Month: October 2006

  • The Daily News



    Global Warming, Dept: So I take a look at today's weather report, and guess what?

    2  You guesed it.  More rain.




    3  I don't know what I'm going to do with all of it this year. Last year it seemed it was raining every day, but I was also sad quite a bit, having missed my good ol' Class of '05, whom I advised several light years ago.

    4  I was sad quite a bit last year, and it seemed that the rain was exactly what it felt like inside of me all year. Somehow, I'm not feeling all that umbrella angst I felt last year. I've actually been having a ball trying to handle a job that nobody on this planet could handle.

    5  Still, I'm handling it. I had my first public failure last week when we had this huge election for School Site Council members. My job was to get some students elected to that, so I set it up to happen during their 5th period classes.

    6  Well, if anything could go wrong, it would. I was told that there were something like 40 teachers less than there were, so I didn't have enough ballots. When the ballots were printed, the instructions said two different things. Students were left OFF the ballots. Distribution of the ballots was slow, so around half the faculty didn't get them on time.

    7  I could go on, as well as explain why each category went awry, but it wouldn't matter: fact is, it just looked disorganized and stupidly thought through, even though it actually WAS thought through. It was just an information collapse.

    8  Fortunately, most of the teachers understood, and anyone else hurt by it seemed understanding as well. To me, it was embarrassing, but I just sort of shrugged it off. Of course, some teachers got ridiculously angry. You always get them:





    9  The same week, the teacher's ID's got stolen, as well as all the Senior ID cards from T to Z. That was a lot of fun to explain as well.

    10  It's funny, as a younger teacher, I would have fretted all weekend, and felt idiotic about those things, but in my new role as the voice of experience, I really didn't take any of it personally. When teachers would ask, "Who took them?" I'd look at THEM as though THEY were the idiot.

    11  "I don't know."

    12  "But who DID that?"

    13  "OH! I'M SORRY! THIS GUY NAMED BOB. OLD FRIEND OF MINES. I MUST HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD YOUR IDIOTIC QUESTION! M'BAD!"

    14  Yeesh.

    15  Who took them. That killed me.

    16  Let's do another, the one about the ballots: "Why do some of the instructions say to vote for 5 and the others to vote for 8?"

    17  "OH! I'M SORRY! I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CLEVER TO FOOL EVERYBODY AND NOT ENCLOSE THE CORRECTION IN YOUR BOX ONLY, JUST BECAUSE I WANTED TO MAKE YOU ASK THAT QUESTION. EVERYBODY ELSE SEEMED TO GET THAT MESSAGE. MUST BE MY FAULT THAT YOU COULDN'T READ SIMPLE CORRECTIONS! I'LL RE-PRINT ALL 2500 BALLOTS SO YOU'LL BE APPEASED!"

    18  You get the idea. It's funny because no matter where you work or what you do, it seems someone out there wants to point out that you are a knucklehead.



    19 My answer to guys like that is pretty much this: "It's not my fault that you hate your father."

    20  They usually walk off wanting to pin something on me, like an anvil.

    21  Nah, I never actually SAY that. I sure think it though.

    22  As I've said many times over the years, there's a reason I have a job.

    23  Other than that, I've been doing well up on the Chill on the Hill. As I've said, I sometimes feel like the Birdman of Alcatraz, confined to that place as though it is a certain prison. I've made it comfortable and nice, stereo, huge office, refrigerator, couch, and free reign, but I still look out over the twinkling lights of our town and often wish I could just hop in the TOONDRA and fly through the hills just above me, as I always could.

    24  Well, the job has made me a lot more restricted in my schedule, but it's also a lot of fun and is challenging beyond all measure! Anyone who knows me knows I don't flourish very well when confined. So although I'm confined right now, once I learn the ins and outs of this place, I'll be ready to fly. Or at least to pick up a guitar and sing some Coldplay.

    25  So yeah, I miss certain things. Most of the teachers who left YB agree that the students and staff are never quite as good as we had at YB. If you ask anyone who left, that's the good word on good ol' YB.

    26  But the entire new world and new experience has blown the doors wide open for me to soar and to fly, and to make things happen in a brand new place. And it's very exciting because almost everyone up there is new, so we ALL are making fools out of ourselves as we begin to take a school that has been almost foolishly new and to bring new ideas and traditions into it.

    27  So I view my first failures as successes, because as cliche as it seems, you learn more from one failure than you do from a thousand successes.

