Sad story

Had parent conferences last night and the night before. Here's typically what I'm thinking:

"Man, that kid took forever to turn in his friggin' essay. Jeez, he's got to get his act together; this is ridiculous. Let's look up his other grades--5 F's! Let's definitely have a parent conference."

Then, the parent shows up, and occasionally I find out that my students are dealing with so many difficult situations in life, it's no wonder when students don't complete a stupid essay.

Ie: Found out a student like above has a 10-years-left-in-life prognosis (and some other things I won't go into). Shit. Every time I think about it, my eyes are welling up.

I Wish That I Knew What I Know Now

Alright, I know I've told most of the dudes about this (except Clearwater... so this is news to you). Christmas Gift Challenge, should you choose to accept it:
Create a mix-cd for an as-yet unmade film to be directed by Wes Anderson. Title of the mix-cd will be title of the film. If desired, create liner notes/synopsis of the plot.
We'll get together to exchange said CD's with a good amount of holiday bev's, and listen to our mix-cds/party on down Apt. 108 style. You in?
Oh, and then, we'll send the whole set to Wes Anderson.

Dirty Projectors

I feel like there's a ton going on that I want to blog about. Then I put it off a few days, and I'm at the point where I have about 10 posts simmering on the back burner. I'm going to post one every couple of days just to get them out there.

1) Dirty Projectors = Awesome.
Went and saw the Dirty Projectors with Hippy Steve and Meredith last saturday (Halloween). We walked through echo park, stopped for some street tacos at the place down the block (hands down, best street tacos in Echo park), and went to the early show at the Jensen Rec center. Little Wings opened, and it was my first time seeing them. The band played great, and even though I don't own any little wings albums, I still recognized a few songs (scooby's gone away, something like that).

The Dirty Projectors came on by 8:20 for an hour long set, mostly off Bitte Orca. It was incredible. Each member of the band has so much musical talent. The drummer was particularly impressive; he played like he was going to destroy the heads on his drums while keeping perfect time and tempo changes every other minute. The lead guitarist also really impressed me, reminded me of the guitarist from YES with some of his finger picking. One last note, one of the female vocalists suprised me by all of a sudden belting out a song like a soul singer from the seventies.

If you want to hear one of their songs, see the Iguana in the Sun mix below.

Back to School...

I'm back in Lunch Lady Land... about midway through week three.

So far, I have to say that I've been very impressed with the current class. Things are off to a good start, my classroom feels pretty well managed -- at points I feel wildly successful -- of course, those highs last only so long, and the honeymoon may be slowly getting over.

Just a quick update...

Awesome things in life right now:

• Free Opera Tickets given to Tisa and I by our landlady... pretty good seats, Elixir of Love, really good stuff.
• Had a great time at the Bon Iver show celebrating Tisa's birth. They rocked alot harder than expected. Megafaun opened... I had never heard of them before, but having seen them, I really enjoyed they're banjo accompanied crooning.
• Great students that have been polite and respectful, really great year so far.

Crappy things in life right now:

• Bed bugs. Not fun. Check out this video if you have any doubts...

Back in lala land

Tisa and I are back in LA after a great vacation in Yosemite with Tisa's family, and a couple days in Merced as a layover before heading home.

Tons of highlights throughout the trip, had a really nice time with everyone there, and was happy to have Brian meet us in Yosemite for a week.

Tops on the trip was a hike up to Cloud's Rest in the northern yosemite wilderness. 14.4 miles round-trip, pretty decent day hike. At the end, there's this awesome part with all these Granite slabs that ascend to the top, at one part, we walked along a five foot path next to the drop off (which probably descends about 4,000 feet to the valley). Pretty exhilerating. Phenomenal view of halfdome. I'll post some pictures as soon as they're uploaded.