An Answer to The Question

The next time anyone asks me why the heck I would move from Hawaii back to Rochester...this is what I've done the two days I've been back.

• I had rice. Not that white sticky stuff you get with breakfast, lunch & dinner in Hawaii. I had rice. With beans.


• I hung out with the Rodriguez family. And had Canadian beer that wasn't Moosehead.


• I...uh...did other things.


• Green Tea at Java's


• Signed up at my old gym and worked out. With more than enough space to do my routine.


• Spent $10 bucks at the Public Market. Left with 2 bunches of asparagus, poblano peppers, parsnips and a red hot with everything. In Hawaii, that would have cost maybe $30.


• A nap. Woo Hoo!


• Tomorrow, I'm going to the batting cages.

Yes, all that is minor, but it adds up.

Nothing Left But The Wait

Most of you are probably in bed right now. I'm watching the sun go down from my window, just waiting for tomorrow. There's not much else to do, the only place there is to sit is the toilet. I spent the day running errands, giving up the car, cleaning, etc.

I put an ad on Craigslist and got someone to take what little "big" stuff I had, and the rest of the small stuff went to the March of Dimes garage sale.

It's been a long, strange week. I'm ready to get it over with.

"Everything old is new again."

Silent...Whoa!!!

OK, I will admit that this could have happened in any town in the USA. But it didn't. It' happened here...on this god forsaken rock...coincidence? I'm saying no.

I was in line at the post office to drop off my change of address card. As one would figure, it's just before Christmas so it's pretty busy in there. I heard what I thought was the radio playing Silent Night. A nice version...laid back, a really good female voice with guitar. Turns out, we're getting a live show...at the front of the line, someone and her son set up their stuff and she was performing Christmas Carols while the kid held onto the sheet music.

Uh, OK...a little different, but whatever. And her voice is really good. So she finishes the song and I'm getting closer and closer to her in line...

sle-eep in heaven-ly peeeeeeace.....

Then BLAMMO! She turns into Rusty Warren, making boob jokes and embarrassing her kid...at the post office!!! She's talking with people in line and I'm seeing that very soon it's going to be my turn.

Oh, please start playing another song, please, please, please, please. Nope. She's got her schtick and she ain't getting off it. Everyone in line is looking at each other nervously, not knowing what to do.

Well, I knew what to do. I got out of line and left...dropped my card in the "express mail" box outside.

This place is just plain old weird.

Update

Things have been a bit on the crazy side so I haven't had a chance to let folks know what's happening.

Yesterday was the last day of school. It was pretty emotional, as expected, but I held up OK. Then the kids left and I started to wade through the cards, candy and other x-mas stuff that they brought. I almost lost it there. A few of my girls made a movie for me...I haven't been able to watch it yet.

There's a new blog! Yes, now I only juggle...uh 5 of them, I think. The blog that I have to keep in touch with the kids is called Schmoeology. Whenever we needed a fictional person, Joe Schmoe was always our go-to guy. So Schmoeology it is.

So now I'm unemployed. I'll follow up with the Special Ed gig at Hillside when I get home. I talked to Michael today. He knows a guy who wants my resume for some new "thingy" dealing with autistic kids, but that's a further downt the road thing. I started getting meeting notes from the new Metro School Planning Committee - Bill Cala's thing. But I did notice someone else on the list of people involved who I'm just not in the mood to deal with right now, so I don't know if I'll be diving into that shallow end.

I've gotten rid of just about all my CD's...of the...hmmmm...I guess it was about 800, 200 went home, 300 went to the radio station and 300 were sold to a local music store. Not bad. I digitized all the stuff I got rid of so I have them all on mp3.

Tomorrow, Jill & I tape the last Maui version of the podcast. I have one person already on board to come on in Rochester. And I'm working on a revamped website, but it's requiring skills that I don't quite have yet. I think that's a project I'll be tackling next week.

