an exercise in narcissism

I’m shutting down this blog and moving to a new one.

2011-04-01T21:17:00.001-07:00

After several years I’ve decided to shut this blog down for good. It’s had its time in the sun. I started it back in 2002 and there’s a lot of stuff here I’m proud of, some I’m not so proud of, and much I would delete if I were willing to put in the time. Still, it is what it is and I’ll leave it here for posterity, but this blog is officially dead.

Those of you interested in reading what I do write in the future should check out the new blog I’m starting to take this one’s place. It will serve much the same function this one did when I posted regularly – a place for me to share my thoughts on a number of topics that matter to me. I am such a different man than the one that started this blog nine years ago and I believe it’s time to leave this blog in the past.

So go check it out, subscribe to its feed, bookmark it, or whatever else you do to read the stuff you want to read.

Goodnight, sweet exercise in narcissism.

Dave Ramsey at Catalyst West 2011

2011-03-13T06:50:00.001-07:00

My brother is a bit of a Dave Ramsey fanboy so I took great pleasure in gloating to him via text that I was close to his hero. Ramsey has built a very successful organization meant to help people be smart with their money and avoid debt at all costs. There’s probably a pun in there somewhere.

One thing that stuck with me from Ramsey’s talk was a story he shared about a company picnic. He employs around 300 people and holds a big family picnic every year with inflatable jump houses, barbecue, and whatever else he can do to show his appreciation for the employees. As he arrived at the picnic he looked at this field full of kids running everywhere playing and he asked his teenage son what he saw.

“Lots of kids,” was his son’s predictable reply. Ramsey saw more than that, of course. If he didn’t it would be a pretty dumb story.

Ramsey said that if he, as the leader of his organization and the employer of the parents of these children, makes a really stupid decision – it would affect all of them. With all the blessings he enjoys as the leader of a successful organization, he also has the great responsibility of knowing that his actions impact a lot of people in significant ways. I thought this was a novel way to communicate the principle anybody in leadership has heard a million times: leadership is service.

Through his talk Ramsey shared five principles that guide him as he leads his organization. They were pretty standard – People Matter, Incredible Team and Culture Matter, Slow and Steady Matters, Financial Principles Matter, and A Higher Calling Matters. He had good things to say about all of those principles. A few notes I took that stuck with me most:

“When you get on fire about taking care of the needs of others, courage comes over you.”

“A great team gives you courage.”

"The tortoise wins every time; you don’t finish if you don’t do the little things right.”

“Practice excellence in the ordinary.” These last two in particular got me thinking about the day-in-day-out practice in my classroom. I want every day, every lesson plan to be excellent, not just so-so.

“When you have a pile of money and no debt, you have more courage.” Ramsey is rabidly opposed to debt, even to the point of discouraging student loans. While I’m not quite on the same page with him there, I do think this statement is true and helps demonstrate that the way you manage your money is more than just a money thing. When you’re stressed out about whether or not you can pay the bills, you are less likely to take some risks that you might otherwise take. When you have some savings and you don’t have some debt, some things you just assume you couldn’t do become possible.

Catalyst West: Andy Stanley

2011-03-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

The first speaker at Catalyst West Coast this year was Andy Stanley. The theme of the conference was “Take Courage,” and he admitted resisting the temptation to preach a sermon encouraging us to be brave like David or Gideon or Noah. While sermons along those lines have truth in them, it can be a challenge to relate to them when the chances of you having an army you need to whittle down to the faithful few are pretty small. There’s also the fact that if you’ve been around church long at all, you’ve heard plenty of sermons like that. Andy took a different route, and I’m glad he did.

Before he got into his message, though, I could tell he was bugged by the inability of this room full of alleged adults to control themselves with the little poppy things we’d been given. You remember those little boxes from when you were a kid – they were full of little bags of powder or something that would *bang* when you threw them at the ground? Somebody thought it would be a good idea to put one of those boxes under each seat. So many people couldn’t help themselves and kept messing with them long beyond the time they should’ve been. I found Stanley’s lack of amusement with them amusing. And he was right on. Anyway.

Here are a few of the highlights I got from his message:

The person engaging in an act of courage usually has no idea what the ramifications or impact of that decision will be. We’re not living in movies, and the orchestra doesn’t tense up when we’re about to make a climactic choice. We go through life and make the choices we’re presented with. Some have big impact and others little – but we don’t know which is which.

While our stories aren’t likely to be on the front page of the newspaper, we’ll face moments/opportunities/challenges that will require us to exercise the extraordinary courage we so often shrink from.

He then went on to describe three (he said four but ran out of time) faces of courage – times when courage may be required for us to move forward into God’s best plan for our life.

One of those situations was having the courage to ask for help when it would be easier to pretend that everything’s okay. The secrets you have influence the way you lead. You compensate for your secrets in ways you don’t notice but the others around you do. He called those who needed help but didn’t get it chickens.

