I didn't knock on wood I guess

So I get a notice in my school mail that says they will be doing major electrical work on my wing of classes from Oct 10-14. They will provide "auxiliary power" so I can have lights and such, but I will be left WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING!! Seriously, it is going to be a freaking sauna up in this metal box that I teach in. I can deal with it OK, but I know my students will complain without end despite my inability to remedy the situation. I may not even be allowed to run a fan.

Last night was back-to-school night and I had to be part of the 9th grade Creativity House presentation. I won't explain what a "house" is, but the gym was not air conditioned and it was hotter in that gym than it is inside a yak's ass.

Now before you call weak-sauce on me, let me clarify that the heat doesn't get to me. It is the constant whining of my students and their parents that gets to me. People are the biggest chili-wusses (insult from the Simpsons) about the A/C sometimes. What did we do before them? I guess we just got sweaty and dealt with the smell. Hopefully I don't have too many smelly kids.

Hump Day...its not just for breakfast anymore

Good things:
1. Soccer tonight US Open Cup Championship
2. I may get a good-sized classroom budget this year.
3. It looks like what my school calls "unassigned days" really means a day off. These are Tuesday Oct.4 and Thursday Oct. 13th. They are both Jewish holidays, but I'm not sure how those days are justified seeing that there are not too many Jews in the LAUSD boundaries (Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are separate districts). So, October 12 will be a Crown happy hour night for me.
4. I wore a soccer jersey to school today (see #1) and nobody seemed to mind. It was a little more comfortable than my standard shirt-and-tie.

Bad things:
1. I am tired and it isn't going to get any better (see #1 in above list).
2. I may not get that funding, but I'll soon find out.
3. I can't seem to get ready for work in less than 75 minutes. I don't wear make-up, I don't read the newspaper or watch TV news, and I usually just scrape some eggs into my mouth as I walk out the door. What gives! Amanda will blame it on my being easily distracted by shiny objects, but I'm not sure how that happens. Melanie and Amanda get up, have coffee, watch Channel 5 News, eat, and do all the other stuff in less time. I think I'll blame it on #4.
4. I don't get hot water in my apartment before 6am. Well, that's not entirely true. I have to leave the shower running for 15+ minutes to get somewhat hot water. I've asked for it to be fixed, but they always come at noon when I have hot water. This makes my showers suck and causes my shave to not be so close.

So I guess that's an even draw between the good and the bad. No complaints here.

I'm the bad guy

Did you ever have a teacher call home and tell your parents that you were causing trouble in class? I'm not sure that I ever did, but it was a possibility. One teacher called my parents to tell them that my brother was the devil. He made a strong case that she was just crazy, which she was. Years later he admitted to intentionally harassing her.

Anyways, today I became that teacher for the first time in a while. In the past I rarely had to do this since the kids began to control themselves when I asked, but today I had an exception. The boy just kept deciding to make immature jokes in the back (what a surprise - an immature 9th grade boy). I told him that I would be calling home and that he should warn his parents. Well, I got a hold of his mom on her way to pick him up from school so hopefully he has a surprise waiting for him. The good thing is that you can often only make a few phone calls in one night and that will take care of the whole class since they see that you are not bluffing. The bad thing is that I have to waste time doing it and I have to use my limited Spanish skills sometimes (luckily not this time).

In any case, this one call will hopefully make a difference to my crazy 6th period 9th grade class. However, I still hate the feeling the next day when the kid is all pissed off at you, even though he deserved it. On the other hand, I also have this feeling of redemption that he got a good earful in return for disrupting my class.

If you haven't been to despair.com you should check it out. This is just an example of the "demotivators" that they have there. Awesome stuff.

never rock the mic with the pantyhose

There was a little Beastie Boys on the squawkbox just now so that got to be my title.

So what has been going on in my life lately? Well, nothing exciting. Not really. My job is always exciting. Let me share some of the unique names of some of my new students:

Shanequa
Juvenal
La (who goes by Laquish, but she's Asian)
Maritza
Trendell
Nestor (one of my all-time favorite Mexican names - next to Nacho)
Diovanni
Yanet (which is funny to me since that is how a Spanish-speaker would pronounce Janet if they were trying to speak English)
Cayetano
Talina
Eder
various names ending in -berto (Rigoberto, Gilberto, Humberto, Adalberto, Eriberto)

I'm not making fun of them in any way, but it is interesting to me since I came from a school where I had 4 students named Chris in one class and a countless number of Michelles and Debbies, etc. Now I always have around 10 Jose's, 19 Juan's, and a million students with last names like Martinez, and Gonzalez.

