Holiday Ramblings

Only the news:

One week into my holiday and I am starting to feel human again. Actually I picked up a cold about four days ago and am crawling back from the tissue box and checking out my red Christmas nose in the mirror. I survived until December 26 without sickness and finally contracted a severe runny nose the day after Christmas. I had planned to get a flu shot or two at my doctors on Monday but the deadline passed me by.

We had sixteen people at the house Christmas eve. Donna's dad is always a welcome visitor. Then old friends filled in the rest. Donna had the idea of using the ping pong table for Christmas dinner. Truckee feared that its imminent collapse would spoil Christmas dinner. We all survived a delicious dinner- mostly cooked by yours truly.

I am a master at sleeping in and then listening to the radio in the morning until about 10 AM or 11. I fear that this lazy lifestyle might become habit once I retire. And so Truckee and I have been taking about about starting a "Third Wave" coffee operation. As preparation he is ordering a high end grinder and myself an espresso machine. He gave me a four month supply of Bluebottle coffee for Christmas.

My friend Stuart sent me sad news of an old friend, Bruce Sherman, who died this past year. Bruce and I played on the street many a time and he was always great company. In the past twenty years I would only run into him maybe once a year. Then my friend Zoe mentioned in her blog that he had passed away. I couldn't believe it and thought that it must be a mistake. Now Stuart has confirmed it. He sent a nice article from the San Francisco Chronicle remembering Bruce.

Christmas day, our niece, Jenny drove up from Needles, California to join us for Christmas dinner- an extremely long drive. Jenny is the sole reporter for a weekly newspaper there. She wanted to hear nothing of my dire predictions for the newspaper business. She is very pleasant girl and seems to enjoy her job. But she had not yet spent a summer in that city where it reaches 120 degrees F on a regular basis in the summer- the hottest spot in California.

We are finally ready to send out our Holiday card this year- 2 days after Christmas. And yes, I have promised to put a bunch of photos up on this blog. And so I will. I spent four of my vacation days walking back to school to try and finish grading papers and putting in grades. It takes me about 2 hours to quickly read about 30 papers, then another hour to enter grades and put them on the web for my students. One of those days put me in a very foul mood. My aides are suppose to grade student journals by amount. Whichever incompetent lackey (almost wrote "slackey") marked these did not pay attention at all. So I must do it and inadvertently read some of what I said that I would not read. Not only did I have to spend an extra hour, some of the dreck in these book is mind boggling.

Part of my holiday I have been dreaming of the summer trip to Italy. My focus will be Rome and Naples. We have made some great friends- an old friend of Donna's reaquainted. They live in San Benedito in Marche on the Adriatic. I hope to catch a few new countries on the way- maybe Slovenia, Hungary and possibly Romania. I would also like to drop by Vienna to see the Hitler's favorite Vermeer.

Tomorrow we go to the Harmony Folk Music Camp - And I will take the last of my holiday among old and new musician friends- some of these people I have know for more than 30 years.

Multiple Choice Finals

Mr. Lynch has mounds of finals to grade because:
a) he is really slow at reading essays
b) he is really dumb for assigning so much writing
c) he is really a committed teacher who wants to challenge his students
d) he is feeling guilty that he has not given enough writing to his student over the course of the semester.

What was I thinking? I have five classes, created and administered final exams to all of them. One would expect that creating multiple choice tests are the easy way to go. For my third period world history class I used about 50 questions from past tests and made up or gleaned from the Internet fifty more. The difficulty was double checking the answers. It took about four hours to put this test together then create a key for three different forms. Each of those forms had 14 different questions on it. Nevertheless my grades for period 3 are finished.

1.The primary accomplishment of the Persian Empire was to
A) promote an expansion of trade amounting to "commercial revolution."
B) unify the Nile, Mesopotamian, and Indus valleys into a single state.
C) create the most highly centralized state since the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
D) subdue the Greek city-states around the Aegean Sea.

I created 50 multiple choice questions for two classes of my Freshmen English class. Then I had them hand in their final version of their Autobiographical Incident. I was smart enough to have them read the papers to the class for the final. But I still must go through 50 of their papers for mechanical errors. That will take about three hours if I am lucky.

I also created 50 multiple choice for my sophomores. Those answers were difficult to look up. I did find the text of the book on line and it helped me with some of the more obscure questions in the Lord of the Flies. My big mistake was to assign not one but two in class writings for these two classes of 30 students each. At this moment classes are finished for the semester. I just took a tamale lunch break and put off the next group of papers by writing in my blog. I have read 30 self evaluations and need to read 30 more. I think that I can do that in about an hour. But then I have 60 essays on 30 different topics in Lord of the Flies.

