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By Kyle, June 30, 2008 3:26 pm

In the background: Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus by the late Larry Norman, which is albeit, as evidenced by the title, unabashedly “in your face”, although a great example of late 60s Jesus Music (which has since unfortunately ballooned into a 4 billion dollar a year industry). However, there is still a ridiculously cool “guitar” solo 1:38 into it. 

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As I begin my first full week off, I decided to reflect a bit back on this past year of school. At the end of the year, I wrote a survey in which I asked my kids to answer various questions related to the class, what they learned my teaching style. While very helpful, some of their responses were also very entertaining. For you reading enjoyment, I include several below.

Question: What was the best thing about class this year?

-Playing Mario.

-Watching NUMB3RS.

- The air conditioning.

-UMMMMMMM….NO COMMENT

Question: What was the worst thing about class this year?

-The Homework.

-Nothing except the boring ness [sic]

-Every thing the environment suck all white feel like if you in the hospital.

-The lame jokes and the lame pizzazz jokes.

Question: What is one thing I could do to improve this class for next year’s students?

-LESS HOMEWORK LOL =D

-be more mellow

-I have one thing and one thing only, turn on the heater!

-I don’t really kno…wait……….stop making lame jokes.

Now don’t get me wrong, most of the comments students left were actually very positive, yet some of their phrasing and terminology (and spelling, or lack there-of) was absolutely hilarious. As long as the kids continue to crack me up, I will be able to stay sane in the midst of dealing with all the fun fun fun district bureaucracy!

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By Kyle, June 27, 2008 4:05 pm

Yesterday was fun. Every year, the Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) comes to town (well, perhaps it’s “already here”). This year, I found myself at two separate screenings, both yesterday, the first entitled The Prince of Broadway about a counterfeit merchandiser’s struggle to care for a son he just found out he had. Fantastic and very moving story! The second was a documentary called Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, which films a British boarding school for emotionally disturbed traumatized kids. I saw this film with a teacher friend of mine and we were both shocked at the kids’ behavior (as well as their language), which seriously puts our kids to shame. The school has 108 staff for a population of 40 kids. After seeing the film, I could tell why. Despite seeing the utter hopelessness that some of these kids deal with, it was very cool to see some glimpses of hope in specific interactions between some of the kids, and the progress they make with each other and with the teachers. A very inspirational film (although quite different than a Mr. Holland’s Opus type).

Anyway, about a month ago, I found myself in a blogging lull, and thus decided that what I needed to give myself a metaphorical “kick in the pants” was a warm-up; a starter; a “do-now” if you will that would help me get back on my blogging feet. To do this, I would randomly open up my iTunes program, enable the “shuffle” command, and begin my blog by commenting on whatever came up first. WHATEVER came up first. So today, the randomness plays an audio-sermon that I downloaded months ago which, truth be told, I haven’t got around to listening to yet. However, what I can say is that the specific message is told by Tim Keller, a preacher in NYC who has recently written a book entitled The Reason for God, which ironically I began to read about a week ago. The text is essentially a response to the plethora of books espousing atheism that have been published in the past few years by authors such as Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (books which, I confess, I have not read). Anyway, let’s just say that reading a book entitled The Reason for God is giving my mind a little bit of a headache right now (especially in the wake of my, albeit limited, understanding of Kurt Godel).

Anyway, the audio transcript is here for those of you with 40+ minutes to kill. Enjoy :)

Absolutism: Don’t we all have to find truth for ourselves? – Timothy J. Keller

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By Kyle, June 26, 2008 9:14 am

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I’ve always believed that one of the most important skills that individuals need to acquire is the ability to discern those areas in which he or she has knowledge or skill as well as those areas in which his or her knowledge or skill is as vacuous as a black hole. 

While I am certainly no expert, I consider myself at least able to hold a reasonably deep conversation about baseball, mathematics, education, or music.

However, last night I was reminded yet again of one of those giant empty areas of my life whilst surrounded (I must say; “whilst” is a cool word) by dozens of individuals who clearly knew what was going on.

A good friend of mine from Mosaic invited me and several other of her friends to a wine tasting dinner in Covina. The evening started off simply enough with a host pouring everyone in attendance (about 35 people or so) a taste of some unknown wine. As I sipped, the only adjective that ran through my head was “white”. After that brief sip, I turned my head to see everyone else engaged in some form of swirling, or sniffing, or conversing about some mysterious quality inherent that was clearly being missed by me.  So getting my cues from those around me, I swirled (how long? 2 seconds? 30????), I sniffed (“smells like wine, if you ask me), I sipped. Again, nothing stunning. It was at this point that it finally hit me that having zero training on what exactly it was that I should be smelling/tasting would make the rest of the evening rather interesting. Yes, I’d seen the film Sideways, but that was offering little in the way of help.

