"If I Should Fall Behind"

So. Weekend recap. There's a hell of a lot to recap, so buckle in, hold on to your hats, and we're off.

Thursday and Friday: camping. I spent most of the time playing my guitar. Anytime I can get paid for pitching a tent, playing a guitar, and eating s'mores, I am totally down with that. Soap Box Night went off pretty well, though a couple of acts had technical difficulty. One of the acts I was in didn't go as planned, either: the kid drumming got a little too enthusiastic, and I stood no chance of competing with all the sound he created. He had fun, though, and was very pleased with his performance, so I just let it go.

Saturday: I got talked into helping a coworker move to a new apartment. I arrived at her apartment to hear, "we don't want to have to break the bed down to move it. Can't we just move it as-is?" Keep in mind this was a full-sized bed and that she'd only been able to rent a small (7' x 10') moving van. I laughed for a good five minutes, took her bed apart, and got it put back together at her new apartment in about ten minutes. Afterwards, I went to Chad's house for crappy movies (Bloodrayne), decent wine, and good conversation. Smashley does indeed look like Uma Thurman, Michelle, or possibly my friend Lindsay from OU.

Sunday: Exhausted from a long Saturday, I slept in and missed church, condemning my soul to eternal damnation I'm sure. Said soul was redeemed, however, at the Bruce Springsteen concert Sunday night. Hearing that man play is like a religious experience, especially when he opens with the one-two punch of "O Mary Don't You Weep" and "John Henry," which had everyone standing and stomping. I'll have a more complete review of that show up later.

Monday: I cleaned the bathroom. I learned to play "O Mary Don't You Weep." Michelle and I hung out and watched Inspector Gadget (one of the coolest shows ever). I played some Kingdom Hearts. Groovy times, my friends. Groovy times.

Tuesday: I accidentally slept until 8.30 this morning, rendering me rather late on my first day back after an extended weekend. Not the best way to start the new week, but thankfully it's a short one. We've got a trip to King's Dominion scheduled for Friday, so that should be fun.

I also talked to my boss again about summer school. She'd forgotten to check on it for me, but promises to have an answer before the day is out. If nothing else, one of my coworkers brought up another job possibility, so we'll have to see how that goes.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band, "When the Saints Go Marching In (Live)"

"Saints Don't Bother With The Tear-Stained Eye"

Well, it's 2.00 am, and I just finished the paper for my education class. I've written better papers, but I've written worse papers as well. It's 99% bullshit; I made up all of the data it's based on, simplified a lot of things that were pretty damn complicated, and half-assed most of the thing. To be honest, I don't really care all that much at this point. I'm just ready to be done with this class.

Anyway, given the lateness of the hour, I am off to bed. Tomorrow is gonna suck hard.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Glen Phillips, "Black Dog Beside Me"

Double-You. Tee. Eff.

Okay, my boss just responded to a comment in an email I sent out yesterday with "lol." My shit is officially creeped right the hell out.

In other news, I'm listening to Bob Dylan and eating an Italian BMT sandwich from Subway. There are worse ways to spend a Monday.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Bob Dylan, "Ballad in Plain D"

"Moses Smote The Water With A Two-By-Four"

Prom Friday night ended up very...strange. The ITS Induction and Awards Ceremony at Wen's school before Prom was quite good; Prom itself was loud, bad music, decent snack food, and a couple of students getting in pretty big trouble for showing up rather drunk.

I've been working on the final paper/project for my education class. The paper isn't going as well as I wanted, but I should be able to finish it before Tuesday (when it's due).

I also changed the strings on The Martin tonight. It's nice having the guitar sounding so clean again, though I'm having trouble keeping the strings in tune. I'm sure there's some way for me to change the strings so that they hold their tune better--my uncle managed it when he changed the strings on the Fender for me--but I don't know how to do it.

Anyway, bedtime now. Maybe I'll actually post something this week, though I've got who knows how much crap to do this week: including class Tuesday night, camping and soap box Thursday night, and the Bruce Springsteen concert Saturday night. Busy busy, what can I say.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Elliott Smith, "Coming Up Roses"

"In Fourteen Months I've Only Smiled Once"

Tonight is Prom Night for Accotink. I've been invited to chaperone this evening, which I guess I'll go ahead and do. A lot of our students aren't here today because they're busy getting ready for it. I have to dress up to an extent, in large part because there's a banquet thing at Wen's school before I go to the Prom.

Part of what I've been doing to help get ready for the big night is drawing sketches of all of the seniors. I'm almost done with them, but still have a few left that I haven't been able to do because I haven't had the time or the students haven't been here. I'm just going to have to draw some of them from memory, I guess, which'll be interesting. The woman who asked me to draw them--one of the senior's mothers--is going to help me frame or matte them this afternoon during Art Class. She's also got a cousin (or nephew...someone's cousin, I dunno) who plays guitar who is in town and is going to come by during lunch so we can jam for the students. Should be an interesting experience.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Roger McGuinn, "Up to Me"

"GOO GOO GOO JOOB"

I spent a good part of the weekend drawing comics. I also picked up several new CDs: Let it Be and Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles, the Gross Pointe Blank Soundtrack, Rilo Kiley's The Execution of All Things, and Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker. So hurray for new music.

