It's All Mine!

Well, after five long years, I have finally made my last payment on my 2001 Honda Civic. I should be getting the pink slip in the mail any day now. Of course, once I have that pink slip, I'd better be careful...lest the cosmic forces that control the universe decide that me having a nice car that is paid for is not something they can allow.

It will be nice, though...not having to deal with a car payment anymore. Basically, I have had a car payment to worry about since 2000, when I purchased my Jetta that was destroyed in May 2002.

The car is a little worse for the wear, of course. But, it has a mere 79,000 miles on it and, aside from a few dents here and there, is still a decent little car. My plan now is to make it last as long as possible...drive it into the ground. And now that I have an extra 300 dollars a month, there's no end to the possibilities! Just think of all the nerd ropes I can buy!

So, the summer continues to move along. Nothing too exciting. My good friend Shane Ross, Professor of Stuff I Don't Understand at Virgina Tech, is in town this week. It will be his chance to meet Kristy and judge for himself that she is as awesome as I say she is. (Incidentally, some of you have requested pictures of her. Well, if you click on the link to the left that says "My Pictures" you can see all the pictures you want.)

Well, I've got piles of laundry to attend to and some dishes to wash, so I'd best get to it.

Until next time.

A Surplus of Time

Well, summer school ended on Tuesday and, since that time, I have slipped into full vacation mode. I can spend as much time as I want doing whatever I want without having to worry about lesson plans or grading something or responding to e-mails or anything like that.

It's kind of boring.

No, no. Actually, it's been good. I have taken care of a few things that I have been putting off because of being busy with work. My vehicle registration is due this Saturday, so I had to get a smog check on my car and send in the $99 registration fee. For those of you who don't live in California, we pay a lot for vehicle taxes. It is somehow related to the current blue book value of your car, and, of course, decreases each year.

I finally finished reading the book What is the What by Dave Eggers, which I started back in November. (This past school year was just so busy and filled with all kinds of extra crap, that I barely had time for anything other than work.) The book tells the true story of Valentino Achak Deng, a man who fled his village in Southern Sudan at a very young age. His village was all but destroyed by the Sudanese government, and he walked, along with hundreds of other children, to Ethiopia and then to a refugee camp in Kenya, where he lived for nearly ten years before moving to the United States in 2001. (There were no spoilers there, really...so you can still read the book.)

So, the reason it took me so long to read the book is because of a little program called BTSA. It is a mandatory state program required of all new teachers. The intent was originally to help guide new teachers and provide them with support during their first two years. Unfortunately, like anything the state gets its hands in, BTSA has become little more than a bureaucratic mess. With mounds and mounds of paperwork and approximately 5 hours worth of meetings EVERY DAMN WEEK, it is now a dreaded living nightmare that detracts from the time one should be devoting to grading and preparing and otherwise DOING ONE'S JOB!

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, it was reported that the number one reason teachers leave the profession is "bureaucratic interference"- which describes BTSA perfectly. I made it through the program and am now looking forward to actually being able to do my job...but the program that was designed to support teachers and help them through the first few years has had the opposite effect, causing many people to leave rather than put up with it.

Suffice it to say, all of us "Year 2" people are now glad to be done with it and have our credentials cleared. But getting through it was hell (we routinely refer to the program as "ShitSA", thereby showing the powers that be how we feel about their stupid bureaucracy.)

Well, that's all for now. I should get to bed as I've got a full day of doing absolutely nothing tomorrow.

Restoring the Past

Ok, that title is a little melodramatic, I confess. But, after many sessions of fooling around with the blogger template, I was finally able to figure out how to restore all of my archives without completely revamping my entire template to one of the stupid stock templates provided by blogger.

So, feel free to browse back through the days of yore and relive my days working under OMG at The ALC or my trials of student teaching and credential coursework at Cal State Northridge. Chuckle with glee as you experience once again my adventures at Oktoberfest, and marvel once more at my travels through Central America.

As you are no doubt aware, it is currently the middle of summer. We in Southern California have been enjoying a remarkably mild July, with temperatures hovering in the mid-80s most of the time. There was one week where it crested in the high 90s but, to the best of my knowledge, Pasadena has not yet hit the triple digits this summer.

My summer has been mostly uneventful thus far. Aside from a trip to the San Francisco area for my cousin's wedding, little has occurred. I have been teaching summer school, once again struggling with the frustrations of teaching remedial math. Day after day of exchanges such as this:

Me: Ok, so now we need to find a common denominator for 5 and 3. Anybody know what is is?
Class: *awkward silence*
Me: Guys, we just did this yesterday.
Class: *awkward silence*
Me: Remember, we want the smallest number divisible by 5 and 3.
Class: *awkward silence*
Me: That means the smallest number that they both go into...
*Brave 6th grade girl raises her hand*
Me: Yes?
Brave Girl: 12?
Me: Ummm...no...3 goes into 12, but not 5...
Class: *awkward silence*
Me: 3 goes into 12 4 times...so keep counting by 3's...
Some Boy: 15?
Me: Excellent! So, how do we change four-fifths and two-thirds into fifteenths.
Class: *awkward silence*

(Repeat day after day for 5 weeks.)

Thankfully, summer school will be finished this Tuesday and I will not have to deal with this again until Sepetember...by which time, I hope that my love of teaching will have been restored.

Once summer school is out, I will be hanging around Pasadena and Fullerton until August 11 when Kristy and I will be driving to Grand Junction, Colorado, so that I can meet her dad and stepmom. She's already had the pleasure of meeting my dad in June of this year and will get to meet my mom in September.

In other family news (and to serves as an update to demonstrate how fast time passes) my niece Alyson will be starting high school this fall. I believe she'll be going to Temecula Valley High School, but I am not sure. I can't really fathom the idea that she is in high school now...and I am sure many of you reading this are astounded by that fact.

Well, I need to start getting ready for a wedding that we are going to this evening. Just wanted to give an update, now that my archives have been restored.