We don’t ask for help because we’re afraid of what others might find out about us, or what we might discover about ourselves. But the real thing we need to fear, according to Stanley, is waking up one day and realizing we are outside of God’s will for our lives. If we are to lead, we need confidence that God is with us. If I’m not confident I’m where God wants me to be, how am I going to lead with confidence?

Do I fear being out of God’s will more than poverty? Irrelevance? The opinions of others?

I think what stuck with me most from his talk was something he said toward the end:

One day, everything I’m going through right now will just be a story. All the stresses, pressure, hopes, worries, doubts, fears, responsibilities – all of it will be a story. When this chapter of my life is over, what story do I want to tell about it?

“It would’ve been easier to X, so I did.”

“I was afraid of Y, so I didn’t.”

For some reason that really resonated with me. I can think back to so many situations and times in my life where I was consumed with one thing or another, worrying about this decision or that decision – and now they’re stories. I wonder how many stories I missed out on because I wussed out? I do not want to wuss out. I want my greatest fear to be that I’m out of God’s will for my life. I’m not sure it is. But I want it to be, and I will be praying for God to make it so.

Catalyst West Conference 2011

2011-03-06T14:24:00.001-08:00

I had the privilege this past week to attend Catalyst West 2011 with a team from South Bay Church. It was a fantastic experience but, as Matt Chandler said, a bit like trying to drink from a firehose. There’s a lot to work through. In an attempt to process some of what I heard and think about it a bit more, I’ve decided to resurrect my blog with a series of posts related to Catalyst. I need to force myself to write and think.

When Filipe sent out an email informing us that South Bay had tickets for those who wanted to go to Catalyst I assumed I wouldn’t be able to go. The conference was just a few weeks after Janelle’s due date. I didn’t dare ask to take an out of town trip and leave my wife with a newborn, a 16 month old, and a four year old. I’m smarter than that.

Janelle actually brought it up to me and said she felt like I should go. I did my best to pretend to struggle with saying yes and snagged South Bay’s last ticket. Fiona was just one month old but Janelle blessed the heck out of me by taking care of our girls while I left her alone from Wednesday-Saturday. I’ve said it before and I will be saying it until the day I die – one of the greatest evidences of God’s love for me is the amazing woman He gave me to spend my life with.

I had a lot of fun at the conference getting to spend some time with people from South Bay and strengthen some existing friendships as well as make some new ones. As far as the conference itself, there were some fantastic sessions and some not-so-fantastic ones. I did my best to get what I could out of everything and open myself up to whatever God had for me. Over the next few posts I’ll share my thoughts on the conference and some of what I got from it.

2010-07-12T10:27:00.001-07:00

got the facebook page up and running for Perdue Communication, my writing business. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Perdue-Communication/109441235760774

2010-04-30T23:04:00.001-07:00

put up a new post on listening: http://bettercommunicating.com/interpersonal-communication/8-ways-to-be-a-terrible-listener/

2010-04-21T16:54:00.001-07:00

My latest post about how to resolve conflict well: http://bettercommunicating.com/interpersonal-communication/how-to-resolve-conflict-well/

2010-04-20T13:55:00.001-07:00

Why hire a professional writer like me? Here's why. http://ping.fm/zHAzw

2010-04-14T07:17:00.001-07:00

just put up the 2nd post at my Better Communicating blog here, about assertiveness: http://ping.fm/M4fgd

Perdue Communication and Better Communicating.com

2010-04-12T13:33:00.001-07:00

Yes it’s been a long time. I appreciate those of you who do check in on my blog, and I haven’t completely abandoned it (despite evidence to the contrary). I’ve taken up two new things that I wanted to pass along to you who already read some of what I write:

First, www.perduecommunication.com. I am starting to do some freelance writing and communication consulting on the side, and that’s the site for it. Any kind of writing you (or someone you know) needs done, I can do. Website content, marketing materials, business materials, resumes/cover letters…I can also do coaching for public speaking engagements or job interviews. Check out the site and pass it along.

Second, www.bettercommunicating.com. This is a new blog I’m starting that will be based on communication. In it I will talk about anything related to communication. It will focus on getting better at communication, and discussing communication in various situations/venues. On the job, in relationships, whatever. So add that to your RSS feeder or check in on it regularly, and I’d be much obliged. It might even do something for you too.

“I’ll never sleep!” – Adventures with Belle

2009-12-16T10:12:00.001-08:00

This week Janelle was reading something I’d written about what Belle was saying before her 2nd birthday. As she read it we realized we’d both forgotten about Belle ever saying those things. It was a reminder to me that I need to be better about jotting stuff down when she does it, so we don’t forget. She does so many cute/impressive/wonderful things on a regular basis that it’s easy to have them slip by without writing them down.

Last night it was a serious battle trying to get Belle to go to sleep. She asked “why do we have to go night night every day?!” After Janelle and I read her several stories and left her to fall asleep, she started to fuss and cry and get out of bed. We left the lights on (she has a princess Christmas tree that is really bright in and of itself, and she wanted her lamp on) but that wasn’t enough.She threw all the bedding off her bed and screamed things like:

“I really miss Mommy and Daddy!”

