Ignorance is bliss

Today I reflect on students which have come through my doors and are no longer around.

Last night at Wal-Mart, I ran into a student who was a sophomore the first year I taught here. I was making a timed run for coffee supplies between services at Oneighty, and was walking out the front doors, wondering absently where I had parked my car, when I hear an inquisitive "Mister King?" behind me. I turned, and a few moments later recognized him. We talked, and I learned that his 5-year old son was now attending school at Lockney Elementary, he is seperated from his first wife (whom he married around 5 years ago... do the math), and was waiting for his "old lady" to come out. (It turns out she was standing behind me in line.) I shared what was going on in my life, shook his hand a few times, and we said our farewells.

A few things troubled me about our meeting. First, I would have never noticed him if he hadn't said anything to me. He was pretty blinged out, and looked pretty scuzzy. Secondly, I was doing the math... he can't be older than 23 or 24. To have a marriage, a kid, and a divorce by that age... it staggers me. My wife pointed out this morning that he is probably one of SEVERAL "kids" that age that are still around here, probably in similar situations. Kinda depressing.

Today I was trying out Technorati blog search, just playing with search terms like lockney and texas and plainview and high school, and I came across the blog of a student who graduated last year. It painted a picture of loneliness that I never would have guessed at from having him in class. His profile listed "playing guitar and getting stoned" as one of his main interests. His last post, dated February 22nd, reads:

Do you ever get the sinking feeling that you are alone in this world? I have to say it is a feeling that has been reoccuring in my life lately. I have no idea why...maybe because I am? Who knows..?

Browsing his photo galleries showed several pictures with captions like "me stoned," "me passed out," and "me drunk and stoned."

And then, I found the picture that really made my stomach churn. Another former student from the same class was shown in a skimpy pink bra, with a shirtless, long-haired guy licking whipped cream from between her breasts.

What the hell?

This is a girl that I had in class for two years! She was always one of my best students! Bosoms and whipped cream would NOT be the first things that before today would have lept to my mind when someone mentioned her name...

So now I look around at the kids in my class (currently trying to stay awake through a Trials of Life video), and I am confronted with a question I've never asked myself: "Which of you people are going to end up naked on the internet?"

*shudder*

This is NOT something that my Wayland education prepared me for!

On a happier note, it seems that things are on track better than I could have hoped for regarding drama stuff for next year. One of my faculty colleagues tells me that the school will be replacing and updating the lights and sound in our cafetorium, so it will be more like a real theater than ever (at least since I've been here.) Between this and the indications from the big boss men that I might be teaching an actual drama class next year, I'm all grins. The possibilities stagger me.

Some of my girls want us to do a comedy next year (to make up for the serious, sometimes depressing shows we've done the last two years.) Fine by me, so long as it doesn't involve lingerie and dairy products from a can...

They deserved better

Friday, my girls (and boy) gave the best performance of their play that I had as of yet seen. Timing was great, they were in character, they hardly dropped a line ANYWHERE. I couldn't have been more proud of them.

We tied for last place. Again. With Floydada. AGAIN.

Sure, next year will be a different story. Friona, Tulia, and Olton will be in someone else's district. The cast (with the notable exception of two very talented seniors) will return, a year older and wiser, as will the crew and the director. There's even a good possibility of a theater class making its way into the Lockney course offerings.

As far as our own personal developments, I count this year as a success.

Yet, as I drove back to Plainview late Friday night, I couldn't help but come back time and time again to the conclusion that they deserved better.

Better.

They deserved better than a few, nonspecific comments (directed mostly at the director) from a half-deaf judge.

They deserved better than a rushed rehearsal schedule, which served largely to increase the stress in their already overstressed lives.

They deserved better than a dimly-lit, acousticly nightmarish hole in the end of a cafeteria to practice in.

They deserved more formal training in voice, body language, and general theater arts.

They deserved a more-qualified director than the two-bit hack of a biology teacher they got.

As good as they are, I weep at the opportunities they could have had and didn't. My lord, they are so good...

They deserved better.

The cold war, the WB, and classroom coffee etiquette

"Where's the kaboom? I thought there would be an earth-shattering kaboom?"
Seriously though, this is pretty cool. Just one more way that NYC beats Plainview, I guess...

Speaking of dropping bombs, it's time I admit to something. I was perusing the weblog of one of my former students, and my dirty little secret smacked me right between the eyes. I can't hold it in any longer... I like The Gilmore Girls.

I never meant it to go so far. My sister-in-law sent season one home with my wife, who has since been devouring episodes like television tic-tacs. I thought I would watch one with her, just to reassure myself that she was crazy.

Dang.

I'm hooked. I love the characters, the small-town quirkiness, the (unusually witty) dialogue, and the numerous coffee references. Lorelai, I would love to buy you a cup... or five.

