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By Kyle, February 16, 2010 6:23 pm

Yann Tiersen – Naval

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Yesterday was President’s Day. In honor of the day, I thought briefly to myself “Gee, I’m glad our President is hard at work today”, and then proceeded to enjoy a fantastic day that included, among other things, a trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or better known by locals as LACMA.

Now, when you walk into an art museum as utterly huge as LACMA, you are tempted to simply walk around, at a leisurely pace, taking in the paintings on the walls. Most folks, I observed, spent approximately 5 – 10 seconds at each particular piece before moving to the next one.

Yet,  when you do this (and believe me, I’ve done it), you find yourself very quickly suffering from visual ADD, as the museum suddenly become a checklist of token images to cross off, rather than a collection of pieces of expression, communication, and at times, beauty. I realized yesterday that to go through the museum at anything faster than a glacial pace would be analogous to purchasing a brand new CD, and only listening to the first 10 seconds of each track.

My experiment went something like this. Instead of walking from piece to piece, I decided to only take in one piece per room, a decision which allowed me to then stand in front of a piece for between 5 – 10 minutes.

The results? After getting over the initial “30 second hump” in which your mind says “Why are you still here….you’ve seen it all”, I started to notice more detail as it appeared in colors, shapes, themes, motifs, and after 5 – 10 minutes, even emotions.  Holy Bouncing Bananas Batman! This was amazing! For the rest of the afternoon, I really looked at perhaps 5 – 10 pieces in total, but those pieces were truly worth the trip there.

Do have patience, patience, patience, because when you do, absolutely amazing things can appear!

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By Kyle, February 13, 2010 9:38 am

Henry Thomas – Texas Easy Street

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Explore your city! Last evening, my friend Carl and I drove down to Compton to try this BBQ shack that we’d both heard about in a local paper.

While I would not normally drive 30 minutes for BBQ, I must say that this BBQ was simply sublime. Bludso’s is, in fact, perhaps the best barbecue I’ve tasted here in LA (even in the face of stiff competition from such notables as Tasty-Q, and Phillip’s).

Simply oozing with tenderness and Texas hot sauce, the ribs we enjoyed were exactly what one needs at the end of a long week!

In the dining area (imagine a 15’ x 5’ hallway with barstools), Carl (who is also a teacher, albeit at a different LA middle school) and I were talking about our respective kids and how they were doing. After about 5 minutes of conversation an African American woman, perhaps in her mid to late 30s, who had been sitting nearby leaned over and asked us if we worked for Compton Unified. No, we replied, we both worked for LA Unified, their larger, northern neighbor.

Then, perhaps wondering what in the world would bring to white boys down to the heart of Compton/LA, she abrasively asked us, “So, do you teach for America”?

It’s likely that only my TFA readers will completely understand and relate to the sarcasm inherent in that question. It turns out that this lady has been an elementary school teacher in Compton for the last 12 years and has likely seen her fair share of starry-eyed, slightly arrogant, savior-type, young “teachers” pass through the hallways of her Compton school, only to abruptly leave after a pair of short and dramatic years.

We assured her that yes, some TFA teachers do, in fact, stay at their schools or in education for the long-haul (we were both living proof), yet that did nothing to alleviate the frustration on her end of members of the cult organization that Carl and I have previously belonged to.

As she waited for her order to arrive, we eventually were able to have a pleasant conversation, about what elementary grades she likes teaching (3rd grade), what kids are like at that age (you can actually teach them content), and how good the barbeque was. Her order finally arrived, and she left, wishing us a great year, yet somehow seemingly, still doubtful of our intentions.

As Carl and I refocused our efforts on the mac & cheese now staring us in the face, we both reflected on the complexities of building trust in a school, and even in a city.

Do go out and explore new places of your city! Totally worth it!

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By Kyle, February 11, 2010 8:33 pm

John Williams – Duel of the Fates

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It’s hard to believe that this is my 300th post on The Hunsblog. I’ve now been blogging here for about 2.5 years, and if anything, it provides me an outlet to vent frustrations, post jokes that no one is obligated to laugh at, or to simply showcase whatever random music I happen to be listening to at the time.

In 300 posts, I have realized that this blog, much like its author, is primarily introspective in nature, with frequent postings about how I’m reacting to events, occurrences, and other input.

I do realize that part of the reason of this is due to the highly diverse nature of my readers, resulting in the reality that should I stick to a single, main theme (i.e. education, or music, or Los Angeles, etc…), I quickly lose half my audience.

As a reader myself, of a multitude of other blogs, I find that my favorite posts are the ones that actually give me something useful to do or to try, whether that is a bit of tech, a teaching strategy, a spiritual reflection/observation, or even an applied principle, that I can then use in the real world.

My hope is that as I continue to write and post on the Hunsblog, this will become less and less introverted, and far more extroverted as I seek to reciprocate all of the wonderful, fuzzy, goodness of the world wide web that is just waiting to be discovered!

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By Kyle, February 6, 2010 11:05 am

The Smashing Pumpkins– Stray Cat Blues

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This is not a pet.

One of the interesting things that I am discovering about my new neighborhood is that it seems to be stray cat central. Not that they’re really causing any trouble, I just know one of these days I’m going to accidently run over one with my car.

At least I won’t be able to complain about a rodent problem anytime soon. 

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By Kyle, August 10, 2007 8:02 am

Those of you who live in or around Los Angeles may have felt the earthquake we had here late Wednesday night. I doubt it made national news (it barely even made local news), but apparently it was a 4.6 magnitude, which rattled and shook buildings. The epicenter (in Chatsworth) was about located 24 miles northwest of where I live. This quake also woke many residents….that is, many residens except me. Yep, I slept right through this one, snug as a bug!!! This would account for the second earthquake in my life which I have missed (the first being a 2002 5.1 rattler centered in Plattsburgh, NY during which I was at school in Wheaton). One of these days, when California breaks off the mainland and drifts into the sea, I’ll be sure to blog about it.