“Daddy! DADDY! Come here!”

“I don’t want to go night night.”

And my favorite…

“I’ll never sleep! Never!”

During a lull in her tantrum I came in and started to talk to her. I don’t know exactly what I did or how I did it but I convinced Belle it would be cool if I put the stuff back on her bed (with her showing me where it all goes). Then I laid in there and talked to Belle for probably ten minutes before leaving. This time she let me go and fell asleep peacefully.

We talked about what she would be doing soon, and we talked about what it will be like when I take her to see The Princess and the Frog. It’s going to be the very first movie she sees in a theater. She asked if they had blankets and pillows at the theater in case she gets cold. When I told her they didn’t, she asked if she could bring her own blanket.

I also told her about how you give your ticket to the man or lady and they rip it, then give it back to you.

“I will not say thank you to the lady,” she said. When I asked why, she replied “because I will be shy.”

I love my little girl. I went from absolute frustration and exasperation to utter amazement and thankfulness to God in the span of an hour. Parenthood rules.

Serving God and Volunteering at Church

2009-12-07T07:38:00.001-08:00

The phrase “serve God” is used frequently in religious and spiritual circles. Through books, sermons, radio shows, conversations, and more we get lots of information on what it means to “serve God.” In my years of observing, listening to, and often speaking on this topic I believe the concept of serving God is something Christians (both laypeople and clergy) misunderstand.

This will not be an exhaustive post on the topic but rather something that has occurred to me more and more over the years. I worked at a church for several years as a youth pastor and since the beginning of 2008 have been working full-time in public school. I attend church and volunteer. I begin with a statement I learned to be quite true when I worked as a pastor:

Those who are not in ministry really do not know what it is like to be in ministry. I think the pastors I know would agree with this wholeheartedly. Almost as a rule the pastors I know personally are among the most hardworking, dedicated men and women I’ve ever met. They are doing their best to serve God and view their work not just as work but as a calling and privilege. I won’t go into too much detail about the kind of work and sacrifice being a vocational minister is but suffice it to say – unless you work (or worked) in ministry you really do not know what it is like.

Since I’ve been out vocational ministry, however, something else has become just as clear to me:

Those who are working in ministry really do not know what it is like to not be working in ministry.

There are of course degrees and variations on this – but I think it is a sound statement.

A large portion of church activity rests on volunteers, and rightly so. Pastors are not called to do everything – rather their job is to equip the saints for doing God’s work (Ephesians 4). Entire books have been written on what the job of a pastor really is, and I’m not going to delve into that here. But no matter your position on how closely a pastor should resemble a CEO or how available they should be to their congregation, any healthy Biblically-based view of the role of a pastor involves their preparing the laypeople for their ministry and acts of service.

However.

I also believe it is not the obligation of every Christian to volunteer to serve at their church on a regular basis. You can be a completely healthy, devoted, passionate follower of Jesus and a great member of a church while volunteering only occasionally if at all.

This is almost anathema to the way I thought when I worked in ministry. I did not understand what the deal was with people who wouldn’t be willing to give up an hour on a Sunday or Wednesday or whatever to serve God by setting up sound equipment or picking up garbage or watching kids or whatever else. Jesus died on the cross for you and you’re going to dodge when I ask you to come every other Sunday a couple hours early to help get things ready for the church service where the gospel will be preached? Come on, man!

This is the mindset of one who works in ministry and does not understand what it is like to not work in ministry. It was my mindset when I was in ministry and I am absolutely not alone. This is a very common mindset.

Sometimes pastors (and then their congregants) subtly conflate “serve God” with “volunteer at church.” Because the pastors view their job as their calling, because building the church is what they are giving their life to, there is a tendency to assume this is what everybody’s life is to be given to. If someone is not volunteering at the church in some capacity then they are not really serving God the way they should be. They are holding back; they are not fully surrendered to God and are being selfish with their time. This misunderstanding can lead to all manner of frustration on behalf of pastors and parishioners as they talk past one another.

There is so much I could write on this topic and its corollaries. Maybe I will one day. Instead I will just get to my conclusion before I ramble on any more.

Serving God by volunteering at a church is a great way to serve God, but if it is the only way you are serving God you are not, I would argue, serving God the way He asks in Scripture. I would go so far as to say that serving God by volunteering at a church should be one of the first things to go when you go through busy seasons of life and something has to be cut out.

Unfortunately what well-meaning people usually cut out before they cut out “serving God” (when serving God = volunteering at church) are things like spending time with friends who aren’t at church, time with family (extended or immediate), being a part of the greater community, and so on. But this is where we need passionate Jesus-lovers spending more time and energy serving God. When someone doesn’t have time to spend with people outside of church because they are too busy volunteering at church, there is a problem. Not only that, but, if we convince people that serving God=volunteering at church we can give them a false sense of their own Christ-likeness.

