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By Kyle, August 30, 2007 11:35 pm

I have been a baseball fan for all of my life. More specifically, I have been a New York Mets fan for all of my life. And just like any loyal fan, I’ve had to deal with my fair share of disappointments. These disappointments have come in various forms such as the disappointment of being 4 years old when the Mets won the World Series, an age in my life when I can’t say I really cared about much at all! And then there was the disappointment called the 1990s, a decade when I sat and watched Mets upper management waste countless dollars on players well past their prime, i.e. Mo Vaughn, Jeremy Burnitz, and Bobby Bonilla. Finally, I can still recall the disappointment of the 2000 World Series, which the Mets arrived at after defeating their arch-nemesis, the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS only to lost in 5 games to the steamrolling New York Yankees.

Given that context, picture now this: This past Sunday night, I come home from the Mayan to find the Mets sitting comfortably atop the NL East with a 6 game lead over the second place Philadelphia Phillies. Fast-forward to this afternoon: I’m sitting in a boring professional development meeting, knowing that the Mets have just lost three straight to the Phils. I’m glancing every now and then at the Gameday program giving me live updates of game 4 in progress. It’s the 8th inning, the Mets are losing 8-5 and somehow manage to score 5 runs in their half of the inning to take a 10-8 lead! “Finally”, I say to myself. Unfortunately, I’ve spoken too soon as the Phillies score a run in the 8th and two more runs in the bottom of the 9th to win the game, sweep the series, and worse yet, pull within 2 games of the now barely-in-first-place Mets.

WHAT’S GOING ON??? Are the baseball gods finally exacting their revenge on me for all that trash-talking I did to my former roommate Brett, a die-hard Braves fan? Are the Mets intentionally trying to raise my stress level (as though it won’t be high enough beginning next Wednesday)?

Anyway, I relax, I trust, and I enjoy the final few weeks of baseball before we enter the long drought of nothingness we call the “NFL”.

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By Kyle, August 28, 2007 10:50 am

All that is now
All that is gone
All thats to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

Well, almost. Actually it was quite the reverse. At 2am, the shadow of the earth slowly began to creep across the surface of the moon in what turned out to be a total lunar eclipse. As previously mentioned, my roommate Matthew and I stayed up to witness this event. It actually turned out to be pretty spectacular, but then again, we don’t get much for spectacular stellar displays around here. The above photograph was taken on a 10 second timer on my front porch. And for those of you wondering, that purple glow in the horizon in the background is not residue from some nuclear toxic dump, but rather the lights of downtown Los Angeles which, even at 2am, significantly obscures any brilliant objects in the sky, save for the constant helicopters!

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By Kyle, August 28, 2007 2:14 am

So it’s 2:06am here in Los Angeles (which means some people I know on the East Coast will be getting up very shortly) and my roommate Matthew and I have decided to stay up to witness a fantastic lunar eclipse that is viewable from the West Coast early this morning (i.e. right now). Given the typical caliber of astronomical events that occur (or are at lease viewable) in the light polluted night sky of Los Angeles, we figured that this one would be worth the expense of a slight lack of sleep this upcoming day. As I type, I just looked at the moon and it is about 15% covered in Earth’s shadow. I’ll probably stay up until it’s completely covered, at which point, I’ll attempt to take a photo, then head straight to bed.

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By Kyle, August 27, 2007 12:17 am

I came across this video several months ago and only just recently remembered it. This has to be one of the coolest videos I’ve ever seen. It’s even more amazing if you happen to be familiar at all with the accompanying music (the Abbey Road medley), a knowledge of which allows you to fully appreciate how subtle and intricate his performance actually is! With only 1.5 more weeks to go until school begins (and my summer ends), I need something to smile about! :)

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By Kyle, August 26, 2007 12:06 am

Over the past three years, I have come to really love the math department we’ve had at school. I’ve gotten the chance to work with such amazing people who care so deeply about their kids. I really consider myself lucky to have found a school like the one I’m at. Another great part of it is that in the last 3 years, the math department has experienced very little turnover, which keeps us even closer. All of this to say that when you have a department that is so “tight”, it makes it all the more difficult to say goodbye when people eventually do leave.This evening, I (along with several colleagues) attended a send-off banquet for Prince Nanakobi (the guy in the video with the lei—he’s in the center of the dancing and kind of hard to spot), an algebra teacher that I’ve been working with for the past three years. The banquet was put on by his church, as he is leaving and actually relocating to Cincinnati, OH to become a full-time pastor! So on the one hand, I’m excited for his future as he begins a new life and ministry in the Midwest with his family.On the other hand, I will miss him greatly. We actually started teaching together the same year, and thus both experienced the first year teacher pains together as well. Prince will be greatly missed by me and by the other teachers, but it’s cool to know that he is pursuing an even bigger calling that he feels on his life!

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By Kyle, August 23, 2007 11:55 am

Some of you know that I live approximately 1.5 miles from school, which leaves me little excuse to do all that driving to and from work each day. So my personal goal for the next month as school gets going is to either walk, or ride my bike to and from school as often as possible. It’s actually nice to be able to have about 30 minutes before school to mentally get ready (as opposed to being at home and then 5 minutes later being at work).

The above picture is one that I took from the West St. Bridge looking east over Venice Blvd. What’s interesting is that many of my kids will take this same route when they walk to and from school. And although I haven’t run into any of my kids so far, I have run into several of my former students who now attend Los Angeles High School (located approximately 450 feet from my house)!

Anyway, I’m hoping that once school starts, I’ll stay in the habit of walking to school although those extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning are awfully tempting!

