Christmas Vacation

Today is the last day before Christmas vacation and school is as usual unproductive. I'm not sure why we try to accomplish anything. We are all on a sugar high after this mornings breakfast sponsored by the varsity club. I feel so lousy, bloated and gross. I need to get off the sugar. It's a drug.

Today is Wednesday. Sunday we'll be heading south. That will be nice. I love wearing shorts in the winter. The temperature is expected to be in the 60's and 70's. I'll jog, go for walks, take the dog for walks, just have a great time.

Rigor. What does that look like?

Work, if that's what you call it.

Half way to school today I realized I'd forgotten something. A month ago, this would have been of little consequence. I would have turned around and driven the mile home and forgotten about it within a few minutes. Now, it's a big deal. Forty minutes back and forth, but it was accomplished and here I am.
Health Care debate. If we are a democracy and people oppose the government's intrusion into health care, and I believe the majority of people do, why then are we forging ahead with this plan? I just don't understand it. This is good for you whether you like it or not.
What happens when students quit caring?

Monday Morning

On the way to school, I was having these incredible thoughts about what I wanted to blog. I now can't remember a thing.

We had a pretty good snow storm this weekend. We didn't miss practice or church, but I did manage to wrench my back. So far today, I am ok, but this morning when I took the dog out, I knelt to pick him up and my back hurt then.

Twins

Most people seem to like the idea of having a twin. I know I thought it would be cool when I was young. Then again, I had imaginary friends, so it wasn't like I was living a really full life at the time.

We had a discussion about banned books, but I think some of the kids thought we were discussing band books and didn't get it.

Next week is my birthday. I will be fifty four. One of my classes is planning something and I don't think it's going to be that big of a surprise. Wifey turns 50 this year. We'll soon be old enough for one of those old people communities where they do a lot of shuffleboard and stuff like that.

We haven't taken pictures of the dog lately. He's growing. He eats a lot.

Extracurricular Activities

If we eliminated all extracurricular activities from school, I'm talking about sports and music and clubs, we would eliminate the reason so many kids are here. For example, I have a student this year who takes every opportunity to leave English class to do something in another class because he wants to. I'm no saying this kid is doing anything bad, but I am suggesting that given a choice, all of us would choose what we want to do over what we have to do. If we eliminated extracurricular activities, we would eliminate a lot of the distractions that come with them. For all the comparisons we make between the US school systems and the European, that's one that I rarely see discussed. They don't have school teams. They have club teams and they aren't part of the school day. I'm not talking about eliminating art or music or shop classes, I'm talking about extracurricular stuff.

The community could put on a musical or play. Kids would play for legion baseball teams and club soccer teams all the way up through to adulthood and perhaps beyond. We do have a Lebanon Community Theater. We do have the Jonestown Men's Chorus. Churches have choirs. It's there for you if you want to do it.

Bull

Hey kids. Guess what? I wasn't born yesterday and guess what else. I did some of the same stuff that you did and got away with it so don't be surprised that I don't trust you. I just accept the fact that you do stuff you aren't supposed to and leave it at that. I am not your conscience. I don't want to be. Eventually, you'll find that we know what you've been doing and just choose to ignore it rather than making a big deal about it but seriously, don't try to lie to me. Waiting for a computer to load for 3o minutes....I don't think so.

Passwords

I hate passwords. I have a few that I have in my head. The ones I hate the most are the ones that required you to include a number or a capital letter or some such nonsense, and those are the ones that I forget most often. I have three that I use. Two are school related and seeing as I have to change my password every few weeks or so, I just switch back and forth between two of them. The third is like my home one.

Changes of address. So we moved, ok, and this changing of address thing is crazy. For the time being, they are forwarding our mail. I've changed the address as much as I can, but I truly don't have much faith that the people on the other end do it right. I don't have much faith in humans to begin with so I guess that's no surprise.

Teaching college classes.

What is this big deal about teaching college classes? I am unsure of the worth of getting college credit at the high school level because aren't we growing up too fast anyway. A few years ago, some people who are currently seniors were being encouraged to earn an associates degree while still in high school. So now you are 18 and you have a liberal arts associates degree. I don't know too many uses for a liberal arts associates degree without experience or even work experience to make yourself stand out from the rest of the pack. That's a bit of a cliche.

Leader of the Pack. Great song. I'm in a fifties kind of mood.

Sometimes when I see those time life commercials for cd's, I want to order them.

My family got me the entire MASH series last year for Christmas. I love MASH, but I haven't watched a single episode from the boxed set and the reason is....just don't take the time to do it. I have the Godfather trilogy. Love those movies, especially number 2. Greatest one ever made. I love the way the filmed it, taking you back in the past to discover why the Corleone family was Mafia in the first place.

Just reading Alan's blog, and I guess in a way I was answering his question. Don't know why he was inspired to write that at this point in time. Perhaps, just perhaps, it's that time of year.