“Am I living the gospel with my family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and community? Heck if I know, but I am putting out cookies on Sunday morning, so I’m serving God with my life!”

Obviously that is a bit of an exaggeration to make the point, but the point stands. Serving God is much more complex than volunteering to help out at church. Not only that, but I know times when I assumed a degree of spiritual maturity due to a person’s steadfastness as a volunteer on a team – and I was wrong. People need to be taught things like:

How do I serve God at work?

How do I serve God in the way I treat my family?

How do I serve God in the way I handle my wealth and possessions?

How do I serve God through being a part of the community?

How do I serve God with my neighbors?

As people learn those things, they need to know it is okay to take the necessary time to put them into practice, even if that means they don’t volunteer at church.

If our goal truly is the spread of the gospel – if our goal is truly the spread of Jesus’ love Jesus’ way – then I cannot reconcile a demand for volunteerism at the expense of community and relational involvement. And for the majority of people who do not work in ministry, this is the cost of being a regular, committed volunteer at church.

You have two days off if you work a full-time job. You spend the other five days working hard away from your family, brushing up against people, maybe going to a Bible study one night a week, and living your life. If you’re lucky you have a few hours at the end of the day to spend with your family (with whatever energy you have left). It’s also possible you spend those weekday nights simply taking care of the house/family and getting ready for work the next day. It is during those days that one should be considering how to serve God. It is during those days that we earn the opportunity to build relationships with people that we could then spend time with on the weekend (actually building and maintaining a relationship), if we weren’t busy volunteering at church or going to church events.

But even if a person could volunteer at church and maintain a healthy schedule but chooses not to because they want to spend more time with friends or family or as a part of the community – I see nothing wrong with that. If they are serious about serving God wherever they are, then that is what they will do. The job of the church is to encourage them to serve God wherever they spend their time.

If all of our non-work time is spent doing church things or with church people, then we have become residents of the “Christian Bubble” and convinced ourselves it is Godliness when in fact we are insulating ourselves from the very people who need to hear and see the gospel most. Inviting people to church is not adequate gospel-love-spreading. It is not evangelism.

Many people waste their time, or are selfish with their time, and it is important for the church to challenge that in Christ-followers. There is a lot to be gained by volunteering and being part of the team at a church. I did so before I worked in the ministry and continued to do it after leaving vocational ministry. I plan on doing so moving forward. But it is not the measuring stick of a devoted follower of Christ, and we make it one to the detriment of not only those who are seeking to know more about and follow Jesus better but also to the detriment of the broader community that is deprived of the time and energy of these people.

Ode to my Wife

2009-11-16T07:41:00.001-08:00

I’m occasionally struck by the notion that I am living through a movie scene. In my particularly self-pitying days of singlehood I imagined I was living through some insipid romance movie where the nice guy has to wade through years of loneliness to find the right woman. Thank God that’s over.

It still sometimes occurs to me, however, that a moment in my life could be taken straight from a movie.

This has happened more often since we had children. It’s less that I feel my life in particular is entertaining enough to watch and more that the circumstances seem so ridiculous as to be almost contrived. Last night was one of those moments.

Juliette, our five-week old daughter, wakes up frequently during the night. Some are better than others of course but last night was not a good one. Janelle and I went to bed around 9:30 and Juliette woke up every 60-90 minutes. During one feeding Janelle went into the kitchen to start up the dishwasher to wash the bottles. Around 1:30 Juliette woke up screaming again and Janelle went out to get the bottles out of the dishwasher and prepare one.

While holding Juliette in the bedroom I heard Janelle say something – I can’t quite remember what it was – but I remember knowing it wasn’t good. It sounded like she had seen something disgusting, or perhaps she’d hurt herself. I called out a few times and got no response. Finally she responded.

“Our dishwasher flooded the kitchen.”

As it turned out, the detergent Janelle purchased last week, which was labeled “Dish Detergent” and was in the same section as the dishwasher detergent was in fact not meant for use in a dishwasher. As we took turns cleaning the kitchen (including moving the refrigerator so we could get the water under it) Janelle berated herself and said “I even thought it seemed a little runny but I just figured it was because it was cheap.”

At 1-something in the morning I am more than happy to find fault with others and find a way to blame them for things that inconvenience me. But try as I might I couldn’t fault Janelle for being foolish with the dish soap – there are hints on the labeling, such as “easy on your hands!” and whatnot but I certainly would have assumed it was detergent for the dishwasher based on its name and its placement in the store – away from all the handwashing dish soap and with the detergent. In retrospect obviously it was a mistake but it’s completely understandable.

So as I wiggled the fridge out of its spot in the kitchen it occurred to me that this could be a scene from a comedy wherein the couple is simply overwhelmed at life with a new baby and a 3 year-old. Already not sleeping regularly we have the dishwasher flood the kitchen in the middle of the night. As I thought more about it I realized how fortunate I am, for two reasons.