Tuesday, I take the car to the bank for reposession. It will be at that moment that I become the first person in the history of modern finance to have a negative credit rating. So if you know of anyone in Rochester with a decent enough hooptie for sale, give me a holler.

I guess that's about it. I'm just getting rid of my crap, trying not to live on candy and Jamba Juice for the next 4 days and getting ready to leave this Third World Rock.

Oh, and thanks a lot, Chris. Luke found me on The Facebook, too.

Damn

I got this e-mail tonight.

Mr. Atias,
This is sort of a goodbye letter and also a thank you letter.

I wanted to say that you are a wonderful teacher and that I am still very sad and upset that you are leaving us! You have helped me through so many of my issues ( social, emotional, and school) throughout the past year and a half and I have learned so much from you. I have been so lucky to have had you for my advisor. You always know exactly what to write in my journal, even when I am being super negative, you still could always dig up something uplifting and positive to write.

You understood my ADHD problems, and you made my learning environment easier for me.

I loved all of your projects and lessons. I thought that the Amnesty International letters that we wrote were awesome and I wish that we could continue to write more. You taught us so much about the different Cultures and places in the world.

One of the hardest parts of you leaving, is probably the whole advisory situation. I loved our advisory and all of the things that we did, such as passing the ball, and the monster walk, and also, i loved the journaling. I know that our advisory was much different than most of the other advisories, though, it was exactly the type of advisory that i need. I need the advisory where i can trust all of my fellow students, and where we can all feel like a big family. Not the other type, where we just play games like a regular PE class. It is going to be very difficult for me to have our advisory split up. Advisory was a place where I could go each morning and start my day with a great group of people, whom which i feel very safe and comfortable with, and just express my feelings. Most of the time, Advisory was the best part of the day for me.

Soooo, Thank you again Mr Atias for being so wonderful. I have a couple questions and also some suggestions that i wanted you to see...

1. I was wondering if you could still keep in touch, and i was wondering since the journal thing worked so well for me, if i could kinda do a "online/email Journal" Where i could email you my journal entry when i was having a problem, or i just wanted to tell you something exciting, and you could just maybe reply your response to my entry.

2. I hate that our advisory is going to be spilt up, so i was wondering if i could give you a list of a couple people that i really enjoy being in advisory with and you could maybe help but one or two of them with me?

3. as you know, i love our advisory group now, so i was wondering if maybe like once a month or somthing if we could maybe have "Mr. Atias' Advisory" Get together during advisory and we could all have an advisory session like the ones we have right now.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for being such a wonderful teacher and advisor. YOU ROCK MY GREEN STRIPED SOX MR ATIAS!!!

I Feel So...Used

Today, in class, one of my girls came up to me...a little embarrassed and asked if was true that I said it was OK for her boyfriend (also in my class) to kiss her.

Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that???

Come on, baby...you know it's OK. Mr. Atias said you could give me a little sugar. You know how much you like Mr. A, so if he said it's cool...

I love middle school kids...sometimes.

So I took the boy aside and while I didn't yell at the kid for using my name to try to get a little, I did make sure he wasn't doing it in school...then I told him that he got busted. I figure, the natural consequences from the wife will be worse than anything I come up with.

Now I just gotta find someone to try that line on...

Damn You, Novak!

OK, it's no Valerie Plame, but I got outted...again!

I posted a Status Update on my page that said something like, "Dave is being Facestalked by his students." Which is true.

One of my co-workers posted a comment, but then took it off...but the notice was already sent to my e-mail. It said:

"we do know the real you white-e - your coworker, rachelle"

How the???

So I'm trying to retrace this...there is no whitee.com (connected to me anyway). Even the story Heather did during the school board campaign doesn't show up on Google anymore. Maybe if someone was listening to the podcast...but the person would have had to have listened to only a specific few of them. Oh well...can't put that toothpaste back in the tube...boyeeeee!

