This is part of the reason I hope I hear I have the job

OK, you and I are officially not happy. Wednesday's quiz, taken during the half day, demonstrated that you do not, after 8 months in a high school math course, know how to do arithmetic, not with fractions, not with square roots, not at all when I put a variable into any of those arithmetic operations.

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Ok, I started this page off announcing that you and I were not happy. I know why I'm not happy...I don't like realizing that I have only one month left to make sure you can do arithmetic, before a summer comes and I lose contact with you. I hope that the reason you are not happy is only 20% because of what it is doing to your grade, and what the next 3 weeks will end up doing to your grade if you don't get this fixed, and 80% because you realize that being able to do arithmetic is a fundamental skill to someone who is planning to take math the rest of your high school career, and that plain old arithmetic is an essential part of your knowledge base as you later decide to join the adult world. That's the real reason to be unhappy...you're entering a world that you will be victimized by, because of a lack of understanding of how numbers work. Monetary decisions involving anything other than single digit positive numbers will be made by you with less knowledge than the people competing for your money will have...you will not win those encounters. Don't let something trivial like whether or not it's sunny out, or whether or not the boy or girl that you're smitten with is equally smitten with you. Smitten-ness for a 15 year old is invariably temporary...being ignorant is far more likely to be lifelong and doesn't change without intense effort. Focus.

I like you all; you're fun people, but I'm trying much harder than you are lately, and it's showing.

So well said, so well reasoned, and so focused on what's best for students. I haven't heard yet, but Don is part of the reason I really want to be back in Roseburg next year. Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt that he's a huge Blazer fan and we can have well reasoned discussions about the most promising team in the league.

*I took that straight from his website.

Not quite as sick, and an update on my interview

Yesterday afternoon I had my phone interview with Roseburg High School. There were six of them, all on speaker phone, talking to me on my cell phone. As the assistant principle opened the conversation, he told me that he'd be asking all the questions – since he was the closest to the phone – and that the other five would just be listening. Then he told me the other five. I know all five of the others who were on the line.

I think that it went well, although I certainly didn't say things to try and paint myself as anything that I'm not. Then again, since five of them have actually worked with me, it wouldn't really make much sense to have tried to make them think I'm better than I am. Instead, I told them about things I did well this year and the things that I really struggled with. Hopefully their knowledge of my strengths and my personality will be more than enough to solidify the job for me. There are three other applicants, I believe, and they said I should know by the middle of next week whether the job is mine or not. That's pretty fantastic, and pretty exciting as well. So we'll see.

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I'm finally feeling a little bit better, but it's pretty frustrating that this virus hit me so hard this week. I missed four of the five days. Yeah, four of the five. Terrible. And since I'm not 100% yet, I think I may end up heavily medicated all next week at school. But I have to be there. It was so ridiculously frustrating to miss so much time. I was excited for this week, too, because I felt like I had good plans for helping my students prepare for the CST, a test they'll be taking for the next two weeks. And I still set it up for the substitute to go through it with them on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I doubt that much happened. That means that I'll be trying to do as much as I can with them on Monday, and for the periods that I'll have before the math part of their test on Thursday I'll try to review even more. It is pretty crazy, though, that I have two weeks of testing, then four weeks left of school, and of those four weeks there's even more testing.

A little blurry

These aren't that clear, but I'm combining two things my friend Luke does on his blog:

1. Using images instead of computer type (even if they're images of writing–it's not computer type).


2. Posting stuff from my moleskin. This is stuff I realized today.

The last day of the season? Wow.

Umm, there is no good way for me to set up this clip. Crazy good.

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Accreditation stuff ended today. We did well, I think. I did really well, impressing the people that observed my class. They reported stuff to the math coach, who came and asked me for any of my notes for geometry since I won't be around next year. That conversation deteriorated when she asked if I had notes, and I had to tell her that most of my stuff either came from my head, the book, or from the best math teacher I've ever met. Anyway, I feel quite relieved, because just having those people around increased my stress level. I will now proceed to rival Tim Thomas in my level of mailing-it-in.

Hopefully that's not really true. Actually, I know it's not really true. But I can't see myself making sure that I do all of the paperwork stuff. Student stuff? Yes.

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I posted this on Blazer's Edge today, but that I'd double up and put it here too.

The Sports Guy included this tidbit in his column today on the NBA MVP.