First, I am fortunate that the movie would be a comedy rather than a tragedy. So many parents are faced with awful difficulties with their children. Illnesses, complications, diseases rare or common, inability to feed the family or pay the bills – these are all problems we are thankfully and by God’s grace not faced with. Whatever difficulties we do have, Janelle and I try to remind one another that we really are blessed beyond any measure and far beyond anything we could ever deserve. Which leads me to the second reason I am so fortunate.

I’m fortunate to be able to go through all of this with a woman as awesome as Janelle is. I use the word “awesome” to describe a lot of things but it is rarely as appropriate as it is when I use it to refer to my wife. She has not had a good night’s sleep in at least 5 weeks; to be honest probably not since Belle has been born but we may have snuck one in here or there. Every day (after a night of waking up and taking care of Juliette several times) she takes care of a newborn and a three year-old, she manages the house, plans meals, keeps the place clean, usually has dinner ready for me when I get home, encourages me to work out even though it takes a little extra time, lets me watch football…the list goes on. She is awesome in a very real sense of the word.

Faced with the situation last night I think many people in Janelle’s situation would have resorted to some kind of something – be it passive-aggressive comments about how I should have done this or that, or just frustrated angry comments about the situation, or just shutting down with exhaustion. But she did none of that. Janelle kept her cool and we worked well together getting everything sorted and cleaned up without fighting or arguing or bickering. As we went back to bed and lay down about 45 minutes after beginning the cleanup, I was struck with how gracefully Janelle had handled the whole situation. I told her as much but this morning as I think more about it I really am struck by how truly blessed I am to have this woman as my wife.

It’s sort of a cliche among Christians that men want to find and women want to be a “Proverbs 31 woman” but I really do think I have one in Janelle. If I made a checklist out of the passage and measured Janelle against it, there would be a check in every box. She is great with money, organizes our home wonderfully, works hard through trouble and difficulty to make life better for me and our daughters (and others), and more.

When Janelle and I first started dating I was surprised to find out many of my friends knew her from high school. When I told them I was with Janelle Cornelio they could not stop talking about how great she was and how lucky I was. I had no clue how right they were. I often joke that I view the fact that Janelle married me as proof there is a God. Truth be told it’s only half of a joke. Every day Janelle is a living, breathing example of the grace and love God has for me. I know I don’t deserve her and I am so grateful for every day I get to spend with her.

I have a jorb

2009-09-02T08:08:00.001-07:00

Cobwebs around here. For those wondering why I haven’t been posting lately, it’s because I got a job. Something I didn’t expect to happen the way it did, but I’m glad it did.

I worked at Ohlone over the summer as a site supervisor for their kids program. That job ended on a Thursday. I had an interview for a teaching position in Mountain View that Friday, and on the following Monday they offered me the job, which I began that Tuesday. From that point on it’s been a whirlwind.

There is a lot I could say about the job but I will simply focus on one thing right now: it is a huge blessing. I know people through the word “blessing” around a lot but I seriously mean it. There were 200 applicants to this job, they interviewed 12, and they hired me. I was just one person on a big list and figured because of that I would not end up with a job. But somehow I’ve ended up at an exceptional school with very exceptional people. Every staff member I’ve run into from the district and at the other schools has been awesome. The teachers at this school are very supportive and helping me out any way they can. And lastly – this district pays better than any district I’ve heard of and they offer full benefits for the family. That is unheard of. Until now, I guess.

The budget crunch in California means teaching jobs are very difficult to come by. Janelle did not get a job this year. Because of that, and the fact that we have lots of student loans coming due, I was in the “I know God will provide but I don’t know what the heck that looks like” camp over the summer. Here I see – this job is such that we can put Janelle’s loans on forebearance and pay all our other bills. If I’d gotten a job in any other district I don’t think that would have been possible. I know God has provided for me in all kinds of ways throughout my life. But this is one of the times when I’ve felt the most like He is providing. Freakin’ awesome.

Salting Meat

2009-06-11T11:07:00.001-07:00

One of my aspirations is to become as good a cook with meat as my Dad is. His tri-tip is just about the best thing I’ve ever eaten. (Though those Ollalieberries I had yesterday from my neighbor’s yard are up there too.) I admire those who can just take a steak, throw it on the grill, and end up with something tasty rather than tough. The people who seem to produce the best meat are those who are able to do very little to it. Some of my best results with chicken have been when I just put a bit of salt/pepper and oil on it right before baking it.

Here’s an article on someone who experimented with salting different kinds of meat at different times. He invited some friends over and did some blind taste tests. Apparently this guy found it’s best to salt chicken a day before cooking it, and steak/pork does well if you put some salt on right before searing it. I’d be interested in any grilling/meat cooking tips you have to offer.

Also, here’s a link to a summer grilling guide on the same website. I haven’t read through it yet but it looks to have some useful info.

A few thoughts on friendship

2009-06-06T07:36:00.001-07:00

This picture is the only one I had readily available of my groomsmen and I from the wedding. It is a bad ripoff of a ska cover but it will have to do.