School Update

It's been an interesting week. Took kids out to South Maui - Makena State Park - talked to the Rangers about environmental issues there. We used it as practice with digital media so the kids took a ton of pictures & video. All the video sucks, but there's some cool pictures. I'll share them over the weekend.

Tuesday, a van load of us went to the County Council again to speak about the ridiculous Makena development. This time we left for the meeting before school even started. Two of my kids spoke...they did well.

The Man was handing out these buttons that said Makena Yes, so one of my kids accepted one and did this to it.



A 6th grader after my own heart. She didn't show it to me until we got back to school.

I spoke as well, as usual, no one on the council listened to a word I said. But it was broadcast over the cable access network and someone sent me a positive e-mail about it. Those cats on the CC have about as much vision as...oh...I don't know...Rochester politicians, I guess. What can you do?

Oh...and to make it a complete day, I got a parking ticket for the school van. Pretty tough not to get one when they only hold the meetings during the day and it's all 2 hour parking...and the meetings are still well attended so you can't get out of there in under 3. Mark thought it was funny.

School's getting "funny". They just keep going further and further down that traditional path. In some cases by necessity - because of the macro-planning mistakes they keep making. In some cases they've just hired people who don't know how to let kids make decisions for themselves...then wonder why they act so immature.

The kids have just been a trip since I've told them I'm leaving. Good Lord, Nikki virtually stalking me. Another kid said she found my Facebook page. Oh well. I don't put too much weird stuff on there...do I? Now if she found the Stuart Bedasso MySpace page...that'd be a different issue.

I created the blog that I'm going to use to stay in touch with the kids. I took suggestions on what it should be called, but they didn't come up with anything that good. So it's called Schmoeology. Joe Schmoe is a recurring character in our class so I figured it works.

The school's board president told me that if I needed a reference to use him or if I wanted to come back to just let him know and he'd "make it happen." I'm not quite sure what he meant, but I was worried that there might be a white-slavery element to the offer, so I just thanked him and moved on.

On other teaching fronts:

*More Facebook strangeness: A handful of students I student taught found me on the FB. I've actually been having some interesting conversations with one. This internet thing may just stick around.

*Another student, this one from RSD, sent me an e-mail that was a link to some adware kinda application to put on your computer. I didn't open the link, but the contact came out of the blue, right when I'm having contact with students from the past. Strange.

*I just can't seem to keep my mouth shut. A couple of you guys sent me links to newspaper articles about the Metro school in Rochester that Bill Cala is working on through Nazareth College. The write-ups seem to suggest that the school would teach in the way the Charter School here is supposed to, so I just sent him an e-mail to let him know that I'm coming back to Rochester and that if he wanted to pick my brain about the day-to-day stuff to feel free...yeah...now I'm on the planning team e-mail list. Christ, I'm not even back yet!

I think that's about it for now. It's late and I'm going to bed. Rainy season has started...which I'm digging, actually. I love falling asleep to rain so I may actually sleep well tonight.

My Dream Job!!!

I knew if I was patient it would finally come along! From Craigslist:

House Board is seeking a House Director at a Syracuse University sorority.

Applicant must live in chapter house, possess strong social & managerial skills, supervise the staff including kitchen, maintenance & cleaning staff. Excellent salary and many benefits. Please mail or email a complete resume with background experience & current availability to daley.mary@gmail.com; 247 South Manning Blvd, Albany, NY 12208.

I may have to adjust my resume.

The End Of An Era

What a strange occurance today...

I've been trying to get my haircut for over a week now, but a lot of things have been preventing it. (No, not that I don't have hair to cut) I finally got there before work today.




My guy, Ed, was there, we started talking and he asked if I had anyone coming to the island for the holiday. I told him that I was actually going home and not coming back. He asked why and said that I haven't been here that long.

[Tangent Alert] I feel kinda bad for this, but if this were a blog for kids I would say something like, "sometimes adults lie to spare others' feelings." That's what I've been doing. I found a good "explanation" for why I'm leaving that no one can really argue with. Most of you don't know that my Step-Father, George, has been in and out of the hospital over the last 6 months or so. He just had his last stint a couple of weeks ago. So, when I say this to people, I don't actually say that's the reason I'm leaving, but I have to admit that I am implying that...I would be going back to Rochester anyway.

