Last night I went to Wal-Mart and felt like a man. As I headed for checkout, my cart contained the following: a bottle of Drano, a plunger, an extension cord, two windshield wipers, a box of batteries, and -- I wasn’t going to include it here but it only further proves my point -- a bottle of jock-itch spray. How macho am I?!?

This past weekend, to some extent, broke our long-standing streak of boring weekends consisting of staying in our apartment lonely and stir crazy. Friday night saw seven of us spontaneously driving an hour south to Nifty Fifties, a fifties themed diner chain complete with jukebox and arcade. It was a first for me and was quite enjoyable, not terribly unlike a midnight run to Steak and Shake in my younger years.

Saturday, for some reason, we saw X-Men 3 even though I generally hate comic book movies and haven’t seen X-Men 1 or 2. With that in mind, it wasn’t half bad, but definitely not my cup of tea. As I usually avoid those movies, I don’t feel as though I have a framework built by which to judge them, and so, I have no opinion on these mutants and matters or movies concerning them.

Sunday saw lunch with the family and an also-somewhat-spontaneous camping trip with Steve and Courtney and Josh. We went to a small state park that was packed for the holiday weekend. We ate delicious hamburgers cooked over the fire and a killer breakfast the following morning consisting of camp-stove scrambled eggs, fire-roasted potatoes, fire-roasted sausage, toast, orange juice, and coffee. It was incredible. Momentarily forgetting the heavy breakfast we just ate, we went for a 2 mile hike which quickly reminded us of the heavy breakfast we just ate. Then we took a row boat and canoe out on the lake and went home shortly thereafter.

Monday afternoon we went to a birthday party for Emily who is turning the big 2-1. Knowing that on the next day I would be in charge of kickball at Field Day, and being deathly afraid of it, I decided to get a game of kickball going in order to practice and build some confidence. It was a lot of fun. Most 21 year olds spend their birthday getting wasted on booze, but at this party, we all got wasted on kickball.

The combination of hiking, canoeing, and kickball all in one day was more exercise than my body has seen in well over a year, with the most action this body sees being an occasional leisurely walk around the neighborhood and the trip up our set of stairs after work.

Yesterday was Field Day, where I was indeed in charge of kickball for the entire day. It was not nearly as disasterous as I was expecting, and we actually had quite a bit of fun. But the heat and humidity was oppressive, and I lost 12 pounds in sweat.

In efforts to promote good sportsmanship, my kickball motto for the day was, "HEY! Only words of encouragement on my diamond!!" It didn't really work.

During the last activity session no one showed up for kickball except 2 learning support kids. Instead of kickball, we sat in the shade for a little while and somehow the boys got on the topic of heaven and who they could meet when they get there. Included on the list were (in this order) Elvis, Martin Luther King, maybe even Jesus himself, all the presidents, the man who invented video games (which invoked the most excitement), and the one boy’s dead dog Cocoa.

Anyway, it's been a good stretch of days, and needless to say, after these two days of activity pretty much every muscle and bone in my body aches. I am having trouble climbing stairs as my legs don’t seem to want to really move all that much. One of my goals for my jobless summer is to exercise, but I think after all of this I will techincally be able to cross that one off my list. I've put my time in already.

The end is upon us at school, which is still very hard to believe, but it makes everything so joy-filled and wonderful. I'm smiling, the kids are smiling, and I don't see them as little hoodlums so much anymore. It's a nice feeling. I've made it.

that link didnt work, huh? lets try again. see amina HERE.

also, finally, we DIDNT miss a film at civic. this movie was very good.

chalupa and liz are engaged!! hooray! congrats!!

seven and a half days left!!!

I took a sick day on Wednesday. When you take off on a Wednesday, it feels like you get the wonderful Thursday-Friday combination twice in one week. I liked it.

On Thursday I sustained an injury for which I will not be receiving workman’s comp. You see, a rather large bumblebee entered the classroom through an open window. One thing they don’t teach you in college is what to do when a bumblebee enters the classroom, and perhaps that is because, quite honestly, there is nothing you can do. Kids immediately leap out of their seats, the brave attention-seeking ones chasing the insect with notebooks or throwing pencils at it, the more fearful ones running to opposite ends of the rooms. Everyone is yelling and screaming. It is pure and utter chaos. I calmly roll my eyes and stroll around the room saying, “Come on, sit down, it won’t hurt you” and occasionally giving more of a firm “SIT DOWN NOW” to the kids jumping off of desktops trying to swat it. There is one thing you cannot do: you cannot say “Just ignore it” and try to continue the lesson. Kids are absolutely incapable of ignoring large insects with stingers. All eyes are glued on the hovering beast, and when it takes its random ducks and dives there are yelps and shrieks.

So, there is only one option: Do your best to get the kids to stay seated and be as quiet as possible, while you kill the thing as quickly as possible and restore order. In this case, the calm teacher quickly turns into a determined bloodthirsty hunter with only one thing on his mind: the kill.