39. LaMarcus Aldridge

Note to Portland fans: You were right, I was wrong. He's a keeper. Even if he reminds me so much of Charles Smith that I wouldn't be surprised if they lost a key playoff game some day because LeBron blocked his layup three straight times at the buzzer.

I thought that was appropriate, especially after he said that we should have tried to trade him at the deadline. But I was a little surprised and disappointed that Roy wasn't in his top 25. Maybe it's the Blazers colored glasses, but isn't Roy one of the 25 most valuable players in the league?

It's a great column, though, and even though I still believe Paul is the MVP, he makes a great case for KG.

By the way, I really like the way that SB Nation has revamped their set-up. Very good stuff.

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One last thing from the internet, and another thing that I put on Blazer's Edge. In his Games to pay attention to post on Ball Don't Lie, Kelly Dwyer said this today:

Portland at Phoenix

One last chance to call Portland a "lottery team" before they win 11 championships in 13 years.

I love reading this. Love it. So true.

I just want to be done

It got to 97º today. That's too hot.
I have grades due tomorrow, which I have to submit on paper forms with bubbled in comments and grades.
The accreditation team is probably at school right now, and will be there tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
I have formally applied for the open mathematics position at Roseburg High School for next year.

I just want to get out of California.

No April Fool

Last night I finished watching Black Magic, the ESPN show about many of the Black players who helped integrate basketball in this country. It was a great show, and today I bought the soundtrack on iTunes because that was such a great part of the show. Actually, I bought the show on iTunes as well. So Apple made some money off of that show, at least from me. I'm thinking about using the show in class, if I can get a projector, as a reward at the end some days. It would be somewhat relevant because it's about history and oppression and making change. It's also just good, and I've reached the point where it seems that I'm mailing it in a little bit.

Speaking of that, my grades for third quarter are due next Monday, and I am not excited about making sure I've represented the progress of each of my students. Ugh. I hate grades. Also, the accreditation committee is visiting beginning next Sunday, and I'm not really excited about that either. Then again, as my roommate Eric said, if the accreditation of the school comes down to how good I'm doing, then the school really is in bad shape and probably doesn't deserve to keep its accreditation. Not that I think the school will lose accreditation, and not that I'm planning on a poor showing by myself, but it was a nice thing to keep me from feeling too much pressure.

I think I might head to a bar or someplace that I could watch the two college games soon, although I could watch fuzzy versions of the game at home. That's a decision to make, although I should make it soon, since the first game will probably start before I finish this post.

Just a little Blazer news: Martell Webster is having some heart issues, which is scary. Jack Brown at Deceptively Quick had a good little post about it, especially the YouTube video he embedded that shows Martell torching the Jazz. Go there to watch the video, if not to read his take.

Rudy is "90% sure" he's coming next year. I think we knew that, but it's still good for him to say it. I found that here (of course that's a link to OregonLive – those guys are great).

Alright, I don't think I have anything else to say. Look at the top of the page for something new I added to the blog. It's great. Oh, and the title of this post had nothing to do with the post except that it's my first entry of April.

Not a tumblr

I drove back from Phoenix today. It was a decent trip, especially because part of it included a phone conversation with my friend Luke and another part had a phone conversation with my brother. It's always good to talk to either of them. The weekend as a whole was great, mainly consisting of me playing Rock Band with various people. Saturday I played the game with a bunch of great kids that go to SCA. It was fun to be around high school students who like me and are clear about thanking me for the effect I've had on them. Last week was pretty much the opposite of that at school, so it was nice to get that affirmation in Phoenix. Sunday I played the game at Adam's house with a bunch of Adam and Phil's friends who were over for a birthday party. That was nice, too: hanging out with adults that are around my age.

I didn't get anything done for school over the weekend, but I've already gotten some of it done since getting back, and that's good. Sadly, I'm more excited about the end of the school year than I am about anything except maybe Chicago with Luke over spring break. I'm nearly positive that I'll take off after this year. That makes me sad but is also a little relieving.