By some strange coincidence both of my parents are moving in the span of a week this month. This weekend we’re moving most of my Dad’s stuff and next weekend my brother and I are flying out to Vegas to meet my sister and her husband to help out Mom move from Vegas to Sacramento. In about an hour I’ll be at my Dad’s helping him move, and three of my friends will be there helping. Of all the family members involved in the move, I am the only one with friends that will be helping (with the possible exception of my niece’s boyfriend when we get to Sacramento).

This could turn into a very long-winded post so I’ll just keep it short. I’ve seen a lot of people who, as the years go by, have less and less close friends. Responsibilities increase, free time and the ability to just hang out decreases. I think this is “natural” given the kinds of lifestyles we live. I know I don’t spend very much time with my friends during this stage of my life, and unless I am intentional about it that won’t really change. I don’t want it to be that way.

Even at the height of a friendship, when you’re able to hang out all the time, I think it is the rare individual who will show up at his friend’s Dad’s place at 9am to help him move. The fact that I have multiple friends that are willing to do this speaks volumes about the kind of men they are. While I will not have particular fun during the task of helping my Dad move, I think I will actually enjoy it because I will be spending time with several of the greatest guys I know. This goes for my friends as well as my brother and my Dad.

I know the word “blessing” gets thrown around a lot but I really am genuinely blessed to have these guys in my life. I’m happy I can look at my wedding pictures and see all those men standing next to me, five years later, are still a big part of my life. They’re still the kind of friends I know I can call for anything, anytime. The kind of friends that wouldn’t just help me move but would come to help a family member move. Not everybody has friends like that at this point in their life and I am very grateful to have them, even as our lives change. I hope I can say the same thing five, ten, twenty years from now.

Tales of Brotherly Cruelty 2: Action Figures

2009-06-01T09:59:00.001-07:00

Cruelty is too strong a word for this story but it wasn’t exactly nice. Action figures and toy lines generally came with two teams. Transformers had their Autobots and Decepticons, Go-Bots had Guardians and Renegades, Barnyard Commandos had R.A.M.S. and P.O.R.K.S., MASK had…well…MASK and VENOM… There were so many awesome toys to be had, but I usually thought one side was better than the other. Of course Dave and I could not both collect the same team. So once I decided which team I wanted to collect I made sure Dave collected the other.

I do remember having to sell him on the toys I didn’t want. With TMNT stuff I had him collect the turtles and secondary characters I didn’t want, but we both had goodguys and badguys. Dave never really got to choose which toys he would collect. I made the choices for him. I would try to convince him that the team I wanted him to collect was good or cool or better. I don’t know how many time I cajoled him into getting a toy he didn’t really want with his allowance, or to put stuff on his Christmas list that complemented the stuff on my own.

I don’t think he was ever really convinced by my salesmanship, but I think he just decided it would be easier to go along with me so we could just play already. I made sure I got my way and I would not relent until he gave in and accepted the role I gave him. If he refused, there was always my favorite punishment/enforcement method: punching him in the shoulder until he gave in.

One Way Ticket to Mars

2009-05-29T11:30:00.001-07:00

Here’s the text of a presentation by physicist Paul Davies about one solution to the cost of a human trip to Mars – make it a one way trip. I’ve always been a science fiction fan, so the concept of humans colonizing other planets is pretty cool for me. This guys is basically advocating a small group of astronauts head to Mars with no expectation of returning, but with the expectation that they will eventually be joined by other humans who will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars.

The idea sounds intriguing and possibly promising – but all I keep thinking is that the people on Mars will come to see themselves as Martians rather than Earthers and then we’ll have some sort of rebellion on our hands. When times get tough Economically here we’ll debate cutting funding to the Martian colony, or perhaps giving them less supplies, and they’ll get resentful. Then they will engineer some kind of Martian super-virus secretly, create some kind of one-way Mars-to-Earth vessel, and unleash biological armageddon on Earth in preparation for a re-conquest.

Alternatively, they will discover the ruins of an ancient civilization and return as our overlords with vastly superior technology.

Or possibly they will be wiped out by aliens on their way to Earth, but their sacrifice will serve as an early warning for us. But that really would only work if the aliens weren’t too smart and went for the little colony before Earth.

In one possible scenario, the colony will be overtaken by a psychotic who forms a cult and turns it into his or her own kingdom where they kill the heretics and then demand recognition as a sovereign nation.

Perhaps after the colony is established they will be mutated by the sun’s rays in heretofore unknown ways and become a kind of super-race.

The possibilities are endless. Spaceward ho!

Tales of Brotherly Cruelty 1 : Video Games

2009-05-20T10:28:00.001-07:00

The other day I randomly remembered something I did to my brother Dave years ago. It just popped into my mind, and I thought about what a jerk I was. I’ve often remarked “I’m glad Dave still likes me” because I did some mean things to him when we were younger. If I were to psychoanalyze things I could probably find a few things to blame for my actions: stress from our parents’ divorce, being a dork and needing to have dominance over someone, personal insecurity, the fact that we were often stuck together for extended periods of time, etc. Really though, that’s not very entertaining and those are basically excuses.