Perhaps most bewildering was about halfway through the dinner (which was amazing), the host got up and starting talking about the different wines we had tasted. Throughout this he used adjectives that had previously relegated to the realms of personal fitness, or at best, carpentry. What bewildered me was at one point he asked us to smell a particular red wine (I knew it was red by looking at it) and call out what flavors we smelled. “APPLE”, “CHERRY”, “CARAMEL”, “CINNAMON”, “PEAR”, were just the beginnings of the seemingly random flavors that these eisegetes were proclaiming. Like I said before, it just smelled like wine to me.

As I looked around, part of me felt like a student sitting in a rocket science class, with all of my classmates sitting around, smiling, engaged, clearly with a clue what was going on. And it makes me wonder, is this what it’s like for some of my kids sitting in my algebra class? Do I make my curriculum accessible? Are those who are lost left simply to find their own way looking around in bewilderment as the rest of the class calculates slope?

Regardless of my geeky connection of wine tasting to algebra classes, I did have a wonderful time, which goes to show that as long as you enjoy the people you hang out with, pretty much any activity can be worthwhile!

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By Kyle, June 24, 2008 10:27 am

In the background plays a track entitled S.P.A.T., which I’m sure is an acronym for something (although goodness knows what). It’s an instrumental track by the artist Badly Drawn Boy, who I first saw at Largo a few years back. His music is surprisingly coherent and accessible, and provides a fantastic background music that is both introspective and highly melodic! For anyone who saw the wedding video I put together for my sister Jenna, one of his songs was featured during that slide-show.

Anyway, Saturday night, I was bike riding in Venice and randomly ran into the bass player from Me and the Enemies, the band I was in two years ago. He and I hadn’t seen each other since that time, so we agreed it would be cool to go biking at some point. So last night, I drove down to his place in Venice, loaded up his bike, and we drove to the top of Mulholland Highway, a winding road in the hills north of Malibu. The view was stunning, and the air was cool and crisp, and so with great expectation, we parked the car, unloaded our bikes and got set to go. Unfortunately, no sooner had we unloaded than we realized that my friend had a 100% flat tire, and without a new tube or even an air pump, we were fresh out of luck. So needless to say, we had a nice drive through the Malibu hills that evening which we supplemented with a short hike in one of the state parks just north of one of the beaches, and ended the evening with some amazing New York style thin pizza from a little pizza shop right on the PCH.

Anyway, it was still fun nonetheless, but next time, I hope to do just a little more peddling.

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By Kyle, June 23, 2008 10:41 am

There are certain numbers that owner of Honda Civics should never see. This is clearly one of them.

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By Kyle, June 21, 2008 2:47 pm

Yikes…it’s hot. It’s disgustingly hot. Right now, I’m sitting in my un-air-conditioned living room with three fans blowing on full blast. The sad part is that it’s still cooler inside than it is outside. Interestingly enough, I’ve realized how much of a climatic (not climactic) wimp I’ve become in the past four years of my residency in Southern California. The dry heat of 96 degrees today is making me complain and yet I can clearly remember happily playing outside in those dog days of summer in upstate NY that were both hot and humid (mid-high 90s with humidity that was like walking through soup). On the other hand, a chilly mere 60 degree February morning will send shivers down my spine as I head to school, unable to conjure up memories of wind chills of negative 20s while waiting for the bus on a cold January morning. I admit it. I’m a wimp.

In the background, Jars of Clay’s Blind is playing, a 13-year old album that brings back memories of days of junior high school (well, 7th-9th grade…..) when I would listen to absolutely nothing but CCM. For a couple of years, they dropped off my radar screen, until a few years back when someone (I think maybe my sister) got me their album Who We Are Instead, which is absolutely amazing. I still listen to it to this day. The two albums are markedly different, the first being rather ethereal and lofty, filled with drum loops (albeit soullessly) and string arrangements, the latter being a stripped down folk album with almost nothing but acoustic instruments and an occasional steel guitar.

Anyway, summer has unofficially started. I’ve still got to go back to school this Monday and Tuesday for some amazing professional development meetings. Fun, fun, fun. Anyway, despite the fact that now my weekdays are pretty free from 8am-3pm, I’ll still find myself fairly busy, but this time hopefully doing some fun summer things.