Other fun school stories. I had a former student bring me a postcard that she tried to send me from her vacation in Mexico, but realized she didn't have the school's address. Its always nice getting former students saying hi, but this was one of my favorites and it made me feel like I did good last year.

Also, a student that is in my class for another year shared how much their lives sucked last year after they were bad for a sub. So, its also nice to be feared a bit. This is good because I have to be in an all-day meeting during school tomorrow to help design a Smaller Learning Community. (Basically, SLCs are a school-within-a-school where every kid in the SLC have their classes together) I am working on the 9th Grade "Creativity House" although I am switching to the "Technology House" next semester and will hopefully not be teaching 9th graders next year at all. In any case, I hate being out of class unless its for something useful like soccer games or recovering from Oktoberfest at the Crown, which I guess won't be an issue this year.

What else? Oh, I dodged having to participate in a school fundraiser for Katrina tonight. You may think I'm a dick for doing it, but wait. The fundraiser was a staff vs. celebrities basketball game hosted by Power 106 (where hip-hop lives). So I thought that the idea of playing "celebrities" (aka Power 106 DJs) in basketball, which I haven't played in years, in front of my students, would suck. I guess I'll never find out. Oh well. Don't get me wrong, if Snoop was going to be there, I'm lacing up and heading out, but not for the midnight-4am backup DJ.

One last thing. I am going into soccer overload this next few weeks. I have Galaxy games Sunday, Wednesday, and again Saturday. I haven't been for maybe 5 weeks, so I am getting withdrawal from not having $7.75 Bud Lights. I can just taste it now.

One more last thing. I got a new toy in my classroom. Its a device that senses what I write on the white dry erase board in my class and sends it to my computer. I love it. My kids used it today in their lesson about Plato and Aristotle. They love it too. I guess it cost $4000. So I guess I better not lose it or break it or use it to scratch my butt.

Now that is really it.

Camping Pictures

Is happy hour over? I guess its never really over.

Oh my god, the sun is crashing into the ocean!! Oh wait, its just sunset.

The Gang (except me - I'm behind the camera)













Did Dave pass out at campfire? You be the judge!

































I'm sorry Emily, but this is a funny picture.

Anyways, any participants that would like a print let me know. There are other pics as well, like of Pete & Lauri sitting in chairs, Lauri reading to Anthony, Tim/Bill/Tom, Jess & Tom, etc. I'd be glad to print up a copy for whoever or even send you the file.

Camping

So I went camping this weekend with a crapload of friends and a few "others" that will not be mentioned, seeing that in the day that I was there I never actually met them. In any case, camping always brings back some of the more pleasant memories of my childhood. My family spent what seemed like 2 months (which was actually 5 days or so) in various campgrounds throughout the state: Carpinteria, Big Basin Red Woods, Atescadero, Morro Bay, and most often El Capitan. My mom made us these tote bags that she filled with travel games. When we went to these places we would get a patch and she would sew them onto the bag. By the time we stopped using them, there must have been 15-20 patches on there. Maybe my favorite camping memory was the time that I got a big bump on my head from colliding with my brother. It is funny to me now because he got a fat lip since he was taller.

Camping really has changed so much. As a kid, I generally spent the day trying to get dirty. We looked for dirt clods to throw, found some paths to venture, created some paths, got poison oak from one of the paths that we created, found a low bridge to jump off of into the sand, skipped rocks, played wiffle ball, threw a frisbee, dug holes to China, went to the beach, and generally looked to cause trouble. Then there was the camp food. Burritos, spaghetti, BBQ, pancake breakfasts, an entire hog's worth of bacon, sausage, not so cold milk, and "orange juice," which was most often Sunny Delight. Ice was a commodity since it was supposed to keep the food cold. At least once a day we wandered to the camp store for a popsicle. We drank gallons of kool-aid (no soda) and laughed when the purple kool-aid turned our poop green. Night-time brought more food, board games by the light of a propane lantern, and trying to light shit on fire without my parents noticing. We did s'mores sometimes, but that wasn't a big hit in my family of non-chocolate eaters. Well, I think my mom ate the chocolate by itself.

