2006

Believe it or not, I actually have a little house dog now. He’s an adorable little pug named Frodo. We’re working on paper training him right now, but in between cleaning up his messes, he’s actually pretty cute.

If you have ever hated the Microsoft Office helper known as Clippy (the paperclip that pops up in the corner), I’m sure you will love this.  Warning: This parody contains some explicit language. If you are offended by this, simply don’t click the link ;)

Sometimes, it’s so hard to understand why I got out of bed that morning. Today was one of those days. The kids were wild today, which is odd, because on Mondays, everybody is usually quite subdued. Three things happened today that made me do a double take and wonder if I were stuck in some awful pedagogical nightmare:

1. I hand a paper to a student that says Chapter 4 Practice Problem in large bold letters across the top. The student looks at it and asks, "Is this the chapter 4 practice problem?" Why?!?
2. In animation class, I decided it would be a good idea to review a short exercise about guide layers. I figured the best way to do this would be to have the students walk through a guide layer activity we did about three weeks ago. Before we began the activity, I announced not once, not twice, but three times in my manly teacher voice that "We have already done this activity. I want us to do it again as a review." Not more than thirty seconds after I have made this announcement and written the page numbers on the board did I hear from two different people, "We’ve already done this! Do you want us to do it again?" Why?!?
   
3. During break, I was in the hallway watching the kids file in from sixth period. A big, corn-fed boy comes barreling down the hallway and tackles the water fountain mounted to the wall. It knocks him backwards, and when he bounces to his feet and yells, "Take that you son of a…" As if this once incident wasn’t dumb enough, I have witnessed this no less than four times in the last year. Apparently, that water fountain plays a mean right tackle. Why?
   

I bought a Shop Vac AllAround and I only have one word for it: awesome.  Being the clutzy, messy person that I am, it’s great to be able to vaccuum it up with minimum effort. It’s a powerful little sucker, too. Just for fun, we sucked out the hamster bedding last night, and it gobbled all of it up in less than a minute. I paid around $55 for it at Wal-Mart, and I think it was a fantastic purchase. I figure that maybe our vehicles will now get vacuumed more than two times a year, since the little vac is so easy to carry around…Who’d have thought I could get so freakishly happy about a vacuum. :D

I get lots of jokes in my email, but this one was too good to pass up:

A teenage granddaughter comes downstairs for her date with this see-through blouse on and no bra. Her grandmother just pitched a fit, telling her not to dare go out like that! The teenager tells her "Loosen up Grams. These are modern times. You gotta let your rose buds show!" and out she goes. The next day the teenager comes down stairs, and the grandmother is sitting there with no top on. The teenager wants to die. She explains to her grandmother that she has friends coming over and that it is just not appropriate….. The grandmother says, "Loosen up, Sweetie. If you can show off your rose buds, then I can display my hanging baskets."

So I haven’t been a bachelor for over three months now, but since Beck will be in Lexington until Thursday, I’ll have to revert to my old ways: Nuking something in the microwave to eat, sitting in the dark, not speaking to another human for several hours. It’s weird not seeing Beck: We talk on the phone, but anybody who knows me can tell you I don’t like talking on the phone. (For some reason, talking on the phone is harder for me. My ability to multi-task flies out the window when I have a phone to my ear.)

I know that me and Beck will survive being apart, but I miss the little stuff we do together that I have gotten so used to. Holding Beck for a few minutes in the morning is the thing I’ll miss the most. It was sad when 4:45 rolled around and no smiling little wife walked through the door. Missing her so much will only make Thursday night that much sweeter…When you’re used to having the love of your life with you, though, it seems like a frivolous sacrifice. *sigh*

If you’re advernturous enough to look at hte bottom of the page, you’ll probably see that my hit counters have been reset.  The reason behind this is that I have totally rewritten the hit counter.  The counter is now faster and the statistics it pops out are more specific. It was a little painful to set it to zero, but that counter had some major issues.  After it has been up and running for awhile, I may post the code here for anyone to use.

I will always love you, no matter where I am going or where I have been. I know that the next year is going to be hard on both of us, but I want you to know that I will always been there for you when you need me, no matter where I am. You are the best thing that God ever let happen to me, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world. I love you so much and the only way that will change is that my love for you grows more and more each day. Together, we can conquer anything, and hey, it’s only Lexington! Whip it’s butt, Frodo!

So, I’m three weeks into my third year as a teacher.  Even though we’re on a seven period day (instead of the last two years’ block schedule), things are much easier now.  The things that I used to find challenging aren’t so challenging anymore. Coming up with lessons is a breeze (especially since they’re only 45 minutes long per day).  I actually have a filing system going that seems to be working, so my massive paperwork pile is slowly dwindling.  Discipline is a no-brainer. I have an air of control that I haven’t really had previously.  My student base is populated with the good kids I’ve had before, which means they like what I’m doing.The best thing is that I honestly think that I can enact some big change in the community this year.  Sure, I don’t think the whole world is going to change overnight or anything, but I think I’ll be able to see a dent this year.  I’ll let everyone know when I think I’ve made some progress, so if you’re a regular reader, stay tuned!