PA Updates

My mom called me the other day with updates from home.

Mr. So-and-so died, which is too bad because his son was finally getting married this year. "Finally" because the bride graduated with me and they were dating back in high school. I've known the bride since kindergarten; we trick-or-treated together. The groom played bells next to me in the church bell choir.

One of the local firefighters, who is also a PennDOT employee, found the body parts of a dead (duh!) person on the side of the local highway. They found most of the woman except for her hands, which they needed for identification purposes. So, my sister, along with several other people in the area, volunteered to comb the area for the hands. Kelly didn't find them, but she did find a bag of poop. This leads us to more puzzling questions of who throws bags of poop to the side of the highway.

I gave these updates to Christie, but she already knew them. She told me she forgot to pass along those stories because they were surpassed by another story from her father. I remember her telling this story. It began like this:

Christie: Guess who called my father this week? Dr. Phil!

Of course, after a lead-in like this, weddings and murders are forgotten.

Seven degrees feels warm tonight.

Triangles

I'm grading the quizzes that my students took on polygons this week. The highest grade in 4th hour is a 60%. They are identifying polygons. Triangles and squares. Convex and concave. What am I going to do?

Here's an interesting conversation that happened this week.

Student: Man, it smells like liquor. You know one of those fruity drinks.
[Actually I think a girl had sprayed some perfume.]

Student: (to me) Have you been drinking? Have you ever had alcohol?

Me: No.
Me: (thinking) I'm actually hung-over right now.

2007 - Year in Review!

Better Late than Never

January.

• Began the year in Philadelphia among friends.
• Chugged along at work though not very satisfied.
• New ministers at church. Sure they came out of retirement, but they had spunk.

February

• Took a Pilates class. By “took” I mean I signed up for 8 weeks and only went twice.
• Took the bus more. Yea! Public Transportation.
• Not much happened in February.
  

March

• Flew to Europe with Felecia and Charley. Whirlwind tour of 4 countries in 7 days.
• Learned that Holland and the Netherlands are the same.
• Sang, danced, thought about life, and took pictures of French things.
• Continued to chug along at work, but applying for an alternative teacher-certification program.
• Forgot to register for an actuarial exam. Oops. Secretly relieved.

April

• Attended Brewers Opening Day. Proud to be Brewer fan.
• Met with a new pastor for the church.
• Took an exam for teacher certification; lie to get out of work for that morning.
• Easter included an egg hunt in the dark.
• Crazy Legs was first fun run of the season. 8 Kilometers. With our late registration we were in the last wave. Because we were at the back of the pack, we spent the entire race passing other runners. Not once did someone pass us.
  
• Trevor hosted first cook-out of the season though there is still snow on the ground.
• Attend ed retirement party and confirmed that I do not want to work for the Man.

May

• Worked a great deal even though I had been accepted to a teacher-certification program (MTEC).
• Organize MS Walk team – with only 1 other co-worker.
• Organize Symphony on the Square at lunchtime – with only 2 other co-workers.

June

• Jess visited during Riversplash. We had a blast and I tried to convince her to move to Milwaukee with my super friends.
• Christie and I talked about purchasing a duplex together.
• Met with real estate agent.
• Met with mortgage brokers.
• Small ulcer developed.
• Last golf outing with work. Said good-bye to job perks.
• Mick got married. Boogie-woogied as every white boy should.
• Ran in the Beer Run, the only race I know of sponsored by Miller.
• Mom and Alaina visited.
• Surreptitiously attended MTEC classes.
• Ulcer grows.

July

• Offer on house accepted. OMG!
• Announce d my intention to leave my job. But still plan to take the following week off.
• Storm the Bastille 5K Run through the streets of Milwaukee. Vive la France!
• Flew home for the Croomdaddy wedding.
• Got a little homesick.
• Rode a jet-ski for the first time.
• Visit ed NYC with aunt and cousins.
• Hope springs eternal for Hardy, Fielder, and the Brew Crew.

August

• Quit job.
• Bought a house.