In case you didn’t know, my brother Dave and I are 17 months apart. I’m a little older than him, though in school I was two grades ahead because of where our birthdays fall. We have one sister, who is seven years older than me. This made the two of us de fact best friends and we played together a lot. In many ways we played out the archetypal roles of big and little brother.

I’m going to do some posts on thing I did to my brother that were pretty messed up. Some are more messed up than others of course, but hopefully they will entertain you to some degree.

First up – Video Games.

Dave and I grew up loving to play video games. We had an Atari as little kids, a Nintendo a bit later (we got that late), a Super Nintendo, and eventually an N64. We were never really at the cutting edge of video games growing up because we never really had the money to pay exorbitant prices for games. Still, our parents often stretched their finances too far to get us those video games we wanted on holidays. While we were often partners in crime in the video game world, both lobbying our parents for favor and games, I definitely found ways to be a jerk to Dave:

1. I always got Player One. Dave wanted to be Player One, but I insisted upon being Player One at all times. I wanted control of the menu, I wanted to set the options, I wanted to hit “continue” at the end, I wanted the left side of the screen. I demanded the P1 controller and if I didn’t get it, Dave felt the pain. This rarely came up because I established my place as P1 early and he usually didn’t fight me on it.

1a. I got first pick of characters. Occasionally we’d play a game, like TMNT, where you had a choice of more than two characters. If this were the case, I would always demand first choice. If I wanted to play as Michaelangelo, Dave could not. Ever. I always got first choice. If he got used to playing a different character and I changed my mind – then he had to get used to playing a different character. I usually picked my favorites and stuck with them – and I often tried to convince Dave that his guy really was cool so he thought it was his decision and not mine – but if a conflict ever arose I made sure I got to play who I wanted.

2. In co-op games, I had power-up priority. If there was ever a chance to upgrade your weapon or get a power-up in a co-op game, I had priority. I wouldn’t hog them all, of course. (It’s important your teammate has upgraded weapons too, after all.) But in most games there would be some kind of upgrade tree – you could have missiles or spread shots or whatever else – and I always got to choose my tree. If there were no trees then we would be pretty good about taking turns with the power-ups – but I always tried to make sure I had full advantage of the upgrades, and if there was anything left over for Dave that was fine.

3. In single-player games, Dave had to help me but I may not have helped him. Mega Man 2 was a single-player game, but if you held down the A button on the second controller, then the person playing the game could “super jump” and would never die if they fell into a pit. Any time I wanted to play I would make sure Dave held the button down for me. He had to sit there and watch me play. If he wanted to do something else he would not be allowed to do so. Occasionally he realized he held some power because if he took his finger off the button (something he did “accidentally” quite often) my guy would die. This led to some negotiations (if you hold the button for me I’ll hold it for you) but by and large I made sure if there was some way Dave could help me while I was playing a game I would get him to do it.

4. Dave got the crappy controller. As Big Brother (and Player One), I saw it as my right to have the best controller. We always seemed to have one good controller and one sub-optimal controller. Whether it was because a button was sticky or it was some stupid “custom” controller, one was almost always inferior. I made sure Dave used that one. Of course I would try to convince him it was better if I could, but in the end it just came down to me demanding my way.

5. He could not “cheap” me. If Dave were beating me at any competitive game I would generally accuse him of “cheaping” me. This term comes specifically from Street Fighter 2. He’d jump at me in the air and keep hitting the “short kick” button, which is a really fast strike. He’d jump up as Ken (I got to play Ryu because I wanted, and he was stuck with Ken) and that freaking knee would come down on me. I wasn’t good enough to do anything about it most of the time, so whenever he would start “cheaping” me I would warn him. I’d say:

“Stop cheaping me! Stop or I’m going to hit you.”

*He continues to beat me.*

“Stop or I’ll hit you!”

*He furiously hits the button, trying to kill my guy before the inevitable occurs.*

*I hit him in the shoulder until he stops.*

I’m sure there were other ways I was a jerk to Dave over video games. I think I remember trying to convince him to ask for a video game I wanted for his birthday so I could get the game. These are the ones that come most readily to mind. I have some real fond memories of video games with my brother. It was practically a tradition for the two of us to ride our bikes to Doorstep Video and rent a video game or two for the weekend on Fridays. We had lots of fun playing games together, like Contra or Guerilla War (so much fun) or one of the countless games where you fly a plane and blow up everything on the screen. Oh yeah, and Double Dragon, that game was awesome too. Lots of good memories – but man, I was a jerk!

