Mood Swings

I take some measure of pride in generally being an even keel person, but his week I have found myself on a bit of a roller coaster. Monday started with a staff meeting, nothing too noteworthy ever really happens in meetings. I've already learned that most of the times the
right things are said, but the follow through ends up lacking. Thats pretty standard for anywhere so its no big deal. Tuesday was supposed to be the first day of class. I'm not sure why but I thought that we would actually start class on Tuesday, instead we had the kids clean up the classes some and the teachers worked on paperwork that needs to be in order for when the inspectors visit. The theme of this term is preparing for the inspectors to be here for their week long visit. On Wednesday we started rotating to the different classes, but at least one third of the kids aren't here yet, so you have to decide if you start teaching and leave some kids behind or wait and not disadvantage them for being late to come back to school. I went for the halfway point, the grade 10 classes are going full steam ahead but I'm moving a bit slower with the grade 9 classes and covering a unit that is not as important as some of the others. My big revelation this week was that acids and bases are not tested in the big grade 10 exam, so I may as well breeze through that in grade 9 and spend more time on
electricity and the other topics that are tested. Its tough though because I want to have some fun with indicators but its not the best use of time, which gets wasted too much as it is. The other nice thing I learned this week is that I have a meeting in two weeks with some other science teachers to set an exam for August, I didn't expect to know about the meeting until the day before so the advance notice was very refreshing. Wednesday was the Champions League final, Barcelona beat Arsenal 2-1, thats soccer by the way. I wanted to show the match
in the library but the tv wasn't working, the Namibian station wasn't coming in and the Botswana station wasn't showing the match, but I went to a teacher's house and watched it even if the kids couldn't. It was an exciting game, the Arsenal keeper was red carded for tripping Eto'o after 18 minutes and Arsenal still took a 1-0 lead into half even though they were playing a man down. Anyways, Thursday was day 2 of classes and went ok, but with the timetable I didn't have many classes to teach. But by Thursday evening I had a headache and was tired so I didn't feel like getting ready for Friday's classes at all. My solution? Watch an Adam Sandler movie and plan my lessons while I watched. Always worked when I had homework that I didn't want to do and its still effective. Then Friday morning my classes went really well. I drilled my register class on walking into the room quietly, we had to go outside three times (and its cold in the morning) before they got it right. My register class had gotten out of control last term so I'm instilling a bit more discipline in them now, and after that my lesson on acids went off pretty well too. The big shocker, and encouragement, was that the class with the weakest students seemed to understand my lesson on simple machines (we made levers out of two pens to lift a shoe, taking off my shoe got their attention but I'm not sure how to work that into other lessons) and they had done their homework! The assignment was simple, bring a food label to class and show me how much energy is in the food, but they did it. I took the chance to encourage them as much as I could because they were discouraged last term by all of the teachers telling them about how bad they were doing (because they were doing bad) and how they were not going to amount to anything (which hopefully isn't true). So the first few classes went well, but then after break the school started
shutting down. I had fourth period off, but by fifth period over half the teachers were gone and by sixth period the office was locked and three teachers were left. I'm not sure how that is suposed to help education but I was looking foward to my later periods and now I'm behind.

I'm just reading Sen. Inhofe got a bill through making English the national language to the ire of Harry Reid. Now isn't the time to voice my opinions on the this issue but I will say that I think its interesting. When there is already so much division in the country, its odd that a move intending to promote unity could deepen the rifts. The really shocking news that I just saw on Drudge is this move in Iran to identify Jews, Christians, and Zorasters. Wow. The good news keeps coming too. Who would have guessed that LeBron could be on his way to the NBA finals? Not Rasheed Wallace and not anybody who has watched the smothering Detroit defense but ...

And the biggest news that I have to make sure you don't miss. A lot of us have been wondering lately what redeeming quality San Jose State University has after their unexplainable decision to hire Keith Burns as their defensive coordinator, but now we all have to tip our hats to the Spartans. A SJSU student just set a new American record for hot dog eating. At the Las Vegas qualifier for the July 4 extravaganza of gluttony at Nathan's, the 22 year old swallowed 50 hot dogs and buns to shatter the previous record of 42. What is more important is that the Japanese sensation who is the 5 time champion at Nathan's has won twice eating less than 50 dogs. Think Rocky IV, this is about national pride. So, treat yourself to a couple coneys and cheer for the red, white and blue this Independence Day. Forget language, America is more likely to be united by a spectacle of gluttony.

FYI - I just uploaded some photos from January and from the wedding I went to a couple weeks ago.