Kickball Game 2

Oh my goodness....we won again! i can't believe how much luck we've had doing it either. the funny thing is that we are bouncing around words like destiny, dynasty, consecutive, and even undefeated. of course, exaggeration is a reflection of insecurity....heheheheh i think we are just having fun. when i think about it....there isn't much about kickball....nick tried to talk to me about strategy and i didn't really care...i just wanted to make sure he creates a schedule to see who's going to bring beer at the game.

the weird thing is that when i got to school the next day, one of my students told me that he saw me play kickball near his house. "are you sure it was me?" tiny beads of sweat waiting to hear what he was going to say next.
"yeah....you were even drinking while you were playing!"sure of himself. crap! i really am uncomfortable seeing my kids watch me drink while playing any game. especially kids that are in their impressionable age. what happens if he starts drinking when he plays kickball, softball, basketball, soccer, or whatever......hell, i can't tell him to not do it. all he has to say is,"you do it, why can't i?"

actually, a couple of my kids living in the western edition now want to watch me play.....crap!

does anyone have any suggestions?

First Day of Testing 2005-2006!

"Mr. Algones, the test was hard!"
"there were so many words i didn't understand," confused.
"the passages were so long!" -helpless.
Mikias had no idea what to expect....hehehehe He didn't realize that he had very little chance to do well in this test. he arrived in the united states eight months ago! i laugh because it isn't funny, but this laugh is one of a helpless feeling i have for my students. i love my kids but its not their fault the state of california, the san francisco district, everett middle school will be marred by everyone waiting to criticize the ineffectiveness of the public school system.

my kids worked hard, i worked hard, the whole school worked hard! what the hell else can we do! maybe we should have high expectations and understand the results. its hard and i don't know how mch i can take this. come august, i just hope there was some improvement from our students and we get the hell out of the five year federal clout. what happens if we don't reach our ayp goal this year?

Principal Observation

wow...my principal said,"it was a pleasure to be in your class today." what? am i that good? actually, i've been observed twice when i did vocabulary bingo and both times i had an incredible evaluation. i think vocabulary bingo is the most effective way of reviewing definitions, parts of speech, cognates, synonyms, antonyms, sentences, and even affixes. the only problem i have is that i still use candy as prizes. i'm always buying candy and the last thing you want are middle school kids propped up on sugar. but i really don't think it would be as fun with carrot sticks or erasers.

Kickball Season: Game 1

if this was an indication of what the kickball season is going to be like, its gonna be really fun!before we arrived at the park, i met emilie and gray in our usual spot...cama. i already downed two glasses of pbr(pabst). the last time i played kickball was twenty years ago! i thought i was awesome then and naturally, i just assume i am still awesome. unfortunately, i didn't consider being inebriated can affect my ability to play the game. when we arrived, we watched the first teams play and drink at the same time. what?!? playing and drinking? is this sloshball? one of their players was wearing a shiny deep red polyester short sleeve shirt and white pants. i don't know what kickball players look like but i am pretty sure he looked like he was going to some club on folsom after the game! nick, our captain, wasn't there for our first game. so everyone chose me to place everyone in spots. i returned the favor by telling them to go wherever they want to play...hehehehe

We won!!! i was a little apprehensive at first because the team is essentially the basketball team that went 1 and 6 during bball season. now that we got a win in our first game, i feel like we are going to be undefeated...hehehehe

Damn...I'm 34 years old!

i hate having friends that are younger than me. you know... friends that are about to knock on their third decade. guess who they ask what's it like to be living in their thirties...ME! they want to know what it feels like. actually, it hasn't really changed me that much. i would say things like: "oh crap...you are pretty much on the downward slide", or "you are going to have a hard time keeping the weight down", or "your memory will slip often", "you drink milk, you eat ice cream, you will get diarreah" or whatever.....just to annoy them.

in reality, age doesn't really matter. change occurs when your lifestyle changes. yes, there are things you do, you would say, you would dance, you would watch in your twenties that you may not do now. but these are things that you limit yourself. yes, people will laugh at you now, in your thirties, if you are still watching mtv... or whatever you watch that you struggle to hold on to because you know its the only thing that helps you to relate to the youngins.... but who cares! do whatever you feel like doing. there are people who i meet and they are still surprised that i am in my thirties. personally, i think they are just trying to be nice. but sometimes i feel like they say things like that to me because i am slightly immature...heheheheheheh

one literary tool that helps make your writing interesting is analogy...particularly analogies that can refer to past movies, tv shows, cartoons, toys...whatever! it allows you to compare what you were and what there was to what there is now. i wonder if comedians use a venn diagram. bringing the past to the present is funny! but it also allows people to help date you.....maybe that's why i rarely ever use this literary element. maybe senelity has already crept in and i already forgot everything that help shape me in the eighties....ahem i mean the nineties.