So anyway, since I’m always on my kids about making goals, I’d figure that I’d make some for myself this summer, (and simply the act of publishing it to my blog will lend at least a minimal degree of accountability).

In no particular order, my goals for the summer of 2008:

1. Finish reading my current books.
2. Begin an exercise pattern (I hesitate to use the word ‘regimen’ at this point).
3. Play at least 1 live music show (acoustic or otherwise) in public.
4. more to be added later as I think of them…

With that said, it’s time to do a little bit more baking in this heat. Peace.

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By Kyle, June 18, 2008 5:18 pm

Larry Norman’s Reader’s Digest:

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Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty

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I wish my mailbox looked like this (yes, it’s a shredder…)

In the background:

* Larry Norman’s Reader’s Digest, a radical “Jesus protest song” written in the aftermath of the 60s, this version however, beginning with a brilliant 5-second sample from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Waltz. Amazing juxtaposition. And 50 points to me for using the word “juxtaposition” with only 3 days left of school!

Anyway, the big news is that today was the 8th grade talent which, was organized by me for the first time this year. Thankfully, I started planning early and successfully delegated most of the responsibility weeks ago so today went extremely smoothly…..(well, almost).

First up was the step team, a group of  6th-8th grade girls who performed free style step. [Here's a good definition of a step team for those of my readers not currently residing in Los Angeles].

Second up was an act that I performed with a fellow teacher. The idea is was not original at all, but rather one which I “stole” from a college talent show back in my days at Wheaton. Picture this….a darkened stage…Mr. Roeder (pronounced “Row-dur”) and I walk out onto stage, whereupon I walk over and take a seat at the piano, while Roeder walks over to an empty chair facing the stage (back to the audience) and picks up a video game controller….which happens to be connected to a PC which is projected via LCD onto the screen on the front of the stage. With a simple motion, Roeder begins to play Super Mario Bros. LIVE in front of the audience….all while accompanied musically on the piano by myself. Very very fun! He only died twice and ended up beating the Bowser in the 2nd level, which the kids got pretty into.

Following us was a drum-off that several of the band students did….basically, they played a drum solo to a pre-recorded band track….the three kids played the same track and the audience judged who was the best.

Next, one of our 8th grade HR teachers had created a 15-minute video slide-show/montage which showcased the 8th graders….there were laughs and there were tears :)

Finally, we ended the show with the performance of Neurotoxin, a local heavy metal band of which one of our English teachers is currently the bassist for. The kids loved seeing him play, especially with his long hair down displayed and thrashing all over the place. Quite a different context for seeing their English teacher.

They played two songs and finished….the only problem was, we still had 20 minutes to kill, and so after a bit of fumbling, created a spur-of-the-moment “dance-off” in which any kid who wanted to get up and dance could, well, get up and dance. My fears of chaos were quickly subsided as I became convinced again very quickly how great a crop of 8th grader’s we’ve got this year! They totally bought right into it, cheering on their friends, getting into the music, and even listening quietly to an administrator’s important logistical announcement at the very end of the event!

I’m gonna miss these kids :(

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By Kyle, June 17, 2008 6:01 am

Rats!!!!!

Never a good sign…

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By Kyle, June 15, 2008 2:08 pm

So it’s the last week of school and the iTunes randomizer has selected the appropriate Starting Over by the Raspberries, a late 60s ballad, which musically fits the bill for something as potentially melancholic as the end of school. It’s always with such mixed feelings that I approach the end of a 2-year loop.

On the one hand, I am excited for the summer to begin, and excited for my 8th grade students to begin the final stage of their teenage years; high school. On the other hand, it’s sad to have developed a trust, a respect, and even an admiration for many of my students over the past two years. Luckily, many of them will be attending Los Angeles high school (which is ironically even closer to my neighborhood than my present school Cochran). Many students have expressed interest in coming back and talking to my incoming group of 7th graders this coming fall, so I’m looking forward to that aspect of things. Nevertheless, this time of year is always bittersweet.

Anyway, as this Sunday has presented itself with some unforeseen busyness, (such as organizing an 8th grade talent show and preparing for a teaching candidate in my classroom tomorrow), I must cut my thoughts prematurely short and wait until later this week.

Signing off!!!!

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By Kyle, June 12, 2008 8:26 pm

I just got back from seeing Kung Fu Panda, which is perhaps the best kids movie I’ve seen in years. Yes, that’s right, years. Amazing animation, solid storyline, typical "Blackian" dialogue (I term which I hereby inaugurate in the same sense as the terms "Jeffersonian" or "Barthian"), and absolutely hilarious subtleties made this film one of the most enjoyable of the year!

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