Ummm...

This is was too good not to put somewhere. Drawn by a student who wouldn't do his work, this truly captures my likeness. Completely.

iliasia

how would you pronounce this name?

Giving Up

So for some reason i never really ever prayed about this. it doesn't make any sense, if anything is going to happen with this situation it is not going to be me doing it. So here we go. I am asking you to pray for the entire situation. What happened is (if you don't know) i was in a band and we just recently broke up. The most pressing issue is an issue of money. We had just bought a van and along with that got some debt. We really need to sell the van ASAP. we have bills to pay and no money to pay them. The other issue is more personnel in nature. Certain people are taking this really hard, harder than we thought they would causing relationships to be strained. To be perfectly honest i feel like a bunch of little kids. It is weird. So i would appreciate prayer with selling the van, as well that relationships would be healed and that they wouldn't be lost forever. Thanks and we appreciate it.

p.s. here is a picture of the van if you know anyone that wants to buy a 15 passenger van that runs great.

My Amazing Wife

Colette is sick. It has been a long week and it finally caught up with her. yesterday she took half the day off and tried to get some rest and start to feel better. This did not happen and I thought that I would be a good husband. i made soup for dinner and then we sat and watched a movie and I was going to give her a massage and get her to sleep early. Unfortunately, it has been a long week for me as well. By eight o'clock i had passed out on the couch and was woke up by colette at nine to go to sleep. I was completely out of it and am surprised I made it to bed. I woke up this morning and not only did she get me to bed and take care of me but she also cleaned up after dinner, which i didn't do because i was asleep on the couch.

Stupid Students

Kids think that they are so clever and are shocked when you catch them doing something they are not supposed to do. Like texting in class. they sit there looking at their laps clearling doing something and they wonder how you know they are texting. Then after you catch them and ask them to stop, they do it again and are surprised that you caught them yet again. Today though I had a student that just didn't get it. First he walked out of the class to blow his nose and continued walking to hang out with friends. Now this was all noticable to me because of the giant windows he was walking in front of. so i asked him to come inside and work. About 30 min. later he asked to use the restroom. "ok just come right back" so he walks out to the bathroom and stops short turns around and walks to his friends. Again this was right in front of the windows. Again i walk outside and tell him to either come in or go to the bathroom. he says ok and starts walking but again turns to his friends. Again right in front of the windows. so i said him to detention for the rest of the day. Surprise, he didn't go. but instead of just walking away and leaving the area. he hung out right next to the classroom so that about 5 min before the end of school I saw him with his friends again. Anyway his sneaking ability is lacking so tomorrow when i go back to this class he will spend the entire period and possibly all saturday in detention. All because he wouldn't just sit in his seat and do a tiny bit of work.

Old Friends

On tuesday my parents had a wedding at their house of some old family friends. it is sad to see marriages fall apart and people lives get turned inside out, but it is good so see them piece back together what they can. A few years back some good friends of mine starting getting into the wrong crowd and began doing drugs. But since then they have returned to their faith and are going to church and trusting in God. they still have some work to do and cobwebs to sort through but then again don't we all? Anyway, like I said it is encouraging to see dear friends come back to the Lord and living a happy life.

Strippers and ADD

I had a wild and crazy student in one of my classes today. So bad that after a mere 20 minutes I had already sent him out to detention for the remainder of the 90 min class. The teacher warned me about him saying that he had ADHD. And i simply just don't get. I can almost 100% guarantee that if we had a guest speaker in the class that happened to a stripper he would have payed attention and did his work if the other option was to leave. (I picked stripper to grab his attention because he is a teenage boy and he was constantly shouting out the lyrics to rap songs choosing in particular ones with overtly sexual references). Now if this is the case then it sounds like he just needs to learn how to focus himself. I have trouble focusing on a boring lecture, as does anybody else, but i have been taught the discipline to sit still and not be disruptive. Doctors have given people who have trouble focusing on things they are not interested in a name and thus an excuse. Kids labeled with ADD and ADHD are given an excuse. "I can't sit still because I have a disease. It is not my fault." Perhaps if we never labeled these kids and instead expected better behavior, then maybe we might get it. If we label a kid dumb and tell him we don't expect him to get good grades or be very smart, then you can bet they will believe this of themselves and achieve the expected.

Six Months

My wife and I have been maried for six months today. Funny when I always talk to other married couples and they say that the time goes by fast and they can't believe they have been married for X amount of years. I don't feel that way at all. The time didn't go by fast. Six months seems like nothing. It feels like we have been married for years and years already. Don't get me wrong this is not a bad thing at all. We have already been through so much in these six months that they seem like an eternity. An eternity that i would go over again and can't wait until I can say "30 years of marriage seem like nothing, I'm ready for 30 more." I love my wife, she is absolutely amazing. In fact she is making me dinner right now. YES!

Jealous

As wierd as this may sound disneyland has always been apart of my life. I love the place and just about everything that they do. I want to go but i have moved away. Today at work, a group of students were excused early to go to Disneyland. This is not fair and I am jealous.

liar liar pants on fire

At work today I had a students that to be nice i will call interesting. First, he introduced himself but said that he preferred to be called by his religious name which sounded slightly Japanese. Then i found out that he was a budhist. And from there he went on to tell me that he spoke somewhere around 8 or 9 different languages. When he heard my last name and found out that it was german he was exciting and started speaking "german" which once again sounded japanese. So i thought ok he might be a liar. But his stories kept on going. He wanted to show me some of his work that he been writting, and drawing. His drawings were obviously japanamation printed of the internet, as well all of the other work that i saw. So at this point i don't believe the kid. Good student, but probably full of crap. he started doing ninja things in class, which led me to finding out that yes he is a ninja. A master in japanese and chinese martial arts which involve chi. He demonstrated his "power" by grabing the kids in the class arms and asking if they could feel it in the fingers. Only one of them did. After about 5 arm grabing incidents he had to rest his chi for the day. After he completed his work he decided to meditate the rest of class. it was hilarious how much everyone else thought that it was 100% real. I am not so believing.