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By Kyle, August 22, 2007 5:39 pm

T minus two weeks and counting…not that anybody’s counting, of course. It is Wednesday, I’m in Starbucks and feeling in a
very reflective mood. The math department has three brand new teachers this year, and although I will miss William, Prince, and Raul greatly (luckily, Raul is only moving downstairs as our new dean!!!), it is exciting to meet some new teachers, ready and willing to tackle the challenge of these kids and the challenge of teaching!

For lunch, the department went out to a brand new restaurant on the corner of Vermont and 22nd, a place called “Caveman” Rotisserie Chicken. The name had intrigued us a week ago when we passed by it on our bus tour, and after 15 minutes of trying to remember where it was located today, we finally found it.

The food was alright, but what struck me more was the fact that I can remember being in the exact place of these new teachers only 3 short years ago. Out at lunch with a new math department, ready and excited to begin, asking tons of questions of everybody I could. Wow….how quickly 3 years has come and gone. In a way, working with all these new teachers has made me feel possibly older than I’ve ever felt before, older than when I graduated grad school, older than when I’ve attended all these weddings of my friends, older than knowing my younger sister will be married within the month. It’s also been fairly interesting trying to figure out how to communicate with new teachers my honest opinions about some of the district policies and mandates without jading them. :)

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By Kyle, August 20, 2007 11:22 pm

My eyes did a double-take as I walked through the parking lot last Friday. I happened to be in La Mirada, California visiting two friends and on the way to a movie, when I happened to notice out of the corner of my eye a strange looking automobile that I’d only seen on TV and never in person. Yes, it was an actual De Lorean DMC-12, one of only 6,500 believed to still exist today. The only place I’d ever remembered seeing one before was in the immortal Back to the Future film trilogy. Well, this one was parked in a mall parking lot. In La Mirada no less. Aside from this rather unusual sighting, I did have a great evening. And although the film we saw, Ocean’s 13, was clearly not the classic that Back to the Future was, I had a great time hanging out with two of my buddies.

Anyway, the countdown has begun. We are just over two weeks away from our first day with kids! I’m looking forward to seeing my kids again (I’m “looping” this year, which means although I taught 7th grade last year, I’m teaching 8th grade this year in order to keep my same kids). I’ll be sure to write back later although these next few weeks are looking like they’re going to be absolutely crammed with busyness as I continue to prepare for the school year to begin!

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By Kyle, August 17, 2007 10:13 pm

Today was our second day of our professional development neighborhood visits. Today was definitely not as interesting or exciting as yesterday. At 9am, we boarded a bus and headed to East Los Angeles, during which a local college professor talked to us about the history of murals in Los Angeles, particularly those done by Chicano artists. Again, the relevance was not immediately apparent to us as we toured from location to location.

The “highlight” of the day occurred at around 11:00am when our tour bus blew a belt.The good news is that we had brought along two buses full of teachers. The bad news was that there were now six more teachers than available seats. They say that opportunity knocks but once. Sensing what was perhaps my only moment for escape, I quickly volunteered to forgo the rest of my tour in favor of a Los Angeles Metro bus ride home. In total, there were approximately 10 of us who stayed behind. Some took cabs, but my colleague Raul and I ventured to take the Metro bus from East LA, through Downtown, and then on to school.

In retrospect, it was actually a pretty fun experience, and I got to eat at this great Salvadoran restaurant on Grand/Venice (for those of you who know L.A. streets). Anyway, it’s off to bed to rest up for another busy weekend!

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By Kyle, August 16, 2007 10:35 pm

It’s finally up!! The latest version of my classroom website (HunsbergerMath.com) is now up and running, thanks to my new friends at WordPress!

This will now be my third year (and change) using a classroom website. As I look forward to this new website and the full interactivity of it, it seems appropriate to take a look back at the past few incarnations of my classroom website, complete with all their amazing features and drawbacks!

Release 0. (March ’05 – June ’05). I call this release 0 because my first attempt at the classroom website was nothing more than the fruition of the realization that my grading software program, Easy Grade Pro, had the capabilities to publish individual password-protected student grade reports directly to the internet. There wasn’t much of a website, and hunsbergermath.com took the viewer directly to this grades page. Nothing more.

Release 1. (September ’05 – June ’06). Realizing the potential that I now had with my own domain name and the ability to give students and parents access to their grades, I spent part of the summer between my 1st and 2nd year of teaching using Yahoo! SiteBuilder to create a new, improved version of hunsbergermath.com. This site included links to pages dealing with extra credit, projects, classroom rules and procedures. Students could even download the essay topics they would have to write about when they got in trouble. The students seemed to really like this version and frequently would check their grades and ask for ways to use the web for extra credit.

Release 2. (September ’06 – June ’07). The summer following my 2nd year, I wrote and received a grant for Microsoft FrontPage, an extremely powerful website editor. While still consisting of the same basic sections (now divided into sub-categories of “Students”, “Parents”, and “Graduates”), I was able to actually use the FrontPage software to build in some meaningful navigation systems directly into the website. Now, students would not have to reload or hit the “back” button when they wanted to return to specific locations on the website. It was in the middle of this past year that I began experimenting with adding RSS feeds to the site and began wondering how this new Web 2.0 technology could be used to even further enhance my students’ learning capabilities! All of this finally led me to…

Release 3. (September ’07 – ). Beginning this year, I’ve abandoned FrontPage and am now using the free WordPress to create and edit my webpage. In all actuality, the latest incarnation of hunsbergermath.com is nothing more than a fancy blog. Some great advantages of this new online software are amazing, such as:

• I can literally edit the website from any internet connected computer in the world without access to any specific software.
• I can include links to permant pages, such as “Class Documents” and”Grades”.
• I can post constantly changing information, such as current homework assignments
• I can categorize all new information with easily accessed categories.
• I can actually use the website itself to communicate with students through ways such as commenting.

Anyway, all that to say that I am extremely happy and excited about this new opportunity to engage my students with technology this coming year!