Last night, I was rejoicing about finally getting my Jesus is My Ese t-shirt and I thought it would be a good idea to send the creator - Keziah - a picture of me in it. Seems like a good thing to do. Well, if you read my post from yesterday, I didn't get home until late and I'm not going to knock on the neighbor's door at midnight asking them to take a picture of me.
So I've seen...Uh...I mean...heard about these women who take provocative pictures of themselves using their camera phones and a bathroom mirror. So I figured that's what I'd do.
I'm either old or retarded or old and retarded, but I couldn't quite seem to make it work. So I guess the conclusion we can draw here is that I'd make a lousy slut. While my parents may be proud, it means it's just one more thing I have to cross off my list of dreams:
1. Pitch in the show
2. Hold a teaching job for more than 2 years
3. Get Grandpa Munster elected to public office
4. Open a Wiffleball bar
5. Be a great slut
6. Be in an off-Broadway musical with Jeff from the TV Show Taxi
Damn. I only have one left.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
First Day of School
Yep. Today was the first day of school. I think we were first on the whole island. Today was the newbies. Mostly 6th graders who are just coming in with a sprinkling of 7th & 8th graders. They're a bit squirrelly (sic?). And while we had to go by the seat of our pants because the computers weren't working, we did OK. I had a pretty killer lesson in the afternoon. I didn't realize that some of the other teachers were paying attention and I got a few kudos after. Just like riding a bike. And during my lesson I did coin a new term: swirly death bomb. You had to be there. I swear it was academic. But the reference to vacuuming the cat...uh...not so academic.
Oh, and Mark greeted me with a gift today...a webcam! Tomorrow though...all the kids come back and the computers still aren't working. It's really going to be chaos.
After school I pretty much had to go straight to the Y. Then back to school to do seating charts, rule lists and my "killer" lesson that I have to improv because of the computers. So it's after midnight and after admiring my new "Jesus is My Ese" t-shirt, I'm having enough wine to make my jaw unclench, then I'm going to bed.
Tomorrow...chaos followed by a meeting with a playa in the community about Summer's campaign, followed by a workout and ending up with...probably going back to school.
And so it begins.
Oh, and Mark greeted me with a gift today...a webcam! Tomorrow though...all the kids come back and the computers still aren't working. It's really going to be chaos.
After school I pretty much had to go straight to the Y. Then back to school to do seating charts, rule lists and my "killer" lesson that I have to improv because of the computers. So it's after midnight and after admiring my new "Jesus is My Ese" t-shirt, I'm having enough wine to make my jaw unclench, then I'm going to bed.
Tomorrow...chaos followed by a meeting with a playa in the community about Summer's campaign, followed by a workout and ending up with...probably going back to school.
And so it begins.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Another Update
So school starts on Monday. It's going to be relative chaos. But as soon as I can get on a roll with the kids, I'll feel a bit normal again. I have the approval to get a webcam, so I'm hoping to connect to other classrooms around the world. We'll see how that works out. I also want to have some lessons broadcast in general so you may be able to see some of the kooky stuff we do. Stay tuned.
I had the conversation with the folks at Penn Foster. I no longer work for them. I really didn't do anything for them yet anyway, but you get the point. I started to think about what it would take to create an online school that taught MY way. I think the hardest part for me would be the running of a business part of it. Hmmmmmmm.
The campaign continues to be the same nutty stuff. "Pro's" who send out bad press releases or argue with me about literature that is taking waaaay to long to produce. I will say, this fundraiser we have coming up on August 10th could be the coolest thing I've ever been involved with politically. The music seems like it's going to be pretty cool and the food should be great. And best of all, I'm not involved in planning it! It's not going to bring in all the money we need, but it should be a good $8000 or so.
The internal arguement continues to be if we should go negative and how. Of course I'm the one deal with everyone's opinion - which to each person is fact. I swear, this is the last campaign I work on.
That's really it. Nothing too new happening.
I had the conversation with the folks at Penn Foster. I no longer work for them. I really didn't do anything for them yet anyway, but you get the point. I started to think about what it would take to create an online school that taught MY way. I think the hardest part for me would be the running of a business part of it. Hmmmmmmm.