September

• Started school.
• Showed various signs of stress.
• Slept less.
• But have much better stories to tell.
• Lost our first (but not last) kickball game. Did well at the bar afterwards.
• Flew to Philadelphia for Adina’s wedding.
• Tease, joke, gossip, eat, drink, and dance.
• Host Ugandan orphans in my house overnight. Talked to their chaperon, Julius, about being a twenty-something in the 21^st century in our different countries.

October

• First parent-teacher conferences.
• First homecoming dance.
• Learned that the latest dance craze is to hump the floor.
• Weekly kickball continues – thank goodness.
• Attended kickball tournament on a Saturday morning.
• Begin drinking at 9 am.
• Meet Papa Smurf.
• Organized church’s team for CROP walk. Realize that we have more Jews on our team than Christians.
• Jacob moves in for 3 months. Make the joke that I only live with “Jacobs” several times.

November

• Just kept swimming.
• Word of the Month: Survival
• Threw a House Warming Party with a wide range of people. Success!
• Ran around the zoo for the Jingle Bell Run
• Observed Dan Goldin Day with a Brewery Tour. This year we actually made it!
• Recognize another teacher working at the brewery. Say Hi.
• Went on another brewery tour later on in the month.
• Hope that fellow teacher/brewery worker does not remember me and the frequency of my tours.
• Teach origami to my students.
• Celebrated Thanksgiving with a close group of friends. Give Thanks.

December

• Countdown the 20 school days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• Told by several people to “Hang in there.” Even the homeless guy who sat with me at the Co-op one day when there weren’t enough tables and we had to share.
• Realized that I am a bluegrass fan.
• Realized that Trevor is an a capella fan and Christie definitely is not.
• Flew to Moscow for the holidays.
• Tried to fly back to Milwaukee but became stranded in Cleveland.
• Drove a yellow mustang convertible back to Wisconsin in 8 hours.
• Welcomed my friends to MilONYE.
• Blacked out after 9pm on NYE.

She's not kidding

Student: How did I fail the exam? What did I need to pass?
Me: You need at least 60% to pass.
Student: But I did about half of the exam. That must be at least a B.
Me: Actually, if you only did half, the highest you could possibly get is a 50%, so that's less than 60%.
Student: Oh, ok.

Pictures!

In the My Pictures folder on my computer, I have an entire folder dedicated to the German Beer Hall. I had to create sub-folders to organize all of the pictures in there. Here is one of those pictures. This is Emily. She's a magnet for odd men. Here she has attracted a man in a silly hat. The bar was full of men in silly hats that night. All of their plumes were getting caught in the taxidermy on the walls. It was a haberdasher's nightmare.

Social Lubricant

Milwaukee is still cold. I arrived home from school today to a cold house and turned up the heat. And by "turned up the heat" I mean I chugged two beers in 30 minutes. I have a schoolteacher salary remember, and oil is more expensive than beer. Technically it's not, but orange juice is. But I digress. Anyway, I had a couple of e-mail messages to write that I have been putting off because they are somewhat awkward to write. For example, last month's heating bill arrived and I have to contact my old roommate with the amount that he owes me. I have put this off for a week. However, 2 beers + 1 empty stomach = 1 message - awkwardness. Let's just hope I remembered punctuation and grammar. In fifteen minutes I have completed all of my awkward correspondence.

And now Bluegrass Wednesday awaits. Who knew that I was a bluegrass fan? Not me.

Test Scores (and kids) are Dropping in my School

The last two days at school have been pretty eventful. The principal was gone for a convention, so the assistant principals were left to their own devices. At one point one of them got on the PA system and announced: "I would like to thank the majority of students who were in their classes on time today and doing what they were supposed to be doing. However, we had 60 students suspended today, and I want to remind those students that they cannot come back to school until next Tuesday. And Joe Smith, wherever you are. You have just been added to that suspension list. We'll see you next Tuesday."

When I heard this, I cheered. And other teachers told me that they did too. Finally, an AP was taking a stand against the tide of students who are growing more brazen. The school is falling apart, and sometimes I just hide in my class room.