And so that is what I did. I grabbed a stack of math folders, holding them above my shoulder, and waited for the bumblebee to dive in my direction. When it did, I swung, and as I did, one of the attention-seeking students came diving in my direction also swinging at the bee, and he tomahawked me with a plastic lav pass right in the fingernail of my middle finger on my left hand.

It immediately started changing colors and has been growing increasingly black. The skin around the nail is very puffy and purple. And it hurts.

Unrelatedly, yesterday I wore my brown pin-stripe casual khakis with a new somewhat bright green polo shirt. I had about 17 students tell me I didn’t match. I shared this with a fellow teacher and he said, “I’m not so sure you match, either.” I agreed, “Neither am I.” One student told me I looked like a tree. I’ll give it to him; he was right.

I was skeptical, but today was a good day. A really good day.

It started by grading state standardized tests at the middle school down the road. I made an easy, fun, well-fed $125 in 4 hours.

I came home and found a Fed-Ex package waiting for me. It was Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois on vinyl! Thank you, Travis.

Then I heard the mailman come. He delivered Walking to Martha’s Vineyard by Franz Wright, which, from the few poems I’ve read, I really enjoy so far.

He also delivered Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts by Steve Turner. I’ve read about 50 pages of it already, and it’s the book I’ve been waiting to read for years. The man knows his stuff and I am really excited about it.

I also got a nap in, but not just any nap; it was a nap with a thunderstorm in the background.

Then I got to drink an IC Spice at Panera. Don’t judge me for being the trendy Panera patron that I am, drinking my yuppie froo-froo coffee drinks with cheezy names. I happen to really enjoy a good IC Spice, and when I drink one, it makes for a good day.

While sitting at Panera, I got a considerable amount of school work done. Imagine that! On a Saturday!

While waiting for our Papa John’s pizza, Erica and I drove around to find wireless access so that I could show her the Amina video. We parked in front of someone’s house, stole their internet, and watched the song that pulls at my heartstrings. (Watch the first five minutes of this, and perhaps you’ll understand my obsession with both the saw and the desk bells: click.)

Then, we ate Papa John’s pizza.

THEN, we watched a movie, and I STAYED AWAKE FOR IT!

Not just any movie, but a THREE HOUR MOVIE!

Not just any three hour movie, but one I have waited OVER FIVE YEARS TO SEE!

Not just any three hour movie I have waited over five years to see, but MAGNOLIA!

And I loved it!

What a day!

Last night we went to see Mission Impossible 3 at the drive-in, mostly for the sake of going to the drive-in, and also for the sake of seeing my boyfriend, Philip Seymour Hoffman, on the big screen.

I’m no fan of action movies, but I’ll admit, I liked it.

One thing I don’t like is when action/thriller/mystery movies unveil the entire plot with all it’s twists and turns in a 30 second climax. If you can keep up, and you get it, you’re blown away. But if you’re like me, and I would guess the majority of the audience, you CAN’T keep up, and you DON’T get it, and then you spend the next 5 minutes asking everyone around you “Wait....what just happened?” and then you end up missing even more of the plot. But oh well.

Then, this morning, I watched Microcosmos, which is the insect version of Winged Migration. If you remember, I was pretty obsessed with Winged Migration after I saw it, and I think it’s pretty safe to say I’ll be obsessed wtih Microcosmos for a little while now, too.

The film contains what is quite possibly simultaneously the most repulsive and most hilarious scene ever caught on film in the history of cinema: two large slugs very passionately making love, and I mean really going at it, with some intense opera vocals accompanying in the background.

One thing I like about Perrin’s films is that he doesn’t feel the need to rely on narration to carry the movie. I think he believes the footage and the outrageousness of nature itself is interesting enough. Now, I haven’t seen March of the Penguins in its entirety yet, and I realize that the details of that story are partially what make it so amazing, but I find it sad that we are so void of imagination (and/or attention spans) that we need Morgan Freeman to spoon-feed us a story of romance that makes these Penguins as humanlike as possible in order for us to enjoy or appreciate it.

These bugs and beetles put those Blockbuster penguins to shame.

The other day, a boy walked into my room after school when I just so happened to be listening to Danielson’s latest single, “Did I Step On Your Trumpet?” He gave me a weird look and said, “What you be listenin to, mister?”
“Why, you like it?”
“It’s weird! You need to get some hip-hop up in here!”

Then, yesterday morning, a boy came into the room before school. I was listening to Ester Drang, and it was one of their more moody, jazzy, soft and mellow kind of tracks. He said, “What is this?!? The Weather Channel?!?”

One day I will get them to appreciate my indie rock....one day.

Stealing the Internet at home has become harder and harder these days, so updates have been a little less frequent. I hope I'm not inundating you with all these posts...

