in class

lets face it, i couldn't resist. i'm blogging during class. because we're talking about technology. because, i mean, its subversive. and stuff. okay, i've had my fun. but now alison is talking about how laptops make people look busy, and so i'm looking busy. huzzah.

i feel a little like a puppy on speed...

assuming this is what a puppy on speed would feel like. My brain is bouncing all over the place and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down. I feel super wide awake, and I can't sit still, but the whole time there's this little voice in the back of my head going, "Hey you... you know this is all fake, right? Just wait a bit. It'll go away in a minute."

Oy.

1.5 hours left here, then off to TKD! Then the best night sleep ever. I'm sure of it.

So, I think its time to get back to work

Every year on thanksgiving I like to take a little bit of time to reflect on things, think about what I am thankful for and tell lots of people how much they mean to me. Then, the next day, Buy Nothing Day as I like to call it I generally get bored as all get-out. Today was no exception. There were a few high points today. I emailed the Denver Post's pop music editor about what to do when the songs that you thought were going to be the theme song to the revolution when you were 15 are now being played on Alice 105.9, the lame middle aged divorced person trying to relate to their kids station. I wonder, are we now lame? Also, I am nearly done with my plep, my adolescent case study and my third practicum journal. I have hit a total road block with Kevin's paper. I don't even know where to start researching.
Those were the positive things I did today, lets take a look at the stuff I did this week that might make an outside observer think "Ben, what the hell." The first shameful think I did was watch 4 episodes of "My Super Sweet 16" on MTV. If you have not watched it before dont start, there are literally millions of better ways to pend your time. Every episode features some wealthy 15 year old girl who has spent most of her life being convinced that she is special by her parents. She whines for the first ten minutes before she inevitable presents her parents with some kind of ultimatum where her main threat is being really sad. She wins, new car, the end.
Besides that, tonight I spent the greater part of two hours sending Melanie pirate bombs on facebook. I totally kicked her ass. One time she attempted to dig up treasure to go and buy bombs but then I threw a bomb at her and stole 2000 gold coins with one bomb. If you are not a facebook pirate you should know, that is an assload of coins. Typically one bomb nets you about 50-100 pirate coins.
I also watched the CU-Nebraska game. That was super. While watching the game at my parents house I ate leftover thanksgiving food and hung out with my niece. I taught her that Cher is a Robot and Uncle Ben is a ninja. I have been working on these concepts with her for months. She is 2, so she will forget and have to be taught again that people who are her grandmas age do not have psychotically perky fisheye breasts, and they are not supposed to look surprised all the time. Also, Cher's neck kind of looks like Fat Bastards at the end of Goldmember where he pointed out that it looks like a certain lady part.
I also managed to get in trouble at the library today. I was listening to Guns N Roses while I was Plepping and I accidentally pulled my heaphone cord out of my laptop in the middle of one of the SHA NA NA NA KNEES during welcome to the jungle. The old hag who pushes the cart around with the books on tape gave me a dirty look and then proceeded to shoosh the crap out of me.
When I got home tonight I watched the end of Shrek the Third, 12 minutes of WWF wrestling, and about 30 minutes of Rocky IV before watching the Singing Bee with my Sister in Law. I did not know that the WWF has become the WWE. I googled it and found out that the World Wildlife Fund sued the WWF and made them change their name. I think it sounds stupid. Also, Rocky IV is the bomb. I still get upset every time Ivan Drako kills Apollo Creed in the ring and then try not to yack when Rocky gets upset and it goes back to the montage of Rocky and Apollo training on the beach in tighty whities or whatever. A little too homoerotic to me.
That was my night, what did you guys do today?

the fourth thursday of november...

holy crap its thanksgiving. i'm ever so joyful. i really do love the day. also, its 5:30 in the morning and i am wide awake. is that fair? no. but its the truth. so...
i have drafts of two of the three major papers out. i went ahead and sent them to professors in an effort to get notes. then i emailed kevin, asking him if i could use experiences outside of brighton, and he emailed me back asking what topics i was planning on using. in a way, this was calling my bluff, because i still don't know, damn it, but i don' want to tell him that. i should have been keeping up with the intermediary deadlines, but instead i've been ignoring it.
but the real question: why blog post? and why now? boredom. lack of large balloons on the tv. its too early to start cooking. i wonder if i can fall asleep again. i'm going ot give it a go.
anyway
i hope everyone has a super fantastical amazingly wondiferous thanksgiving. peace on earth, and all that
marko

flashbacks and fall breaks

Done!

... for a little bit. Let's see, 240 minutes of teaching on Tuesday, 75 minutes of presenting on Thursday, and 63 minutes of presenting on Friday. Over all of this I determined that I am much more comfortable standing in front of a classroom or wandering around talking to students table to table than I am sitting in a circle and talking. The latter brings me back to 10th grade honors English where Ms. Humphrey had us read our book reports from our seats that were nicely placed in a circle. The girl sitting next to me decided right in the middle of the presentation was a good time to blurt out an emphatic, "Hey! You're really red and your neck's breaking out in hives!" It's amazing what our mind can do to our body when we're nervous.

Anyway, it's officially Thanksgiving break and that feels good. I'll be off to New York on Monday, where I will battle the crowds pouring in to see the Macy's T-Day Parade (which I will hopefully be attending. woo!). Whatever shall I do with myself when I can't see all of your shining faces at 8 am (or earlier) every day?!

Last night was fun. Do we have plans for tonight yet?

So... Thanksgiving break

Before I start writing I think I should let you all know that right now I am listening to Big Girls Don't Cry by Fergie. It replaced Tiny Dancer by Elton John in my head about 20 minutes ago. I am pretty excited about that.

