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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Stephen's LiveJournal:

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    Sunday, April 26th, 2009
    2:58 pm
    Yay! We won both softball games today!

    I'm getting old. I seem to have a lasting twinge in my right calf that activates whenever I start running. It's there even when I stretch beforehand. I think the only way to heal it is to rest it, and there's no way I'm gonna not play softball for a few weeks.

    I enjoy it too much.
    Friday, April 24th, 2009
    2:56 pm
    OMGs...

    Today was Senior Prank day. When I arrived in my classroom, the front board was lined with clocks (because none of my normal clocks work) and there was a dart board featuring the face of the lady I lost to on Jeopardy.

    Hmm. That was kinda lame, I thought.

    Then, sixth period...

    I find out that the senior class had hired a guy to come in and wrestle me. So we did for about a minute or two before the principal asked us to break.

    Turns out the guy was a state wrestling champion in Florida and runs a non-profit which seeks to provide wrestling gear for programs in inner-city schools. The students are going to give some money to his foundation.

    What a COOL idea for the prank...and it helps that, well, the guy was pretty darn cute, too. A couple of inches shorter than me, with good build...and he was wearing a singlet, albeit under a dress shirt and slacks...LOL
    Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
    9:16 am
    In honor of National Poetry Month...and my life in recent weeks:
     "Tell me where is Fancy bred,
    Or in the heart or in the head?
    How begot, how nourished?

    Reply, reply.

    It is engender’d in the eyes,
    With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
    In the cradle, where it lies.

    Let us all ring Fancy’s knell;
    I’ll begin it – Ding, dong, bell.

    Ding, dong, bell."

    --William Shakespeare
    The Merchant of Venice
    Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
    12:19 pm
    Hey, look! Action shot!

    This was *not* a good swing.
    12:44 am
    You know what surprises me?
     That my FL hasn't been flooded with posts about how hot the captain of the Maersk Alabama is:



    I know he's right up some of y'all's alleys....
    Monday, April 20th, 2009
    8:08 pm
    Hmm....
     Five hours of after-school grading and I'm still at it.

    Perhaps I should make tests that aren't so difficult to grade...

    ...or that more kids get right, so there's less partial credit to decide...

    ...or I could just cave in to the dark side and give only multiple-choice tests.

    *pause*

    If I ever do that, just shoot me in the head. Especially since my class load encompasses only 65 kids or so.

    MC tests are crap.
    Thursday, April 16th, 2009
    7:41 am
    Last night, my friends Rick, Pete and I went to see David Sedaris at the Cobb Energy Centre. The tickets were a birthday present to each of them from me.

    Even though I've read six or seven of Sedaris' books, I had never heard his actual voice on NPR or elsewhere.

    The man was friggin' hilarious.

    I will never be able to say the word Nicaragua the same ever again.

    Such an evening well-spent. :)
    Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
    12:30 am
    Oh, come *on*....
     I had a kind of weakness for Food Network's Food Detectives, which features former Queer Eye foodie Ted Allen.

    Alas...

    After showing a REALLY cool experiment in which actual iron filaments are drawn out of water-saturated Grape Nuts via a magnet, the show's editing crew completely dropped the ball. In a graphic intended to display the different elements and minerals needed to keep our body running, not only was the element fluorine (spelled "florine" by the editors, a *slightly* forgivable mistake) misspelled, but the MUCH easier-to-spell sulfur was ALSO misspelled as -- get this -- "sulfer."

    I mean, really. I try not to be anal about things like this, but if you're purporting to be a scientific show, know how to spell the damn elements.

    I think I'll stick to Good Eats.
    Sunday, April 12th, 2009
    9:45 am
    Rough weekend.

    Didn't win a game in the tournament. Really didn't come close.

    New guys are somewhat discouraged. I hope it doesn't last.

    This may be a long season.

    Here's hoping it's not.

    I'm headed home in a few.
    Friday, April 10th, 2009
    4:33 pm
    WANT!!