Yesterday, we had some excitement in the math department. A student fell from the ceiling into Julie's classroom. Yes, from the ceiling. She was going along in her lesson, and then suddenly a person's arm and leg were hanging from the ceiling above her. The student had jumped on top of some storage cabinets that we keep in our hallway. Figuring that he could crawl around the school, he climbed onto the ceiling panels. Our school is home to some of the lowest test scores in the state, and this just reinforces that data. How did he think that ceiling panels would hold his weight? There are mice in the building too big for those panels.

We're not sure if the student was high or not. He was running around the school looking for chips and food earlier in the day. He may be one of our more entrepreneurial students who sells food to the masses, or he was jonesing himself. We don't know. But now the teachers are spreading rumors of a huge cache of flamin' hot chee-tos in our ceilings.

So, anytime that I have been asked about my day today, I have responded with, "Any day in which a student doesn't fall into my classroom is a good day in my book."

I don't miss the consulting world at all.

Someday...

somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say Good-bye.

Oh, Sunday night listening to Delilah. Hold on for one more day.

Ancient Chinese Secret

NYE was so much fun that I don't even remember it. I left my credit card at Long Wong's. I haven't picked it up yet, however, when I check my account on line, only $10 was charged to my card. I (allegedly) broke more than $10 worth of glasses in a single swipe of my arm. How was I not charged more?

On the roller coaster of life...

sometimes you're Fabio's face and sometimes you're a goose.

Stang!

I have safely been delivered to my home in Milwaukee. This is despite the snowstorm that canceled my flight from Cleveland to Milwaukee. Because the earliest flight that guaranteed my return would be Sunday, I decided to brave the weather and rent a car to drive back. I asked for the smallest car the rental company had available. I was asked if a two-door would be ok. Sure. And this is what I was given:


Of course, my car is surrounded by snow, not sand.

Family = Mafia

On Christmas I took a chance. The family party was beginning to break apart. The older folks were falling asleep on the couch. The younger folks were texting friends to make plans to go out drinking. I had traveled too far to let the family party end so early. Also, I wanted to continue drinking the free beer.

I taught them Mafia. And I am so proud of how well they played. There were no monologues of logic. There were few flip-flop votes. And there was absolutely no talking from beyond the grave! Instead we had gut-reactions, mob-mentality voting, and no sympathy for children. Siblings rallied to convict siblings, children took down their parents in the night, and spouses avenged previous games even when innocence was a sure thing. It was great. Nothing brings a family together like murder and lies.

Already we're talking about the next time that there will be enough people around to play a few more rounds. I think we have a tradition.

Stalking

I found my students on Facebook. (It wasn't difficult; I just looked up the high school's name.) However, I feel a bit pervy looking at high school students' profiles on Facebook. I also have half a mind to create a profile with my school account, join their network, and "become" their friend. Man, I could ruin all of their fun.

December Thaw

Temperatures above freezing have arrived in Milwaukee - and just in time. My car was running out of gasoline and the gas tank door was frozen shut. I was planning to find an indoor garage this evening so that I could thaw out the car.

Second Thoughts

Before going to my high school's basketball game tonight I thought I should check out the rules and procedures for the game. There are a lot. I was also told by another teacher to make sure that I stick with other people from my school for safety reasons. Now I'm having second thoughts about joining this activity, which clearly is not as safe as it should be.

Questions about Saturday Night

How did Trevor convince us to drive to Madison to see a college a capella group?

When did Trevor become such a big fan of college a capella groups?

How can a fan of college a capella groups make fun of an origami fan, who just happens to bring along folding paper on the trip?

Did the busboy keep the paper crane we left him?

How does Christie keep her concentration on the origami frog while a giant banana is just behind her?

What are the chances that the a capella concert would be held in a venue with a wall of origami?

SNOW DAY!

If you thought that you were excited about snow days as a student, you should experience what it feels like as a teacher. Of course, I didn't find out about the cancellation until I was already up and ready, but that just means I have more of the day to enjoy.

Progress Reports

Me: And that is how a 30 can pull down your average even if the rest of your grades are in the 90s.
Student: Is there another geometry class I can be in?
Me: Actually, averages work the same in every class. It doesn't matter which class you're in.

Progress Reports

Student: What's my grade?
Me: A "U".
Student: Oh, I thought I had a "C".
Me: You haven't had test score above 60 this semester. You have a zero on one of them. How were you going to pull that off?