But before I start, could someone tell me why 20 e-mails a day from the Canadian Pharmacy are getting through my spam filter? Seriously...even if I did order viagra from Canada, I sure as hell wouldn't need that much.
*Monday: School started back up and it was my day to take kids out into the field. We went to the Maui Community College Earth Day Fandango (or whatever it was called). We got there 30 minutes after it was supposed to have started and still couldn't really figure out what they were doing...no fandango. Eventually they got around to doing some stuff, but if we weren't there, there would have only been 2 people on the horticulture tour - instead of the 27. A few more people showed up for the talk about biodisel, but if we weren't there it still would have been less than 10. One of the people there was a dude named Maury...hold onto Maury...he comes in at the end.
Later that day I get a call from the YMCA...you know...where you can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, you can do whatever you feel. Anyway, I had the shortest job interview in history with them the week before (9 minutes...and 3 of those minutes were waiting and walking to the office). I'm told they want to hire me for the part-time gig. I should come in on Thursday to fill out paperwork. Cool. I'm not going to be drowning in money, but I should be able to be relatively out of debt by the time I get off this rock...though I'm going to be back to working 7 days a week. Good thing the economy is OK.
*Tuesday: I'm supposed to take the other half of our kids to the Earth Day fandango...see the previous post about how that was canceled and we ended up writing haiku's at the dump.
It was also tax day! hooray... Now here's the deal with this....I'm sure you remember the post about my taxes...I owe $1400 federal...then there was my dentist bill for a cleaning...$200, which I didn't count on. So the dentist's money came from the $300 that was left in my account that I knew the war mongers were going to take out of my account on the 15th. So, I figured Uncle Sam would go to my account and just take whatever was left. Nope. The gub'ment wants their fucking money. So instead of it "bouncing" or whatever happens when you pay for something online and it's not there, the government somehow got my credit union to give them their stinking money and put my checking account 300 bucks in the hole. Niiice. So the moral to this story is, kids...don't fuck with the government.
This pretty much was the last straw in terms of my stress...it's just gotten so ridiculous that I don't care any more. Everyone's going to get their money, I just don't care when and if it pisses them off.
*Wednesday: This turned into an "old school" day. I thought I had given up shit like this, but... We actually didn't have school as there's...uh...kind of like a big charrette for the charter school. I was supposed to go, but instead I played hookey and went for the last day of the ED fandango (earth day, not erectile dysfunction). Why go? At noon the speaker was Bill McKibben, whose stuff I've read and really dig (go read Deep Economy and see the light), then at 2 was Bill Schultz, former Executive Director of Amnesty International. That was followed by some chick I never hear of but whose topic I thought would be cool for the kids' projects for the quarter.
But first...I had to stop at this medical supply shop for "the boot". Yep. I decided to go through with the boot. For those who haven't been paying attention, I'm supposed to wear this boot for 30 days as my achilles is ready to blow. It turned into this bureaucratic conversation between the doctor, the insurance company and the medical supply folks. So no boot today.
OK...McKibben was really good, Schultz was good. Then I had an hour and a half with nothing to do...you would think they would have planned something but no. So I'm wandering around this strangely barren campus (they're not on break, but there weren't a lot of people there) and thought I'd get something to drink. So I went into the building with the cafeteria and everything was closed (!) but there was some talk going on...I assumed it was for Earth Day so I thought I'd join in. Then I saw two teachers from the Charter school who were supposed to be at the charrette (?). I sat down and soon realized this had nothing to do with Earth Day. This big sweaty guy was doing some presentation on technology in education and his presentation was scary...showing off all these simulations that the military uses to find better ways to kill people and flashing the word "cyborg" like it's enlightenment. I got the point about how even "blue collar" jobs are technical now, but this guy didn't seem to grasp the concept of community and how we have become separated by our technology (as I blog from 6000 miles away). Hang on to big, sweaty cyborg guy...we'll get back to him.
So finally I went to see the last speaker and I'm starting to fade. I haven't been sleeping and this day's getting exhausting. This chick was supposed to be talking about fun ways to green your life for under $50. I was there for over an hour and she STILL hadn't gotten to the topic and I was starting to get pissed. I waited for literally hours for this talk and she was horrible and off the point.
Now, while I was waiting for this waste of time that I'd never get back, I talked to Summer. Her partner had an accident while body surfing. He was at the ER and his face was pretty busted up. So she wasn't going to the Maui Unite meeting that we had planned on. (Maui Unite is a new grassroots group that seems pretty cool) Enter campaign manager...fine...so I went to the Maui Unite meeting. This month, the guest was Mayor Tavaras (not related to the 70's funk group - I know, I'm bummed about that, too). At all of these things was my boy Maury (remember, Maury comes back in at the end)
I get home around 9pm...eat and sleep.