The campaign continues to be the same nutty stuff. "Pro's" who send out bad press releases or argue with me about literature that is taking waaaay to long to produce. I will say, this fundraiser we have coming up on August 10th could be the coolest thing I've ever been involved with politically. The music seems like it's going to be pretty cool and the food should be great. And best of all, I'm not involved in planning it! It's not going to bring in all the money we need, but it should be a good $8000 or so.
The internal arguement continues to be if we should go negative and how. Of course I'm the one deal with everyone's opinion - which to each person is fact. I swear, this is the last campaign I work on.
That's really it. Nothing too new happening.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Foreboding
I know, if you looked at all my posts, most of them are of a whining nature, but we are a country of whiners...ask Phil Gramm...oh, you're not rich enough to talk to Phil Gramm. But I digress.
So, I guess I could start off with something more positive, like...uh...another beautiful sunset today.
OK, now that I got that out of the way...we're gonna have some problems at school. We had an official, yet unofficial meeting of all the teachers for the Charter school today. Not pretty.
Here's the deal. I'm sure I've talked about the structure of the school. There's the director and assistant director. Then there's Lead Teachers of each program within the school. Mark is the director, Gail is the Assistant Director and Dan is the Lead Teacher at my program (STEM). Gail & Dan live together. Where do they live? In an ohana behind Mark's house. Mark is their landlord. They're all nice people, but they're not administrators. Gail has no background in education. What basically happens is that the three of them make whatever decisions that need to be made then the results just show up one day in our day-to-day routine. In our meetings - where we're supposedly work as a team - we're given some lip service, but in the end it rolls their way.
In the beginning, it was pretty easy to get our ideas incorporated, but now it's gotten a lot tougher. Today, I was pretty much ignored. But I'll get to that later because there's another dynamic.
Dan comes from Florida. He went to one of the biggies...I think it was Florida State. One of his professors is this Dr. Jones chick. Well, now that he's here, they've gotten Dr. Jones involved in our program. She comes once a year to see how we're doing and make her benevolent suggestions. Peggy and Renee spent a lot of time collecting data on our kids over the last school year for her and Dr. Jones never bothered to look at it. So now she has all these other suggestions that deal with data gathering, blah, blah, blah. All these decisions are made in the summer which I guess I have to live with, but to be honest, I still haven't been given a lot of details about a lot of them. Oh yeah, school starts Monday.
Dr. Jones was on the island last week. I had the chance to meet her for maybe a total of 10 minutes and I got a really, really weird vibe between Jonesy, Dan & Gail. I mean, as a trio, they seemed...uh...really close. It was a bit on the creepy side.
So we had 48 kids last year. We add a grade and 2 teachers this year. And we have no idea what we're doing next week. Oh sure, there's vague shit. We have to give them surveys and test them in math and show them the rules, etc. But the actual 5W's...who, when, what, etc hasn't been decided. Every time we ask Dan he gives a "we'll work it out" or "no worries". Did I mention that school starts Monday?
I've only met the new teachers once and they seem...uh...new. But the deal with the other teachers (including me) is this: we're all really good teachers. We can pull lessons out of our ears at a moment's notice. We're all good with kids. But we're used to doing this alone, where we don't have to rely on other adults. You can't do that when you're sharing space like we are; where someone taking care of their stuff directly affects what happens with the other teachers. Dan's not good at either planning, communicating or delegating. That was THE frustrating thing about last year and it's going to be worse this year.
There was this weird day last school year where Peggy & I were talking about this upcoming year - how the day was going to go with 72 kids, 5 teachers, 2 vans, etc. I don't know how, but I had this Rainman moment where I worked it all out on the board. I copied it, digitized it and shared it. It sat around all summer. Today, Dan kept commenting on how we have to figure out what to do about PE and Art. I had that solved. I mentioned it once, it was promptly dismissed and moved on....followed by more comments about how we don't know what to do about PE and Art and that we're not sure what to do in the afternoons. My thing has it solved, but it's pretty much toast.
Pardon my language...it's going to be a clusterfuck. I'm going to get mine, educationally speaking, and get out of there. I have some great ideas, stuff I've always wanted to do. I'm going to give them a go, add to my portfolio and get out.
