Merry Christmas! I'm a few days late, I know. I've been having such a phenomenal vacation, I can't believe I have to go back to school in a week and start teaching again.

My homework assignment to the kids over the break was to "Find Mr. V downtown over the holidays." So far I have seen three kids but I don't think they saw me.

So far this break I've seen a bunch of movies, did a photo shoot (or three), hung out with lots of friends, and slept a ton. Wish it could last forever!

xo, Phil

Break time! First day of my winter vacation and I was very productive. I helped my dad set up a concrete bench in his yard, went to the farmer's market, had lunch with friends, delivered some wedding photos, went to the movies with a couple of kids from Young Life and Felipe and his crew, and now I am going to have dinner with those guys! Sweet.

Yesterday I gave quizzes to all my math students... AND a Christmas party :) I had kids sign up to bring stuff, and they pulled through! Two different classes had their parents order pizza and bring it to class. Crazy, huh? Little Ceasar's $5 Hot-And-Ready pizzas are hard to beat.

Here's a wedding photo!

The other day, perhaps in a dream, or maybe while daydreaming, I had a minor bout of inspiration. I do dream about my teaching sometimes, which is a little sad, because that means even when I am sleeping I cannot escape the stresses of my job.

My moment of inspiration had to do with discipline, and I was thinking of effective ways to keep kids in line. Now, let me pause right here and say that this is why I *&#@! hate teaching in a public school. Why should I be thinking of ways to keep kids in check? Does that sound like a fun way to live my life? Do kids hate school?

Anyways, I thought it would be funny to make a kid write something over and over again like Bart Simpson does at the beginning of every Simpson's episode. So this boy in my class was giving the double bird towards some student outside of my class (TWO MIDDLE FINGERS!) and I saw him and I said, "K____, what the heck?! Take a break." I always make kids go outside immediately if they are being terribly distracting. Then when he came in I made him write

"I will think before I act."

on one side of a sheet of paper until he filled it up. That's only about 33 times, but I think he got the idea.

It was awesome.

I've been offline for a long time! I actually went to Austria over Thanksgiving. Well, I actually took FIVE DAYS off of work before Thanksgiving plus the three days I already had for vacation. I was in Europe for 12 days total, and it was amazing.

I totally screwed up my substitute lesson plans somehow, and I was quite dismayed to come back to rumors of other teachers having to figure out what my kids were supposed to be doing. For someone who is terrified of off-putting others and caring a bit too much about what people think, I feel a little sick thinking about my reputation in the eyes of my colleagues at the junior high school.

I tried to make amends by giving Austrian chocolates away at our math meeting on Tuesday :)