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By Kyle, December 4, 2007 12:06 pm

Yes, so apparently 6 days is the equivalent of “forever” in the blogging word, as I realize that I haven’t posted a thing in nearly a week. But I don’t feel so guilty mostly because my world has been nothing short of “crazy busy” for the past few weeks and it doesn’t look like the end is in sight anytime soon. Luckily it is now officially the Christmas season and I keep trying to remind myself to slow down, take a breath, enjoy this time of year.

Last evening, I had a great chance to go with a group of students to tour UCLA. For many of them, it was the first time that they had gotten the chance to visit UCLA, and for some of them, the first time they had gotten the chance to go to a college campus. Just like my last trip to USC, we started the afternoon with a tour of the campus, and I had to laugh at all of 8th grade boys who were complaining about how much they had to walk, but all of my 8th grade girls were doing just fine! After the tour we headed down to what was the students’ favorite part of the visit: dinner in the all-you-can-eat UCLA dining hall. Judging by their average consumption at dinner I wouldn’t be surprised if five years from now they’re tacking on the “freshman fifty” rather than the “freshman fifteen“. Following dinner, we walked up to the top of the math/sciences building and got to watch a planetarium show. Despite the fact that the stars were simulated, many students remarked as to how beautiful the night sky could be! If only they could see it “for reals” in LA! Some of the questions they asked the grad student who gave us the presentation: “Do you think Pluto should be a planet?”, “What is the brightest star?” “Betelgeuse! That’s me! That’s me!” “Uggggh….. I shouldn’t have eaten so much….what was I thinking!”

Anyway, that was that, and this is this, and my conference period is about to end, so I’ll try to post at least once more this week with all the craziness that will be going on!

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By Kyle, November 28, 2007 10:32 pm

Yes. This is a real photo. Yes. I took this photo myself. Yes. Someone from Barnes and Noble is seriously confused.

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By Kyle, November 19, 2007 9:18 pm

One of the things that I’ve had to get used to in the 3+ years I’ve now lived in Los Angeles is the concept of tagging. While some are inclined to call it art, I am typically less so inclined. There have been numerous occasions when I’ve arrived at school in the morning to find spray-painted graffiti on the outsides of walls, buildings, stairwells, and even defacing some of our school murals. And although I’ve never experienced this myself, I’ve heard first-hand horror stories from some of my teacher friends about them returning to their room after a holiday or a sick day to find it all tagged up. Even the Mosaic truck, which we use to haul equipment to and from the various venues on Sundays is a target for taggers. Slowly, over the course of the past ten weeks, I’ve noticed that the truck arrives at the Mayan each week with more and more black, spray painted graffiti on the side.
Anyway, upon arriving at the Mayan last night, I found that some folks came up with a creative solution! Instead of trying to erase or clean the tagging, the truck was parked in the center of the parking lot with spotlights on it as two Mosaic artists painted their own designs and art over both sides of the truck, in effect, incorporating much of the graffiti that was already there!
While this was a very cool idea, I think I’d be more than a little freaked out if I came in next Monday to find the maintenance crew involved in a similar type of graffiti solution!

Anyway, only 12 more hours of school until Thanksgiving…not that I’m counting or anything!

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By Kyle, November 18, 2007 1:21 am

Today was a fun day. A friend of mine that I first met at Wheaton College was visiting Los Angeles to interview for Medical School residency at USC and so today I had the chance to hang out with her and two of her local friends from here in Southern California. After lunch in Pasadena, we drove up to Griffith Park and hung out the Griffith Observatory. This is one of the few places that I’ve always wanted to go to in Los Angeles but never had the chance to until today! (Click photo to enlarge!!!)

The only thing that confused me was the following sign-posts on what seemed to be the front door of the observatory.

Now I know that I’m no rocket scientist, but this seems like a surefire lose-lose situation. Are the local astronomers bored? Are they lazy? Are they intentionally trying to throw the general public into a sense of existential despair? Regardless, I still was able to have a fun day!

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By Kyle, November 14, 2007 4:59 pm

There are a few vows I made in my younger days that I am less-than-ashamed to admit to since have broken. As I recall, I vowed never to own a cell phone (broken December, 2003). I vowed never to become a teacher (broken July 2004). And probably most surprising of all, I vowed never to listen to NPR. As far as I knew growing up, an NPR radio station was a mind-numbing conglomerate of talk radio and analysis that would make even an accountant die of boredom. At least, such was the case of the NPR radio station in Syracuse, NY.

