Ben Folds

I just got Ben Folds 2006 CD "supersunnyspeedgraphic, the lp", and it is the best CD I've listened to for the first time in a long time. Ben leads his band in vocals and on the piano, an uncommon combo these days. But what really sets him apart is the lyrics to his songs. And supersunnyspeedgraphic has some serious lyrics, as well as driving tunes.

I should probably warn you that the language on this one is pretty harsh. Ben never seemed to mind sprinkling in an occasional s**t or the "f" word, but this CD has tracks on which they have been applied with a shovel. His cover of Dr. Dre's "B*****s ain't S***" is everything you would expect from the pen of a "gangsta" rapper, only performed with a piano combo in a musical style that sounds more like a well constructed ballad. To a non-English speaker, it

But even when he is not covering professional swearing artists, he can get pretty blunt. "All U Can Eat" is portrait of a man talking to his son about what's wrong with modern consumerist America. The lyrics are clever and catchy, with the "F" word featured prominently in the chorus.

"God made us number one 'cause he loves us the best
but he should go bless someone else for a while and give us a rest."

And then on the positive side (depending on your view of "cool"), is "There's Always Someone Cooler than You":

"Make me feel tiny if it makes you feel tall,
but there's always someone cooler than you.
Yeah, you're the s**t but you won't be it for long,
oh there's always someone cooler than you."

The chorus is catchy, but don't get caught singing it around your mom. I like the basic message that "cool" is so relative that if it's all you focus on, you automatically aren't.

The album itself is a compilation of songs originally released directly to iTunes on the internet. Ben writes in the liner notes that he really enjoyed working on such a direct create-to-fans process, without all the hassle of working through a record label. Of course, the album as released was polished a bit, though he admits that he isn't sure whether it's an actual improvement. It seems to me that this process has taken him back to his earlier Ben Folds Five days. "Super..." isn't as catchy as his earlier "Whatever and Ever Amen", but it does seem to be closer to that creative vein than 2005's "Songs for Silverman".

If this at all intrigues you, follow the links to Amazon.com (just click on the album titles here in my review) and they will give you a chance to listen to clips from the albums.

7th and 8th Subs

Wednesday was another inter-related resource job, this one at Woodlawn Elementary. I was there all day, but all elementary schools in this district finish at 1:30 on Wednesdays. Score!

The teacher I subbed for had her own office, to which some children came. Well, two boys came on my watch. I reviewed their spelling words for a bit, then we tried playing a spelling game. When one boy lost (he kept putting "e"s in words that didn't need them), he started crying. He wasn't out of control about it, and the other boy didn't make fun of him, for which I was grateful. All it took was switching to a pictionary style drawing game (with no score), and he pulled it together, laughing and playing along.

I sat in on a 5th grade classroom, spending part of the time helping one boy to stay focused on his work. He didn't need much help, though the teacher assured me that such is not always the case. It was interesting and informative to watch her teach. She was obviously a veteran: the way she kept the classroom under control. The way her activities were interesting to the kids and skill building at the same time.

Before lunch, I was privy to this conversation in the Library. A little boy was carrying a book open to a picture of a statue of Atlas holding up the Earth. In it, Atlas is buck naked, and his business is right out there where you can see it. The boy was talking the librarian, when a girl his age (5th grade? They weren't mine.) put in her two cents:

Boy: Is this picture OK to have in the library?

Librarian: Yes, but maybe you shouldn't carry it around open to that page.

Boy: Maybe some people don't want to look at it.

Girl: But you have one!

Boy: Not a man-sized one, though.

There was another teacher standing close enough to hear this exchange. We both struggled not to burst into laughter.

And I had lunch with a fourth grader, Mikey. Mikey apparently has behavior problems, but I didn't notice. The teacher I was subbing for eats lunch with him every day in her office, then he catches a bus for another school. So Mikey and I ate lunch together, and chatted about the relative merits of different school cafeteria entrees, his schedule, my substitute teaching, and life in general.