Yes, and I hate to admit this, there are bad kids. They now have the ability to choose to be bad. I also think all kids have the capacity to be both good or bad. I think it's choice by this time. They know they are getting away with stuff.

For years I taught kids who classified themselves as bad, but what they mean was bad student bad. I loved those kids. I still love those kids. They are real. They seldom cheat, grades aren't really that important for them, they just want to pass and get on with real life. They'll be great because they understand themselves in many ways better than the "good" student kids. The worst cheaters I have ever had were in the top classes. But don't try to schmooze me. That's something I hate.

Eddie Haskell. He was the character on Ozzie and Harriet and he was always sucking up to the adults. He was so transparent is was ridiculous. I see through that pretty easily.

So yes, Alan, there are bad kids and they come in all shapes and sizes.

I understand that my job as a teacher is to maintain some semblance of order in the classroom and I try my best to do that. However, there are times that I watch as students, well, they really aren't students, they are people whose sole purpose seems to be to come here and make the lives of those in authority miserable, truly effect the lives of people who have spent four years of their lives training to be teachers.

I watch kids just be nasty for the sake of being nasty. And we don't address it. We give chance after chance, and they continue to disrupt the educational process. They aren't here to learn; they are here to screw around and be disruptive. How are we helping these kids? Real life, we throw that term around an awful lot, in real life, they won't survive, or they'll learn real fast that they've either got to learn to tow the line, or go hungry, because I know of no jobs that require at least a high school education where you don't have to answer to someone.

Parents, if you love your kids, don't cover for them all the time. You're doing them a disservice. Let them fail and let them have to get out of the situations they find themselves in.

When a disruptive member of the student body is allowed to make the life of a professional miserable just for the sake of doing do, I get angry. That's today's vent.

Capital One Bowl

It looks like Penn State may be playing LSU in the Capital One Bowl. The Citrus Bowl, where that is played, is pretty close to our condo in Florida and it's being played at noon on January 1. I'm thinking that there may never be another chance to go and do this, so maybe we'll just head down over Christmas vacation and take in my first and perhaps only bowl game. I want to head down anyway. I haven't checked on the condo since July. Sometimes I worry about what's going on in there, but there isn't much I can do. Our friends, the Klahrs, check on it once in awhile for us. That's nice of them don't you think.

We put up our tree last night. We got a whole bunch of new balls, different colors, and my wife does such a delightful job of arranging them over the tree.

We have another tree that is outside in the sunroom that needs to be decorated. Tomorrow, my daughter picks up her wedding dress. This will be our first weekend in the new house.

I'm thinking a bit about decorating the lower area. Since I like the Phillies and the Eagles, I'm thinking that stuff would do well, but I also like golf, so perhaps I could also include some golf stuff too. I could put some coke stuff up. There's just so much I'd like to do but I have lots of time to do it.

Internet

That reminds me. I think the internet is probably more important to me than the cell phone is. My future son-in-law accesses the internet from his cell phone. That's combining both into one, but I'm pretty sure he pays a hefty price for both. I have Verizon. He has ATT.

Cell Phones

Do we really need cell phones? Are they the new necessity? I have to laugh. My cell phone contract is 13 years old. I text. I hardly get any calls. Currently, it's my only means of communication and I still don't get any calls. That's not exactly true, I get a few, but I think more than anything I'm using this stupid thing in my pocket to play games. Taking pictures and texting them to people. Silly. I haven't ever used it for business. Email? Is that necessary. We communicate more easily but do we communicate better?

I took yesterday off. The water company turned our water off. Then they charged me 3o to turn it back on. Do you ever feel helpless? Like if you really wanted to spend as little money as you can, you simply can't avoid these silly little fees. I'm becoming more and more convinced that you don't own a home, it owns you. I have to feed it, clothe it, pay taxes on it, pay to have water supplied to it, gas, cable....you name it. Is there anyone who can really live without money?

Perhaps a homeless person is homeless but in some ways a homeless person if free of all the encumbrances that those of us who own homes must endure. I don't want to be homeless, but some people rent. Renting puts a lot of the responsibility on the landlord. I often think about being a landlord but the idea of people living in and abusing something I own is unnerving.

I was at Lowes yesterday. I like Lowes. I think it would be a fun part time job. I wonder if employees get a discount? I'd probably never bring home a paycheck. I'd spend it before I ever got home.

We've moved. So that's that. We're moved. Our things are in boxes. I believe the next task that will tax us dramatically is emptying the boxes and organizing the things we moved. There still seems to be a good deal of stuff that we've collected which doesn't have a real purpose in our lives.

Over the past two months when this little sojourn began, I have experiences a wide array of emotions relating to moving, change, leaving behind, and moving forward. I feel emotionally exhausted, and I feel that makes me physically exhausted. I haven't had much chance to work out and I miss that. I feel bad that the dog will be alone all day, but we've made that choice. He's a delightful little creature.

Moving has shown what incredible friends some people can be.

It's December and I guess it's inappropriate to say that we have 16 days of school left. I can't imagine how I'm going to get out and do any Christmas shopping.