The other thing I did in Phoenix was watch the NBA All-Star game with other NBA fans. That was fun, especially because of how well Brandon Roy played. I loved seeing him fill up the stat line and help the West come back at the end. My group of Suns-fans/friends had fun with me and how connected I was to Roy's performance. Really, I had no personal investment in it, but I certainly felt and acted as though I did. In addition to watching the game, I got to talk to them about the trades that have been flying around. Seriously, I applaud the Hawks for making the move to get Bibby. I hope that works out for them. And as a Blazer fan I'm glad that the Dallas deal finally looks like it is actually going through. I'm happy to have the window of another Western conference team closing soon, and Kidd closes the window sooner than Harris would have.

Oh, and Kinsey, one of the students from SCA, insisted over the weekend that I should join the ranks of those with a tumblr (her, Luke, and a few other people I like), but I refused and continue to refuse. Hooray for blogger.

A lot can happen between posts

Since I last posted something here a lot has happened. Last Tuesday I tried to destroy my shoulder during soccer practice. You might wonder how that could happen, since I’m coaching. Well, all of us coaches participate to some extent during practice. At the time we were scrimmaging, and I was playing in goal. One of the girls had a breakaway, so I rushed out of goal to close the angle and try to force the ball out of her possession. She did a good job of taking the shot, and the ball ricocheted off my legs and up. I scrambled to my feet to secure the ball before someone could score off the rebound. But the girls have been learning well, so two of them were right on it as it careened back down. Knowing that I couldn’t get to the ball before a shot, I tried to dive in front and towards the ball, hoping to block the shot. Instead I succeeded at landing on my forehead and my shoulder, arm outstretched. Incredible pain shot through my right arm. Our head coach took a look and decided that the shoulder wasn’t dislocated, and I was able to stand up. But I wasn’t able to rest the arm at a comfortable or even normal angle. My arm was positioned in a grotesque manner, slightly bent in and hanging out in front of me. Then instantly it was different. My arm seemed to have a muscle spasm, or some other involuntary movement, and shook itself out, landing in it’s proper resting place. It still hurt pretty badly, but no where near as badly as it had.

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That was Tuesday. My semester grades were due on Thursday morning, and I didn’t have them finished before then. I got up at 4:30 that morning to go to work on finishing them, and got them turned in on time. We have a grade, a citizenship mark, a work habits mark, and a spot for a comment. We are required to put one comment for every student. After we turn in the paper sheet we get a printed packet of everything that we bubbled in order to verify what we put for each student. As I checked the sheet, I was surprised to see the grades missing on the front page of students. Then the next. The grades ended up being absent on every page, while every other mark was there. At least I didn’t have to write everything back in by hand, but it was pretty amazing that only one section didn’t register with the scantron.

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The rest of the week went okay, with Thursday night providing a highlight as LOST returned to TV. But then came the Super Bowl. If it turns out that the Patriots really did some of the other things of which they’re now being accused, in addition to the illegal filming that I think is commonplace around the league, then I might turn on them. But otherwise I think they are a pretty good picture of the way a franchise should run, and I think that deserves a trophy. I also enjoy seeing impressive records, and 19-0 would have been the most impressive. Add in my hatred of the Giants and Eli Manning, and I was quite disappointed with the outcome on Sunday night. Quite disappointed.

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Oh, and this is most likely the vehicle I'm going to buy soon. (Clicking will download a pdf with the specs for the truck. If you don't want to see that, just look at the picture.)

There [was] blood

Today was the last day of the semester. As such the students had a minimum schedule – basically a half-day – and teachers got the afternoon to finish semester grades. Needless to say, I didn’t do hardly anything and have a ton of work before I can turn my grades in in Thursday morning.

I also was able to confront the student today about taking my iPod. I didn’t know how I wanted to do it, and I’m not sure it went well. I asked if he had found the book he was looking for, and then I asked if he had found my iPod. He was confused, and so I explained why I thought he might have found it. Then he had a decent explanation as to why I thought what I did. I wouldn’t have thought he’d steal from me, but then I did think that, and now I’m not sure again. More frustrating than losing my iPod is the dilemma of knowing whether I should believe him or not, and if not how I should pursue things. If I hadn’t broken my external hard drive with all my music on it this wouldn’t be as big of a deal, since I still have my iPod nano. But a lot of music that I like was only left on my old clunky classic white iPod. Still, I’ll get over it.

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I’m sitting here waiting for the bus to pick me up and take me to Rosa Parks station, where I hop on the blue line south to Long Beach. We were supposed to have a soccer game this afternoon, but because of the deluge these last few days the game was postponed until Monday. It’s nice to be getting home early for the second day in a row, but I’m disappointed that the girls didn’t get another chance to play this week.