Crazy People

So because i don't have a life i have been watching this show called moral court. It is basically people's court but the verdict is based on moral criteria. An interesting idea and mildly entertaining. Not a show i would race home to make sure i saw, but good enough to watch because there is nothing else on at the moment. Anyway i just wanted to say that some people are crazy. this lady has a homeless guy living in her house for the last three years (making him not homeless but that is besides the point). that is not so crazy, the crazy part if that he threatens to stab her son, has almost burned the house down on several occassions and she defends him by saying that he is only like that when he is drunk. And to make things even worse, the only reason why he is homeless is because he does not want to spend the money that he receives on a place to stay, he would rather drink it. Stupid Lady.

Side note: i am all for being nice to people who need help, take care of the poor. Isn't that what we are called to do? But at a certain point there is helping and enabling not to mention putting your family at risk.

sexy feet

Today was a real rough day at work. I was "forced" to watch the movie "happy feet" three times during the day. It was really hard since it was a movie that i had wanted to watch and as it turned out, it is a good movie. Which is really the entire reason why i am telling you about my day at work. If you haven't seen "happy feet" i think that you should. It boasted quite the all-start cast including elijah wood, nicole kidman, hugh jackman, and robin williams. Would the movie be funny without robin williams? No probably not. Cute, but not funny. My only concern with the movie was that it was quite sexual for a kids movie. I am not sure that they would get most of the jokes and references but you never know, kids are amazingly intelligent. So watch the movie, but maybe watch the movie before you show it to little kids or else you may be asked where babies come from.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was at our house for the first time this year. We got up early, slaved away in the kitched, cleaned the house, set the table, etc. It was a lot of fun, getting to be the adults who were responsible instead of relying on other people. Plus it was sort of nice for my Mother do not have to worry about having the "get together" at their house with the mess to clean and the food to prepare. She is an amazing women and deserves more credit than she gets. So it was nice to be able to give her the break. We cooked way too many pork ribs and won't be cooking for the next week or so. (Pork ribs do not have bones, the entire thing is meat. I thought that ribs had bones, i was mistaken so we have a lot of ribs left over, serioulsy do you want some)? Baked beans, salad, corn on the cobb, 7-layer dip, chips, veggie tray, eggs of the devil, soda pop (hehehe), homemade bread, banana bread, brownies. It was awesome. The whole family came and we just hung out and relaxed ate food and then people started leaving which was good cause we were getting tired. As well as mother's day it was also sort of a house warming thing, which means that we got gifts! We were given a potted rose bush for our patio area, a fountain, some sushi trays, sauce holders, and soy sauce pourer, and glass bakeware. So it was a good time for all, at least i hope.

sleep over at my place

On tuesday night we had a sleep over at my place. that's right my two nephews (five and three) came over and spent the night at my house. Their parents we going to a friends concert so we agreed to take them for the night. This isn't one of those stories where everything goes wrong. In fact i think thati am going to be an amazing parent, well at least colette is going to be and that means i will be too since my kids will be well behaved and people will equate that to our parenting skills. Jerod the oldest was a little afraid since this was the first time they have been to our place so we let the boys sleep on the floor of our room. I apperently have the ability to sleep throught a kid talking in his sleep every half hour or so because he is having nightmares. Luckliy for Jerod, colette does not have this ability. Other than the nightmares, the night went perfectly well and I got to work on time and the kids even had breakfast. We are officially ready to be parents, just not yet.

a waste of your time

I have nothing to say, i am simply proving a point. Thanks for your time.

American Education

The other day while teaching a 7th grade history class, i ran into some 'slow' students. They were labeling a map, very typical history stuff. You need to know where it is that you are learning about right? Well first of all over half of my students did the assignment wrong. They had specific instructions and few actually followed them. They had to read them to find out what to label, but they missed the rest of the assignment. They did so much more work that was actually required it was sort of funny. Then i ran into a special group of two. Their first question surprised me a little bit. They were both hispanic so i was quite surprised when they asked me to help them find Mexico. (By the way the map was from the United States down to south america). Have they never looked at a map before? Well their next question makes me think no. They were looking for Bolivia. I can understand a student not knowing where Bolivia is right away but when i went to help them they were looking in Africa. Keep in mind that they had a blank map of south america, so the maps didn't even match. When i went to help them i said, well first you need to look at south america. Her response, " which is?" I was quite surprised, but at the same time i was not.

"Delta Farce"

I just want to know who thinks to themselves that it is a good idea to give Larry the Cable Guy a role in a major motion picture and then casts him in a movie. Wasn't the first movie he was in enough of a learning experience not to put him into anymore movies. I think that he is funny at standup but he is not a good actor and should not be an actor. That being said I am sure that i will watch it at some point. that whole morbid curiousity thing.

Your world wireless

My house, ok apartment, (i am not that cool yet) has wireless internet. Possibly one of the greatest inventions in the world, it just makes my life more convenient. not that i need to sit on the couch and serf the internet while watching tv. But isn't that something that we all want to do (you know you are thinking either one: yes i already do that or two: why did i not think of that myself). right now i am watching south park as i write this blog. Anyway i just thought that i would announce this to the world.