The blossoming trees of the neighborhood are dropping their petals in the wind and pink is being scattered everywhere. The neighbor’s yard is covered. There are piles of pink lining the curbs, a sight that brought a smile to my face. I tried to capture it with my plastic camera, but the chances of it turning out well enough to do the scene justice are quite slim.

I finally got the Amina EP. It is beautiful. But, I’ll be honest and admit that I bought it mostly for the desk bells and the musical saw, both of which are absent. Furthermore, four songs is not enough, and each of the four could gladly be drawn out longer than they already are.

New Unwed Sailor material is finally being released, some yesterday, some this summer, some this fall. I am warily excited.

Friends with Money? Yeah, we missed that one too. Perhaps we’ll get out to see L’Enfant this week? Doubtful. These only-one-week-long showings are a pain.

The real question is this: Akeelah and the Bee - will it be good or incredibly cheesy?

And is it just me, or does Audrey Tatou lose some of her everyone's-favorite-little-french-girl appeal when she's alongside Tom Hanks? Is it because it makes her seem more American?

The Combovers completed a little bit more of their recording on Sunday, and we’re looking to do even more on Saturday. Get ready.

Yep.

Yesterday I felt like a good teacher, like a teacher who was making a difference.

One of my students has been a behavior problem all year, and it is largely attributeable to his extremely severe ADHD. I have been more than gracious with him all year, giving him chance after chance after chance. But he has also been suspended more than once because of me.

Yesterday he was told he would be suspended again because of continued classroom misconduct in my class. He came to my room right after school to protest, and stormed out shortly thereafter, pushing over a desk on his way out.

A little later, he came back and we talked. He was finally beginning to realize the consequences of all the poor choices he’s made throughout the year. Unfortunately, this wakeup call is coming a little late for him. Now he’s looking at another year in 7th grade, and it’s no coincidence that several of his friends are, too (one of them being the boy that needs a 118).

I told him that he is including himself in a group of friends that equates fun with being disrespectful, causing trouble, and getting poor grades. But now that they’ve had a year full of fun, they’re realizing another year in 7th grade doesn’t look so fun after all. I told him that there are ways to have fun and still get good grades, succeed, and not screw up their futures. Furthermore, there’s a time to have fun and a time to be serious and work hard and think about their future.

He agreed with me.

I talked about how rough his year has been and what he needs to do differently next year so that it doesn’t happen again.

I talked about his parents and his teachers about how everything we’re doing is to help him succeed because we care about him and we know that deep down he IS a good, smart kid.

I told him that I wasn’t writing him up and getting him suspended just to see him get in trouble, because if that were the case, I’d be writing him up a lot more often and he’d be suspended a lot more often. No, we do this because we want to see his behavior change and improve.

I went on and on, sitting on a desk, probably for a good 10/15 minutes. He stood next to me, mostly silent, head hanging low, with an occasional nod and an occasional shrug.

I finished and we sat silently for a few moments. “So, whaddya think?” I asked. He shrugged. “Try harder,” he mumbled.

I wanted to cry for the poor kid, the “poor kid" who has driven me to the point of insanity this whole year.

The entire year I’ve wondered what the whole grace/discipline/love/punishment balance should look like with my students. I think the relationship I’ve had with this kid is the closest I have to an answer.

One thing that tells me this is true is my relationship with this kid’s mother. Last week when I wrote his mother yet another email about his behavior and the referral I was writing, she wrote back with the most encouraging thing I’ve received all year. Few parents are happy with you when you suspend their children. This mother, on the other hand, wrote: “Thank you very much and I just want to tell you that you are very GOOD TEACHER.  So many kids to deal with but you still find time to help them. You sure have Angels around you.”

Am I making a difference? My cynicism/pessimism/realism tells me that in all likelihood, very little will change with this kid. But for now I feel like I’m doing my job and doing it well, at least with this one. (And even that’s debatable, because by Mr. Bush’s standards, this kid’s getting left behind and it’s MY fault.) Hopefully this kid will grow out of his middleschoolness soon and be able to look back and see a teacher that believed in him.

And if that’s true, then I will have at least one first year success story after all.

A concerned young man came in after school the other day with one thing on his mind: making it into the 8th grade.

“Mister, what do I need to get in your class to pass the year?”

I decided I would take this opportunity to give him an attainable goal to work towards. I opened up my grading program and found his quarterly grades. I set up the equation to find what he needed in order to get a final yearly average of 70 percent. (Below 70 is failing. We don’t mess around.) As I began to work through the problem, I realized it wasn’t looking good. But it wasn’t until I hit the equals button when I realized exactly how bad it was.

The calculator read 118. He needs a 118 percent in the 4th quarter.

And I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“Ummm, let’s just say you need to work really really hard.”

It’s definitely something to work towards. But, attainable? Not so much.

What does one say about the event that shook my Alma Mater last week?

I guess, somewhat of the same thing one says about the event that shook one of my student’s lives last week, on the same day.

And that is, very little.