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And now I’m on the 124, heading east on El Segundo. The ability to blog and commute really is one of the best things about having an inoperable car.

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Last night I watched “There will be blood” with my roommate Eric. It was as good as I had hoped. The story of an oil man and his thirst for money and success was compelling, and just as timely now as I’m sure it was when Upton Sinclair penned the book. P.T. Anderson did a great job bringing it to the screen, and I realized that there is one main aspect of his films that I really really love. Despite writing and directing movies that aren’t billed as “scary” or “funny,” Anderson creates scenes that fill me with dread or entice me to laugh. I was surprised last night by how many times I laughed out loud, and I was equally surprised by the number of times I cringed in fear, anticipating the next event. Daniel Day Lewis made me completely forget that Daniel Plainview was a character. Instead, I was drawn into his world, perplexed by his evil and buoyed by his success. The actor who played the young H.W. Plainview was also fantastic, inhabiting the character so fully that it seemed as if the actor must have had the same physical limitations as his character.

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I wrote that last paragraph from the blue line before stopping to have a conversation with a coworker for Compton Unified. He works on HVAC stuff. I have my ID badge on and he initiated the conversation because he saw it. I enjoyed that part of the trip even though I usually enjoy being silent on planes, trains, and buses. I’ve been writing this part on the 191b, heading from the Del Amo station to my stop at the intersection of McHelen and Wardlow. The 124 picked me up on El Segundo at around 3:25, just to give you an idea of my commute.

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The Blazers play their first home game in two weeks tonight at the Rose Garden. That seven game trip seemed pretty long, even if it only lasted twelve days. I’m excited for the six game home stand that is beginning this evening. The opponents in this stretch are all teams that I expect to beat, starting with Houston. Part of that expectation is because I have so much confidence in the team now, but I think part of it also has to do with some of the teams coming in being the sort of weak team that can’t hang with a good team at home. And we’re the best team at home in the NBA. That’s right. Portland has the best home record in the association. I might try to watch the game tonight, but it depends on what my roommates are doing.

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This has been as long a post as I’ve written in quite a while, and I’ve rambled more than I have in a while too. The bus is about to make the last few turns that take me to my stop, then it’s just a four or five minute walk to my house. That makes the total commute right around an hour.

A new post? YES!

Today I had a brand new experience as a teacher: I realized that one of my students stole from me. Some of the people who read this – maybe even both of you – might believe I should have expected it, but I disagree. Because the transmission in my Volvo is nearly destroyed, I’ve been commuting on public transportation for the last two weeks. This has actually allowed me to catch up on the podcasts to which I subscribe. That means I have my iPod with me all the time. Yesterday after my last period I rushed off to get to the soccer game I was coaching. In the process I left my iPod on a sort of hidden corner of my desk. The room is always locked from outside, and I was not at all concerned that the custodian might take it. I also left my laptop on my desk. When I came back from the game I didn’t even think about the iPod, because I was getting a ride to the train station with another teacher/coach, and because the downpour during the game had left me completely soaked.

Once the train started taking me south to Long Beach, though, I did think of the iPod. I didn’t think of it again until this morning, when I checked my stuff to make sure I had left it in my room. And then I thought of it when I got to my room. But looking around, especially where I thought I’d left it, I found no trace of the iPod.

I was frustrated by that, but didn’t worry about it too much. After school I saw the custodian who cleans my room and asked him if he’d seen it. He said no, but that he had let a student in to find a book he’d forgotten. Then he described the student. I knew precisely who it was, because the student had come in that morning to “check” for his book.

It’s not my personality to assume the worst of people, and usually I would think that he really was just checking to see if his book was in my room. But instead, I think he was covering his tracks a little bit. And that’s frustrating. I’m going to seek him out tomorrow, because he wasn’t in my class today.

One last note: I’m trying to get a better schedule figured out so that I can use my commute time to write blog posts. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but this is the first one I’ve actually composed on my way to or from school. It feels good.

(One last note: my iPod was of the last generation before they all went color. That's right, the kid who stole my iPod will probably not find a market for it, because it is completely obsolete.)

