It seems like I ought not to let the month end without posting something. I've had a pretty busy week, what with school and all. Sometimes I still doubt myself about the whole thing...about whether this is really the right move, but I honestly have no other direction that interests me, so we'll see what happens. You know, the average career-length for starting teachers is three years. Three years. I don't know if they are driven insane after that short amount of time, or if it takes that long to realize that you really don't want to do it. Will I be one of those three years people? I hope not. I guess it all depends on where I end up teaching. There was this scholarship from CSUN that I was going to apply for..they would pay for all costs related to getting the credential...tuition, books...all that. The rub? After completing the certificate, you have to teach three years for Los Angeles Unified.

I have this professor at the moment who spent a great deal of his career teaching at inner city high schools for LA Unified and if there's one thing he has stressed to the class time and again, day in and day out...do NOT work for an LA Unified inner city high school. Everyday he relates horror stories to us about the violence and the complete chaos that goes on at some of these schools. Granted, we all get the feeling that he is exaggerating to some extent. But still, I think I'll follow his recommendation and teach in the suburbs rather than in the heart of Los Angeles. Of course, as we have seen in recent years, violence can happen anywhere. Still...it's more likely in the inner city, I think. The professor's point is, simply, that we are going in to this field to teach, not to engage in combat. I think it's a valid one.

So, suffice it to say, I don't think I'll be going for that scholarship...I'll find some other way to pay for all of it. Although, I must admit that it was rather tempting when I discovered recently that I had to pay $212 to take this test. Oh well.

Anyway, last night I went over to Shane Ross's house and to hang out with him, Ryan Cox and John Lin. About 11:00 or so, Shane and Ryan and I decided to hit the town, so we headed out to the Bigfoot Lodge in Los Feliz. They had a three dollar cover last night (normally, it's free), but then they also had two dollar shots of whiskey and three dollar beers so it was all good. The only problem was that there was this extremely terrible goth/punk/whatever band playing there. The band had their faces painted white, like they were skulls or something, and were dressed all in black. Further, there were all sorts of Ramones fans with Liam Gallegher-like haircuts. At one point, Shane suggested to one of these fans that perhaps Weezer might be a little bit better than the Ramones (I have no opinion on the matter) and the guy firmly implied Shane was an idiot and stormed away.

Shane actually has a knack for pissing people off in environments like that. Last year, while he and I were at Oktoberfest in Munich, he called some Armenian guy a bastard and almost got his ass kicked.

Anyway, about 12:30 we left the bar and headed for In-N-Out in Glendale. They close at 1, so we went inside and ordered our food. Ryan and I had to practically force Shane not to drink out of a cup of soda that was sitting on the counter there. I mean, he had no idea where it had been and was going to drink out of it. Sick and wrong. There weren't too many other people there. Just the three of us, this one guy and his extremely hot girlfriend, the guy with a broken leg and then these two other girls at the table next to us. Actually, I don't know what the status was of the relationship between the guy and the hot girl. They had either been together for a very long time and therefore didn't need to talk about much, or they were on a first date and didn't really have much to say to each other. Granted, I can't imagine any first date ending up at In-N-Out Burgers at 12:30 in the morning, but who knows.

While we were leaving, Shane asked the guy behind the counter what they were going to do with all their extra fries. Since he was going to throw them out, we convinced him that it would be better to give them to us...and we scored a mass of fries.

I don't think I really have much else to say. At the moment, I'm sitting here listening to this album. Good stuff, as always.

Apparently, yesterday was Alisa Whittle's birthday and I didn't even know. Actually, I think I kind of knew it was at the end of February but I wasn't exactly sure when. Anyway, happy belated birthday to her.

That's all for February.