through effective planning and sticking to a schedule. However, I have also learned that it feels so good to just blow everything off once and a while, and just do whatever you feel like. I think that today was a good example of both of these lessons.

I started my day, as I start everyday, by looking at my planner and preparing myself for the day's events. I love my planner, and I never leave home without it. For the first half of the day, I stuck strictly to the schedule laid out in my planner, and I accomplished all of my goals for the day: I went to all four of my classes; I practiced piano and flute for a good four hours; I studied for a quiz; and I rehearsed a duet.

I was having a pretty productive day. All I had left to do was complete my assignment for Music Theory III, and get to bed by 12. So, I decided to rest on my laurels a bit with some Super Smash Bros (I am preparing for a tournament). What was only supposed to be an hour of playing video games easily turned into three.

But that was fine - it was only 11 when we finished playing. "There's plenty of time left to do my homework," I told myself. I went to my friends' room to pick up my bookbag, and since I had some extra time, I hung out for a bit instead of immediately heading home. Hanging out took about an hour and a half, and then I decided I needed to get coffee to help me get through my Theory assignment.

Armed with a Grande dosage of caffeine, I finally sat down to do my homework at around 1. However, I decided that it would be a good idea to do my homework in a room full of people. Of course, nothing got done. (Well, not exactly nothing - I did watch the entire CNN/YouTube Republican Debate.)

Well, it's now 4:30 in the morning, I have to get up for class at 9:30, and I can't go to sleep because of all the coffee I drank. I'm going to be tired all day tomorrow, and I'm going to be too stressed out to do well on my quiz. But at least I learned an important lesson: as they would probably phrase it on Arrested Development, "And that's why you always stick to the schedule!"