Comments (0)

By Kyle, October 31, 2007 11:45 pm

So today was Halloween for reals (yes, for at least one “real”) and to say that my kids were slightly hyper today was putting it very mildly :) A fellow teacher put together a haunted house in our library that the kids really enjoyed during their homeroom and lunch periods. Other than that, the day mostly consisted of kids being kids, with a few additional coats of face-paint and a few extra kilograms of sugar coursing through their veins.

Anyway, one of the cool things about living in Los Angeles is the cool events that they have going on on special days like today. And although kids that are “high” on sugar are scary enough, I decided to take it to the next level tonight. Yes, some friends of mine from Cochran, TFA, and Mosaic all gathered at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to watch Stanley Kubrick’s classic, The Shining, a film which I had up to this point never seen. So after school this afternoon, I grabbed my backpack, a sweatshirt, and a few lawn blankets and headed up to the cemetery to wait in line to enter for the screening.

Once in, I met up with my friends whereupon we dined on a gourmet Subway sandwich dinner and waited for the film to begin!

After all was said and done, I have to say that this evening was a great way to spend an otherwise boring holiday that I usually don’t get to enjoy much anymore (I think the last time I trick-or-treated was probably in the neighborhood of 15 years ago). Right now, I’m just hoping and praying that my kids will have expunged their system of all that sugar by class time Thursday!

By the way, you can thank Wendy Carlos for the creepy soundtrack.

Comments (0)

By Kyle, October 28, 2007 3:30 pm

Yes, I actually am in this photograph. Luckily, I am not the “math nerd” you see on the left who may be about to meet his demise! Saturday night, a co-worker from Cochran threw a Halloween party at his place in West L.A. I was greeted with characters ranging from sumo wrestlers to pirates to certain California Governors. It was tons of fun and a perfect way to spend a weekend evening now that the daily grind of school has effectively begun. It’s only October and already some students are beginning to show signs of tiresomeness. I guess it probably doesn’t help that on Friday I had a “mandatory” after-school test-prep session for my 6th period honors class! While they are a generally bright bunch of kids, I think that this year’s group of kids may have to work slightly harder than some of last years group of kids!

In the mean time, I have not burned up here in the California fires, although I may be well on my way to getting lung cancer from all the smoke in the air. Lately, it’s been raining a bit which has helped get some of the smoke out of the air. Anyway, it’ll be nice to get things back to normal next week.

Another crazy busy week (which is now the norm for me) looms out in front of me beginning in just a few hours. It’s nice to have this Sunday afternoon a bit free in order to mentally prepare for the battle of this upcoming week. Anyway, looking forward to it!

Comments (0)

By Kyle, October 23, 2007 7:52 pm

I’m alright…although the rich people aren’t. No doubt many of you have been following the news that started as an unnoticeable little developing story in the Los Angeles Times early Sunday morning. What has ensued over the past three days has now developed into the major national news story. Yep, much of Southern California is on fire. For those of you who may not be quite familiar with the California geography (which certainly described me until 3 years ago), the state is essentially a gigantic mountainous untamed grassland, punctuated here and there with small little towns likes Running Springs, Castaic, and Los Angeles.

Right now, they’re saying that they hope all these fires will be contained by Thursday now that these winds are finally starting to calm down a bit. In the mean time, none of the fires actually threaten the city of Los Angeles (the Malibu fire on Sunday was probably the closest). In fact, the Griffith Park fire we experienced just a few months ago was significantly more scary as Griffith Park is less than 10 miles from where I live.

The one really weird part of this whole thing was this. In the hallway right outside my classroom door, there’s a gigantic window that lets in sunlight, however today at about 9:30am, I walked out into the hallway only to be greeted by a tone of sunlight that is usually reserved for much later in the day (4-6pm). As I walked outside the building, the sky is actually covered in smoke and haze. While the situation is certainly not as pronounced as in the picture above, I can definitely define the difference in color between the “clear” blue sky and the layer of smoke and haze above it. Regardless, I’m hoping that Los Angeles’ major news stories in the upcoming months will not be such serious things (fires, floods, and gangs “oh my”), but will return to the normality of Los Angeles news :)

In the meantime, enjoy the song “Los Angeles is Burning” (actually written in 2004):

Somewhere high in the desert,
Near a curtain of blue,
St Anne’s skirts are billowing
But down here in the city of limelight,
The fans of Santa Ana are withering
And you can’t deny the living is easy
If you never look behind the scenery
It’s show time for dry climes
Bedlam is dreaming of rainWhen the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burningThis is not a test
Of the emergency broadcast system
When Malibu fires and radio towers
Conspire to dance again
And I cannot believe the Meda Mecca
They’re only trying to peddle reality
Catch it on Prime Time
Story at nine
The whole world is going insane

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning

A placard reads “the end of days”
Jacaranda boughs are bending in the haze
More a question than a curse
How could hell be any worse?
The flames are stunning
The cameras running
So take warning!

