Fresh Start

School starts up again next Wednesday. There are plenty of changes this coming year:

1) I'm teaching freshmen (and no one got me a whip)
2) I moved to a new classroom that is closer to the administration's office (*shudder*)
3) lots of new English teachers have been hired (fresh blood!)
4) I'm one of the new co-department chairpersons (and no one got me a whip)

It's going to be a GREAT year.

New Zealand: Day One--Rotorua

We visited a small town where Lord of the Rings was filmed, but we didn't take a tour of the farm that it was film on. We just passed through the town.

We visited a Wai-o-Tapu, which is a large volcanic plateau of craters and mudbaths. This is called the Devil's Bath, and it changes colors from green to yellow, depending on the season.

G'Day, Mate!

I had no plans for summer until opportunity came knocking--actually, it fell in my lap! I'm going on an international trip where kangaroos, vegamite, and kiwis are to be had; where boomarangs are used for hunting, and taking coral from the Great Barrier Reef is illegal.

How did this come about, you may ask? I applied for a position in the People to People program for next year's delegation, and that's how I got my name in a pool. Let's just say that teachers this year backed out due to personal commitments, and therefore, the program was short on two chaperones. I got called to fill in a spot.

I think of it as more of a business trip rather than a pleasure trip because, technically, I will be working. I will be monitoring and chaperoning high school teenagers who are student ambassadors for the program. Not only am I there to ensure their safety, but also to ensure that they do not do anything shameless that could embarrass and damage relationships between the United States and Australia and New Zealand--oh yeah!--and instruct them on cultural sensitivity. Not that teenagers could do anything irreparable on an international level (*august thinks of Michael Fay's caning in Singapore for graffiti.*)

No pressure...

I leave next Sunday, and I will be gone for three weeks, just in time to still catch the Comic Con.

It's Over!

School ended today. Grades are done.

Free at last.

"Wonderfalls" DVD Set

I saw one episode of this quirky show back in 2004 and I was hooked. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after the fourth episode. I bought the DVD set a month ago, and finally had time to watch all of it. I love it!

Next DVD set to watch: AEon Flux (the animated episodes)

A Sad Commentary About Men and Me

I went to a wedding this weekend, and all I did was dance with a couple of gay guys and got hit on by the father-in-law of the bride.

Am I lucky or what?

*rolls eyes*

I Hate Him, Too

I share my classroom with a teacher who has no classroom management skills whatsoever. I can see it by the way the students ignore him, and when he sometimes ignores them. From what other teachers have said, he tries hard to be cool with the students. He lets his kids get away with too much shit.

And my classroom is constantly a mess when I get there after sixth period. There's gum on the white board or in the tracks of the white board; trash on the floor, books left over, candy wrappers and lollipop sticks stuck to the carpet, minor graffiti on the desks... That's just the small stuff. Last Friday was over the top--graffiti on my posters, stolen pins from the walls, so my posters were crooked, a ghetto drawing of Mexican flag higher than the American flag (I think not!), stolen supplies from drawers, and missing books.

I want to bitch and rant at him because this has been going on since September 2005. I've talked to the teacher before to watch his kids, but nothing has been done. In fact, only more books have gone missing since then. Of all things, why do they steal the books? They don't fucking read them!!! How do I know that? Because they leave their own books in my classroom, stashing it in corners, like it was their own private hideaway locker. Why did they steal my CDs? They can't understand Swedish or Japanese rock music? When I mentioned this to the teacher, all he said was, "Sure... I'll talk to them." He said that with such conviction as he nodded his head with a nonchalant yet timid look; I don't fucking believe him at all. He's worse than the Tick. I heard that the principal is going to make a special visit to his classroom to lecture his students. That's just bad. If the principal has to come in to discipline the students, that just shows that the teacher can't do it or is just plain weak.

I hate him. I want my books back, I want my CDs back, I want my stolen goods back, and I hope he doesn't come back next year.

Kill the Television

I can't resist TV. I don't watch it, but when I do, I'm glued to the couch and a day could be wasted. I don't know why I can't just turn it off... there are so many interesting things to watch. It's probably because I resist it all week when I'm not working that it catches up to me when the weekends arrive.

Should I get rid of the cable?

But if I did, I'll never watch educational things on the History or Discovery Channel ever again... or tear-jerkers on the Hallmark Channel. Damn...

Trust Is Not Unconditional

I have instilled the fear of God in my students. My afternoon classes were in fear for their lives after they heard what had happened in my morning classes. I take comfort in that, that they can still be afraid and learn something from this.

The site is down. That is all I wanted. Things are better, but that doesn't change the fact that it still happened. I think they know better now; they know their roles.

Many of them have voiced their concerns that "said-student" crossed the line, and I think they have learned not to mess with a teacher's or anyone's personal life. If they didn't learn that, then they've learned the value of trust and how it will never be the same once it is severed.

Sometimes I think it is my own fault: I'm too friendly or comfortable with the students. Was I gullible in trusting them? I believe in a respectable teacher-student relationship, but I've always known my role and kept a distance. They've opened themselves up to me, and I've shared things (mostly knowledge and advice and experience) with them. But my private life is still my own.

Maybe next year I have to define my boundaries more. As a professor explained once, there is a difference between being friendly and being a friend. Adults and professionals know where the lines are drawn, but teenagers and adolescents can't distinguish the difference. It's virtually the same and so everything is fair game.

