rustypants speaks

lots going on, lots coming up – time for another stream of consciousness, eh?

• finished reading two good books in a row -Â The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon;Â Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. the first is a story told from the viewpoint of a fifteen year old with autism – fascinating to me after working with profoundly autistic students for many years in DC and Maryland. the second won the Pulitzer for fiction back in 2000 – it’s a series of short stories and very enjoyable.
• i’m currently reading Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. both are good so far.
• my contract was renewed at PFHS for next year – this was FANTASTIC news, both because having a job = good, and because i have come to love working at this school! very excited for what next year will bring.
• as school finished up last week, i’ve been searching for things to keep me busy this summer. too much time off is dreadfully boring. have a meeting with a department at my district tomorrow to discuss my developing Moodle pages for this dept’s training sessions, and helping with other technology related things. couple days a week, couple hours a day, maybe.
• our beloved Canon S2 IS bit the dust a couple months ago. a stunning blow, as we rarely leave the house without a camera in tow. we knew we wanted to move up in the digital camera arena, but didn’t have the money to do so. after some scraping and a lot of research, we ended up getting a killer deal on a Canon SX10 IS and we’re having a blast with it. the pictures are crisp, the response time on the camera is quick, the 20x optical zoom is over the top, and the flexibility is great. we’re still learning the nuances of this camera, and i have difficulty in a couple areas that are probably lack of photography knowledge, but we’re working on that!
• i’m enjoying Twitter more as i’m finding professional uses for it (mostly networking and idea-sharing), but i have to admit: i’m getting very annoyed at folks who use twitter like text messaging and/or simply to show off. now, the beauty of twitter is: even though everyone and their mothers have a “how to use twitter” tutorial, the truth is, there are no rules. and my bitching about folks who use twitter one way or another – it comes down to this – i stop following them so i don’t have to partake in their pointless and excessive self-aggrandizing or all the silly personal chatter they produce. it’s been bothering me a bit – thanks for letting me blow off some steam about it (and no offense meant to anyone who has been un-followed or recognizes themselves in this description – i still love you, just not that much).
• and in the interest of full-disclosure: i don’t frequently have a lot of intelligent things to say on twitter – but i do keep the meaningless posts to a minimum.
• the juan sebastian elcano is docked at pensacola pier – we went down and took a stroll around – pretty impressive ship!

• the sunsets continue to blow our minds here in pensacola. the temperatures have been very pleasant (mid-80′s the last couple weeks). tonight we saw a black skimmer fly by just as we were about to leave – very pretty and graceful – this was the best i could get of this one as it flew by:

• recent new music discoveries include: Rosie Thomas; Booker T; and Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse’s Dark Night of the Soul.

be well and take me to task on some of this stuff, ya hear?

can anyone really come up with something better to do on a saturday morning than this?

woke up around 7:15, took care of the dog, grabbed some cereal, packed a couple books, the cooler, and took off.

skies were clear, water was gorgeous, shells were plentiful, and the temps were perfect.

saw a very cool solar halo while out. we’ve seen them before, but not this big or clear.

we stayed until noon and took off. it was the perfect way to spend a saturday morning.

we’re in the season for big clouds and sunsets even more spectacular than usual. tonight we took big dog out for a 3 hour stroll on pensacola beach.

the way the sky changes so quickly and gives so many colors, shapes, hues, and focal points – it never ceases to amaze us.

there was a large cloud front moving in from the north – watching the sunset BEHIND that – it was multiple layer sunset goodness!

while we were sloshing around in the water, lise made a killer shell find – a large 3″ alphabet cone!

this is only the 2nd one we’ve found even close to the 3″ range – quite a find, let me tell you!

after a particularly strange day at school, this was a good way to end it: together, everyone happy, relaxed, and ready to come home and crash.

speaking of which…

for years, lise and i had coveted my mom’s doormat. we’ve laughed about it every time we visited her home, asked her to leave it to us in her will, hatched plots to steal it, and asked her to just plain give it to us.

so when she told me to take it with me when we moved to Florida 2 years ago, it was a bit of a shock. i mean, we had been joking about it for so long that now… well, we can just… take it?

i turned her down. thanks, but no thanks. why are you giving it up now? she tells me it’s time for her to grow up (to which i laughed – at age 61, to decide that this welcome mat is too “immature” for you… well, that’s my momma).

at any rate, every time i see it when i come home, i think about mom. she’s funny. i love her and miss her a lot.

we likey play with camera.

me wifey has bluey eyes

she coming after me

that explainey – full moony!

a couple weeks ago we were out on the beach early one sunday morning. it was warm and the water was nice. we had the dog with us and were walking up and down the gulf when we happened upon a section of beach with a LOT of shells in the water.

as we walked around, lise got into the water just a bit and was finding a lot of the same old stuff.

and then she yelled. LOUD.

she had found a Tortuga’s Banded Tulip, intact, and a little over 3″ long. an amazing find!

this is one of those “holy grail” shells for us. we’ve seen very small ones, and have been teased with hundreds of “pieces” of this shell. it’s very thin and delicate, so when they do actually make it to the shore, they’re typically beaten and crunched against the sand and other shells by waves, broken into pieces.

needless to say, this was a very neat find!

i don’t know what he would do

if he ever caught one

but it sure is funny watching

as he runs pell mell

and at least tries.

