Autobiographical Incidents

The autobiographical incidents are coming in from my Freshman. Reading student papers has been the bane of my English teaching career. However today I read about six papers in a row that were extremely interesting. One Freshman writes about how her friends told her that they had decided to become popular. Another sick of the late night arguing by her parents, at four years old, gets out of bed demands that they stop so she can sleep. An student complains of a stomach ache for hours on end, only to be practically ignored the whole day and rushed to the emergency room in the evening close to death. Another student writes about the heart attack her father had.

On the other hand if I have to read another story about an "exciting" skateboarding trip, I might actually drop off into a coma.

A message from China

I just received my first response to a blog in a long and it was in Chinese. I am grateful for the translators on line. I was not sure whether I could translate Chinese to English, but here it is. It is not perfect English, but I detect a distinctly non Anglo- European approach:

The Chinese people video and music video chat sweetheart net - fires a pistol - the sentiment color website - sentiment color network - adult website - dream factory adult video and music - spicy younger sister chatroom - av female superior - Jin Ping Mei free movie - pornography video - video to make friends the video Xiu - Japan US young girl - mainland beautiful young girl - autodyne Taiwan autodyne - video to chat the video and music to chat - the beautiful woman to break off the hole - obscene younger sister to break off hole - video spicy younger sister - 18sex - Japan a piece of - hot beautiful woman - spicy younger sister - video and music video - chatroom - spicy younger sister video - 18 to limit - the video beautiful woman - video spicy younger sister - to hit the artillery - self-consolation set of - sentiment color to like - the female student consoling oneself - A night of sentiment - Taiwan color snares of love - fellatio - adult video and music chats - the adult color snares of love - naked sentiment color chatroom - video net to love chatroom - spicy younger sister video Xiu -

I thank Xiu for his (her) message.

The term "sentiment" enters in twice. I am not sure what an "AV female superior" is but I am pretty sure that it is not a woman boss in the work place. "Obscene younger sister to break off hole" sounds very dirty to me but I am really not sure what it means. And "the female student consoling oneself" I am pretty sure is not a lesson for a pychology class.

What are they trying to tell me?

Grading then Three Visitors

I punish myself by assigning all of these written assignments at the end of the semester. So I sit just at the end of class yesterday with the mound of essays and tests to grade. I start to nod off as I attack them. I started moving through the 5o or so tests pretty quickly. Then I decided to take on an "autobiographical story". Miles was on top. Miles is the one who learned so much from his eighth grade writing teacher that he wanted more writing in my class. He is probably the singular reason that I am assigning this major writing project at the end of the semester.

I read Miles' paper about his most exciting skateboarding trip ever. I found it quite unexciting. After correcting a few errors and attempting to give him hints on spicing up the paper, I decided to search for examples of good writing on the internet, a time consuming endeavor. I found several good pieces about skiing. Nevertheless there is a dearth of good writing on skateboarding. I found writing even worse than Miles', but little else. I found a skateboarding paragraph that could pass, and included that. I attached my research to his paper. Given the amount of time that I spent on his paper, I could be grading these things well into 2011.

My first visitor arrives in an IM from Olesya in Rubinsk, Russia. She comments on the cold. I write, "Today it was actually snowing outside. It totally disrupted my class. My students were so excited." She writes, "Weather is unusal here. No snow yet :( ."

At 3 P.M. I turn the Streaming version of the News Hour. A shy gentleman enters my room. "My name is Patrick. I am a new social studies teacher." My first thought was that he was looking for a teacher to student teach with. And that might relieve me of some of the responsibility of my history class. "I am going around meeting teachers in hopes that they hire me on the substitute system." We have a new on line computerized sub system. I said that I would call for him when I needed a sub.

At 4 P.M. someone knocked on my door. A well dressed older gentleman and his wife appeared. He introduced himself as a graduate of Analy from the year 1947. I invited him in. He looked around the room rather pleased, then walked to the back and touched the last desk in the fourth row. "That where I sat. Mrs. Bettler's English class. She was a great teacher- hard as nails, strict but kind. She was my best teacher." We chatted about the condition of the building, and how well it had been built in 1935. He said, "I turn 80 this month. And we were here to visit my daughter. I told my wife that since we are here, we must stop by the school." He had been an officer in the Navy for 20 years and now retired. He obviously had great affection for both the school and that particular teacher. He and his wife thanked me and left.

Fifth Period Storytelling

The assignment these days in my Freshman class is to write an autobiographical experience. Some of my students asked about my autobiographical experience. I went home on Friday and looking through my old files I found a story that I had written fifteen years ago. It is about the first time I every saw a magazine of nude pictures. I wrote it 15 years ago when I took a fiction writing class. I read it out loud and then got to some of the juicier parts. I blushed a little, and then I had to skip over some parts, but they didn't know it. They absolutely loved it. One of my students said that it was the best class we ever had. They were thoroughly engaged. I only got half way through when the bell rang. I expect that they will want to hear the rest when we have our next class.

Hudost at Hopmonk

I got a heads up from the High Street Collective about a band, actually duet Hourst at the HopMonk Pub. Unfortunately there was an opening act. I won't mention any names, but she was a young lady from Santa Cruz who wrote painfully introspective songs about herself, why she doesn't want a boyfriend, why she does want a boyfriend/ soulmate and on and on. My son, Truckee, unkindly said, "It's pretty obvious from her songs why she doesn't have a boyfriend."

The second act, Hudost, was much more upbeat. Moksha Somor has an incredible voice and plays the harmonium as she belts out the tunes. The first was a familiar Bulgarian song done in an original raw way. She slides up and down the scale with Eastern European arpeggios. Jimal Hines on the guitar has a variety of pedals and slides and steps through a whole range of sounds. Most surprising to me was Moksha's imitation of Dolly Parton when singing Jolene.

This was their last gig on the West Coast for a while. Apparently they often perform with a much larger ensemble when in New York City. I would love to catch them there. Check out this great video: Hudost Video

Inconclusive Results

It doesn't look like my lead headline made much of a difference. I think that 263 was my number on Friday and 285 hits by today. It doesn't seem so bad, except that probably five of those hits are mine. I did get a new hit from Argentina, then while I was on line on Saturday, he "skyped" me and we had a nice conversation. Still there were apparently no hits from France. I had a hit from New Delhi, India but it disappeared. I would call all of this hubbub- Much ado about nothing. Speaking of Hubbub...

Le Sexe Vit des filles Nues photo sans prix

C'est mon opportunité d'inclure les gens parlants français dans ma petite expérience. Je voudrais savoir si les moteurs de recherche cherchent sur la base des mots clé blog. Mes apologies de n'importe quelle offense. Ma salutation à tous les peuple de français.