So, I guess I could start off with something more positive, like...uh...another beautiful sunset today.
OK, now that I got that out of the way...we're gonna have some problems at school. We had an official, yet unofficial meeting of all the teachers for the Charter school today. Not pretty.
Here's the deal. I'm sure I've talked about the structure of the school. There's the director and assistant director. Then there's Lead Teachers of each program within the school. Mark is the director, Gail is the Assistant Director and Dan is the Lead Teacher at my program (STEM). Gail & Dan live together. Where do they live? In an ohana behind Mark's house. Mark is their landlord. They're all nice people, but they're not administrators. Gail has no background in education. What basically happens is that the three of them make whatever decisions that need to be made then the results just show up one day in our day-to-day routine. In our meetings - where we're supposedly work as a team - we're given some lip service, but in the end it rolls their way.
In the beginning, it was pretty easy to get our ideas incorporated, but now it's gotten a lot tougher. Today, I was pretty much ignored. But I'll get to that later because there's another dynamic.
Dan comes from Florida. He went to one of the biggies...I think it was Florida State. One of his professors is this Dr. Jones chick. Well, now that he's here, they've gotten Dr. Jones involved in our program. She comes once a year to see how we're doing and make her benevolent suggestions. Peggy and Renee spent a lot of time collecting data on our kids over the last school year for her and Dr. Jones never bothered to look at it. So now she has all these other suggestions that deal with data gathering, blah, blah, blah. All these decisions are made in the summer which I guess I have to live with, but to be honest, I still haven't been given a lot of details about a lot of them. Oh yeah, school starts Monday.
Dr. Jones was on the island last week. I had the chance to meet her for maybe a total of 10 minutes and I got a really, really weird vibe between Jonesy, Dan & Gail. I mean, as a trio, they seemed...uh...really close. It was a bit on the creepy side.
So we had 48 kids last year. We add a grade and 2 teachers this year. And we have no idea what we're doing next week. Oh sure, there's vague shit. We have to give them surveys and test them in math and show them the rules, etc. But the actual 5W's...who, when, what, etc hasn't been decided. Every time we ask Dan he gives a "we'll work it out" or "no worries". Did I mention that school starts Monday?
I've only met the new teachers once and they seem...uh...new. But the deal with the other teachers (including me) is this: we're all really good teachers. We can pull lessons out of our ears at a moment's notice. We're all good with kids. But we're used to doing this alone, where we don't have to rely on other adults. You can't do that when you're sharing space like we are; where someone taking care of their stuff directly affects what happens with the other teachers. Dan's not good at either planning, communicating or delegating. That was THE frustrating thing about last year and it's going to be worse this year.
There was this weird day last school year where Peggy & I were talking about this upcoming year - how the day was going to go with 72 kids, 5 teachers, 2 vans, etc. I don't know how, but I had this Rainman moment where I worked it all out on the board. I copied it, digitized it and shared it. It sat around all summer. Today, Dan kept commenting on how we have to figure out what to do about PE and Art. I had that solved. I mentioned it once, it was promptly dismissed and moved on....followed by more comments about how we don't know what to do about PE and Art and that we're not sure what to do in the afternoons. My thing has it solved, but it's pretty much toast.
Pardon my language...it's going to be a clusterfuck. I'm going to get mine, educationally speaking, and get out of there. I have some great ideas, stuff I've always wanted to do. I'm going to give them a go, add to my portfolio and get out.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Woe is My Career
I know the title sounds a bit mellow-dramatic, but it was all I could think of to tie the two things together.
First: I'm calling the people at Penn Foster in the morning and getting out of doing that online teaching gig. It's horrible. It's everything that's bad about teaching with all the excitingness of online text. It's a text book you can read online, complete with those ridiculous, vacuous test questions that's nothing but memorization. I was going to stick with it until I started looking at the assessments. I have to be honest, I couldn't pass the tests because I don't have that minutia memorized. I've been fired from gigs for refusing to teach that way and I gave up my family and friends to move 6000 miles away so that I wouldn't have to teach that way and I'm sure as hell not going to start doing it because it's the internets. I'm just going to use all my experience with women blowing me off to do this: It's not you, it's me...I'm just at a point where I have to focus on my career...I don't deserve a school like you...your pedagogy just doesn't satisfy me. So let's just be friends.
