March 13, 2008
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1 So...I get home reasonably late last night, but with reason.
2 We had the District Band Festival at our place last night, and Ponch brought his guys over.
3 It was a musical hoot.
4 It was nice, all cooped up in The Booth.
5 Got home reasonably late though, to a couple of computers that needed some disk space cleaned up.
6 So I actually got on the puter at around 10:30 last night, and it took almost an hour and a half to get hourglasses and arrows to move a bit faster.
7 That's late, d00d.
8 Took almost all night to finally get going.
9 I chucked all the pictures that were taking up space, and compressed files 'til I grew old as a March Hare doing so.
10 Ah, it happens with puters.
11 The one I'm using is a laptop from work. It's around a hundred years old and needs administrator approval to defrag.
12 La-dee-dah.
13 Meanwhile I had a million things to say about school funding, and how real this entire thing is beginning to look, and about moralist politicians with million-dollar hookers, and the Giants' pitching and hitting and all, and how I wanna quit a job I'm actually pretty good at, and how even I'm scared for my job.
14 I was going to give y'all this year's pictures of Shakespeare, along with some of the guesses about him.
15 I wanted to celebrate Shakespeare. And Reno. And maybe not being able to do a thing successfully on a job that I feel very successful doing.
16 All that and Guitar Hero too.
17 Yeesh.
18 Instead I'm just gonna boogy along here and give you something to motor with, and then I'm gonna go.
19 Funny because I have two laptops side-by-side, both cleaning up, but naturally the one I'm NOT using is cleaning up twice as fast.
20 The good news, I imagine, is that we've started in on Romeo and Juliet, and only two kids in my class have ever read it.
21 Whether you're an older teacher or someone new to this amazing profession, teaching people about Shakespeare is probably one of the greatest rewards every single year.
22 I won't go into a lot of detail but knowing that a few of these guys are going to "get it" is the ultimate gift to a teacher. Watching students turn on their lights, appreciating true magnificence, and crushing a cup o' Shakespeare is worth every unfulfilled wish in our arsenal.
23 I begin with writing "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks..." and teach the music first.
24 I get around to teaching them what an iamb is, and they always notice "But soft..."
25 And they're drawn in...
26 Well, with the exception of that class two years ago. They thought "But soft..." was a brand of toilet paper.
27 Hey, it's a livin'.
28 They got it yesterday, totally. Almost every single student.
29 Nothing is better.
30 Anyway, that's the news.
31 Think I'll turn in and dream about that beautiful gift.
32 Makes it all worthwhile.
33 See ya.
34 Peace.
~H~
http://www.xanga.com/bharrington
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