My students just learned the difference yesterday. I hope they'll remember it. (And if they don't, I hope karma bites them in the ass!)

I Hate My Sophomores!

I fucking hate my sophomores now. One of them created a fake website about me over the weekend, and I got wind of it today. Although the site is bare, they put up sensitive info nonetheless: my last name and the school name of where I teach. That's too much information. Not only that, they gave it a title that has a negative connotation.

Fuck them all. I know that only one teenager was responsible for it, but since the majority of teenagers that I teach have a website, they all know who created the site, and they are not going to tell on each other.

My privacy has been violated. I don't trust my sophomores anymore. Life for them is hell from here on out.

YouTube.com

My sister and I were clicking links one evening and found this cute and humorous video:

OK Go's "A Million Ways"

I cannot believe how many high school students actually imitate this video for airband and talent show competitions. I find it fascinating.

Pearl Harbor

The one thing I had to see while I was in Hawai'i. It was a very somber experience.

Alma Mater

Recently, one of my younger sister's friends stopped by to visit her. She had gone on a trip for the weekend and missed her, but he and I stayed up and talked to catch up. He is currently working as a substitute at our old alma mater, and the stories he had to tell me weren't very pleasant. The place has gone to shit. It was taken over by the state (but the rumor-mill says that our school was a scapegoat for three other low-performing schools), the principal was fired yet her legacy still lives on, so staff morale is at an all time low; gang activity is increasing (I mean, how many times have dead bodies been dumped on the front lawn already!?), there have been known attacks on teachers as well as direct profanity. The school probably won't pass WASC this time around. It's so depressing that my old high school, a place I was proud to call my alma mater, is slowly decaying and reviving that gangster reputation that it had in the 1960s.

I asked him why he wants to teach there, and he gave me the same reply I give to my students when they ask me why I teach at a "ghetto" high school: "Even bad schools need good teachers."

I just don't know if I would be able to teach in an environment like that. It sounds ten times worse than where I am now.

When Reputation Precedes You

A seasoned teacher once said that your second year of teaching becomes easier than the first because then you will have a reputation. My third year is coming up. Can you imagine the reputation that already spread between all the students I have had and have now?

I had to make some presentations to the ninth grade honors classes. These are students I know will be coming to me next year. They have to do a summer reading and I gave them the assignment today. Already they are in a state of panic: "What! No extra credit!? Fifty percent of the grade is writing essays!? We have to read two novels now?"

Rumors are going around that I am a strict Nazi English teacher, a witch with a capital B. My current sophomores love me and they can't believe such horrofic names are being said about me! I told them not to quell any of those rumors, and that if any freshmen wants to know what I'm really like, I told my sophomores to just fuel the fire. Burn, baby, burn!

Stress?

I hope I'm not speaking too soon, but this semester doesn't seem as stressful as last semester. I know I'm jinxing myself by saything that...

Musik Non Stop

The album is old, but it's about time I finally picked it for myself.

Rewards

Yours truly got a "Teacher of the Month" award for hard work, most notably for staying late hours and working with the school's most challenging group of students.

I can finally scratch off "get an award for teaching" on my "Things To Do Before I Die" list.

CATE

I went to my first professional conference this weekend in Anaheim. It's called CATE, which stands for California Association for Teachers of English. The district paid for everything--hotel and registration. I really enjoyed the conference. There were so many workshops on writing, reading, and activities; practical activities that I can use in the classroom. I even got a lot of free books and kits for grammar and lesson plans. Besides teachers from my school site, I saw two other teachers from my past--my junior high yearbook teacher and a teacher from another school where I previously worked.

The highlight of the whole event was getting Orson Scott Card to sign a couple of books. He was a guest speaker during a luncheon and he inspired me to start teaching poetry. Before this conference, I didn't care much for poetry, and when I teach it, I usually teach rhyme schemes and patterns and poetic forms. It's a boring way to teach poetry, but I'm not a fan, and therefore, I know I don't teach it well. After Mr. Card's speech though, I was suddenly inspired that I had to get his book of poetry (and his other popular book Ender's Game) and ask him to sign it. Like a crazy fan, I gushed about how I was fueled by his speech and that I will try to teach the art--and heart--of poetry this year. He said he was glad that he left such an impression and wished me luck.

This conference was just as fun as Comic-Con (if that doesn't reveal how much of a nerd I am), and yes, Orson Scott Card is going to be there, too. I should try to get another autograph and maybe give him a follow-up of how I taught poetry. I know he will remember me; we had a funny conversation about my name and how it was spelled when he was signing my books.

Hypocrite Pinkies

I find it extremely annoying that my sophomores declare their communist ideals whenever they refuse to do anything "democratic" in the classroom, such as voting. Then they call me a fascist whenever I try to maintain control and take away their privileges. Whenever they bring up the word "communist" and glorify its ideals and philosophies, I am so tempted to tell them to shut up and start glorifying capitalism and America. Yet I don't. I don't even want to begin to argue with them because it will be like debating with religious fanatics who find every fallacy of arguments to justify their hypocrisy. There is no use in trying to debate logically with those kinds of people.

I can't stand fucking hypocrisy of any kind; they are really beginning to irk the hell out of me with their faux genius.

A Burden Lifted

I have one more set of essays to grade. Next week is finals. A large bulk of essays and grades have been entered. I'm feeling a sense of relief this evening that I want to scream for joy!

Hallelujah!