Things are different now as a grown-up. This last weekend I spent most of my free time reading Harry Potter. I didn't throw any dirt and tried to avoid getting too much on myself. I went to the beach, but didn't go in the water (I'm a little self-conscious) and only managed to skip a few rocks. I understood the value of showering after going to the beach, which I did not when I was a kid. The food was the same. It always amazes me that what you can put together on a Coleman stove without a sink can be so good. This trip involved a McDonald's #2 for breakfast (sausage mcmuffin), storebought sandwich lunch, and a giant burrito that exploded in my hands as I tried to eat it. The gallons of Kool-Aid was exchanged for cases of Bud Light, and even a little Seagram's 7 and jug wine around the campfire. Last summer Amanda and I ventured to the liquor store for ice cream, so that tradition stayed. I even checked my e-mail and a few soccer scores on my cell phone, although I was disappointed in myself for doing it.

Although some things seem so different I guess the important stuff stays the same. Its time away from the working world. No TVs, DVDs, internet (except my cell phone - sorry), Playstations, or any of those things that we tend to distract ourselves with. I get to sit around the fire, have a few drinks, and rely on just the people that I am with for entertainment, whether its stories about the Disco Van, arguments over shitting in an RV, or coming up with favorite movie quotes. I can wake up in the morning and read next to the smoldering remains of that same fire as other people venture out of their tents, suffering from the lingering effects of Carlo Rossi. And no matter how much fun you have, its always nice to sleep in your bed again. So I guess in the end, although the parts have changed, camping is still one of the highlights of my year.

Next year will bring a whole new experience. Camping will likely take place within a week or two of returning from my honeymoon (it sounds weird even as I type it), but I can't imagine not making the trip. Hopefully, scheduling will allow me to make a longer stay and to make that stay with my wife. I won't assume to speak for Amanda, but I'm pretty sure camping will be part of our family tradition. I actually get excited about the prospects of bringing my kids camping one day.

(Oh, and I will post some pictures from this year's camping excursion as soon as I get motivated enough to hook up my new digital camera.)

I Love Kanye West

If you are thinking "yeah, I really need to here more about Kanye West talking shit about Bush" don't worry. I'm not going to give my opinion about anything he said, but I think you should really see it for yourself. Here is a link. I almost fell out of my chair. The last comment he made was edited out of the West Coast feed.

In other news, I went back to school today. I have a class of 46 and a class of 47. Seeing that I only have 37 desks, this was a bit of a challenge. Hopefully they find some more desks for me or there will be some uncomfortable kids this year.

I haven't decided which I hate more: doing laundry or cleaning the bathroom. I'm leaning towards laundry since there is a direct negative effect if I put that off. If my bathroom doesn't get some attention I write it off with the idea that the place where I shit doesn't need to be that clean. Amanda would argue otherwise, and I recognize those arguments. However, I will not be doing either of these activities this evening.

Which do you think is more useful in the kitchen: chicken breasts or ground beef. Although I am a big fan of beef, there is something wrong about eating ground beef by itself, but you can eat a plain chicken breast. On the other hand, ground beef mixes so well with mac n' cheese. Still, chicken is good with rice-a-roni and with just about any type of pasta. However, steak clearly kicks chicken's ass.

Soccer Saturday

I know everyone wants a recap of yesterday's US v. Mexico World Cup Qualifier, so here it is. Mexico came out playing for the tie, knowing that this would get them automatically into WC2006. They also came out playing dirty, really trying to hurt DeMarcus Beasley fresh from his return from injury. After a scoreless first half, the US came out with more intent to score than ElTri and notched their first in the 55th after Oguchi Onyewu re-directed Eddie Lewis's cross off the post and Steve Ralston tapped in the rebound. Just 6 minutes later Beasley found the back of the net after playing a short corner to Landon Donovan who dropped it back to Claudio Reyna who then one-touched it back to Beasley who ripped it past the keeper. At that point, Mexico lost all hope and collapsed. My man of the match vote goes to Onyewu who basically made Mexico's all-time leading scorer Jared Borgetti his bitch.

Now that I have that off my chest I want to say a few other things.