But I get into these awkward conversations with people. Maui just isn't for me - and when you try to tell people this, they look at you like you're crazy. Then you go through the reasons why, just the obvious ones, the money, etc and they begrudgingly agree, but then try to argue back with the beach and surfing and all the stuff I couldn't care less about and it's just never enough...as if my dismissal of Maui is a dismissal of them. And I don't even get into the stuff that actually does imply such things. So I've been telling folks that I'm leaving because I can't afford it (true) and because my Step-Father has been ill (true, but irrelevant to me leaving).

So that's what I told Ed today and he was fine with that. Then he told me HIS news. The owner of the buidling told him that he's renevating the buiding before it gets condemmed and that Ed has 30 days to leave. When is the 30 days up? Today! The guy's a million and six years old. This is probably the last day of his business. He basically had a "eh, whatever" attitude about it, but it was still sad.

Then, he thanked me for coming to his shop since I've been here and noted how he pretty much only gets locals and that I'm the only redhead - that he really appreciated that. It was a genuinely touching moment and probably the only cool incident I've had being a redhead since I told some old women that I got my red hair from the milkman. I was three years old and had no idea what it meant.

He also started telling me about how most of his customers are regulars who are "retired". And one by one they just stop coming back, leaving that thought trail off...I knew what he meant.

So when I get back to Rochester, it'll be back to Tony and all my gumbas back at OK Barber Stylists. My haircuts will be more even and the conversation will be more fast-paced and east-coast-like. But it won't be the same.

The Story of My Life

Don't you hate it when someone else crystalizes your life...in cartoon form.

Honu Heroes

Today was a really strange day...so strange, I can't quite come up with a title to it yet. Let's see how that works out...

Today I had to take kids out to do some turtlespotting. It's an ongoing activity we do where we take kids to specific places to observe sea turtles, take data on them, pictures and now video. We report stuff to the Pacific Whale Foundation who are trying to help them.

Sea Turtles are in danger because of all the messed up stuff we do to the oceans. The main issue is something called fibropapilloma. The turtles get these tumors that eventually kills them. And the tumors appear on the outside as well, all over their heads, tails, etc.

We've identified turtles, named them and charted when/if they get fibropapilloma. There's also a...uh...kind of an afterschool club called Honu Heroes...Honu is Hawaiian for turtle. You may find this hard to believe, but I'm actually not involved with them. But the kids have been giving presentations all over the island and even a couple on other islands.

Anyway, the first group I took were the veterans...the 8th graders. It was a long morning, but it was OK. There was a couple of spottings, but nothing huge. Honestly, it was more of a bonding moment - a lot of the kids, especially the girls, were taking more pictures of me than turtles...for posterity. I knew Kaitlen was going to be one of the kids who was going to have a tough time with me leaving and she spent most of the morning and lunch time messing with me. Viera's been distancing herself, which is going to continue until just before I go and Kristen is still trying to get me to start a MySpace page...they obviously don't know about Stu. The really surprising thing is our Aspergers kid has been showing emotion about me leaving...Jeez, now I'm healing the sick.

The afternoon was with the 6th graders. They were a pain in the ass. I had to pull the van over on the way because they were acting like such idiots...I almost turned this island around! I didn't realize that they hadn't done Turtles yet. So when they got there, they really had no clue what to expect. Once the turtles started showing up, that was the show. Twenty kids on this lava finger, literally clapping to get the turtles to come out of the cave. It was really cute. Then the turtles showed up and every one except one had fibro tumors around the eyes, mouth, etc. They had heard about it, but hadn't seen it until now. But they were still kids and were dealing with it pretty well.