Second: Oh, Lord have mercy. Today I woke up at 3:30am to get on a plane to Oahu for an online class that I'm taking on how to use online learning to teach Hawaiian Culture. Too early...way too early. I didn't wake up until...actually, I think I was in a fog all day. And I was surrounded by...ew...teachers.
I may have blogged on this before, but as a group, teachers bore the hell out of me. I don't find them to be a very creative group, intellectually speaking. Oh sure, they'll know 101 uses for a glue stick, but none of them are very kinky and involve a spatula and a midget. Sorry, Mom. I meant, Little person. So I was stuck on a plane, on a bus and in a classroom with teachers. I couldn't tell what was making me nod off more...getting up at 3:30 or the vacuum of excitement from the class. We had laptops and the class itself was so slow that I worked on campaign stuff for half the time. I actually got some stuff done!
And just about everyone in the class, including some of the instructors were either Hawaiian by birth or by living here forever and they all spoke pidgen! Seriously. Educators. I'm thinking - no wonder these kids suck at English, dey owe kine teecha doh nevah no use it, yeah?
And of course every single thing I ate today was a big lump of carbohydrates. This class had nothing but carbs...I swear the water I drank had more protein than my lunch.
Oh, and just to top it off...on the plane on the way back...you know how the flight from hell is you surrounded by a bunch of screaming kids? Well, for me it was worse. Me surrounded by teachers and honeymooners. I swear, there was one couple who giggled and took pictures of themselves making out the whole flight. Luckily it was only a half-hour flight, but if TSA hadn't have confiscated my weapons and shoe bombs...
Third: Oh...and at the YMCA today, a few minutes after I got there I was talking to the new supervisor and one of the members, and I saw way down the hall, the Mom of one of my students. And I accidentally said out loud, "God damn!" Bad form. But the Mom and kid were pretty needy last year. There were a number of afterschool meetings - the kid is pissed off and pretty mean. Well, the kid's not my student anymore because Mom got laid-off and can't make the daily drive from Upcountry. So Mom pulled her out of the program to go to a closer school. And because of their financial situation, they got a scholarship to the Y so they don't have to use the pricey fancy-schmancy gym Mom was going to before. So I still get to see them all the time...special.
And I guess I'll just continue in Y-mode. My new supervisor is starting to get to be a pain. She's nice enough, but for being so pro-Hawaii, she's not very laid back. The fact that a lot of members do not bring their cards in when they come has become her number one purpose in life. She spends most of the time she works either complaining about it, or trying to figure out ways to fix it. She really treats it as if it's Maui's version of Darfur. And she's my boss so it's not my place to tell her to chill the eff out.
I really thought I had blogged on this before, but looking for the link, I couldn't find it. I guess I hadn't, but I know we talked about it on the Award Winning podcast. About 2 weeks into my starting at the Y, there was this woman who would come in and use the facilities. She's pretty old, sounds like Carol Channing and has seriously leather skin. Way too much sun. For some reason, she thinks my name is Roy. At first I thought it was funny so I didn't say anything. But after a month or so went by I realized that the joke was now on me because it was waaaay too late to tell her tht my name isn't Roy. So everyone's been teasing me about it. Today I received something that I never thought I'd be happy to get before...a name tag. It's not really my style. But since the whole Roy situation has gotten intolerable, I knew it was time for a YMCA name tag. That way I can just SHOW Leather Channing that my name is not Roy. So one of the big cheeses decides it would be funny to order me a name tag that says "Roy". I guess I'm one of the gang now. So now I sign all my internal paperwork, "Roy". Looks like we're gonna have a Roydown.