    (Um, the chair, not me...)

    In Birmingham for a softball tournament this weekend, so will be out of touch. Have a good one, y'all. :)
    Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
    1:13 pm
    Sorry to be posting so much today, but...

    Is it just me, or is this man's hat abnormally large?
    11:49 am
    8:57 am
    More fun with parsing...
     I read this headline on Yahoo! News:

    911 operator didn't tell Pittsburgh police about suspect's guns

    And the following conversation ran through my mind:

    "Yeah, he works out, like, five times a week! They must be 20, 21 inches! Get him to flex 'em for ya!"

    *rolls eyes*
    Monday, April 6th, 2009
    10:00 am
    My softball team, 2009 edition

    We may not be the best team out there, but we're gonna have fun, dangit -- and that's what matters. :)

    (Although, apparently, we haven't quite gotten the hang of how to line up for a group picture yet...still, there's time.)
    Friday, April 3rd, 2009
    12:04 pm
    Oh, cool!
     Another great exposure, this time on the national stage, for one of our kids -- in fact, one I'm teaching this year in AP Calculus AB.
    9:13 am
    Is LJ slow today or is it just my connection?
    Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
    11:46 pm
    One of the things my chorus is doing for its June concert?

    How's about an SATB arrangement of Prop 8: The Musical?



    This is gonna be fun.
    12:24 am
    "I'm skeptical," he said.
    "Of what?" I replied.
    "That you'll turn out like all the others."
    Pause. "You mean that I'll disappear?"
    He nodded.
    Pause. "Well," I said, "I can't say that I've never done that before."
    Pause. "Neither can I."
    "So I don't want to make any promises, especially not this early. But you know what? I'm enjoying the now." I grinned. "You should try it."
    He grinned back. "Okay."
    Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
    10:52 pm
    One must be more careful...
     So tonight was my first rehearsal back with OurSong. Great rehearsal, and the mid-June show should be great.

    I left for rehearsal about 6:45 and arrived back home around 10:30. When I opened the door, I immediately smelled natural gas. I hurried to the kitchen and discovered that I hadn't turned one of my oven's eyes completely off, and that it had been leaking gas out into the condo for almost four hours.

    The kitty was fine, and I have a fan working now to blow out the gas and get the air a bit more stabilized.

    I'm very, very fortunate. Something really bad could have happened.

    I'm still not sure how I managed to not turn the friggin' thing all the way off.
    11:19 am
    For those of you interested in such things...I'm curious.
     In the past few months, my school has spent quite a bit of attention honing and rewriting our mission and promise statements. To my understanding, these two statements are to serve not only as a unifying internal philosophy for the school, but as a method of differentiating us from other schools.

    Question: What do you see in these documents that makes you think my school is different than others? Anything? Point it out for me, please. This is the only place I've ever taught and that most of these statements seem to be common sense to me, though I know they're not universally applied.

    MISSION
    The _______ School’s mission is to develop a diverse community of learners who support the concept of solid performance, to create an environment that places a high premium on human dignity and common decency, and to instill a lifelong interest in learning.

    PROMISE
    The _________ School is the philosophically grounded, learner-focused independent school where students age 3 through grade 12 develop an abiding love for learning.

    At __________, we believe that:
    --learning is a way of life, not just a precursor to college and career;
    --learning originates in the learner and grows in the classroom;
    --every learner deserves respect and trust;
    --teachers, students, and parents act as partners in the enterprise of learning;
    --each can continuously progress toward mastery of knowledge and of self.

    From these values, we create a school environment where students feel free to learn, where they grow into mature, free, fearless thinkers. We reject artificial competition as the primary motivator of learning, never ranking students or attaching arbitrary significance to grades and test scores.

    Rather, through innovation, enthusiasm, and high expectations, ___________ draws students joyfully into learning and cultivates the intrinsic curiosity and unrepeatable talents of each one.

    Thoughts? What jumps out at you?
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