After that, my afternoon went by slowly. No one showed up in the office, so I made myself comfortable with the book I was reading. I don't feel too bad about it. The money I make as a sub is usually well earned. There are times when I don't get any rest at all, so Wednesday sort of made up for it.

Thursday was one of the days when I was completely on the run. I got the call to sub at Woodlawn, the same school I was at Wednesday, this time for the band teacher. The instructions said to call him, and he would email lesson plans to me. So I did.

The lesson plan called for me to be at six different elementary schools during the day. Often there was only 30 minutes between the end of one class and the start of another. I had only been to two schools on the list, the first and the last. It looked to be a fun day.

Actually I enjoyed it a lot. The first couple of classes were kind of a mess, simply because leading band is very different from teaching a class, but some of the same basic rules apply:

1. Don't give them any time to goof off.
2. Let them know in no uncertain terms that goofing off is inappropriate.
3. Don't worry about being "fun" or "likable". If 1 and 2 are going well, "fun" and "likable" will likely seep through on their own. And if they don't, at least the kids aren't goofing off.

The big difference with band is that you have to have some sense of how fast a piece should be played, how many times to play it, how to get most of the kids to finish at the same time, and when it is so bad that you just need to stop in the middle.

The bands ranged from Quail Run with more than 70 kids, down to New York with ten flutes and clarinets. The bigger ones are easier to deal with. They have some idea of how fun it can be to play in a band.

I did have a two hour break from about 9 to 11. I ate "lunch", even though I wasn't that hungry yet. It was nice to be home for a bit in the middle of the day, though.

I ended up driving about 16 miles that day. The school district reimburses $.47/mile, but I have to remember to do the paperwork at the end of the quarter to get my almost eight dollars. I'll probably forget.

I found later that the band teacher is at all six schools four days per week. I bumped into him later while subbing at Quail Run again. As much as I enjoyed subbing for him, I don't think I'd like to do that job regularly. Too much car time, and not enough time to work with individual kids.

Sixth Sub

I got the call just after 8:10 this morning, for a job that was supposed to start at 7:48. I took it, then called the school to tell them I could be there by nine.

South Junior High. Inter-Related Resource (used to be special ed.). Easy day. There were plenty of paras and co-teachers, so I didn't do a whole lot of teaching. I spent one class period with a group of four students, going over a reading assignment and discussing the concepts of beauty and art. I don't think they got it. I'm not sure how many 8th graders do.

The best class period was doing some one-on-one math tutoring with Dave. [Once again, a friendly reminder that all student names have been changed in Roblog.] Dave, like all the students I dealt with today, was what they call "high-level functional." He has some learning disabilities, but he was actually following in his algebra class. With the problems we worked on, I felt that I helped him to get a more solid grip on the concepts. I think that he may have actually followed what was going on in class, but had trouble understanding what the formulas meant.

And Dave was just a good kid. He listened to me closely, he worked really hard, and he actually thanked me when it was time to go. That's something that can make a teacher's day, because it just doesn't happen very often.

There were absolutely no problems today. I got in more than an hour late, left half an hour before the official time (planning period! Yes!), and still get paid for the whole day. I had a chance to talk to the principal, and he seemed very together. Ran a tight ship. Reminded me of Edward James Olmos, who plays Admiral Adama on the new Battlestar Galactica. He had similar features and the same calm, totally in control demeanor. Wouldn't want to get on his bad side. He told me that he was looking for a modern tech teacher to replace their guy who is retiring this summer. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near that kind of certified. I'm barely scraping by on the entrance requirements for the Baker program that starts this fall.

