"If my hope is in this
world alone, I am, of all men, most miserable." - The Apostle Paul I Cor. 15:19
March 10, 2010 It's Only Wednesday?
I'm feeling my age...I hate to admit. I've been busy the last
6 days or so taking a mess of pictures.
Last Thursday evening, it was a Jr. High track meet. Friday, I
did it all over again for the high school track meet.
Saturday, I was asked to shoot a barrel racing event at the Paris
rodeo arena and later that night, I shot a 'Cotillion'
ceremony at the PJC Ballroom. The next two days was spent
trying to get all the photos processed and uploaded
before I changed gears to get ready for our field trip to the Dallas
Holocaust Museum on Tuesday.
We made this same trip
last year and I was determined to
take a new group of 7th graders this year after we finished
the novel that I read them every year. Due to time
constraints,
we were not going to be able to stop for lunch on the way home
so Kathy stepped up and offered to make lunch for all the kids
so we could just eat on the way back. So we were up at 5 AM
Tuesday morning and did our best impression of a Subway assembly
line. Everything went great and we took two busses of kids two
hours
away to downtown Dallas Tuesday where we were held captive by the
riveting testimony of Jack Repp, a living survivor of the Nazi death
camps.
It really is hard to put in to words the feelings and
emotions you
experience when you hear, face to face, from a living person who
survived
one the most atroscious crimes during one of the darkest periods in
modern
history. It's my hope these kids never forget the trip or the
experience.
February 25, 2010 Gotta Share the Laughs
When people ask what grade I teach in public school,
they wince when I tell them Jr. high - 6th & 7th grade.
I understand that reaction; that's how I respond when someone tells me
they teach 1st grade or kindergarten.
But I wouldn't trade my Jr. High Reading
classes in for anything. My wife thinks I fit so well with
this age group
because I never really matured past that age myself. :-) (There are
days when I think she may be right!)
I just consider myself truly blessed to
still love what I do. I think one of the reasons I enjoy
looking forward to
coming to work is the amount of laughs I experience with these kids.
Some at my expense, and some at theirs.
For example....every Tuesday, I give my students 10 new vocabulary
words to write down with definitions. We discuss
the words and their meanings, and then afterwards, they are assigned
to write out ten sentences using each word
correctly, in context, in the sentence. At the end of the
week, they have a quiz over the words. So you can imagine
the smiles I get when 12 and 13 year old kids are confronted with
words whose meanings are new, or unclear to them.
The other day, when going over a practice
Reading TAKS test, one of the kids mentioned not knowing the meaning
of a word in one of the answers. I told them that was one of
the reasons I teach them new vocabulary words every
week so they can expand their vocabulary. . . to which another girl
raised her hand and said: "Is THAT why you do that?
I just thought we did that so you would have something to do on
Tuesdays!"
Do what??????
A few weeks ago, one of the words we had was 'internal'.
Someone quickly saw the connection of that word
with 'internal organs'. I praised them for that observation
and then asked if anyone could name some 'internal organs'.
One students said 'lungs'. I said "good- any others?" An
overly enthusiastic boy raised his hand then pointed at me
and proudly blurted out: "Your Uterus!"
I just looked at him with a puzzled look,
as did most of the girls in the class. One girls spoke up and
quickly informed
him that only girls had a uterus. His face took on a confused
expression and then meekly asked: "What's a uterus?"
I guess he was absent that day when the science teacher covered that
chapter.
Ever since I started teaching this class, I
tell myself at least once a week that I should collect some of the
writings these
kids turn in for a future book. And while I have not been
consistent in doing that, I did start adding to a list some of
the
more comical items I came across. These are too good not to
share. :-)
The following come from either test
answers, or sentences they turned in attempting to use the new
vocabulary correctly.
The medicine was bogus,
it was really drugs.
The explosion in Paris
was fatal, but no one got hurt.
My mom persistently
gave up easily.
Diplomatic –
‘dealing with people in a sinful manner’
Windfall – a
sudden break of wind
She was death so I had to
use hand gestures to talk to her.
And a recent one I got this week - it seems some of the
kids were still not clear on how to use the word 'perceive'.
I think the intent of this one student was to refer to her
'perceptive abilties'; so she just invented a new word
and wrote: I could use my 'percivities'
to tell if the food was still good or not.
This was a kid I can identify with totally; I've never hesitated
making up a new word when in a pinch. Just ask my girls,
I used to make up words to songs at church all the time when I
didn't know the verse.
February 12, 2010 What A Pretty Surprise
It snowed, and snowed, and snowed and turned my corner of
the world
here into a winter wonderland.
We often get 'teased' by the Dallas
weathermen (which I believe is an
industry secret they use to lure more viewers to their station, or
so my theory goes)
but this time, the conditions lined up and that slow moving front
mixed with the
colder air provided us a good 6-7 inches of that pretty white stuff
that ended up giving
us a four day weekend. Sad to say, it cancelled the Jr. High
Valentine dance that I
was supposed to be at tonight, but I'll get over the disappointment
soon. :-)
With all the trees and countryside we have
around here, it sure provided a
picturesque backdrop for some scenic picture taking. And I
wasted no time getting
out yesterday afternoon when school let out and then was back out
this morning
trying some other locations. I was hoping the sun my peek out
early this morning to light the place up, but it never materialized.
It was pretty funny to how our dog, Mollie took to the
white stuff. I was pretty shocked that she remembered where
her tennis ball
was and ran right out in the six inches of cold fluff, buried her
face, and came up with the frozen ball.
It is nearly 4 o'clock Friday afternoon now and the
snow is vanishing quickly. One comical incident that I
encountered yesterday was
when I got in from taking pictures, I turned on the TV to get the
latest weather reports. But because our satellite dish was
covered up
with snow, we were getting no reception. This happened one
time before when we first moved in here and a snowfall did the same
thing.
The remedy was getting the garden hose out and spraying up to the
top of the roof to wash the snow off the dish. So there I was
again,
on our back deck in a step stool trying my best to encourage the
water up to the peak of our roof where the dish was mounted.
After about
10 minutes of spraying, the final large chunk of snow/ice broke off,
and began a rapid descent down the slope of the roof, right in my
direction.
Call it a 'mini-avalanche' but I had no place to run. I simply
closed my eyes and braced myself for the assault. You couldn't
help but laugh.
And my TV reception was back up and working.
It sure is going to be muddy around here
now for some time. But I think I'm ready for spring and some
warmer weather. But the
winter snow was fun while it lasted. I have two separate
viewing galleries from my two days of shooting that you can view
HERE.
February 8, 2010 Super Bowl Ads
Only because I've been a Letterman/Leno fan for years, did I find
this so comical, given the drama these three have had in recent
years.
I was pretty impressed with this ad...very captivating, for me.
And if you look quick, I believe that you actually see Paris TX show
up.
I liked this one too, only because I used to have a green VW and you
have to have been around awhile to understand the punching deal.
And that Tim Tebow ad I wrote about Friday was pretty harmless and
tasteful, I thought -
It snowed, and snowed, and snowed and turned my corner of
the world 
