Merry Christmas!

Even though I am on Christmas vacation right now, I am still seeing kids that I have substituted for. Especially Amelia Badish. But she graduated last year! She was a student who, in order to come in late every day, would buy me something from Starbucks each morning. That was when I subbed for a week.

I have been seeing Amelia for almost every day of the break somehow. She keeps saying "Mr. V! This is getting kinda ridiculous!"

Yesterday, while substituting for junior high math, we watched the movie Stand and Deliver. There was a scene that caught my attention because I didn't know the Spanish term being spoken, and I usually pride myself on having a pretty good comprehension of Spanish.

This pretty Latina girl went off with a guy in a nice car and her friend said after her "She thinks she's so hot 'cause she dates cavachos."

I asked my class what that cavachos meant and about three or four kids pointed at me and said "You."

Apparently a cavacho is a white guy.

That kinda made me chuckle.

Hi there! This week has been pretty great in terms of subbing, and life. I subbed four days, took on a couple of extra tutor sessions that I didn't plan on (which meant I got some Christmas goodies as well!), I bought a fantastic new digital camera, and more.

I got to work yesterday and today but I also got to sleep in each day-- each class didn't start until 9am. Perfect. And tomorrow I think I will be done by lunch.

Today after a simple three-period day (during which I watched Stand and Deliver, the most fantastic math teacher movie ever), I called my good friend Felipe and found out he was going bowling with a bunch of the junior highers on a field trip with the school. I kind of invited myself as a chaperone and got to bowl two games and get a free lunch! I bowled a 140 and a 125. Decent.

I also got my test results for TB. I don't have it!

Here is a picture of Felipe and a picture of my new camera, which is one of the best out there :)

I received two compliments today!

"Mr V. I don't know what I wanna be when I grow up, but all I know is right now, I wanna be just like you."

"Phil, your curls are very luscious today."

These are from two high school kids. Funny stuff :)

I have been subbing at the junior high all week. Somedays I really really resent those kids. Somedays they are a joy. Today is a mixed day. I often think about how my days are dictated by my attitude or amount of sleep or my hunger. I don't know if I can quantify it, but I do believe that there is some corelation between my internal state and my response to the students.

Today I woke up rested, listened to heavenly music while I got dressed, rode my bike to work, and I feel pretty great. I also gave a kid a rubik's cube earlier this week and taught him the final steps on how to solve it today. He did it three times in class (AFTER he finished his test, of course).

Now I get to cruise the internet and do blogs while my shining 8th graders take their geometry quiz.

ps. Did you know that I tutor? I tutor for two hours every day after school, Monday through Thursday. I tutor rich elementary school kids. It's awesome. I just found out that the father of one of the girls that I tutor is a pretty phenomenal photographer. Browse his website, you'll see:

Michael Haber Photography

Guess what?

I passed my math exam to become a teacher!

This is one I had to retake because I didn't really study the first time around. Now that I passed, I hope to student teach this Spring, and be a fully certified teacher by next year! Whoo hoo!

Hello! Subbing for two days in a row: 8th grade math. Today we are watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving!



I actually learned something new about America. Did you know that the first settlers didn't even settle at the first land? They had to travel up and down the east coast to find good land. And two people died on the trip over, but one baby was born.

Yesterday I substituted for some 11th and 12th grade English classes.

I have a pen pal named Lisa who lives in Iowa. We exchange mix-CDs.

I asked a student to help design the cover of an envelope that I was sending off to my friend across the states (hi Lisa!). I've had students draw me things in the past, for my refrigerator, and I've received some pretty awesome pictures. I like this one a lot:

Ahhh, my hope is renewed for junior high. I had a great day today! Really mellow classes, nothing terrible like razor blades under desks, etc.

Something that I love is that kids actually give me hugs when they see me! How awesome is that? I'm not even a teacher there and kids stop by and hug me with big smiles and ask why I'm not subbing in their classes.

Let's see, anything funny to reproduce here? During lunch, I was sitting at my desk reading and eating a sumptuous Subway sandwich with my door open. Some guys started running by my door to distract me or trip me out or something. When I ignored them, they stepped it up a notch and started sliding past my door. I would hear a patter of feet and then a horizontal body would breeze by on the ground.

It was pretty funny, but I still didn't give them my attention. I'm a mean old man like that.

Yesterday and today I subbed for an 8th grade English class at a junior high in town. I get so tired of some of those junior highers sometimes. Just over it. I was talking with the school psychologist for a bit and she was agreeing with me that the main difference between high school and junior high is behavior management. Junior high is like 50 percent behavior issues, 50 percent teaching. 1/2 reigning them in, 1/2 getting stuff done. In contrast, high school is maybe 5-10 percent behavior management, and over 90 percent teaching. And that means that the teaching doesn't have to be boring or strict. If the teacher is relaxed and trusts the class, things can actually be fun. Believe it or not.