Fifth Sub

I've gotten my first couple of subbing paychecks. The first one went right into our church offering. We decided some time ago to dedicate our "First Fruits" of every labor to God. Sometimes it can be a real test. $212 may not seem like a lot, but coming before Christmas, at a time when our reserves are running low, it was tempting to hold on. But faith is about letting go, and so we did. And so far we are still living in our house, and getting enough to eat, and we have two cars, so I guess it's working. I'm thinking this may be an even bigger challenge when I start full time teaching, and the first paycheck is a full month's worth, and I don't have income from another job to help us get by. But we will face that challenge when we come to it.

Today's school was New York elementary, just a few blocks from downtown Lawrence. It's an old school, though it has been well kept and remodeled in places. The secretary told me that there is a fireplace in one of the kindergarten classrooms, and there was a belfry tower over the main entry way.

Today's challenge was a room full of fifth graders. There was good news, and bad news. The good news was that I only had them for the first half of the day, with their teacher arriving at 12:15. (Her son had the flu, and her husband took off his afternoon to stay home with him. Nice arrangement, don't you think?) The bad news was that the class had already had a substitute last Thursday and Friday (today being Monday). So when they showed up and saw me, they were not too happy.

Fortunately, the teacher had planned well. She had obviously come in over the weekend and straightened up, as well as leaving a note on the board to her students. Her plans were extensive, and all the materials I needed were out on the desk. I had almost half an hour before the students were to arrive, so I had time to get a handle on the schedule and materials for the first part of the morning, up until they went to art class.


Unfortunately, the best laid plans, etcetera, etcetera.

Fifth graders are definitely boundary testers. There were three or four students in that class who wanted to see how much they could move around, talk to their neighbors, talk to me without raising their hands, and get out of work. But when they finally had something to work on, they were amazingly capable of sitting down and focusing on it for 30 minutes at a time.

There were a couple of times during the morning when some students left to join another class. These went very well for me. It was not a large class, only about 16 students, but when it was cut in half it sort of snapped into a well-behaved little unit. Of course, I've learned this lesson many times before, but it bears repeating: a small class is much easier to teach than a large one. If you really want to leave no child behind, provide enough teachers!

I guess my biggest trouble maker was Phillip. [Once again, I remind you that I am not using real names on the Roblog when writing about substitute teaching.] Phillip managed to find every reason in the book to move around the room, and quite a few that weren't in the book. He must have sharpened his pencil down to a nub, he was up there so many times, and it's amazing that he could hold as much water as he did. And when I asked what he was doing up this time, he always acted as though I had accused him of something terrible: "Who? Me? I'm just blah blah blahing. It's ok if we do that!" Still, he worked when it was time to work. Wrote quite a bit during writing time, and plowed through the math assignment. So even though I said his name quite a few times, I doubt that I will remember it a week from now. Especially if I teach every day for the next week.

The next biggest challenge in the room was Tiffany, who seemed to be working with the attention span of a 3rd or 4th grader, instead of a 6th grader. She danced around a few times, and sang a song or two when she was supposed to be working on something else. She was really good at finding reasons to talk to other kids, but she was always polite to me, and actually sat down or stopped talking when I told her to. It just wasn't usually too long before she was doing it again. But again, she wasn't really a trouble maker, or a headache. Just a challenge.

The other challenges in the room were some kids struggling to define themselves, caught in that grey area between the little kids who don't know how silly they are and the big kids who want to both be serious and impress their friends, even when the two are mutually exclusive. Devin was an odd kid: he said some things that were funny, and some that were funny in an out-of-left-field kind of way. He whipped through his math, even the extra problem I made up on the board, and came to me to get his book (Ripley's Believe it or Not, believe it or not) rescued from the teacher's drawer from last week. I could see him heading down a path that would not lead to popularity, but might eventually get him into the Peace Corps, or something equally strange.

I taught math, reading and social studies. I took them to art, and presided over snack time. I threatened to punish them, and complimented them on their good behavior. Nobody got hurt, nobody cried, and I didn't have to send anyone to the office. In other words, it was a pretty standard sub day. If they all go like this, by summer it will all be a big blur. And while no news is good news, I do feel like I learn more when things go wrong.

