Bum, bum, BUUMMMMM

[Stage Notes:: Sitting at my desk, papers everywhere]

Well, the day has come that students dread. It is the day that happens only twice in each school year, and no student in the history of the world has ever truely looked forward to today. Most are merely glad to survive it, and all of them say their prayers the night before. I can remember that it was a day that always landed me in some sort of trouble...Have you guessed what it is?

Conferences...[Cue very dramatic music:: Bum, bum, BUUMMMMM]

It is a very peculiar feeling sitting on this side of my first ever conference day. I have never actually witnessed what goes on in conferences. Students in my schools were not privy to the event...not that any of us really wanted to be there when that thing we did on the second day of school was recounted in great detail despite the 2 months that have passed since the event. However, at this school we have what are called student led conferences. That's right, student lead. I have absolutely no idea how this is going to go, but the odds are, there will be tears. Well I better go, they start in 5 minutes.

Waaahhh?

[Stage Notes:: Watching TV, procrastinating the work that needs to be done]
[TV:: M.A.S.H.]

Today was a day quite unlike any other. It started off pretty miserable. I was tired and did not really have anything planned for the day other than doing what I did not finish on Friday. When I arrived at school things did not get much better. As it was, I had 4 sets of lesson plans, 2 tests, a reflection, and a few other things to get done by tomorrow. I was hoping to use some free periods to get started since I was far too tired last night to do it. While I was preparing for the first class, I was informed that I was substituting for the Religion teacher during one of my two free periods! Then I checked my e-mail and found out about 4 additional things I need to get done for tomorrow. You can imagine how my early classes went...

By the time lunch rolled around I was officially not having a good day. As I was walking back from eating my abbreviated lunch, I discovered that there was a student in my classroom working on an assignment that he hadn't done. From there it was on to the Religion class. When I went in, I assumed I would find a sub folder that would allow me to just give them some work and then they could use the rest of the class as study hall...I assumed....I was wrong. The folder had been relocated. Once I tracked it down, I discovered they had already done all of the work that was in the folder!! Naturally I was ecstatic. I had the kids start reading out of Ephesians and planned to have them summarize what they read and explain what Paul was writing. Then came to the startling conclusion they had no idea what they were reading. From that point on I launched into a 30 minute theology lesson on the start of nation of Israel and the Law. That ones that tuned in were riveted. It was very apparent that they had never heard most of these things before and they were astonished that some things were in the bible.

That was a kind of turning point in the day. My last class did not exactly go fantastic, but it did not go badly either. I was able to get some lesson planning done after class and even was asked to tutor a teacher who wants to go back for her Phd. I worked a little after class and then decided to come home. I talked with Elizabeth for a bit before leaving and then got in the car and started the path home. This is when things really got interesting.

I couldn't help noticing that the clouds were a little funny. There were several big white fluffy clouds and an almost equal number of weighty grey ones. Perhaps not all that strange to begin with, but there were also large patches of big blue sky. It was like the weather did not know what to do with itself so it was having a little of everything. By this time I had made it onto the freeway which was flooded with sunlight despite the odd assortment of cloud formations. Then out of the corner of my eyes I saw something that looked like the rays of sun that sometimes break their way throught the clouds. There were only two problems. First of all, they were rather grey in color against the bluish sky that was their background instead of a startling bright color. The second, and perhaps even stranger was that they appeared to be perfectly vertical...that is perfectly perpendicular to the ground. They did not angle their way back towards the sun.

Unfortunately I could not really tell if they were actually there or if they were a figment of my imagination. They were the sort of thing that you could not look directly at to see. Like a well camouflaged creature that you can only see when it moves. When looking straight at it, the colors just blended into the sky, but from the side, it was like looking closely at a pair of pants. At first you only see the color, then you see the threads that actually make the pants. This section of sky was the same way. There almost appeared to be hundreds of barely visible threads hanging in the sky. The thing is, I couldn't see where they started, and every time I tried to look closely, they would disappear altogether. Of course it didn't help that I was on the freeway.

I soon changed freeways and started to drive towards the gossamer threads that from my peripheral vision seemed to stretch clear to the sky. Now, up to this point, I started to have a hunch of what it could have been but at the same time I was not exactly sure it was possible. It would just be too darn cartoonish. It would be if it weren't exactly what it was. As I drove a little further, I saw the sure sign that it was exactly what I thought it was. I could see in the midst of the greyish, vertical, strands, the faintest rainbow. That's right, a rainbow!