First, if you decide to donate to a charity I would go through this site that KROQ is talking about - www.networkforgood.com. It has many charities listed and gives you information about how they spend their money. Look at how much the Red Cross spends on its programs. Billions. I donated to America's Second Harvest which basically provides food and survival kits. I also gave a smaller donation to "Noah's Wish" which helps animals that are victims of natural disasters. Being a somewhat emotional geek I made the donation in the memory of my brother's old dog, Mark, who was the greatest dog ever. When all of Southern California was on fire a few years back I spent time at the local evacuation center building a cages to hold refugee animals. My friend Andrew and I devised a system using pieces of fence that were donated to create a giant compound of connected cages that ended up housing around 100 dogs. We called it the MyAss Animal Evacuation Center, there is a long story of where the MyAss name comes from, but we'll avoid that subject for now. In any case, it felt good to do it and made my sister-in-law's life easier since she was the person running the center.

Second. I start back to school on Tuesday. I'm conflicted with feelings of excitement to be back in the swing of things, but at the same time feelings of annoyance that I have to wake up early again and don't get to watch Jerry Springer anymore.

Third. If you haven't read any of the Harry Potter books you really should. I swore that I wouldn't do it, but I am now on book #3 (Prisoner of Azkaban) and they are cool. Plus, they are kids books so you can really put a whole book away in like a week or 2. However, I am not going to become a Harry Potter nerd.

Finally. I put this in a comment on her blog, but I want to also say that my wonderful fiance took the GRE yesterday and did good. They tell you your score when you are done since you take it on a computer. Amanda is really smart, but won't admit it, so I will tell you that she is really smart (and pretty cute).

I'm still here

First of all, waking up in the morning sucks ass. I haven't had to wake up before 8:00 since the last week of July. Now its back to 5:15 wake-ups again.

Second, I still think that the heat sucks, but it is getting better.

Finally, I want to say something about this whole hurricane thing. Did it suck? I would say yes based on what I have seen on TV? Do I want to help? Sure, but I'm not going to lie. I'm not really going to do anything but feel bad and pray. Do I think that its fucked up to loot and shoot helicopters? You better believe it. They should all get buckwheats. (If you don't know what a buckwheat is, you either don't want to know or should watch "Things to do in Denver When You're Dead" and find out). I want to take a little more philosophical look at the situation.

Thomas Hobbes wrote in The Leviathan that when man existed in nature without laws life would be "nasty, brutish, and short." He felt that man must live under laws in order to preserve civilized society. I never really wanted to believe this. My feeling has always been that although I think Hobbes was essentially correct, that man naturally has a tendency towards law and order. Although we all want to protect our own well-being, it rarely comes at the direct expense of the well-being of others. Sure, when the rich get richer, the poor inevitably get poorer, but I'm looking at a grander scale.

Watching the "bad people" of New Orleans doing what they have done makes me wonder if Hobbes was more correct than I originally thought. This hurricane has made the rich and poor of that area more equal. Granted, most of the upper class probably have enough liquid assets and insurance to rebuild, so they will be OK, but what about the middle class. They are white-collar, business-owners, professionals, etc. that had nice homes and TVs and nice cars, but those are all gone. They will soon find out that their insurance was not as good as they thought and realize that they are pretty much screwed. Many of these people will be immediately thrust into a lower economic class. So will this turn them to rioting and looting? I don't think so. So what brings the people that are left to act the way they have? If I were in the same situation, I would have no problem breaking into a Wal-Mart for some water and food, maybe a tent. What makes someone decide that they need to make a plasma TV and a shotgun their priority? Is it because they now exist in Hobbes's nature outside the law? Why isn't everybody doing this? Were these same people criminals before the hurricane? I guess I even understand the guy that takes the TV - he may never have the ability to get it legally, but what makes somebody shoot at doctors and patients trying to evacuate the hospital? I've thought about it all day and I just can't think of a reason.

So maybe once you have lived in a "civilized society" and used opportunities to be successful you lose that part of you that is nasty and brutish. Maybe those who have been left behind in this land of opportunity are still "living in nature" as we continue to ignore them. I'm not trying to justify what these people are doing, but this same scenario did not happen with Hurricane Andrew, which hit a much more affluent area. The government had a lot of warning about this storm. These same busses that are now taking people to Houston could have done the same thing before the storm. Some chose to stay, some had to stay, but others had no way to get out, and now we are left to deal with it. Today Bush went to Congress to ask for $10 billion to aid recovery. There are currently 2400 National Guardsmen in New Orleans and there are more going every day. We have spent 20 times this amount in Iraq and have sent 100x more troops. Where are our priorities? Those who really were innocent victims of this tragic event deserve to have at least the same, if not better, protection than people living in another country are getting from our own troops.

I believe that is more than enough to qualify as a rant, so I will leave it at that.