First: I'm calling the people at Penn Foster in the morning and getting out of doing that online teaching gig. It's horrible. It's everything that's bad about teaching with all the excitingness of online text. It's a text book you can read online, complete with those ridiculous, vacuous test questions that's nothing but memorization. I was going to stick with it until I started looking at the assessments. I have to be honest, I couldn't pass the tests because I don't have that minutia memorized. I've been fired from gigs for refusing to teach that way and I gave up my family and friends to move 6000 miles away so that I wouldn't have to teach that way and I'm sure as hell not going to start doing it because it's the internets. I'm just going to use all my experience with women blowing me off to do this: It's not you, it's me...I'm just at a point where I have to focus on my career...I don't deserve a school like you...your pedagogy just doesn't satisfy me. So let's just be friends.
Second: Oh, Lord have mercy. Today I woke up at 3:30am to get on a plane to Oahu for an online class that I'm taking on how to use online learning to teach Hawaiian Culture. Too early...way too early. I didn't wake up until...actually, I think I was in a fog all day. And I was surrounded by...ew...teachers.
I may have blogged on this before, but as a group, teachers bore the hell out of me. I don't find them to be a very creative group, intellectually speaking. Oh sure, they'll know 101 uses for a glue stick, but none of them are very kinky and involve a spatula and a midget. Sorry, Mom. I meant, Little person. So I was stuck on a plane, on a bus and in a classroom with teachers. I couldn't tell what was making me nod off more...getting up at 3:30 or the vacuum of excitement from the class. We had laptops and the class itself was so slow that I worked on campaign stuff for half the time. I actually got some stuff done!
And just about everyone in the class, including some of the instructors were either Hawaiian by birth or by living here forever and they all spoke pidgen! Seriously. Educators. I'm thinking - no wonder these kids suck at English, dey owe kine teecha doh nevah no use it, yeah?
And of course every single thing I ate today was a big lump of carbohydrates. This class had nothing but carbs...I swear the water I drank had more protein than my lunch.
Oh, and just to top it off...on the plane on the way back...you know how the flight from hell is you surrounded by a bunch of screaming kids? Well, for me it was worse. Me surrounded by teachers and honeymooners. I swear, there was one couple who giggled and took pictures of themselves making out the whole flight. Luckily it was only a half-hour flight, but if TSA hadn't have confiscated my weapons and shoe bombs...
Third: Oh...and at the YMCA today, a few minutes after I got there I was talking to the new supervisor and one of the members, and I saw way down the hall, the Mom of one of my students. And I accidentally said out loud, "God damn!" Bad form. But the Mom and kid were pretty needy last year. There were a number of afterschool meetings - the kid is pissed off and pretty mean. Well, the kid's not my student anymore because Mom got laid-off and can't make the daily drive from Upcountry. So Mom pulled her out of the program to go to a closer school. And because of their financial situation, they got a scholarship to the Y so they don't have to use the pricey fancy-schmancy gym Mom was going to before. So I still get to see them all the time...special.
And I guess I'll just continue in Y-mode. My new supervisor is starting to get to be a pain. She's nice enough, but for being so pro-Hawaii, she's not very laid back. The fact that a lot of members do not bring their cards in when they come has become her number one purpose in life. She spends most of the time she works either complaining about it, or trying to figure out ways to fix it. She really treats it as if it's Maui's version of Darfur. And she's my boss so it's not my place to tell her to chill the eff out.
I really thought I had blogged on this before, but looking for the link, I couldn't find it. I guess I hadn't, but I know we talked about it on the Award Winning podcast. About 2 weeks into my starting at the Y, there was this woman who would come in and use the facilities. She's pretty old, sounds like Carol Channing and has seriously leather skin. Way too much sun. For some reason, she thinks my name is Roy. At first I thought it was funny so I didn't say anything. But after a month or so went by I realized that the joke was now on me because it was waaaay too late to tell her tht my name isn't Roy. So everyone's been teasing me about it. Today I received something that I never thought I'd be happy to get before...a name tag. It's not really my style. But since the whole Roy situation has gotten intolerable, I knew it was time for a YMCA name tag. That way I can just SHOW Leather Channing that my name is not Roy. So one of the big cheeses decides it would be funny to order me a name tag that says "Roy". I guess I'm one of the gang now. So now I sign all my internal paperwork, "Roy". Looks like we're gonna have a Roydown.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
You Dirty Bastards!
Google: Louisville, KY Is The Most Obscene City In The U.S.