    28  That's it for today. I'll stop updating really soon I hope, so that I could start making the DN more goofy. It is overdue for some fun. I just thought I'd share some early experiences in my early days up here. So no, rumors that I jumped off the roof at Cougar Hall are unfounded. I tried to jump out the windows when I saw morons approaching, but found that the windows are ten feet high, with slit openings that certainly wouldn't fit a big brown bear like me.

    29  So nah, I'm all right. I just keep bouncing back and kicking the critics upside the head, like always. Some things never change.

    30  Stay the course.

    31  Peace y'all.

    32  Out.


          
     
      


    ~H~



     







     
     
     
     
     
     
     

  • The Daily News


    "You might see this as the glass half-full."--Honda commercial.

    1  Sometimes I just get so proud of people I really don't know what to say.

    2  After all the back and forth with trying to keep the Drama Workshop going, and thinking it was impossible for it to ever come back, a group of students at YB said no. They have gathered the tribes and are now in the process of keeping it going on their own by putting together a series of student-directed one-acts. Leading the charge are Trinh, Jenny, Suny, Cam, Connie, and Ellen,  six of our most distinguished members of the Workshop. They are talking to everyone about how to go about it, but are working, planning and hoping that they can pull off the ultimate miracle, and the ultimate tribute to everyone who ever lived and breathed in that Theatre.

    4  To the Daily News audience, this is a time to sit and smile! They have spent the past week meeting, planning, gathering support from other teachers who also were touched and moved by our productions, and so far, they've made some amazing inroads.

    5  They have been asking me questions about how to set up auditions, how to approach directing, how to organize something as complex as a school play, but they are also asking others how to gather school and community support. There's a LOT involved, but they are moving forward with amazing confidence and with a clear mission.

    6  They have chosen some amazing plays on their own already. I'm really curious to see where this goes. I did warn them that something like this could be a lot harder than they think, since every minor element of a production involves process, but they keep meeting and anticipating things that might get in their way.

    7  So hats off to those students. It's nice to see young people showing such incredible character. So far they've approached the new music instructor, Mr. Paul Zawilski, who is interested in offering time to supervise and oversee the auditions, Blanca Espinoza for information about approaching the School Site Council, Mr. Rocha just because you always throw Mr. Rocha in any time there's movement on that campus, Tracy Wolcott, just because she's the best there is, and many more.

    8  As the guy who founded the Workshop, and as a spokesperson for everyone else who ever spent time making wonderful memories, I officially proclaim that this is a day to celebrate. What an honor for all of us to see this spirited group of students pressing, pushing, and believing in miracles!



    9  It might be because they've watched miracles happen in that Theatre every single year, since its beginnings. The place always had that sort of magic.

    10  Well, it's looking like we might all be enjoying yet another miracle before this year finally comes to an end.

    11  So from the very heart of this old brown shoe, I wish the students the very best, and hope I will be sitting in the audience watching as the tradition continues, and we get to watch perhaps the biggest miracle yet.

    12  Break-a-leg.

    13  Moving on: I'm sorry to see Jason Schmidt might have played his last game as a Giant. He was on the news tonight and was genuinely touched about what he called the greatest time of his life.

    14  Barry Bonds made his move by packing all his stuff and disappearing without a trace yesterday, clearing out his entire wall from his penthouse at Pac Bell/SBC/ATT Park. I'd love to say I was thinking a lot about it, but nope.

    15  I just won't go there.

    16  And moving on: "We need to continue to get better."--Alex Smith, following yesterday's 41-0 drubbing of the 49ers at the hands of Kansas City. Uh...continue?

    17  And moving on: The Raiders. Oy.

    18  "You might see this as the glass half-empty."--Honda commercial

    19   Well, it's only one week. But the character of Mr. Bonds was clearly mirrored by the character of his fellow players this past three weeks. The 49ers just got outclassed by a team that was trained and ready to play in the NFL. The Raiders started out like a house on fire, and proceeded to burn down.

    20  But I watched a group of students who never gave up hope out there doing eveything they could to win this past week. And that makes me see the glass half full, and filling up quicker and quicker. Soon it will be brimming with the love and insanity of pure hope.

    21  So we should just bring this DN around to its own beginning, and leave on a positive note.

    22  Because sometimes all of us need to look to young people for character lessons.

    23  Thank you guys for taking the torch and for keeping that flame burning.

    24  You give all of us hope, despite our so-called real heroes.

    25  This morning, you are my heroes.

    26  March on.

    27  Peace.



    ~H~



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