10. Why do Jack and his hunters attack Ralph and Piggy?
a) They want to steal Piggy's glasses.
b) They want to steal the conch.
c) They want to intimidate them into joining their tribe.
d) They want to take control over the fire.

My deadline is to leave at 3 P.M. for a faculty music party that has already begun. I will finish all of this grading sometime in the next two weeks. It would be better soon, as I might not finish at all if I leave it to later.

A Full House

Donna and I drove to the airport Sunday night to pick up Anna. She has become such a sunny and enthusiastic person- almost grown up. I am so proud of her. She is fun to be around. Last night we took our accordion Christmas photo together. As I made dinner Donna and I could hear Joey, Anna and Truckee laughing in the back room. I commented, "It's really nice to have them home here and getting along so well." Donna came close to me and gave me a hug. It looked as if she was about to cry. "We really had some hard years there, didn't we?" We look at things differently. I do not see my life or trials as over. I somehow try to prepare myself for unexpected crises, even thought I don't look forward to them. I cooked for five and it was good. I admit it. Donna said about how lucky we were to have three delicious home cooked meals in a row.

Then the visitors stared arriving. First Krista and Naomi arrived and went to the basement with Anna to catch up. Next thing Truckee says, "I'm going to the basement to play Joey. You can play the winner." Then Eric and Harley arrived and there was an instant party in the basement. As usual Joey beat Truckee. Joey and I were neck and neck up to 20- 20. He hit a couple of lucky shots and beat me 22 to 20. That sat around the nook in the basement chatting and laughing.

Then the party moved up stairs. Noami wanted to print a paper that was due in her college class. I had just changed the cartridge. Joey said, "My dad knows more about this than I do." I spent a half hour trying to fix the printer. I succeed in a half hour printing one document but not the other. Frustrated I moved to the easy chair where Truckee was sitting and I asked him to move for me. I guess I must have acted a little pushy, because most everybody in the room laughed at how I had pushed Truckee out of the chair.

I returned to the basement to do a little more work on the Christmas card. I noticed the time on my computer and it shocked me- 12:30 A.M. and I had to get up at six A.M.. When I came back upstairs the guests had gone. Donna, Joey and Anna were sitting on the couch laughing while watching Drew Cary's improv program. "Did you guys know that it is way after midnight?" I said. They replied, "We don't care. We don't have to get up in the morning." "That's nice. Goodnight!"

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...

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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.

Sex Live Nude girls free

I consider my blog the quiet blog, and while I don't expect thousands to visit it everyday, I would not mind a small increase in flow. Nevertheless I realize that I don't do the things necessary to publicize my blog. And I don't even mind if few people read it. Nevertheless I do enjoy it when I find that a person somewhere far away may have accidentally stumbled on this blog if only for a second.

I was amazed the other day when I went to my blog map and decided to focus down to the smallest possible detail. It centered upon a small boat in a port in Portugal. My other foreign entry for that day appeared to be a field in Emilia Romagna. It struck me about the lack of privacy and how I could actually travel to this place and go face to face with the person who looked at my web page.

So I decided to hatch a plan. I am not really certain if people search for blogs by key words, but I decided to enter some key words that I expect are rather popularly searched on the Internet. I note that the number of hits that I have from a certain date (unknown) is 263. I expect that this means that I get less than two hits a day on the average. So I will check this site again, perhaps on Sunday or Monday. Also I many start putting in key words in other languages.

Don't worry if you have searched with one or more of these words and come upon my blog. Your identity will remain completely secret. But do not be surprised if I show up on your doorstep.

Autobiographical Incident - Part 1

In both my Freshman classes they are composing an autobiographical incident. It is a two page writing assignment. They asked me to write an autobiographical incident that I could read to them and I decided to accept the challenge. They asked, "Do you remember back that far?" I answered, "I remember a lot of things." Then again as I ponder these things I find that most of my memories especially from early years are snapshots of places and people, not specific stories. And in fact stories are manufactured. We take memories and place limits on them. We give them a beginning, a middle and an ending and they become stories. So out of pieces of memories we construct stories.

I remember lying in my crib. I am comfortable until someone disturbs me. She picks me up puts me on a cold surface and treats me roughly. I know now it was my mother, but at this early age I have not feelings about her except that it is the one who treats me roughly, disturbs my rest and brings me from a place of comfort to discomfort.

As a little child I was the second child with a sister just a year older. We lived in a house built in the 1920's in a residential neighborhood of Philadelphia. Early memories bring me pictures of a cramped backyard, rotting wooden fences, old garages and even barns where a few old horses still boarded. I flash on a memory of lying in my bed and seeing a globe in the closet and wondering what it actually is. I never asked.