Eric Krangel | June 28, 2008 10:56 AM
Ambitious prosecutors are now trying to shut down Internet pornographers by trying them in towns where conservative "community standards" make an obscenity conviction more likely. A novel defense now being tried in a Pensacola, Fla. obscenity case: Using Google Trends to prove that the town's "community standards" are more prurient than prosecutors are willing to admit.
The idea: If Google proves that local residents search for "sex" more than they do for, well, anything else, then the defense can argue that Internet pornographers are just satisfying a local need, not corrupting innocent minds. We like this idea, though we're dubious that the courts are going to go for it.
But suppose they do? Where then, according to Google, does an obscenity defendant stand the best chances? In other words: What city's residents are most interested in looking up dirty stuff on the Web?
Google Trends says: Louisville, Kentucky.
We know! We were surprised, too -- almost as surprised as we were to see neither New York City or San Francisco in our top 10. The full list:
The 10 American Cities Most Likely To Search For Obscene Material
1. Louisville, KY
2. Rochester, NY
3. Philadelphia, PA
4. Newark, NJ
5. Los Angeles, CA
6. Irvine, CA
7. Pittsburgh, PA
8. Las Vegas, NV
9. Albany, NY
10. Orlando, FL
We're Number 2! We're Number 2! I want a shocker foam finger!
Here's the rest of the article.
Eric Krangel | June 28, 2008 10:56 AM
Ambitious prosecutors are now trying to shut down Internet pornographers by trying them in towns where conservative "community standards" make an obscenity conviction more likely. A novel defense now being tried in a Pensacola, Fla. obscenity case: Using Google Trends to prove that the town's "community standards" are more prurient than prosecutors are willing to admit.
The idea: If Google proves that local residents search for "sex" more than they do for, well, anything else, then the defense can argue that Internet pornographers are just satisfying a local need, not corrupting innocent minds. We like this idea, though we're dubious that the courts are going to go for it.
But suppose they do? Where then, according to Google, does an obscenity defendant stand the best chances? In other words: What city's residents are most interested in looking up dirty stuff on the Web?
Google Trends says: Louisville, Kentucky.
We know! We were surprised, too -- almost as surprised as we were to see neither New York City or San Francisco in our top 10. The full list:
The 10 American Cities Most Likely To Search For Obscene Material
1. Louisville, KY
2. Rochester, NY
3. Philadelphia, PA
4. Newark, NJ
5. Los Angeles, CA
6. Irvine, CA
7. Pittsburgh, PA
8. Las Vegas, NV
9. Albany, NY
10. Orlando, FL
We're Number 2! We're Number 2! I want a shocker foam finger!
Here's the rest of the article.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Casing the Joint
Well here's a new one. We were supposed to have a whole bunch of camapaign volunteers show up to go door-to-door. No one showed but me and the candidate. So we talked shop for a while then each went to do our own areas of Pukalani. Today sucked. It was nothing but hills. Every driveway looked like this:
So as I'm making my way down the street, I see this guy outside giving me the look...you know how he's got that look...that "this guy just took a dump on my lawn" look. So I keep makng my way closer & closer. And I finally get to him and before I can even say hello he asks me why I'm casing the neighborhood. When I explain to him who I am and what I'm doing he tells me that he doesn't believe me. So I gave him my card. So now he believes me but complains about people putting stuff in his mailbox. I inform him that we know that's a federal offense so we don't do that. He told me about the 2 guys he has pictures of doing it. I moved on...the poor bastard. Living on the mean streets of Pukalani, needing such security.
Oy.
Summer better win.
So as I'm making my way down the street, I see this guy outside giving me the look...you know how he's got that look...that "this guy just took a dump on my lawn" look. So I keep makng my way closer & closer. And I finally get to him and before I can even say hello he asks me why I'm casing the neighborhood. When I explain to him who I am and what I'm doing he tells me that he doesn't believe me. So I gave him my card. So now he believes me but complains about people putting stuff in his mailbox. I inform him that we know that's a federal offense so we don't do that. He told me about the 2 guys he has pictures of doing it. I moved on...the poor bastard. Living on the mean streets of Pukalani, needing such security.
Oy.
Summer better win.
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