I was watching rain fall the entire way from a grey cloud to the earth. It was unbelievable!!! I wish I could have pulled off an taken a picture, but my camera was at home. Truly a once in a lifetime experience.

Bat Dogs and Britney Spears

[Stage Notes:: Worn out]
[TV:: Home Improvement]

Normally I might type out an apology about not having written in a while, but lets face it, at this point it is just kinda obvious that change is most likely not going to happen. Truth is, I just haven't felt much like blogging. I do not even really know what to say.

My days tend to have the same basic structure to them. Get up, go to school, teach, each lunch, teach more, stay after school, come home, attempt to get things done, go to bed too late with not enough done, and repeat in the morning. I know that sounds rather bland and dull, and in truth the days are anything but when I am at school, but I do not know how best to convey everything that has been happening. At the end of next week, the first quarter will be over. Completely finished. 1/4 of my first year as a teacher will be done and I will have used 1/4 of the time that I have with the eighth grade. We actually thought one of the kids was going to be withdrawn this week, but fortunately he is still here. I think the best thing for him would be for him to stay the entire year, but his past and some of the drama that the girls are creating as a result of him have been making things difficult.

Outside of school, the last few weeks have been a blur of craziness with meeting new people and trying to get to know the area. I have been spending a lot of time with the JVCs, Dominican & Clarician volunteers. We have been to Stone Mountain for the laser show, worked at a fund raiser for the Sullivan Center, and gone to a couple Theology on Tap events.

Before I go, I thought I would share a couple of the more fun happenings:

One day when I was coming home from school, I was driving on the freeway and happened to notice a car ahead with a dog hanging its head out the window. Normally there would be absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about this except that in this case the dog was wearing goggles. Yup, that's right, goggles. They even looked custom made.

A few weeks ago I decided to get a haircut, and as per my usual, I chopped a bunch of hair off and cut it short (P.S. when I went to get my haircut, Kate and Elizabeth went as well. Between two hairdressers they had us all done in 20 minutes flat). Flash forward to the next day. When students come into the middle school, they come down a set of stairs that leads directly to my room, and when I looked up, there was a crowd surrounding my door. My haircut managed to set the whole middle school into a mild chaos. Kids would come to my door stare blankly, walk away to tell someone, and come back again. Mrs. D had to shoo the kids away. At the end of the day, I found out that some kids told Mrs. Abby that quote "Mr. Hepper went Britney Spears on us!"

Welcome to middle school!

Reporting Progress...

[Stage Notes:: Piles of papers strewn across the couches]
[TV:: Titanic]

Well, time has been flying by. As my friends and fellow teachers in Michigan await the start of their school years at the end of this Labor Day weekend, I am preparing progress report grades. That's right, I am almost half way through my first quarter. It still feels like I just started, though with each passing day, the summer at ND seems to be fading further and further into history. All in all, things are going fairly well.

The biggest surprise of this journey has been the people that I have met and the other volunteer organizations I have found out about. Yesterday I spent the day hanging out with my roommate, some people that are a part of the Jesuit Volunteer Corp and a Dominican Volunteer. Prior to yesterday, I really had never heard of either program. It is amazing to meet so many people that are so concerned with social justice. Our dinner conversation lasted for close to two hours discussing what each of us considers to be the biggest social justice issue of our generation. Of course then the night progressed into talking about being new to Atlanta and playing games of all sorts.

Well I just wanted to say hello because I have not been writing much. Now I must continue with my school work and prepare for the festivities of the next two days.

P.S. To all of my MDA family, I am sorry I cannot be there with you at all of the events going on today and tomorrow. Sadly I do not even get to see any of you on TV, but I will be watching the telethon and thinking of you :)

Two Weeks and Two Days...

[Stage Notes:: Friday Night, Sitting on the couch with a half graded stack of 6th grade homework, not paying attention to the movie]
[TV:: The Fellowship of the Ring]

Ladies and Gentlemen, two things are official at this moment. The first is that I am back after a short hiatus. We did not have internet at the house until last week so any form of an update was made rather difficult. Unfortunately, that means I became so backlogged in terms of what I needed/wanted to share, that I did not know where to start and so wrote nothing. I have come to the decision that the best place to start is in fact at the end because if I start at the beginning, we will never get to the present which means another eventual hiatus.