I see myself as little looking up at adults and not understanding anything. I look way up at adults and remember my father lifting me up. I remember sitting in a highchair while my mother and a strange woman speak a language incomprehensible to me. I notice a large round ceramic piece on the wall- in delft blue- a woman pours water into a bucket and she is near a well.

I hold a big person's hand, probably my father, as we walk a block away from my house. We pass a pharmacy with strange instruments in the window and even stranger pictures. Men are cutting open other men who lie naked on gurney. I see blood and exposed organs, knives, spoons and threads held by these men continuing their gory operation.

We lived with my mother's uncle, Uncle Mike or "Unk" as I would call him. He was the old man in the family, probably 60 years old. He had served as a Republican representative in the Pennsylvania House of Representative. He was my favorite and my memory is that he did little except read the newspaper and smoke his cigarettes. He would often ask me to do an errand for him- buy him cigarettes and he would give me a nickle. Like Pavlov's dog I began to make it a habit of asking him, "Unk, do you need anything." He would always answer the same way. "No, do you need anything?" And I would hem and haw. And after an excrusiating amount of time he would say, "How about a nickle?" I would say, "Sure."

I remember the day that they took him to the hospital, ambulance near our front door. This was after we had moved to our new house in Yeadon. He survived the heart attack and he was given a room downstairs .

Birthday

Today is my wife's birthday. She turns 51. Seventeen times three. We discussed a way to make it happen on a day where both she and I work. She only requested a cake and I said that I would make my bolongenesse sauce and pasta. I have hidden a few little gifts around the house to make it a little special- a bar of lavender soap she will see in the morning, a stick of "Boss Woman" lip balm that I have hidden in her knitting and a small reading lamp that I have hidden in my drawer. I had planned that she would get one at a different part of the day- Soap in the morning, lip balm during the day and the reading light just before bed. I will squeeze dinner in between 5 PM and 6:30. She will go to her singing practice then we will have cake at 9 PM.

My boys asked me if they should stay around and I said "of course". I asked them to please keep the house clean. They are really a treasure. We now play regular ping pong games in the basement. Joey, the youngest, can usually beat us both, but just the other night I beat him. I can usually beat Truckee and he is good natured enough to keep playing both of us. Truckee, myself and Donna attack the daily crossword puzzle together. It has gotten so we can finish one daily, but the Sunday puzzle is a complete frustration. Joey is a continuous musical bundle around the house. He is either playing the drums, accordion or piano at any one time. Sometimes he listens to his favorite political show on the computer such as "The Young Turks". He is enthusiastic and curious.

A Paper (Tiger) Inventory

There must be a better way. Traditional teaching traditionally involves mounds of paper. As I look at my desk- really three desks- I find this fact makes my teaching life most difficult. Perhaps an inventory of what lies there will give some insight to my state of affairs.

In the right hand corner on top of my printer: On top is the Final Exam schedule, a pleasant reminder that the semester is almost over and a two week holiday is less than three weeks away. Under that a "Memorandum" than a student study team will hold a meeting next Thursday, form to be filled out and grades attached by that day; under that a stack of 10 vocabulary index cards from last week's test, a reminder that I must make the next stack of cards by Thursday. Next in that stack is a history handout of the Bill of Rights and an explanation- this is a handout to my students and must be filed (perhaps in the circular file). Next I come upon extra blank history tests from the week before last (I just filed them.). Then there are 2 old "make up" tests from my English class. My Science times from November 17 comes next. This is a reminder that I missed my twice weekly detour to purchase a New York Times today. Then I have a list of parent emails on a pad at the bottom of the pile. This is my smallest pile.

On the right have six folders: a set of hastily graded history tests, a set of grades essays by my fourth period, some miscellaneous bank statements in a folder, Chapter 4 Lord of the Flies English quizes- ungraded, extra test of To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5, one copy of part of the California Standards Test for Grade 10, Summons for students to report to the attendance office, several unexcused tardy slips, the Lord of the Flies final multiple choice test, an Analy Education Foundation Grant application, graded Chapter 3 tests for Lord of the Flies, Language of Literature Writing Transparencies and Copymasters, a folder of past tax returns and other financial information, some late and ungraded vocabulary quizes, CD of the reading of Ender's Game with Diana Krall helping fill the disk. Am I finished yet? This litany of paper detritus shows exactly what I hate about my job. Or maybe it is what I hate about myself. I have only scratched the surface of my piles of paper. Much of it is curriculum, much of it is assessment materials and involve hours of work just to grade. But most of all it reminds me of my extreme ineptitude in dealing with piles of paper.

I love to teach but I hate the paperwork. I am ready to go totally digital. I'll ready my resume for next year, if anyone is interested.

Bem-vindo a minhas visitas de Portugal e Itália.

Benvenuti nel mio visitatori dal Portogallo e Italia.