…but without the wall

 lise and i collect seashells. lots of them. compulsively collect them. for 2+ years now, we’ve collected shells and shell pieces and have hoarded them in boxes and drawers and bags. we give many of them away, but dang, we just have too many shells.

a month or so ago, lise said to me, “let’s go through all our shells and take most of them back.” “BACK?!?” i said incredulously. “yes. back,” was her reply. and in the ensuing weeks, we went through all our shells, held back the ones we enjoyed the most (there were a lot of those) and made plans for exactly how we were going to return the others.

a mural. a sculpture. a sand-painting with shells. this would be the best way to return them: make art!

so two weeks ago, we hauled 2 years worth (maybe just under 100 lbs?) of shells to pensacola beach and began creating.

we picked a deserted spot, chose the best location and we got to work.

we had sketched out a sun design on paper before we arrived…

and the trick was keeping it even. we didn’t want the aesthetic ruined by sections off-kilter or too many shells clumped together in one spot. we didn’t want it to be TOO symmetrical or normal looking, though. the sun was retreating fast, so we had to double-up our efforts. things worked out perfectly, and we finished in about 45 minutes.

what took two years to collect were planned and laid out in just under an hour to the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset. it was a triumphant moment when we stood back and looked at our finished art project.

i honestly thought i’d feel sad about letting all those shells go, but it was such a fun thing. we really enjoyed ourselves and spent a good amount of time talking about what folks would think as they came upon this creation later. speculation, creation, satisfaction, companionship – it was all there.

we hung out for a bit, watched the sunset fade to black, and headed home…

Â

and began planning our next big seashell art project!

7th period is That Period. the bad one. the one that drives me the craziest.

it’s mostly a dynamics issue. 8 of the 18 just don’t belong together in one classroom. but alas, the room’s not big enough to separate them as they require.

so we’re at the tail end of an excerpt from richard rodriguez’s autobiography – i’m building to the climax, the epiphany, the “aha” moment when an entire period of childish, stupid behavior on the part of my sophomores and juniors leads me to shut down the class. i’ve had enough. i’ve already had to remove one student and was close to removing a second. six others are just being disruptive, talking, trying to distract me and others, texting on cell phones, arguing with my aide – it just sent me over the top.

so i informed them: you’re on your own. finish reading it by yourselves. the 30 questions? due tomorrow at the end of the class. i was going to do them with you – now? sorry. oh, and don’t forget the test on friday. now, zip it.

and the trouble students in the class managed to zip it for about 10 minutes. then a couple more referrals had to be written.

and my 10 students who listen, participate, and don’t give me crap? their faces were like, “oh, hell no!” but they kept it together and most of them started working on finishing the story and answering the questions.

and i was so damned angry on the way home. the extent of my anger was illogical, almost blinding. and i realized that what i did wasn’t fair to my non-asshat students.

so i stopped and bought a case of cokes and rootbeer and a couple snacks. i wrote out my list of students who were going to get got, and those who weren’t. i ran it all by my department chair and a couple others (thumbs up all the way) and then laid my trap.

and 7th period, students come in and see pop and snacks and eyes light up. especially those of the soon-to-be-banished. everyone gets seated and i wrote the names of those who would not be joining us on the board. to the rest of them i said, “grab a book, a desk, a pencil, and think about what you want to drink and eat, and let’s get in a circle!” to those getting the boot, i said, “you guys can get a book, a pencil, and paper, and go to the library where you’ll do all 30 questions, then study for tomorrow’s test.”

and the looks on their faces – it was indescribable. and frankly, the glee i felt at seeing it was probably inappropriate, the groaning and whining only adding to my satisfaction.

and the ten who stayed back with me – we took the exam together and had a good discussion about the main points of the book over cokes and snacks. and 10 A’s were given.

tomorrow? the other 8 get to take the test on their own while today’s group gets a free period.

i’ll try not to be so gleeful, promise.

“Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” but in 7th period? i’m the lord. deal with it.