Speaking of coffee, I have recently started selling java for a quarter a cup to my students, to help raise money to feed my Western Hognose snake, Stewie (who happens to be a girl.) Harmless fun, right?

It seems that by doing so, I have granted permission for full-on jack-assery to one of my students, who barged into TWO of my classes this morning, and asked at full volume, "yo, wh3rz da' c0ff33, dawg?" Never mind that I was giving a quiz, and the room was dead silent.

So now I'm torn... do I go ahead and sell him a cup when he gets here next period, or do I tell him to "go cram a bean"? Doesn't anybody have manners anymore? Especially concerning coffee??

Well, I'm off to Tulia in a couple of hours to get things set up for OAP competition tomorrow. These girls (plus the boy) have really made me proud. Wish/pray/fingercross us luck.

Anybody think diplomacy's the answer to this one?

First, read this.

Does anybody else think that we're dealing with rational people here?
Does anybody doubt the label "axis of evil" any more?
Does this boil your blood like it does mine?

Friggin' communists. Didn't they get the news? IT DOESN'T WORK. And the more that crap like this comes to the forefront of world opinion and awareness, the more convinced I am that we are dealing with an absolute lunatic in the person of tyrant dictator Kim Jong-il.

It's like my old daddy used to say (or would have, if he was from the REAL South): "Somebody's deeply in need of a good killin'."

The Play's the Thing

This Friday is our one-act play district competition.

Let me back up a bit.

First of all, we had a great trip to Louisiana. High points included shrimp etoufee at Copeland's, building a bulletin board for my niece's seventh birthday, and catching up on ALMOST the entire third season of Battlestar Galactica. Low points included DRIVING about 1500 miles round trip, and (d'oh!) getting my mother-in-law's computer completely fouled up with spyware (and not just the fun kind, mind you--the dirty pictures kind that NO mother-in-law should ever be faced with.) I tried everything I could to get rid of the stupid toolbars and pop-ups that I (stupidly) put on there, and three days later we got the system back to SOME semblance of stability.

Definitely sucked for a while though.

Anyway, we're back, and teaching biology and chemistry are on some far, far, mental back-burner. I'm the play director, and this Friday we compete. We have a great show, and the cast and crew (mostly girls, plus one (lucky) token male) have really put a lot into getting things ready.

I just wish we had more time, more practices, more confidence...

Oh yeah, it's official. Video games ARE bad for you.

The Louisiana Experience

It's amazing how a little thing like having two kids will REALLY slow you down on a road trip.

The trip from Plainview to my wife's family in central Loiusiana used to take the two of us about 10 hours. We would pack a cooler full of cold cuts and drinks (Mountain Dew for me, water for her, cuz' she's healthy,) we'd put on the cruise control, and we wouldn't stop for ANYTHING. Well, except for the occasional pee. Bowel movements could wait--and they often did.

Day before yesterday, we left the house at three in the morning, and somehow it took us THIRTEEN AND A HALF HOURS to get here.

What the hey?

I seem to remember us stopping a couple of times for potty (older child) and diaper (younger one) times, and there was that stop at the McNasty's to let the fireball stretch his legs while we ate hockey-puck shaped breakfast sandwiches... but I had no idea that it all added up to an extra 3.5 hours.

Maybe I've stumbled on some new quantum phenomenon. Any physics geeks out there interested? I'll only charge 15 percent of whatever profits you end up garnering.

But anyway, we're here. I love her family. I love that her family is willing to play with my kids while I fart away the time on Metroid and catching up on the latest season of Battlestar Galactica. In fact, I love everything about Spring Break vacations.

Except the driving.

I guess things could be worse. It was kind of neat to see a local news station linked at the top of Drudge though. I'm not sure whether I should be offended or not about the little "burn baby burn" sidebar ad that I found on the same page.

Now if you'll excuse me, I feel one of those repressed number twos coming on... later.

Watch the skies!

Just when you thought it was safe to feed the birdies...

This really scares me that the general public doesn't seem to be aware of how BIG a threat this really could be. I think we might be facing a huge wake-up call to our collective national complacency in the next few months.

Until then, I'm stocking up on face masks and bleach.

Dang, that's hot...

Can you say two-billion degrees kelvin?

Now, where did I put my marshmallows...

What? No bells? No complimentery cookies?

So this is how it begins. I don't get off my butt and actually get a weblog of my own until some system REQUIRES me to do so to leave a comment for someone else.

But now I'm here.

I suppose I should feel some sense of exhilaration, some sense of headiness at the implications. "I must b*tch, therefore I blog. I blog, therefore I am." Something like that.

Hmmm... I kinda feel hungry.

Let's see where this goes. Please pardon me if I reinvent the wheel too many times. Check back in a month or so to see if it gets any better. If not, just go here. Or here. Or maybe here.