Halloween 2011

A little video i decided to take during the Annual West Village Halloween Parade

Halloween parade 2011 - eyes from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Teaching Channel: Education Update Pt. 5

Here's the last and final:
High School

All of them are uploaded to my Vimeo site as well, which you can go to to see all of my work, but I also made an album just for them.

Education Update: High School from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Links to all the videos on Teaching Channel

Apparently you can see it on teaching channel's youtube channel too. Look for the ones that say "Common Core State Standards"

Common Core State Standards for Math
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy
Common Core State Standards for Elementary School
Common Core State Standards for Middle School
Common Core State Standards for High School

Teaching Channel: Education Update Pt. 4

Here's Middle School

The rest are actually uploaded to my Vimeo site as well, which you can go to to see all of my work, but I also made an album just for them.

I'll continue posting them up here one by one.

Education Update: Middle School from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Links to all the videos on Teaching Channel

Apparently you can see it on teaching channel's youtube channel too. Look for the ones that say "Common Core State Standards"

Common Core State Standards for Math
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy
Common Core State Standards for Elementary School
Common Core State Standards for Middle School
Common Core State Standards for High School

Why I love my job

On an analysis of Sonnet 18:

Teacher: "So now, knowing that, can you re-read it from a different way?"
Boy: "Oh I knew it, I knew he was talking about a woman"
[Teacher Laughs]
...
Teacher: "...And summer, it's way too short, and you're longer than summer, alright? you're better than summer because summer's always too short"
Boy: I would compare, certain females I know, to winter.
Girl: Cold?
Boy: Yes
[Long awkward pause]
Teacher: I think I'm too young for this conversation
[Awkward pause]
Teacher: Stay in the poem Brandon, stay in the poem

---

After that I was laughing so hard I have no idea how I kept the camera steady.

I LOVE MY JOB!!!

Another End

The first wave of students had just gone, leaving myself with two kids for the night. It was difficult and surreal knowing the end of yet another summer high school program had come. What was more surreal was how quickly the program moved after the end of the first week as well as the fact that there would not be any more summer programs for me after this. This was truly the end of my relationship with NYU.

Despite that, however, I did manage to ensure the enjoyment of my and other kids' final night. The major events, in a nutshell, was buying my kids beer with the other PA's, learning the photo kids got busted and then playing Super Smash Bro's with a kid named Woody. Eventually we started free-styling and, well, he's good but even after spending a semester living in tight quarters with a rapper, I am incapable of stringing rhymes together in a consistent beat. We also quoted "I'm the Juggernaut Bitch" while playing Super Smash Brothers.

Overall, I'm glad that the kids had a good time without getting caught. It makes me a little proud.

I don't know why, though, but my endings here never seem to go the way I want them to. Or, well, to be more accurate, they go great but what I go to seems to be rather hard. I guess that, also, is an inaccurate statement, it may just be that I've spent all of this summer postponing the inevitable; ending my college experience and moving home.

Family is a funny thing because they always manage to get you to hate them and love them at the same time.

I had waited until the morning to begin packing, as I always do. Generally it's a big mistake but this time it was okay because I didn't have a lot of stuff. Eventually the last of the kids left the program and I was left in an empty dorm. I was, for the most part, packed and ready to go, the first time I ever left the program on move-out date for the students. They tried to take my I.D. at the front desk so I had to explain to them that I am (was) a student of NYU and not a student of the program so I could still get into Tisch and edit my film.

At any rate, around 3PM my parents came to help me move home. I knew it was going to be bad when, even before I checked out of the dorm they started to bother me about stuff I had to do once I got home.

I wonder sometimes, though, if they have bad timing or I just have an extremely reduced amount of patience with them.

I finish up at my dorm and check out and get home, sadly leaving New York and sending a thank you/goodbye text to my fellow PA's and I come home to a group of overly sarcastic cousins. I think that it has a lot to do with perspective. It's always difficult coming home to my family because no matter what happens, they remain skeptical and confident that they know better.

I guess part of it is because, especially with the film/entertainment industry, there's so much behind the scenes of what happens that they just don't understand how things work. I think there's also a disconnect with them because work is just work for all of them, but for me, film making has become a sort of life for me, breeding a community and family of it's own, a family and community where, at least when connected with NYU, I feel like I can navigate it comfortably. Even without NYU I still feel like I can navigate these treacherous waters while only gaining a few cuts and bruises.

I guess you have to wake up from the dreams some time, but I guess that's when you try to find a way to turn them into reality.

Running

When I got to NYU freshmen year, I had managed to keep a memento of my high school career with me pretty well. Running was a passion of mine and a stress reliever, a cathartic activity. I often wrote about this act or running along the West Side Highway at 3AM in my writing classes (see writing the essay). I believe I even had a script and, sophomore year I did a sight and sound film project about it, which I lost somewhere in the steinbeck lab. It was through this activity, this stress reliever, that I developed a sort of relationship with the city. I was introduced to different places at odd hours and rewarded with a view at the empty and naked streets of Manhattan and the beauty that comes from underneath the hustle and bustle a normal day brings.

I ran quite frequently freshmen year, during all seasons; fall, winter, spring, summer. A lot of it stemmed from my desire not to sleep and the lack of alternative activities I could do. It was a wonderful thing, when I think about it.

However, sophomore year I ran less, maybe managing to get out once or twice a month. I still loved running but it wasn't something that was immediately on my mind. I was often busy with other things and it was no longer a need that I felt. Plus, my roommate was a very light sleeper, which left me sleeping a little earlier (at least occasionally).

Junior year and senior year I didn't run at all. Well, that's not entirely true. There was a brief stint of me running in the Czech Republic on my summer study abroad in Prague, which was an amazing idea and one which I am glad I did. Additionally there were times I made my way to the gym and ran on a treadmill and hated myself for it. For some reason, maybe because Junior year I was rarely in my dorm and senior year I was always busy working on other things, I never got myself to go running again. I guess I could make up a million excuses as to why in particular I couldn't go running, but the bottom line is that I was too lazy, and even though I knew I would really enjoy the experience once I started, I couldn't get myself out of my seat to go and actually get started.

This brings me to today, or rather, tonight. I had promised myself, before I got back into the NYU dorms for the Tisch Summer High School Program, that I would do my night run at least one more time before I moved back home. This run would, in a way, represent a closer for me, the end of a particular chapter of my life, my goodbye to living freely in NYC. So tonight I changed into a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt I use for running or sleeping, rubber banded my I.D. to my phone and left my doors unlocked. As I laced on my running shoes I marvled at the lightness in their weight. They felt like nothing compared to the boots I had been wearing for the past two years.

As I set out I felt myself explode. The wind raced through my hair and my feet glided over the pavement; I was off.

From this experience I realized two things:

1.) I need to remember how to pace myself better.

2.) I'm out of shape.

I guess I also realized that I should make sure I'm well hydrated, but that doesn't count because I wasn't poorly hydrated.

This run has been good for me. I have rediscovered a part of New York that was lost to me and I have once again realized that I don't want to leave it. Tonight I didn't want to come back.

I hope to do more of these runs, even if I have to do them at home on the streets of Bloomfield. There's a peacefulness in running by yourself and I'm glad I rediscovered it. I feel as though this may have been the answer to my focus issues.

Lastly, along my run I was able to visit my favorite spot in NYC: (actually, one that I discovered on my earlier runs freshmen year) South Cove. I took some shitty photos on my phone and will post them if I can figure out how to get them onto a computer. Maybe I'll go there with a real camera next time (or at least a slightly less fake one).