The signing bonus

I think I wrote about it here, but even if I didn't, I know I told most of my friends: I received a "signing bonus" for coming to teach in Compton. For some reason I remember it as $3,500 bonus per year for up to three years. Apparently I remembered incorrectly, as I went in today to actually sign for it. The sheet says that the bonus is for $11,000, but spread over four years. Oh yeah, and it's on condition of staying at least two years. So I had to sign today saying that I wouldn't apply for any other jobs or take any other jobs before my second year is up. So I did. And the whole time I was reading the fine print, I was trying to figure out if it was worth paying back later to have the money now – you know – just in case I decide to leave after one year. And that still seems like a distinct possibility. I did decide that it was worth it, because I have enough bills now that it will be good to get a little extra money in early January. That feels especially true since I just paid a bunch of those bills. Medical bills are a pain. Oh yeah, and on the sheet it said the bonus was a "recruitment" bonus, but I really know that I'm more like a star athlete than most of you, what with my signing bonus.

A bunch of grading

This morning I took my brother to LAX at four o'clock. Our dad was working on the siding of their new house last week and went down with the ladder. When he landed his elbow was wrenched with the weight of his fall and tore his rotator cuff. Because of that, and because they're hoping to get the house done by Thanksgiving time, they bought Stephen a ticket and he flew up there today. He'll be there for about a month. After I dropped him off I went to the school, but since I didn't feel very well and had a ton of stuff I needed to get done, I set my room up for the day and called in for a sub. So far today I've finished a lot of what I needed to do, but not all of it. Hopefully in the next hour I can get more done while watching football before Chuck comes on.

I was really sad to see my brother go this morning, for these reasons:

1. Even though he isn't around that much down here, what with not having a job yet to solidify his schedule and his girlfriend and best friends living a decent distance away from us, I'm still going to miss him while he's completelygone for a while.


2. I envy him for getting to go back up to Oregon, even if it is to work on the house.


3. I might have been a little sad just because it was so early in the morning.

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Tomorrow is opening day in the NBA, and I am really excited about the Blazers-Spurs game. I don't want to let myself get too excited, but I do think that a lot of people will be surprised by the Blazers this year. I can't wait for that.

With guns put back away...

Today I had a meeting with the math coach and the principal to talk about my professional development goals for the year. It was a really good chance to tell them how I was feeling. Of course, in the midst of that I found out that the gate to the fields would have gotten me into my room after all, so that I could have gotten all that work done on Saturday morning. Yeah, I wasn't too happy to find that out. Even though that's true, the weekend was still really nice, mainly because I didn't feel guilt about not doing any work over the weekend, since I thought it wasn't my fault.

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I've never been more excited for college football than for the NFL. Ever. Not even during seasons when the Ducks were okay and the Seahawks were terrible. But this year, with the combination of Oregon being amazing and Seattle being not-so-amazing and the absolute craziness of the college season, I've found myself much more interested in the college game. It could have a little to do with how poorly my three fantasy teams are performing as well, but I think the competitiveness in college this year has more to do with it. Oh yeah, and cheering for the best offense in the country. I mean, Oregon rushed for 465 rushing yards and 39 first downs against the Huskies in Seattle on Saturday. They ran the ball 62 times, and 25 of those runs were for first downs. They attempted 30 passes, and completed 14 of those for first downs. They averaged 7.5 yards per rush as a team. Even though Washington is bad, that's just amazing. It reminds me of what the Seahawks did in 2005 when the offensive line made defenses give them the entire field. And that's what's been said about Oregon's performance: the line was unstoppable, which means that it doesn't matter what guy is running behind them. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have one of the best running backs in the country and a sneaky Heisman candidate at quarterback behind them. In fact, if Dixon had four more yards passing, one more yard rushing, and not thrown a Hail Mary interception at the end of the first half, he's looking at a game with 200 yards passing, 100 yards rushing, a better than 60% completion rate, and two total touchdowns – one in the air and one on the ground. Those are great numbers. We have USC and ASU at home in the next two weeks, and if we can keep the offense rolling and get the defense back to where it had been the last few weeks, we should be looking at the final three weeks beginning to think about BCS championship plans. Crazy. Oh yeah, and the Oregon basketball team should be coming back stronger this year than they were last year. It's a good time to be a Duck.