But for junior high, all this means is that most of class is just a brutal waste of time because of a handful of, well, let's be honest, assholes who don't care about school and their classmates and the teacher.

In other news, I found a razor blade underneath a trouble girl's desk.

One of the most beautiful things about substituting is that I can take whatever days I want off. I didn't work yesterday and I didn't work today. It's nice to not feel too stretched and stressed.

Watching the news!

Obama WON.

Say hello to Mr. Van Nerdstrand

On Tuesday while subbing at Dos Pueblos High School, a student was telling me about her dad, whom I know. I mentioned how energetic he is, and she agreed. She said she felt bad for him because he didn't have any boys (it's just the girl and her little sister). She said he builds things like tree houses and forts but he usually spends more time in them then the girls do!

Today I am subbing for a Special Ed teacher. The Special Ed classes are simply classes for students with learning disabilities or severe emotional problems.

My first period class right now has only four students and there is an instructional assistant in the class as well, which means there is a 1:2 teacher to student ratio. Not bad, not bad at all...

Not only does every class have about eight kids or less, but I am done by lunch today! Whoo hoo!

I rode my bike to work and a kid just informed me that it is supposed to rain today. I really hope it is not raining when I have to go home!

Riding my bike is about 2 minutes faster than driving my car. Isn't that crazy? I don't usually wait for stop lights on my bike, so that gives me the edge.

This my bike! Well, this particular picture is not MY bike per se, but mine is the same color, same gears, everything. My seat is lower, though, and my handlebars have red tape on them, not grey. It's pretty bad-ass, and I feel great cruising around town, passing cars on the street, listening to my iPod. My good friend Dave, who sells pistachios at the farmer's market, gave it to me. He has a tendency to collect things like squirrels collect nuts.

There is a kid in my first period Spanish class, we'll call him Grady, because that's what his name is, who is very, how shall we put this?... loud. He demands attention, from before the bell rings until the minute class is over. Throughout the class kids tell him to shut up. Nobody thinks he is terribly funny.

--
Ah, in fact, I just sent him outside.
--

It's always interesting having students like that in my classes. I can handle the disruptions and they generally provide light humor. The disruptions are funny not for their content but by the pure absurdity that the student embodies. Everyone shares the experience of witnessing someone who lacks nearly all inhibiting reflexes. Haha, type in "Lack of inhibition" and the first entry that Google gives you is a page on ADHD, or attention deficit hyper-active disorder.

Estoy enseñando español todo la semana.

I got asked to take over for a teacher at Dos Pueblos whose wife just had a baby. Today we are learning how to conjugate -AR verbs, such as "hablar," or "caminar."

For example, "Yo camino en el parque."

This teacher is great, because he leaves incredible notes, has a lot of time filling activities, and I get to actually teach stuff. Some teachers just have me show movies, and that's ok, but not fulfilling.

Today we played Matamoscas (flyswatters). This was a great review game! All the vocabulary words are written on an overhead in a random order around the page. One student from each team comes up with a flyswatter and when I say the word in English, they have to find the word projected up on the overhead in Spanish and swat it first, and then pronounce the word in Spanish. We played for a bunch of rounds and team B killed team A.

I went up against a student and beat him soundly. At the game, mind you, not literally. :)

Oh, by the way--

Last year, my seventh grade students set up a "wedding" for my girlfriend Elissa and myself. I came to the classroom one day and, lo and behold, all the seats were arranged differently. And students brought flowers. And made tinfoil rings. It was very cute. Anne was a bridesmaid. And Carter was the father who walked the bride down the aisle. Definitely a memory for a lifetime.

Hello.

I should have written last week but I wasn't terribly motivated to do so. I have time now, since it is a lazy morning and I am only subbing periods 4, 5, and 6 today. This is the best kind of morning...the sun drifts into my bedroom sidelone through my sliding glass door. I can tell from the very first moment that it will be a gorgeous, sunny day. I awake easily on bright days.

Last week I substituted for a Special Ed teacher. All of her students had some sort of learning disability, and the range was great. There were pretty high functioning students and there were pretty low functioning students.

The incident of the day occurred when R kept getting riled up by a couple of the other students in the classroom. A small little girl would discreetly tell him to get to work. Amazingly, almost without thought, R would respond with contempt, "Callate, pendeja!" Which, for you non-Spanish speakers, translates to "Shut up, F____"

Um, that's not ok. In any classroom of any school. Especially for a couple of little 8th graders. So I came over to him and said, "R, please don't swear. I speak Spanish and that's not ok. Ok?"