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning

Comments (1)

By Kyle, October 20, 2007 1:37 pm

Have you got money burning a hole in your pocket? Are you itching to go on a spending spree? Do you happen to have an extra $700 lying around? If so, here are some of the amazing new items you could be the proud owner of: The Nokia N95-3 smartphone, full-day wedding photography, or maybe even a New York City Park.

Now my only real hope is that the State donates the $699,999,300 they’re saving on this deal to the NYC public school district in hopes that they might better educate the future NY Times reporters of the world to know the difference that even six zeros can make.

Comments (4)

By Kyle, October 19, 2007 6:11 pm

If you read my blog post yesterday, you may have left with the impression that I am just slightly cynical toward LAUSD mandated professional development. The above picture should speak volumes as to why. Not only is the culprit napping during our professional development training that is facilitated by local math coaches, but she actually is one of the district math coaches. I don’t know what else there is to say.

Comments (1)

By Kyle, October 18, 2007 11:38 pm

The dentist’s office. The DMV. Both of these are places I just love so much to go. but none so much as what I get to do tomorrow. LAUSD in its infinite wisdom “mandates” that math teachers attend required trainings 4 times per year in order to learn how to administer what is, in essence, a fancy-looking word problem. Yes, this word problem (guised in the clever language of a “Concept Task”) apparently requires a room full of 25 college grads (including many post-grads) to decipher and determine how to teach best to a group of 150 13 year olds who, quite frankly, might possibly care even less than the substitute who will no doubt be in my classroom tomorrow morning.

Trust me, I’m actually a pretty optimistic and positive person. I’m much more likely to find the good in something that look for the bad, but if there’s anything that makes me more jaded and cynical about the current state of education in Los Angeles is the fact that taking teachers out of their classrooms to attend a training that covers material that could, in fact, be learned in, oh, approximately 15 minutes is nothing short of scandalous. Even worse, tomorrow is a minimum day at our school (which is essentially a “half-day” to make up for the fact that we spent an extra 2 hours at work tonight doing parent conferences). So while my colleagues will be heading home at 12:40 tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be returning from my lunch break to sit through another 2 hours defining the word “rigor”.

Anyway, on a much more positive note, tonight was parent conference night, and while most of the kids I saw were the kids who are already achieving high levels of success, I got a great opportunity to put in a plug for the fact that parents in Los Angeles have choices about where their kids go to high school. By giving them literature about both LAUSD magnet programs and Los Angeles charter schools, I hope that my kids next year will end up at a school where they can actually stand a good chance to really succeed! For those of you who live in LA, if you have any other helpful information about school options for high school, I’m all ears!!!

Comments (0)

By Kyle, October 15, 2007 5:38 pm

This weekend was fairly relaxing. Fall is in full swing, and after a Friday afternoon that included an extra 1-hour practice test session with my 6th period class, I was ready to enjoy the weekend. Luckily for me, that meant getting up at 7am Saturday morning for the only thing worth getting up that early for…a round of golf. My friend from Mosaic, Eric, and I met up for a short round on a quick par-3 course. What was even more enjoyable than hitting some decent 9-iron shots, hitting some decent putts, and completely duffing some off-the-tee shots, was hearing from Eric about his recent trip with a Mosaic team to Bali to work alongside some cross-cultural workers over there.

Later on in the day, I got to hang out (for the first time, really) with one of my two new roommates, Zack. We went up to Hollywood and enjoyed Wes Anderson’s new film, The Darjeeling Limited. Since the 8:20 show was sold out, we had some time to kill before the 10:30 show and so we walked around a bit, checked out Amoeba Music, and then hopped on a bus, that took us a bit further down Sunset Blvd. Overall, very fun evening.

At this point, it might be helpful to clarify the pictures that you see posted with this blog. Prior to hanging out with Zack Saturday night, I got a call from my friend and colleague Raul, who said, “Are you gonna be home in about an hour? I have something for you.” An hour later, Raul arrives, and no sooner does he walk in the door than he throws me this black t-shirt with the some very familiar orange and blue markings on it. Yes it is the shirt in the picture. Yes, it does reflect the season-ending misery that the Mets endured as they probably completed the greatest single-handed choking in all of sports. Yes, it does have a picture of Mr. Met drowning in sorrows, with an injured-baseball head. Yes, he is wearing a uniform that says “Mess” in an all-too familiar font. And yes, the title of this shirt is “You Gotta Bereave“. And yes, here I am, wearing it! The fun never ends.