Thursday: School. Show An Inconvenient Truth, blah, blah, blah. School is done and I have to leave right off the bat...I have to go get The Boot, then to the Y to do paperwork for the job. I get The Boot, but decide to wait until later to deal with it so I can get to the Y. Turns out I wasn't there to just to do paperwork...I had to work! I'm just at the front desk so I had to just learn where everything was, procedures, etc. But I wasn't really counting on doing an actual shift - I was still in school stuff, hadn't eaten, brought nothing to do when it gets slow.
The gig seems fine. No restraints...that's for sure. And I get a free membership while I work there, so I can work out - when The Boot's gone. But it's in Kahului which is 20-30 minutes away, but it's cool. The people seem friendly...not really my speed, but it works.
Friday: More school. Parents are a trip. For next week, I set up a field outing at the island's cable access station. All the kids are going to be trained in TV production. I STILL had parents bitching...and it was FREE! Gluesniffers.
Our lead teacher, Dan, asks me if I'm interested in going to talk with big sweaty guy! Seems that he's actually on the island for us (among others)! I found out that Big Sweaty Guy came to our school on Thursday, stayed 15 minutes and talked about himself the whole time. It was something out of Dilbert. Nice consulting. I don't know where I was when this went down. Then, Dan and others had dinner with the guy, where he proceeded to get drunk and more obnoxious (and I'm guessing more sweaty). But dig this...
Last week, some weird dude with connections to the charter school asked me to write a grant proposal to get money to do something with the kids on land development. Seriously...this guy doesn't know who he's playing with...talk about indoctinating the kids! So I actually worked up a good idea, but there's nothing I'd need to spend money on...it's just a good lesson. Enter, Big Sweaty Guy. His creepy, simulation software may be something we can use to show capitalist suckwads what their development plans would do to the land, people, etc. Hello, BSG! Hello, grant! Goodbye, developers.
Today was also my first day with The Boot. Not too bad. Driving's a bitch...basically, my right leg is in the passenger seat and I'm doing the pedals with my left. They won't let me drive the vans for school like this, so someone else is going to have to drive for school. Here's The Boot:
In the afternoon, I had sign class with the little ones. I don't understand this, but for some reason the game of Go Fish is magical. I have used it with jaded, inner-city high schoolers and 5-year-old, goofy homeschoolers and they all love it. Of course it's Go Fish in sign language, but it still boggles the mind.
So I finish with sign class, which is done at the high school. I went back over to my school to get some work done as I have to be at the Y and have campaign events to go to this weekend. I checked my e-mail quick and found...well, first...
There's a bit of a problem here. Just like every other state, The Man in Hawaii hates charter schools. I'll give my two cents on this another time, but in their latest budget they increased the money charter schools get, but increased the amount of charter schools in disproportion so that in reality we're getting less per student...and it's by a lot. So there's a letter writing campaign going on to the state senate about this.
So, in my e-mail was a note from Maury (I told you he'd be back). I was blind copied on it. It was a note he sent to everyone at the state government level...governor, senators & legislators. This is the entire e-mail verbatim:
I have become acquainted with one Dave Atias, an amazing teacher at the Kihei Charter School. I have seen him bring his students to listen to & participate in testimony in front of the Maui County Council. I have seen him fill rows of seats with his students this very week at the Maui Community College Sustainability Summit. I have seen Dave bring students to testify at least one evening event in Kihei (I believe they testified against Wailea 670 & good for them). I have been at participatory events held at the school involving the students. I have found them to be engaged in learning & interested in the process. I’m not sure I ever had a teacher quite like Dave, though I had some good ones. I am impressed with what this school does & what it is about. there should be more schools like this. Please make sure funding is available to continue this type of education.
BTW, I attend many events of political, educational & cultural events during weekdays on Maui & I’m not sure I can remember ever seeing another teacher with a load of students there. I wonder how come?
Maury King
Wow. Seriously...I'm printing this and putting it in my teaching portfolio. I got run out of schools in Rochester for doing stuff half as crazy as I'm doing here. I haven't even e-mailed Maury back, because I'm freakin speechless.
2 comments:
i TOLD you that you were awesome!!
Well, I usually have to get things confirmed by my boy, Maury, before I can start to accept such ideas.
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