Then he slaps me on the arm with his book and says "Stop." At this point, the teacher's assistant, a lady who has been working with the students all year long, interjects from across the room with "R, GET BACK TO WORK."

Naturally, R replies to her, "Shut up."

And with that, he was gone. Sent to the office. Has detention for two days.

One of the funnier things that has occurred in the past two weeks that I have subbed at Santa Barbara Junior High is this:

Every morning I put up a PowerPoint slide to be shown at the beginning of each class. It usually says something like,

"Happy Tuesday! September 23rd, 2008. Please take out:
•Pencil
•Agenda
•Science Log
•Homework from last night

HOMEWORK: Complete vocabulary list"

Boring, right? Well, on the days that we don't have homework, I like to throw in this line: "HOMEWORK: Enjoy life." And invariably, more than one student will ask me "What does it mean to enjoy life??" What's ridiculous is that they are seriously asking me what I mean for them to do that evening. They aren't quite sarcastic enough to be joking about not enjoying life because school is getting them down or something. They just want to know, "What does it mean to enjoy life?"

Seriously? Seriously.

Hello, people. I don't have much to say. All my days are a blur. Here is my note to my teacher yesterday (I'm subbing for the same class for two weeks):

Per. 1: Noah can't be with others.. always distracting
Per. 5: Gave Sal a referral for getting out of his seat for the 1000th time AND for poking/hitting a girl in the chest.
Per. 6: German still hardly working. It's like pulling a mule. I talked to him after class yesterday and today.

Ok, but that's all boring. What is interesting, in my opinion, is how much I tutor every week. Since last week I have added on four new tutoring clients, which puts my total at nine hours of tutoring every week. That is an added income of about 1200 dollars a month.

Yesterday I tutored a girl in the nicest house I have ever encountered in my entire life. She sometimes goes down to Los Angeles for acting auditions, and her mother and father are gorgeous, of course. Cars owned: New Mercedes, and Porsche 911. That's from what I've seen so far--there may be more.



I think the term I am looking for here is "exorbitant wealth."

This week has been hell. I am so tired and worn out! I substituted for the same 7th graders all week and I picked up all of these tutoring clients recently so my schedule has been something like:

Set alarm for 6:30, get up at 7am.
Leave for work by 7:15.
Teach periods 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 + a 20 minute reading period right before lunch.
Leave school at 2:30 and drive straight to tutoring.
Tutor from 2:45 to 3:45.
Drive to other tutoring, from 4:00 to 5:00.
Practice music with Brendan. (Or help someone move for three hours, or perform concert with Brendan)
Grocery shopping, etc.
Come home at around 10-11pm.
Catch up on emails, facebook, youtube, music.
Go to sleep at 12:30-1am.

Repeat.

ps. The 7th graders...suck. I sent students out of the classroom EVERY SINGLE DAY for misbehaving, talking back, having attitude, not listening, etc. It got so bad that the principal came in and lectured my 6th period class today. It was awesome. Then he took out four specific imps and spoke with them in private. Nice to know I've got support, eh?

Ok! I'm back to substituting again. Today was decent. I would give it 6 stars out of 10. I would say the best part was the totally gorgeous student teacher who will be accompanying me today, tomorrow, and Wednesday.

The worst part was students just talking and talking and talking and talking and talking...

Today I taught a student to solve the Rubik's cube.












In other news, I got a job at Santa Barbara Junior High for two weeks in a science class! The teacher's daughter is having her first baby in another state, and the grandmother-to-be is VERY excited.

Today I substituted for advanced 8th grade math at Santa Barbara Junior High.

It was fun! I had nearly all of my GATE students from last year spread out among my 5 classes. And, like I wrote about yesterday, they are still as wonderful as ever. Some of them still haven't stopped talking in class (just like last year), some of them still have braces on, still have the same haircut, and so on. And some have changed slightly, which is cool to see.

Being in the same town for 27 years and working with so many youth in so many different settings has allowed me to see all kinds of people growing up, and I like that. I like that a lot.

On a side note, I rode my bike to work, which was wonderful and quick. I rode downtown afterward and played on my computer in a Starbucks and a few of my students from the day saw me in there. "Hi, Mr. V!" and some giggles.