Comments (1)

By Kyle, October 9, 2007 11:18 pm

I’m a computer geek. I also have friends who are mac users. (Why they’re my friends, I’m not so sure, but be that as it may). Constantly barraging me with their propaganda as to why their OS is better than Windows, I usually have little reason or motivation to return their banter.

However, tonight provided a great opportunity to remind my “friends” why I’m a dedicated PC user. This evening, I got to attend a concert presented by the L.A. Philharmonic, and before the performance their was a pre-concert discussion by two music composers about the pieces we were about to hear. Part of the evening’s performance included a video segment, which these two composers wished to preview during the pre-concert talk. Unfortunately, they chose to do so on a mac. They received the color wheel of death, and moved right along, while a tech specialist fumbled with disc ejection, OS restarts, and system preferences, all in a vain effort to play a simple DVD. Yes, we all remember when Windows 98 crashed on Bill Gates during a live presentation, but it was finally nice once again to receive a little vindication :)

Comments (2)

By Kyle, October 7, 2007 1:36 pm

So this Saturday was a pretty busy day here in Los Angeles. Having felt much better after a 13 hour-night sleep (yes, I went to bed at 8:30 on Friday night), I got up, headed out to Starbucks for my morning brew. In the afternoon, my friend Rustum and I braved the MTA bus line (line 28 runs 2 blocks from my house) to downtown to the 2nd annual L.A. Weekly Detour Music Festival. For those of you who may not know, L.A. Weekly is a free weekly paper that lets all of us Angelenos know what is going on each week in regards to art shows, music concerts, film, food, etc. Detour is an (at this point) annual live music concert they sponsor in which they shut down the four streets surrounding City Hall, set up four stages, and invite new and upcoming musicians to play 30-40 minute sets. Going in to the event, I had heard of 0 of the 20 bands that were scheduled to perform (that’s 0% for those of you counting at home). Anyway, the whole event was alot of fun, the highlight being a group called the Teddy Bears, who came on stage in suits and giant Teddy Bear heads. Despite the ridiculous attire, the music was great!

Finally, in other much sadder news, there is now no longer any reason to continue to watch baseball given the fact that the National League will be represented by either the D’Backs or the Rockies. I guess football season has officially begun.

Comments (0)

By Kyle, October 3, 2007 4:10 pm

Wow. I don’t know about any of you, but this week so far has been especially exhausting. The trouble is that it’s only Wednesday and my schedule doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. So just to be fair, it seems appropriate to give a little background on why I might be so tired. The following is a list of just several factors that mildly to moderately contribute to the fact that I’m so tired.

1. I’ve had to endure the taunting of colleagues who somehow expect me to explain the utter deterioration of the New York Mets in the final weeks of the season.

2. I’m recovering from being sick. It seems that the cold-bug has hit Cochran Middle School quite hard. Nothing big enough to warrant a sick day, but just big enough to be annoying!

3. Scheduling a field trip to USC (we’re going on the 10th) is daunting in and of itself, but making sure that the right forms and waivers are filled out is something quite different entirely.

4. I’ve recently been deliberately trying to enjoy some early mornings at the local Starbucks at the bottom of my road. I’ve found a great way to spend the early morning (Starbucks opens at 6am) while enjoying my daily fix of caffeine, listening to John Adams, and reading some Scripture (although currently plowing through the book of Numbers can be particularly dry at times).

5. My second of two new roommates (Mitch is staying) this year just moved in this week. Zack is currently working in theatre, which has nothing to do with why I’m tired but the fact that he brought his copy of Season 3 of “The Office” (which we watched several episodes of last night) is contributing to the fact of why I’m particularly tired today.

6. Also to blame is the latest book I have been enjoying. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson is a novel of an Iowan family as told through the letters of an elderly father to his young son. While definitely a slow read, it is the perfect nighttime activity as I wind down my day, Unfortunately, I find myself winding down the day much later than I probably should.

Well, that’s about it. Tonight I have “band practice”, which currently consists of myself, two of my roommates, Mitch (on drums) and Matt (on bass) and one of Matt’s friends on guitar. We’re definitely still got a long ways to go ’til we sell out the Staples Center, but it’s just fun to play music once again. So, signing off, hopefully into a more restful environment, I bid all of you adieu for the evening!