Michelle picked up Kids in the Hall, Season 3 at Best Buy yesterday. I'm in the middle of watching the second disc, 'cause she loaned it to me. Damn, this is a funny show. The real advantage of KITH over, say, Saturday Night Live, is that KITH keeps their sketches short. They don't run a sketch or joke too far, let it get stale, or last longer than it should. A lot of their sketches are over and done with inside of two minutes. So they manage to get a lot more humor into each sketch and show than you'd imagine possible.

The wireless router went out at the apartment this weekend, which didn't really affect me but did Wendy and Tim. We went out after church today to a computer store and bought a new one. We also checked out a bunch of laptops and stuff, and Wendy and I came up with a plan. See, she wants to get a really small laptop that she can take with her wherever she goes, and I just want one that's fairly decent in terms of power and disc space, etc. The one she's currently got would actually fit the bill, and is worth about what the small one she really liked at the store cost. So what I might do (assuming I get a job in Fairfax County Public Schools) is buy her computer off her and sell my old desktop (which is now almost four years old, I'm realizing).

Anyway, I've more Kids in the Hall to watch before I sleep.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: The Beatles, "Fool on the Hill"

"If I Was A Staggerwing Plane"

So busy of late. My graduate class is really starting to get on my nerves. The professor isn't very clear with what he expects on assignments, he doesn't clearly define expectations, and he's generally just not all that good of a teacher. Man doesn't seem to understand that we're teaching full time and don't have time for all the extra B.S. he's dropping on our heads. Thank God we've only got a couple more class meetings left in this course.

The school camping trip, which was supposed to take place tomorrow night, has been postponed due to the threat of rain. Supposedly it's gonna rain like nobody's business Thursday night, and apparently people don't like to camp in those conditions. Whatever. I've never really been camping when it didn't rain, so I don't know what they're complaining about.

I'm finally getting around to playing the first Kingdom Hearts game for the PS2 (had to wait until I had one of those, after all). It's as cool as I thought it'd be, though the controller that came with my PS2 (a non-Sony controller) has all the response of a rock. I picked up a real controller at Best Buy last night (along with the Beatles' Please Please Me just because and the movie Blackbeard's Ghost for Wen), so hopefully that'll work better. I really do dig the combination of Disney and Square characters, and look forward to playing the second game when I finish this one. Huzzah.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Mark Knopfler, "The Trawlerman's Song"

"Cyclops Rock"

I spent most of the week getting over being sick. I feel pretty well now, though I'm still a little stopped up and I still have a bunch of junk in my throat. The air conditioning at work hasn't been working properly, so on top of being sick I've been hot and sweaty. Makes for a rather miserable work week, in a lot of ways, but things were pretty good for the most part. For one, I convinced my boss to stick me in another history class starting Monday. Our student-teacher's last day was yesterday, so we'll be a teacher short for all the classes she was working in. Myself and the woman who has been a student's one-on-one mentor person are stepping up to fill in most of the gaps (I'll have my 4th period US/VA History class all to myself, though). This new schedule takes me out of a class of six English students which had three teachers (and it didn't really need three. Two, yeah, I could see that. But three was unnecessary). So that'll all be exciting.

I'm also trying to figure out what I want to teach/will be asked to teach next year. I'm leaning towards getting out of the English classes altogether and sticking almost exclusively to history. What I really want to do is create a history elective that would only cover the twentieth century. I feel that most history classes on the high school level end up giving the 20th century short shrift. They always focus on the same things: the colonial/Revolutionary period, Industrialization, and the Civil War and Reconstruction for American history; the ancient Cradle of Civilization, Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods for World History (admittedly, at least we've got two years of World History at Accotink. You get a chance to cover a good majority of stuff, though even the World History II class is only up to the French Revolution at this point). And while those are all important and need to be taught, the students live in a world that is the direct result of the 20th century. The World Wars, the Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the rise and fall of Soviet Communism, the emergence of new world powers...these are all things the students need to know about. Plus, it's probably more relevant to a lot of them. I'm going to pitch the idea to my director on Monday and see what she says. If that flies, I'm asking for a Philosophy class for the next year.

Michelle managed to snag us tickets not only to Tom Petty, but to Bruce Springsteen. This'll be my third time to see Petty, but I've never had the chance to catch The Boss in concert (admittedly, that's because he never really comes out to Oklahoma, despite his growing obsession with the midwest and the southwest in his music).

The school is doing a camping trip next week. I'm actually really excited about this. I haven't been camping since I was in high school. I even went out and bought a tent and sleeping bag earlier this week in anticipation. I'm really just a big geek who can't help but get excited about strange things.

Recent music purchases have included the new Pearl Jam, Glen Phillips, Bruce Springsteen, and Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris records. The new Pearl Jam album's pretty solid, old-fashioned straight-up rock; the Glen Phillips record falls somewhere between his first and second studio outings (leaning more towards the former than the latter); Bruce Springsteen's latest is the loosest and most fun album he's ever recorded (admittedly, most Bruce records aren't designed to be fun, mind you, but this one certainly is); and the Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris duet album is gorgeous, meandering country-rock. They're all worth picking up.

Well, back to laundry. Mine is an exciting and event-filled life.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Glen Phillips, "I Want a New Drug"