I feel particularly fortunate this thanksgiving for many actual reasons and a few stupid ones. One in particular I am really excited about. Since my parents house is ten minutes from my house and my in-laws house is only seven minutes away I have a ton of time to kill this thanksgiving break. So, instead of writing my paper for Kevin's class, I am going to do something totally dumb and revive my hobby from last summer. While tutoring a kid last summer I discovered you can write letters to professional athletes asking for autographs on sports cards. At first I wrote really serious letters and then I got bored and started telling various american league outfielders how much I love chocolate milk. Overall, I mailed 114 different athletes over two months. While I am not going to do that much ever again. I want somebody to think I am cool at some point, I am planning on writing letters to the colorado avalanche. After a week of paper writing and presentation planning I am so ready to just sit down with my wife, put in a dvd, pop open a beer, and proceed to tell Joe Sakic what I am having for dinner, Milan Hejduk that I need a haircut and Jose Theodore will be hearing about how stupid my cats are. Seriously, they are retarded. I am looking forward to letting my mind going a little fallow this week. Who needs a brain when you can have autographs.

So, now that I have outed myself as the worlds dorkiest 13 year old, is anyone else looking forward to doing something totally stupid and mindless over break?

Now listening to Glamorous by Fergie.

Hersh Out

Ah, the blog...

This is my very first blog posting ever. I must say that I love knowing that I can write to everyone AND Ben cannot throw any pirate bombs for me. I also love that so many people came out tonight. We still need a whole cohort get drunk and rowdy type party but tonight was a nice change of pace from the like five or six of us that usually go out.

I wish I could partake of the festivities tomorrow night at happy hour but alas I must go and celebrate my friends' graduation. Apparently, they don't even get a real graduation ceremony because they are finishing in the Fall so I'm going to a graduation toast. Honestly, what is a graduation toast? Are we all gonna just stand around and make up toasts for the graduates? I do get free champagne and hors d'oeuvres ( and yes, I had to look up that spelling), which is some consolation for missing out on the cohort get together. Plus they're moving to craptastic Washington DC the day after Thanksgiving and I will hear about it forever if I don't see them before they leave. So try not to have too much fun without me.

I hope everyone is prepared to tell me what I'm going to analyze about my case study tomorrow cause I have no idea what I'm doing. I typed up the transcript and wrote about the observation...other than that, nada.

Debbie's class and rap

Hey Guys,
So this Zola guy is coming out of retirement to come and do a scored discussion for our class. I am wondering if this is going to be as great as when Jay-Z came back 2 years after dropping the Black Album and the song 99 problems? Jay came back with Kingdom come in 2006 and made a budweiser commercial depicting both his new song and the notion that Budweiser is not just for white people. Or is this like when Michael Jordan came back after playing minor league baseball wearing the number 45 and led the bulls to more championships? I guess we would have to consider how Zola left teaching. Jay and MJ stepped out in their prime only to come back later and blow us all away. Are we about to be blown away? Are we about to win an NBA championship? Are we about to win some sort of mythical galactic teaching championship led by Zola? Am I missing the point completely? Is their another famous retirement this is comparable to? If nobody comes up with anything I will assume the galactic teaching championship is ours.

I am going to go get that dirt of my shoulder.

p-primes aren't worth all this prep.

I've determined that my facilitation for tomorrow's class is not that exciting. Not to mention I have not met with Will since our original meeting with Laura (he missed the 2nd one I had with her) so this should be interesting.

Oh well. I know my part. ::shrug::

Marko - thanks for the confidence booster. Ben - it could be worse. Thanks for making me laugh during class, drawing way more attention than necessary to me. Punk.

Anxiously waiting on Brandon's usage of Shinko Maki,

Teren

and so you were born, and that was a good day

i haven't been run into, at least, to my knowledge. i think it is understandable that they would look up and run away, it isn't especially in a middle schooler's nature to look up at you and say "i'm sorry sir, i accidentally ran into you." its just not going to happen.
i am, however, finding hard to get down to their physical level. i'm big on level eye contact, and so when i work with a group of kids who are sitting i like to crouch down. but the smaller they are, the harder that is to do. hard on the knees.
anyway...
marko!

It might just be me

Ok, so I understand that I seem to run into some unique problems but I am willing to bet that at least one other person has had this same problem. Every single time I have been at the middle school, at least one kid has run into me. I do not mean your usual accidental shoulder brush or bottom-bump. I am speaking of a total plow job. I am just walking along and then all of a sudden I look down and there is this pile of brown hair in the middle of my chest. It is like I am totally invisible. The even weirder thing is that they never apologize, they just sort of look up at me in terror and then scamper off. I know me and I know that I am neither intimidating nor invisible. Does anyone have any thoughts on why I am suddenly like one of those thingies on the the side of a pinball machine that shoots the little balls all over the place.

Hersh Out
(Yes, its lame, No, its not going away)

hooray for blogs

but seriously, hooray for blogs. so much better than 18 (18! seriously, you guys) emails waiting for me in my inbox. anyway...
what a good practicum day today, for real. sixth graders still may not be my thing, but i'm starting at least to enjoy the time we spend together. teren rocked her lesson for reciprocal teaching, and i got to join in a little bit, so that was fun. all that and i finally got to see some of this "enrichment" i hear all the cool kids talking about.

i don't know what all i should be bringing to class on friday. i have my typed up notes and i have a _really_ rough outline... i'm just going to be looking for input on links to the reading, you know?

okay. arf. marko.

Hello!

I needed a break from lesson planning and decided to put together a place for all of us to post to when we feel the need to.

With this semester coming closer to a close and our schedules slowly diverging, I thought this might be a nice way to keep up with each other.

See you all soon!


Teren