With guns drawn

That's how the police would have approached me, apparently, had I tried to get into school this morning. The title of this post, I mean. That's what my colleague Mariano told me as I was talking with him in front of the school. I asked a secretary as I was leaving yesterday if I could get in this morning, and she said it would be open from eight until noon. Wrong. After she confirmed that, I left a bunch of things in my classroom that I was going to get done today. But instead they're just going to sit there until Monday morning, which is not good. That means I need to try to get to school even earlier on Monday than I normally would. Boo to that. So instead I took care of some car things this morning, specifically a long-overdue oil change. Now I'm catching up with a TV show that I think I'll like, Dirty Sexy Money. I've only seen part of the premiere, but it sounds pretty good.

Speaking of pretty good, last night I went to see The Darjeeling Limited with my roommate Eric and our friend Beau. A review of it in The District – Long Beach's weekly art/entertainment magazine – thought that it fell apart when the brothers got off the train. I disagree with that strongly. Once again it seemed to me that Wes Anderson does his best work when he is focusing on the most painful of human experiences. The rest of the time the movie was funny, but when the brothers were really confronted with tragedy and forced to look at their own lives and actions the movie got that much better. All the acting was really good, but I was especially pleased with Owen Wilson and Adrian Brody. Wilson was better than normal, and I think Brody showed me that he really is that good. I wasn't as happy when I walked out as I was at the end of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, I didn't think the whole movie was as insightful as The Royal Tenenbaums, probably my favorite Anderson movie, and I didn't think it was as funny as Rushmore or Bottle Rocket. But it might have done the job of combining those things that a fifth movie from an idiosyncratic director should.

Isn't stress fun?

Monthly. That is now the goal for the updates on this blog, although it will probably be a little better since the NBA season is nearly here. I listened to part of the pre-season game last night between the Blazers and Clippers. It was great to see the final lines, and even fun to hear what was happening for a while. I really don't think the game means much, but it was still nice. There are lots of websites with good coverage of the game, and I don't have the energy to try to do any better. Dave at Blazer's Edge has done a great job of listing these articles, so check that out if you want to read the good coverage. The important little comment I have is that we did a good job of punishing a team missing most of their best players, but we did so while missing our best player and another that most of us think will be one of our best players, if he isn't already. So that's important.

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School is rough. I'm still trying to figure out how to be a "disciplinarian," which is getting in the way of trying to figure out how to be a better teacher. The most pressing issues are probably related to making sure that my students understand what's going on despite difficulties with English, since that seems to be one of the main problems. The other problem that consumes me, but that I haven't done much about yet, is still figuring out how to make my lessons much more engaging so that the students who are disruptive will find less reason to act that way. I'm trying a lesson tomorrow that uses ads to teach logic and reasoning. We'll see how that goes. I didn't go today because of feeling pretty bad and needing to catch up with stuff. That's the second straight Thursday I've missed at school, and I don't like that one bit. Hopefully my body starts healing soon, and then I won't feel the need to miss school.

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I went in to the doctor last week to get the tingling checked out, and ended up with several x-rays and two different MRIs. Then they called me on Saturday and had me come back in on Monday to take a few more pictures. Since then I haven't heard anything though, so I'm not sure what's going on with my body still. I do need to schedule my physical therapy, which the doctor prescribed before the extra shots were taken on Monday. So that's what's going on right now. More to come in a month probably.

Straight outta Compton

I haven't written anything on this blog in a long time. Wait, let me see that better: I haven't written anything in a long time. I feel like the teaching is taking away some of my mental acumen. I do like my kids, but some of the cultural things are sooo hard to overcome. For instance: it has always been the case, even when teaching, that I need between 33 and 74 apologies per day. I just say things that are wrong or come out wrong or are heard wrong. In many places this is no big deal. But for most of the students I teach, a lot of their identity is wrapped up in not letting anyone say something to them or do something to them to hurt their image. So if they even think that I've done something to insult them, it is really hard to come back. Really hard.

Another thing that seems cultural: understanding what types of questions are appropriate to ask a teacher in class and what types are not. All students everywhere push the boundaries, but a lot of these students haven't learned what those boundaries are supposed to be. Hear me well on this: when I say "cultural" I'm not referring to race or ethnicity, rather the city/street culture that exists in south central LA. As I've said, I really like my students, but being raised in multiple rural towns in Oregon – as much as I don't like to admit that Roseburg is rural – and going to college at Wheaton didn't exactly prepare me to interact daily with kids from Compton.