However, since moving to Los Angeles, I have learned that NPR radio stations can actually choose their own programming when not syndicating the news and talk. One such station, KCRW, based in Santa Monica, actually fills their non-NPR time with amazing new and independent music selections that range from folk to rock to alternative to latin to reggae and at times, to even a bit of classical. Suffice it to say, I really don’t have a reason to listen to any other station!

However, all of that was just background information for the real story. On Monday, I was listening to the aforementioned KCRW, specifically to a program called Morning Becomes Eclectic, and the host was giving away 5 pairs of tickets to the first five callers. Being so motivated, I called in, and won a pair of tickets to go and see K.T. Tunstall perform live Tuesday night. Yay! Anyway, to make what is now a really longer story slightly shorter, my buddy Kent (from Whittier) and I trekked up to the show last night which was pretty fun, although we were literally standing (not in line, but in front of the stage) for more than 3 hours. Yes, K.T. was great, but even better was the opening act, Teitur, an self-conscious Danish singer/songwriter who took us aback with his pristine vocals, awkward humor, and surprising chord progressions which seemed to come from out of nowhere!

As I we walked back to my car after the show, I realized how far I’ve come in teaching. To actually go out and do something fun on a school night is something I would have only dreamed about my first year!

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By Kyle, November 5, 2007 4:53 pm

I’m sick. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I do know that it came swiftly last night, and yet somehow I was foolhardy enough to go into school today. Bad idea. 2nd Period was really tough (today was an “even” day with only periods 2, 4, and 6)…my body ached, my focus was lost, and my energy was nowhere in sight (this was a stark difference from my usual classroom antics which sometimes include flailing my arms wildly around while teaching about inequalities). Even though I told my kids that if I looked a bit pale, it’s not just because I’m white, but because I’m under the weather. Anyway, 2nd period came and went and I’m less than convinced that the kids learned what I had hoped.

Anyway, luckily 4th period is my conference period, which is the one period I don’t have a class. I was able to lay out on a nice long couch in the teachers’ lounge and grab a few winks. I was able to do this, but unfortunately, this did little to avail things. By the beginning of lunch (which I skipped) I was seriously contemplating leaving school early and going home. However, I didn’t feel like finding two other teachers to cover a 108 minute class. And for some reason, I had a feeling that my 6th period students would persevere despite their teacher being a walking zombie.

The make an already long story slightly shorter, my 6th period kids came in and I was seated (something I never do) at the front of the class with my PC projected on the screen as well as a wireless mouse, a keyboard, and a bell. For the next 108 minutes, the students did an amazing job of learning the lesson (solving inequalities), working individually, and working in partners as I did not speak a single word out loud for the entire class period. Most of them thought it was fairly interesting to see how a teacher could communicate with them silently for so long, and I was grateful to my kids, for I found myself feeling slightly better by the end of the class period.

Anyway, that’s all for me for now…I’m headed to bed early tonight to recoup and hopefully get back on track with things tomorrow!

P.S. In the meantime, I don’t really know how to feel about Los Angeles’ new acquisition. Joe Torre, the former Yankee manager is coming to the helm with the Dodgers for the next three years. Now if only ownership would put some of that money towards actual talent on the field, the Dodgers might actually get somewhere.

P.P.S. For those of you who are either math geeks, science geeks, or music geeks, the following is a fairly interesting video. Apparently, someone with way too much time on their hands actually wired two Tesla coils to play at different frequencies and in synchronization. The result is an almost baroque-ish in nature rendition of an otherwise very romantic piece!

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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.

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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

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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 :)

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By Kyle, September 17, 2007 9:21 pm

My roommates are hilarious. Upon my safe arrival back in Los Angeles this evening, I returned to the comfort of my room only to find a lovely picture of A.J. Duffy, taped to the ceiling directly above my bed. For those of you who may not know, A.J. Duffy is the president of UTLA, the teachers union here in LA.

I have generally mixed views of our union, having realized that it is just as much of a bureaucratic behemoth as the district itself, albeit maybe only slightly less evil.

Out here in California, especially in Los Angeles, the charter school movement is in full swing. One of my roommates actually currently works for a Green Dot school, the poster-child organization for the Los Angeles charter school movement. Always trying to convince me to join their ranks as a teacher, I have to admit it’s awfully tempting, but I’m definitely sticking with the district for now. Regardless, I’m going to do all I can this year to encourage my students to apply toward a charter high school! Anything I can do to help them be more successful!