Knock on wood.

Peace,

Rob

A Trip to Wichita, pt. 2

It wouldn't be Christmas without a family photo.Unfortunately, the pictures Horyon took of all of us together came out too dark.

I'm still figuring out how to use this camera properly, and it's usually too slow to catch Maxine doing something cute. But every once in a while I get one like this:
Or this:
Or this:
Is it time for me to worry that she will grow up to be a thrill-seeking speed-demon?

Could be worse. She might grow up to be like this:
There. Now I've gotten some of the photos out of my system, I can write about what happened in Wichita. As you might guess from the pictures, we went to a mall. It had coin-op rides for kids, though Maxine was happy even when we didn't put coins in. I think the horse was actually moving when I took the picture, but that was the only machine I fed. The rest were just her sitting on them, acting goofy.

A Trip to Wichita, pt. 1

On New Year's Day we drove to Wichita. Believe it or not, we left our home here in Lawrence at 6:15 in the morning! (I actually woke up at 5 o'clock to shower and dress, hearing the first part of NPR's Morning Edition live for the first time since leaving Korea where it comes on at a reasonable hour--in the evening.) The plan was for Maxine to sleep most of the way, which she did. Unfortunately, she spent the first 20 or 30 minutes awake. This was unfortunate because we had planned to stop at McDonald's for breakfast, and didn't want her to be awake for that. We figured that if she's awake, she'll want to eat, which will make her more awake, and make a three hour drive seem more like three days. So I didn't get breakfast until Emporia, about an hour and a half out of town.

And just let me say this about McDonald's: their food may be bland and predictable as well as fattening, they may be grinding American food culture into the dirt with a steel-toed boot, and Ronald isn't funny, but they make breakfast sandwiches that you can eat in a car without making a mess.

The most stunning thing we experienced in Wichita was a visit to the most impressive display of Christmas lights that I have ever seen. The following is a quick video, about 15 seconds total, comparing The House with the house next to it. If you have a slow internet connection, don't even bother, just skip to the pictures below. If you have a beefy internet connection, check the following post, which is nothing but a video tour of The House.

Maxine was a bit impressed, but no more so than she has been by hundreds of other things in her short life.
Horyon was impressed.
I was impressed.
I swear, these people spent more on their electric bill in December than I made working at Wal-Mart. AND they managed to out-tacky Wal-Mart!
Allow me to draw your attention to some details that you may have missed while struggling to keep your intestines from jumping up your throat to strangle you:

1. Santa in a Box. 2nd floor. Clear crystal box, like the one the bad guys used to take away Superman's powers in the second Superman movie. Insures that Santa is unable to reach his sleigh, with is not very well lit.

2. Snowman Sentry. 3rd floor, right above Santa. Further insurance that Santa will not leave the premises.

3. Electric Nativity. 3rd floor. Complete with Electric Heavenly Hosts.

4. Life-size Snowman and Snowchildren in Snowglobe. Right foreground. Fan-blown artificial snow inside the globe looks much nicer than the dirty snow on the ground outside.

5. Glowing, Ghostly Candy-Canes (G2-C2). Scattered across foreground. Well over ten feet tall, these G2-C2s not only provide low-level illumination, but the ambiance that can only be found when surrounded by insubstantial peppermint candies.

I am tempted to point out everything of interest to you, but as with the "Where's Waldo?" series of books, the fun lies in finding the details for yourself.

And lastly, I will leave you with a link to Square America's Christmas Spectacular, part of a site that is dedicated to web-publishing photos from the days when photograph pictures used to be mostly square. Some bizarre stuff in there. An interesting glimpse into the past, if not your own specific past.

It may be late, but I hope you all had a good holiday season, whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or just a winter vacation.

Peace,

Rob

Travel Today

Today we are driving to Wichita to visit my Uncle Bob and Aunt Charlotte.

It's 6 a.m. and I want to be back in bed.

More later.