It's always strange to me when I hear about a celebrity that has passed away that I feel overly sad that they're gone. I never knew Pat Morita, I have no idea if he was a good person or a selfish jerk. But, I liked Mr. Miyagi, and I hope that Pat Morita had some of the characteristics of the character he portrayed.
There are many pithy words of wisdom that could be quoted, but the one that I've always remembered comes from the worst of the Karate Kid movies, ("The Next Karate Kid", with Hilary Swank playing the lead. Believe me when I tell you the movie sucked.)
No matter how bad the movie was, Mr. Miyagi came through with a profound little nugget that we should all ponder:
"Never trust a holy man who doesn't dance."
Amen. Rest in peace, Pat.
11.28.2005
11.18.2005
wal-mart
I know there are a lot of things that I should hate about wal-mart, (well on their way to being the ONLY store which would be the ultimate monopoly, putting all the mom & pop stores out of business, capitalism run amuck, yada yada), but really two things in particular come to mind that I truly despise about wal-mart.
1) This year, they got out the Christmas stuff IN AUGUST!!!! This is annoying like everything about the commercialization of Christmas is annoying, so...whatever...
2) (I really hate this one) Why oh why do I have to listen to constant, LOUD, commercials for wal-mart while I'm in the store? I'm thinkin': I'm already at Wal-mart. I'm shopping here. Do you really need to yell at me the whole time I'm here to tell me to shop here more? What I think is particularly vulgar are these little speakers hanging all the way from the ceiling, but hanging really low over the toy aisles. These little speakers are BLASTING commercials into the kids heads the whole time they're looking at the toys.
Does anybody else see how awful this is? How can this even be legal? How come nobody has thought to think it may not be moral?
1) This year, they got out the Christmas stuff IN AUGUST!!!! This is annoying like everything about the commercialization of Christmas is annoying, so...whatever...
2) (I really hate this one) Why oh why do I have to listen to constant, LOUD, commercials for wal-mart while I'm in the store? I'm thinkin': I'm already at Wal-mart. I'm shopping here. Do you really need to yell at me the whole time I'm here to tell me to shop here more? What I think is particularly vulgar are these little speakers hanging all the way from the ceiling, but hanging really low over the toy aisles. These little speakers are BLASTING commercials into the kids heads the whole time they're looking at the toys.
Does anybody else see how awful this is? How can this even be legal? How come nobody has thought to think it may not be moral?
11.11.2005
Substitute 5th Grade Teacher
Ok, many have asked. Sorry that it's taken me all week.
Of course, I had trouble sleeping the night before and I ended up getting up early, getting ready, and getting to the school even before the secretary. Somebody in the office told me how to get to the room so I went on down there just to try to get my bearings.
When I got to the room, low and behold, the teacher, Mrs. D, was there making sure that all her plans were ready for me. So, she went over everything with me. She was very nice and very encouraging and really helped put me at ease.
I won't give a play by play of the day, but I'll just say it went OK. I was disappointed with the behavior of the students for the most part. They were 5th graders and just intent on trying to get away with stuff all day. For example: The first thing a student said to me all day was: "Oh yea, we have a sub today. The teacher told us that you were supposed to give us an extra recess today..." Yea, right.
So, between my lack of experience, their age, the fact that it was a beautiful friday, made it difficult to keep their attention and keep them on task.
One of the biggest frustrations was the fact that there were reading blocks and math blocks which meant that there were different groups of kids in the room. This happened after we'd only been in there for like 30 minutes. Of course getting kids' named learned in that amount of time was impossible, but after 30 minutes, I couldn't even tell which kids were "homeroom" kids and which were block kids. Between these blocks, some kids going to different "resource" work and testing, I never knew if all the kids who were supposed to be in the class were there or not.
I did manage to make one girl cry for not letting her go to the bathroom just 30 minutes after they were all supposed to have a bathroom break. Which brings up of the the two big things I learned: 1) find out the teacher's bathroom policy 2) find out what should be done with all the papers/work they work on that day. I just had them hand almost everything in.
All in all, it wasn't so bad that I'm not ready to do it again. In fact, now that I've done it once, I'm not nearly as terrified and am wanting to try it some more. However, it was not good enough that I'm rushing to go back to that or any other 5th grade classroom very soon.
Of course, I had trouble sleeping the night before and I ended up getting up early, getting ready, and getting to the school even before the secretary. Somebody in the office told me how to get to the room so I went on down there just to try to get my bearings.
When I got to the room, low and behold, the teacher, Mrs. D, was there making sure that all her plans were ready for me. So, she went over everything with me. She was very nice and very encouraging and really helped put me at ease.
I won't give a play by play of the day, but I'll just say it went OK. I was disappointed with the behavior of the students for the most part. They were 5th graders and just intent on trying to get away with stuff all day. For example: The first thing a student said to me all day was: "Oh yea, we have a sub today. The teacher told us that you were supposed to give us an extra recess today..." Yea, right.
So, between my lack of experience, their age, the fact that it was a beautiful friday, made it difficult to keep their attention and keep them on task.
One of the biggest frustrations was the fact that there were reading blocks and math blocks which meant that there were different groups of kids in the room. This happened after we'd only been in there for like 30 minutes. Of course getting kids' named learned in that amount of time was impossible, but after 30 minutes, I couldn't even tell which kids were "homeroom" kids and which were block kids. Between these blocks, some kids going to different "resource" work and testing, I never knew if all the kids who were supposed to be in the class were there or not.
I did manage to make one girl cry for not letting her go to the bathroom just 30 minutes after they were all supposed to have a bathroom break. Which brings up of the the two big things I learned: 1) find out the teacher's bathroom policy 2) find out what should be done with all the papers/work they work on that day. I just had them hand almost everything in.
All in all, it wasn't so bad that I'm not ready to do it again. In fact, now that I've done it once, I'm not nearly as terrified and am wanting to try it some more. However, it was not good enough that I'm rushing to go back to that or any other 5th grade classroom very soon.
11.06.2005
11.02.2005
busy week
This week is just crazy. wedding on saturday, Halloween, piano moving, trying to finish keyboard parts on a record we're trying to finish at the studio, more piano moving, filling in for T-rev last night at ConC, going to the OMA's tonight to schmooze for the studio, but not before a quick voice over session right before, big piano moving day tomorrow to free up Friday so I can go substitute teach for 5th graders.
yes, you read that right. I'm nervous.
yes, you read that right. I'm nervous.
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