Because of some of the differences, and because I'm getting walked all over, I'm instituting some new rules and procedures next week. I hate doing it, but it really does have to be done. I also realized that I need to put more effort into my lessons. My professors at Oregon espoused the belief that 99% of class management can be taken care of by having engaging lessons, and I still believe that's true. So it feels a bit like a cop-out to be planning to put in more rules instead of just making sure that my class sessions are engaging for all students. The problem is that so many students are keeping class sessions from happening the way they should that I can't tell yet how engaging my lessons are. And that's why I have to give in and start focusing on classroom management techniques for a little while. I give a hearty "boo" to that, but it's happening nonetheless.

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One thing that is always enjoyable is answering questions about the Blazers poster/pennant/figurine in my room. A lot of the students think that Portland is just terrible, and they always have been. It's funny for me to hear that perspective, so I've been sharing with them about the 1977 team and the teams from the early '90s with Clyde and the gang. The figurine I have on my desk is actually Drexler, and I won it last year in the Blazer's Edge contest by scoring exactly 22 in my picks for one of the games. (Thanks Dave.) Most of the students don't really care, with just a few mentioning how good Kobe is or something like that. But a girl in my first period class mentioned the other day how excited she was for training camp to start soon. I couldn't even be mad she meant Lakers training camp, because it was so nice to have someone in the room sharing my excitement for the imminent NBA season.

And I really can't wait for the season. I mentioned this to a few friends already, but after overcoming my grief about Oden's surgery, I'm even more excited about what the Blazers might do this year than I was before. On Mike Barrett's blog today he posted the interviews he did with various players and members of the management last night at the organization's annual company picnic. Listening to all the things the various interviewees had to say made me giddy. James Jones said some things about how talented this team is and how unselfish they are as a group. This from a guy who played in Phoenix with Steve Nash for a few years. Jones knows unselfish, and he knows talent. Sure, his opinion is biased toward his new teammates, but he didn't have to say something so glowing. Players put things in less glowing terms quite often. To hear LaMarcus talk was great too. And Przybilla, with his emphasis on how hard he knew he needed to work this off season, was one of my favorite interviews. It's all really good, so if you have the time and want to join me in some excitement about the upcoming NBA season, give them a listen. Barrett is always good about getting stuff like that up for people to check out. I'm still waiting for Casey to put the up the Quick Chat on Oregonlive, since I couldn't listen to it live the other night. That one is usually really insightful too, since Quick is a great beat writer and keeps his pulse on the team really well. I can't wait to get some sort of hook-up that gets me into a Blazer/Laker game this season at the Staple's Center, just so I can be there when Portland surprises the LA – well, faithful isn't the right word – celebrities by showing how good they are without the best pure center to come into the league since that big guy that used to play down here in purple and gold.

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Last note: I had a chance to go with a colleague of mine to the UCLA-Washington game tomorrow night at the Rose Bowl, but I'm going to my friend Michelle's soccer game instead. I'll have other opportunities for UCLA games, and I wanted to see the soccer game pretty badly. But it still took a little while for me to decide to stick with my original plan, since I haven't been to the Rose Bowl since Oregon's loss to Penn State in 1995. Enough for now. I'm going to go get some ice cream from Cold Stone, maybe, and then head back to the house. Hopefully the quantity of words in this post makes up a little for the lack of posts recently.

By the way, if you were wondering who else other than Ki-Jana Carter played for that Penn State team, let me remind you: Kerry Collins was the starting quarterback, Bobby Engram (yes, that Bobby Engram) was the number one receiver, Kyle Brady was the starting tight end, and I'm sure several good linebackers. By the way, Collins won the Maxwell and Davey O'Brien awards that year, finished fourth in Heisman voting (where Carter finished second to Rashan Salaam), but was not the best quarterback in the game. Danny O'Neil from Oregon was player of the game in a losing effort and set Rose Bowl records with most passes completed (41), most attempts (61), most yardage (465), most plays (74) and total offense (456). I remember how awesome he was live, and that was a big deal for a little kid watching his team face the Nittany Lions in the Granddaddy of them all. Oh yeah, and Joe-Pa won FWAA coach of the year honors that season, but Rich Brooks – yes, that Rich Brooks – won the Bear Bryant award for Oregon in his last season before going to coach the Los Angeles Rams.