The second thing that is quite official is that I am, in fact, a teacher. Yup, if for some reason you have been out of the loop, I am a teacher. In the interest of confidentiality, I will never use the names of the students or even the name of the school. If you want to know that stuff, contact me directly and I can tell you. However, so you know when I am referring to it I shall either call it SPC or simply 'The Clave' (This one is not my own, it was passed on from a former ACEer that taught at 'the clave'.

All in all, I cannot believe how quickly the time is moving! It is hard to believe that by the end of next week, I will have been in the ACE program for nearly 3 months!! Think about that! The time in the classroom disappears so quickly. I am still working on getting everything covered that I want to and making sure that I can see where the students are at. I really do not remember teachers doing assessments anywhere near as often as I find myself needing to do. It really is quite intriguing to see what they are understanding and what they are not. As I am grading things, I am often astounded at how much trouble they are having with 'review' material. Unfortunately, this school as a whole does quite poorly in math on the standardized tests and they have made it quite clear that their goal is to get scores up. Every staff meeting it is talked about how poorly they are doing and that everyone needs to be teaching math stuff (vocab, logical reasoning, problem solving, etc.) None the less, I felt like a huge weight was being dropped directly on me to 'save the math program'. Perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration, but in my defense, when you have a week until the first time you will ever have your own students, the last thing that you want to hear is that the students score in the 20th percentile on math.

Oh well, it is what it is and I find it is creating some interesting scenarios in class. However, I will save those for the times when they come up. I really just wanted to say that I am still alive and have been in the class room for two weeks and two days. That is all for now, but at least the draught is more or less over with :)

Oh and just so you know, on Wednesday, we broke the all time record for heat in Atlanta at 104 degrees Fahrenheit......knock off that snickering, I can see you from here :-P

All ABOARD!!!!

[Stage Notes:: Tired, Sitting in my room burning one last disk of pictures]
[Noise:: Fans blowing]

Well, I am going to bed now. The car is packed and I am just about ready to go. One last night of sleep in the comforts of home and then the adventure begins. In a few hours, I will wake up and get in the car and drive. Then I will drive some more. A lot more. I will stop and get some food, and then I will continue with the driving.

It is funny to think that when I was little, I could not stand being in the car for more than about a half hour. I would get car sick if I read anything, so on the occasion I got to sit near the cigarette lighter I would play the one and only game system that I ever owned, Sega Game Gear, and then I was ok for a little longer. It was so bad, that the longest driving vacation my family ever took was to Virginia Beach. Florida was out of the question and meant flying.

In the last few years, my desire to travel and experience anything I can has had me in cars for multiple days. I have made 3 round trips to Florida since 2004 and been to countless places in between. Now for the first time I will make the drive alone to Georgia. It has with it all the makings of the first chapter of an adventure novel. Large amounts of unknown, something planned that can just barely be defined, plenty of literal and figurative road blocks, and of course venturing out to do something alone...well not entirely alone, just the driving part, and of course being the only teacher in the classroom. Well, I guess this is the part where the prologue ends and the story begins....

Screaching Halt

[Stage Notes:: Sitting on the couch at home; drained]
[TV:: 10 Deadliest Sharks]

Well, it looks like I have once again fallen into the habit of not blogging when things get busy. For the record, when I say busy, I mean teacing in the morning, classes in the afternoon, and homework until the single digit numbers make their return to the digital clocks. Fortunately, the first semester has come to an end and I am very much still alive. For the moment, I find myself at home trying to get everything in order for the start of the next adventure which starts Tuesday.

Yes, that is right, Tuesday. That is when I start the long drive down 75 to ATL. Wednesday I meet with the principal of the school and find out everyting else about the school and my responsibilites there. For the moment, I am both nervous and excited, but I have so much to do that I do not have a great deal of time to dwell on what is coming ahead. Well, that is about all for now. I will try to write more frequently because I am sure as classes start I will have a ton of stories. However, I am not going to promise to write more because I don't want to disappoint you :)