After an hour it was time to go. I was the last to leave the area, just to make sure we had left no child behind (intended pun). I saw all the kids not going toward the van, but down the beach...what the hell? Off the lava finger (a naturally made pier out of lava rock from an eruption a long time ago) and on the beach a turtle had washed up on the shore...still alive but covered in tumors and dying. I've never seen anything like this before. The kids surrounded the turtle and realized that we needed pictures of this. To anyone showing up then it looked like the kids had no clue as to what was going on, but they knew that the pictures were going to help get this cause more publicity. We actually had to stop them from taking pictures.

When we got back to school, a bunch of kids went right to the teacher who does Honu Heroes. She got on the phone to some group who deals with this stuff, to go get the turtle.

I have the kids' pictures of this turtle. I'm not going to post them here - they're pretty graphic. Typing this has made me start to process this. I may have one more thing to do before I leave.

I'm gonna need me some rehab

Ooooh. Facebook is an evil, evil thing. I'm "finding" people or they're finding me who I got no business having contact with. Not in an illegal or immoral way...or at least not illegal.

There's people I haven't seen since Albion Jr. High who I am now Facebook friends with. I was on the other day and thought I'd see if Ed had a page (Dude, you're on the list of subscribers to this blog, I have no idea if you read it). So looking through those with ties to Albion High School...not too many people I was familiar with...where's Keith Saturn when you need him?

But I did run into...uh...OK, how can I explain this one. I'd rather not give a name here, though I don't think it would matter if I did. But this world is getting smaller all the time. When I was back in Jr. High, this girl was like the "it" girl. Oooh. Here's a reference. The movie Sixteen Candles. (Yes, I appreciate that I've officially become a teenager girl with this reference) Me, being Farmer Ted and this other person being....uh...the hot chick he ends up with at the end of the movie. Only in the real world, the hot chick never really knows who Farmer Ted is. OK, I'll go look up the character's name - please hold..................

Caroline Mulford is the character's name.

OK, so I am now friends on Facebook with Caroline Mulford. And Mike Harding. Not as hot, but probably a better kisser. I'm just saying.

People from Franklin, Hillside, activism/politics...it's a big, weird stew. And on occasion it makes me uncomfortable.

Bombs Away!!!

Well, I told the kids at school today that I was leaving. It actually kinda fell into place. I wasn't supposed to be teaching at all today, today was going to be grading / catch-up day, but another teacher who was supposed to teach called in sick so I had to scramble for something to do. Part of my "lesson" was explaining to the kids that I was leaving. I actually ended up turning it into a half-hour, one-man-show. Three performances only.

So the kids got me to agree to start a blog to keep them up-to-date. So I'll probably be abandoning this one and starting a new one in a month...but I haven't decided the fate of Dave In Maui for sure yet. Either way, you'll still be able to get your Dave fix at the new one, it'll just be for a younger audience. That's right, no more dick jokes. Oh...I wasn't doing them before? I better get cracking then.

The one girl (who tried to set me up with her Grandmother) was actually pissed that I'm leaving. But by the end of the day I had her down to just annoyed. It's a start. I still have 3 weeks to get it to peeved.

I'm pretty sure as we get closer, it's going to get more uncomfortable, for me anyway, but it'll be pretty sappy and I'll try not to cry. Though I can just blame it on the vog.

As for my last 3 weeks of school...well, it looks like things aren't going to change much. I have the responsibility of planning next week's field outing - which I have - but it's already getting messed up. Semester report cards are due...I guess the last day of school, but no one's actually seen the report cards yet and they're supposed to be more like School Without Walls progress reports. I was actually pushing for that, but I guess I forgot to tell them that for teachers to give more anecdotal evidence of student learning you actually have to spend a significant amount of time with the students. And right now, none of the teachers do...or at least I don't. So I'll probably be doing progress reports on the plane, at the airport and in Rochester. I didn't tell the kids that this kinda stuff is the main reason I'm leaving.

I guess that's the deal for now. Hey! Where's MY transition team?