Leyla just showed me how to add pictures in my blog! this picture is with ozark in a party we went to last year.

little does she know that i will have pics of her on my blog...

Wedding Preparation Update aka: Wedding Drama Central

we really don't know where the wedding is going to be held!?!? leyla wants to elope. i kinda' want to have a celebration of our unity. the problem is that i really do not like to plan this once-in-a-lifetime event. maybe i am too much of a wuss. its my big moment and i am wussing out!

leyla's dad, blash, is one of the most loving dad one could have. but he is one of those typical dads. he wants the best for her daughter and he thinks he is right and everyone is wrong...heheheheheh

story: leyla and i decided to have our wedding in the country club located in their housing community. we even flew down to the oc to check it out and we were very satisfied with the restrictions afforded to us. it seemed like everyone was happy and satified. all we needed to was to put a down payment to set our date. all smiles at this point, but its more for the apprehension we are feeling. deep down we know we have so much crap to do!

two days ago, we called her dad to check if we had reserved the country club. her dad has not yet reserved the country club, instead he has been looking around newport beach and found himself a ship to have our wedding in. it is a replica of a mississippi steam boat circa 1840! how the hell is this going to work with our morroccan motif? it doesn't. i think leyla referred it to a "post-modern flim-flam wedding".

of course, her dad innocently offered to pay for everything. he knew he wanted something really simple and cheap, so he described the ship as the "cheapest ship known to man". leyla, angry, hangs up on her own dad!

she calls back, "dad....we are going to elope!" whaaaaaat? but but but what about my sister? what the hell am i going to say to her? she is making the invitations....she's halfway done....she goin' to kill me!

Diversity is Great!

this is the main reason why i love my job. i have kids from mongolia, ukraine, ethiopia, china, south korea, vietnam, el salvador, nicaragua, cuba, guatemala, india, the philippines, venezuela, and oh yeah....mexico! i love learning a word or two, why they are here, their favorite foods, and what they can cook for me!

anyways, this is a great example of how interesting my class i like. Phoebe, chinese, wanted to know a word but could not describe it to me. so she decided to explain the word in cantonese to fany, a cantonese who was raised in venezuela. when phoebe explained herself, fany preceded to explain the word to me in spanish because she can't express herself in english well enough. i was able to tell phoebe what word she was looking for: particular! this happens a lot in my class. sometimes i am able to help them, sometimes i just shrug my head.

Pissy Parent

oh my goodness....a parent visited my 9th period class today. its the one class that starts at 3:00! at this point, the kids do not care what the hell they're learning and it is really hard to get control of them. what is even worse is that the kids know they are not being graded for this class at all! they know that they can essentially screw around and there will be very little consequences. so the kids, especially the 8th graders, know its their time to make an impression on the other kids. they are so easy to figure out. when i told them that this is the reason why they are acting out, they didn't care and kept on misbehaving. but its really hard to blame them, because we essentially gave them a ticket to screw around. i wish these classes were embedded in our regular day and were given legitimate grades for it.

anyways, one of my students is a prick. his only goal in life is to reak havoc because it is fun. well...he was in his prime today! he was cursing, making mean-hearted race jokes, and we all tolerated him. i probably should have sent him out but that is just what he wants. i've sent that kid out several times, counseling have already told us not to send them. they are innundated with enough of the bad apples. anyways, my kids are already immune to his antics, so we find him nothing more than silly... and he hates that! personally, i think my kids are really picking up good test-taking strategies and math reviews. what more do you want?

unfortunately, there was a mother in the back observing the whole thing, and she was there only to see what happened today. in the end of the class, she told me how horrible she thought the class went. of course, she didn't understand that i had to make compromises with this student, and that he was well within his means. the other students were doing their work and that was all i cared about. however, she thought that they weren't really listening. i wanted to tell her she was way over dramatic. she had no idea that those kids just acted that way. they all turned in their work and oddly enough, most were completed.

of course, she threatened to call the district. and i didn't want to have to explain to her the circumstances of the catastrophe of the 9th period class, so i just calmly told her to talk to the district. "please tell them how you feel, i really do not mind. they need to know how 9th period just didn't work for us all year."

besides, my classes are completely separate entities and that is really what i care about. i even told her that she is welcome to observe other 9th period classes and she can send her child to one that is well behaved. i'm sure she didn't like to hear that. how dare, he, be so nonchalant about the issue!