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.