Later, at 10pm, I was grocery shopping (because grocery shopping at 10pm on a Friday night is a beautiful thing to do and it is never crowded) and saw two students that I have subbed for a lot at Dos Pueblos. We talked for a moment and that was cool, too. I know kids from all these different generations, and it's a bit trippy. I see styles in Junior high and high school, I see who is partying with who (on Facebook), I see people making college decisions, and I just have this sort of omniscient view of a lot of little lives around town. Sometimes I feel like a wise old grandfather who is watching his offspring grow up like a wild garden around him.

Ok. It has been a few weeks now and I am definitely back from traveling around Mexico. In fact, I am so back that I have started substitute teaching again around town!

I almost got my job back, at Santa Barbara Junior High, where I worked for four months last year. Almost. The school wanted me, but, long story short, I basically didn't have enough credentials (or any sort of background whatsoever) in History and so the school district couldn't hire me.

So I am subbing. And guess what?? I've subbed three days already, and school has only been in session for two weeks. I got to do some pre-calculus for my friend Matt Long who teaches at Dos Pueblos High School.

Tomorrow I will be back at the junior high. For math. For advanced math, actually, which means one thing: I will get to see all of my beloved GATE students again.

Today, my friend Felipe went to visit some of his Young Life kids over at the junior high and so I went with him to visit.

IT
WAS
AWESOME.

I basically walked out of the hallways into the lunch area and was more or less mobbed by what seemed like my entire two GATE classes from last year. They are all still super funny and weird and beautiful and going to change the world. I just talked to a big huddle of students for the whole lunch period. It was wonderful. I got to hear how they went to Israel, Seattle, the movies, motorcycling, etc. I got to hear new inside jokes, hear about school and how all the little seventh graders are (not cool, apparently).

The principal was out there and when all the kids mobbed me he started telling seventh graders that I was a famous character from The Hills television show and that's why they were all so excited to see me. Just so you know, I look nothing like any of the people on The Hills.

This was Tulum, Mexico. Site of one of the last Mayan ruins before the civilization collapsed. The ruins are beautiful up on the cliffs over the great blue Caribbean ocean. The one random picture that looks like guys are being tortured upside down is actually a Mayan ceremony, and you can see a live video of it (from the exact same place I took the picture, actually) here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWOGb_WroDk

That last post took place in Chichen Itza. It was a gorgeous location for Mayan ruins. Rather large and spacious with amazing structures. I was there early enough to beat any sort of crowds as you can see in my pictures.

After Chichen Itza I headed for Playa del Carmen, a beach city on the Caribbean. Think Cancun, but smaller. My girlfriend, Elissa, had plans to visit her family in Texas around the time I was going to be out in this part of Mexico. She found tickets to Cozumel that included a layover in Houston, Texas on the way home, so this opportunity to have company on my trip transpired quite perfectly! We had so many adventures in four days it was amazing!

I wasn't able to take pictures from our two snorkeling adventures, but they included: snorkeling in underground caves that Mayans used to make sacrifices in; snorkeling in the Caribbean Ocean right in the middle of all kinds of blue and white and beautiful fish.






These two pictures (above and below) were taken at my FAVORITE food place in all of Mexico. It was away from the strip in Playa del Carmen (read: locals spot) and the food offerings were substantial and exquisite.

My main form of transportation: The bus. Contrary to what you might think, they had the most amazing coach buses in Mexico. Way nicer than most found here in the states.

CHICHEN ITZA

Ahh, Palenque. The Mayan ruins in the jungle. These are quite beautiful, as you can see. It was very hot that day, and I walked around feeling tired, sweaty, and sticky (due to the humidity). You could hear howler monkeys in the jungle while walking around the ruins. It was spooky.

One cool thing, I hopped a "No Entry" sign and followed a path to some more ruins that were not open to the public. They were not very spectacular but it was absolutely splendid to walk in the middle of the forest among ruins and be completely alone.

I spent just one night in San Cristobal de las Casas, but somehow I managed to walk nearly the entire town, visit a small village nearby that specializes in pottery making, take a four-hour nap, hang out in the center with my Canadian friends, and watch a movie. Then I left the next morning at 6am.



The pottery town is called Amatenango and the people there are basically old-school, pre-Spanish groups. They don't even speak Spanish! I mean, they do, but not at home or amongst themselves. I believe the word we are looking at here is called Indigenous.

I sat down for a bit and befriended Alberta, the girl pictured below. She is 24, and was very sweet. She said she paints about 40 of those birds a day. Oh man, if you could hear those girls talk, it is SO BEAUTIFUL! Like sighs of despair and love mixed together. Their language lilts and whispers. It is enchanting.


On my way back I caught a ride in the back of a Nissan flatbed truck. You will see a lot of these trucks being used as public transport. It cost about fifty percent of what a normal bus would cost, and the locals use them all the time.