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By Kyle, February 29, 2008 5:33 pm

“NOT THE RED WIRE! It’s the blue wire….cut the blue wire!!!”

Apparently, the electricians working to install new lighting fixtures are not up to date on current Hollywood bomb squad techniques, as this morning in addition to successfully installing the needed light fixtures, they successfully caused a complete power outage at school, which lasted for the rest of the day.

Good thing my classroom has no windows.

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By Kyle, February 27, 2008 12:46 pm

One of my quirks as a teacher is to present my kids with a “good news-bad news” scenario. I have yet to figure out why they inevitably want to hear the bad news first. Regardless, I’ve been finding out very recently of some good news – bad news scenarios of my own!!!

1. Good News: Reading the newspaper comics used to be one of my favorite hobbies growing up. Bad News: The comics today are, suffice it to say, no longer funny. Good News: A friend alerted me to Garfield minus Garfield, in which Garfield is removed from famous Garfield strips, resulting in “an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life”. Good News: Dark, disturbing, and deeply hilarious.

2: Bad News: The Mets choked last October. Worse News: Being a very vocal Mets’ fan had it’s share of consequences in the days immediately following. Good News: In the off-season, the Mets signed ace Johan Santana, to all but shore up the division.. Better News: The trash talking between myself and my Braves-loving, Cards-loving, Giants-loving, Red Sox-loving, and Yankees-loving friends has officially commenced. Bring it on! Best News: Spring Training has officially begun, ushering in a new season of baseball and a new season of spring! My favorite season!

3. Good News: I called Gateway and they have successfully finished fixing my laptop. Better News: They actually fixed it free of charge. Bad News: Upon shipping it back to me, their carrier, DHL, lost my computer…yes, that’s right, THEY LOST MY COMPUTER!!! Good News: Gateway will be sending me a brand new one. Better News: The monthly data backups I’ve been doing for the past two years have actually paid off!

The moral of this story? Laugh deeply, enjoy the outdoors, and BACK UP YOUR FILES!!!

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By Kyle, February 26, 2008 7:28 am

Upon opening my email inbox this morning, this is what I find, which begs the question of which of the following I find the most disturbing:

1. That the time, energy, and money that LAUSD evidently has is being funneled into graphics design, rather than, oh say, hiring teachers or building schools.
2. That the intern who deigned the graphic in the first place is likely just as qualified to run the school district as our current superintendent.
3. That the actual schedule system maintenance this graphic announces is potentially more frightening than the pre-Y2K hype.

It’s nice to know that so many place such great faith in our amazing district.

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By Kyle, February 23, 2008 11:32 am

Journal entry #14: Today is day #18 without fast computer…losing motivation…speech is slurred…tyipng is inaccruate…and wosrt of all, when my roommate sees me agonizing with my current replacement machine, he curtly exclaims, “Nice computer!”

Separate from that, living, teaching, in Los Angeles is great! So in lieu of more frequent, shorter posts, you are gonna be stuck with the less frequent longer posts. No whining! So here’s what’s up:

1. Still rockin’ at the Cochran (yes, I know it only “sort-of” rhymes), and my kids are tackling the notorious train problems! They are actually doing pretty well with them, despite being the longest math problems they’ve ever seen in their lives!

2. Los Angeles is getting cooler. Last week, the brand new Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) was opened to the public! A friend of mine from Mosaic went down last Saturday to check it out! After spending close to two hours perusing the 3 floors of modern art and architecture, I’ve decided to pretty much stick with music as my artistic medium of choice!

3. “Will a tooth left in soda overnight dissolve?”. For those of us who’ve been fans of Mythbusters, on the Discovery Channel, we’ve actually seen these myths tried and tested in real life scenarios (with sometimes with explosive results)! Last weekend I got to see hosts Adam and Jaime talk about the show at an event in Long Beach. And although there weren’t any explosions, they did share some previously unreleased myths banned by Discovery! :)

Anyway, that’s all for now…

Hopefully, my next post will be on my fast laptop, which I find myself missing dearly!!!

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By Kyle, February 21, 2008 12:59 pm

I used to hate the news. So it doesn’t really surprise me when my kids have at best a meager knowledge of local, national, and international events. But I was pleasantly surprised when quite a few of my students indicated that they had heard of the US Navy’s shooting down of a spy satellite hurling toward earth. Given the “coolness” of the event, I decided to bring it a little closer to home for my students.

Imagine holding a basketball in your hand, I began. An ambivalent nod of heads permeates throughout the classroom.

Now imagine that your life depended on you throwing that basketball at a school-bus size target. How many of you think you could hit the target. Most of the students quietly raised their hands.

Only imagine that the school bus is moving….how many of you still think you could do it? A few cocky students still have their hands raised.

OK, let’s just say that the school bus is moving at a speed of 17,000 miles per hour. How many of you think you could hit it with the basketball? No more hands.

Oh yeah…I forgot…one more thing….the school bus isn’t 10 feet away, or 100 feet away, or even a mile away. The 17,000 mph school bus is in San Diego. Wide eyes.

And just to make it fun….every time you miss, you have to save up another $10 million dollars to buy a new basketball. Sounds like fun, right?

And with that we transition into something completely different, and begin the day’s lesson…

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By Kyle, February 12, 2008 7:35 am

Any suggestions for what I should do, now that executing simple commands on my beater temporary laptop is comparable to asking a 7-year old to clean his room?

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By Kyle, February 10, 2008 9:41 pm

So my laptop doesn’t exactly look like this one, but it sure seems like it. For the past week (and probably the next two) I’ve been dealing with the absence of my wonderfully fast and efficient Gateway laptop. Now a word of disclaimer to all my mac-loving, pc-hating “friends” who are simply savoring every word of this post, the issue involved IS NOT a software or hardware malfunction, but rather a crack in the rear hinge due to all the transportation and effective use I get out of my machine.

So needless to say, the past several weeks have forced me to learn patience…

Anyway, in the meantime, some updates (while I wait for this machine to process zeros and ones more slowly than I could write them in Japanese….)

1. If you are on Facebook, you can now embed your favorite posts from this blog directly into your mini-feed! Check out the “Share on Facebook” link at the bottom of each post.

2. Our second semester at Cochran has begun, meaning that all of the kids (as of a week ago) have an “A” in algebra. This will be sure to change as we take our first quiz of the new semester tomorrow… a quiz that deals with systems of equations (remember those fun things?)

3. I’ve been messing with a Firefox browser plug-in called FoxyTunes, which seems to not only integrate wonderfully with my browser, but within WordPress as well! Yay for Web 2.0!

As I wait for my laptop to return, I give no guarantees about the frequency of posting. It’s hard to justify spending literally three times as long doing something that’s as important as this!

Here’s to a great week!

—————-
Listening to: Jon Brion – Ruin My Day
via FoxyTunes

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By Kyle, February 4, 2008 1:12 pm

What a great night! Finally, after 16 long years of frustration, my favorite football team, the New York Giants have prevailed as SuperBowl Champions!

Not only did my team win, but the night was amazing due to the fact that I got to witness what I consider the second greatest football game ever!!!

It’s been a long sixteen years since the Giants last won it all in 1991. I still can recall being 10 years old and watching that game, caring more about the Hare Jordan commercials than the game itself.

Now if only this level of success can become inter-athletic, especially come this October.