Big English Test

2009-05-07T07:42:00.001-07:00

Things have been fairly busy of late, hence my lack of updating this blog. I’m currently trying to expend any extra mental energy I have in preparation for the English CSET. It’s a big several-hours-long test (or rather, collection of 4 tests) I’m taking to prove subject matter competence in English. With that, I’ll be able to teach both English and Social Science in High School. This should increase my employability, as I’ll be able to teach a wider variety of classes.

English has always been a strong subject for me because I’ve always enjoyed reading. I also tend to enjoy being pedantic, so you’d think this test would be easy for me. As it stands I’m not too worried about two of the tests. They will require a bit of brushing up but for the most part I should be able to write my way through them. One of the tests is entirely multiple choice and it covers grammar and linguistics. As far as grammar is concerned I generally know what sounds right but have a hard time explaining what past perfect progressive tense is or what a participle phrase is. Linguistics are almost completely new to me as an area of study deeper than the occasional pop science article.

So back to studying.

FYI - “past perfect progressive tense” is used when you are trying to indicate an ongoing event that was completed in the past prior to some other event. For example, “I had been anticipating a Social Science job until I learned they were slightly less in demand than baristas.”

And yes I had to consult my notes to remind me what past perfect progressive tense is.

Stupid Things “Christian” Kids Say

2009-03-26T20:53:00.001-07:00

Today at lunch I was sitting in class listening to the Gay Straight Alliance meeting. They were a bit upset because the club apparently has some lack of direction so they got to discussing what they see as some of the biggest issues on campus they could try to address. I paid extra attention to listen to what they brought up and the results were unsurprising but disappointing nonetheless.

The first girl to speak said she was having some trouble with something her best friend said. She was vague at first about what her friend had said and just remarked that she wished her friend would have worded it differently. The club president pushed a bit to hear what exactly her friend had said. The girl started with “Well, she’s very religious, Christian.” The response was a chorus of understanding “ooohhhhs” and an “enough said.”

When pressed further she revealed that her Christian friend said “why should I care about homosexuals when they’re all going to burn in hell anyway?”

Who the crap is raising their kids to talk this way? The next thing the girl said about her friend sounded a lot more like something you’d hear out of Jesus’ mouth than what the supposedly Christian kid said:

“It’s okay if she believes something different. I mean, I don’t like it but I need to accept that about her and be her friend. That’s what this club is about – acceptance. So I know I need to accept her. I just wish she would have used different words.”

I know I butcher the message of Jesus in my daily life plenty to others and I do plenty of harm to the gospel with my actions. I can sit in judgment of no one. But I think the first girl is closer to the heart of Jesus than the one who wears the Christian label.

How sad that a club trying to stand up for a group that often gets made fun of and ostracized has this experience with Christians. How sad that we followers of Christ are not known for our love but instead for our hatreds.

Sermon / Podcast Recommendation

2009-03-18T13:27:00.001-07:00

This won’t be useful to many of you but some of you should appreciate it. I’m always on the lookout for good podcasts to listen to while I’m driving or working out. Many churches are now podcasting their sermons. I wanted to recommend one particular sermon podcast to those of you who might benefit from such a thing – that of the Village Church in Texas. Matt Chandler is their lead pastor and the guy who preaches most of the time, but I’ve heard one sermon from another guy and enjoyed what he had to say too.

They’re a Reformed church and I’m not Reformed (that means they believe in Predestination and are Calvinist) but I still greatly enjoy the preaching and think it is some of the best I’ve heard. The focus on God’s grace, preaching the Gospel, and the lack of moralism is awesome. It enriches me and if you’re looking for something worthwhile to listen to on your mp3 player give it a try.

Following this link will take you to the Sermons page where you can download them individually, subscribe to the podcast, and even get study guides related to each of the sermons. If you do a search in the iTunes store for “The Village Podcast” or “Matt Chandler The Village” you should find the podcast and be able to subscribe to it.

Check out this Birth Control Book

2009-03-11T14:36:00.001-07:00

I was just alerted to the presence of this book on birth control, available at Amazon. The entire title is: BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!! Yes, it is in caps. Yes, the two exclamation points are part of the title. And in case you are wondering: yes, this book was inspired by the Holy Spirit. The author said so. She uses Bible verses so you know everything she says is legit. In addition, the book itself is written in all caps. You need to read it. You can get it here.

Living the Dream

2009-03-09T20:18:00.001-07:00

I just thought I’d post a little update since Janelle and I have been pretty scarce lately in our social circles. The second semester is in full swing now and our schedule has hit full tilt as well. Janelle is working full-time as a 3rd grade teacher and is a full-time student finishing her Master’s. I’m student teaching, which means I am essentially working full-time for no pay (though my master teacher is great about getting me opportunities to fill in here and there as a sub for some pay) and I am also a full-time student.

I am taking this week off to let my body recover a bit, but have been getting up at 4:40 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to work out. Every morning I need to leave for work by 7 and Janelle by 8. Most of the time I pick Belle up right after work and Janelle gets home around 5:30ish. We eat dinner, play with Belle and put her to bed around 8ish. Whenever we can, we cram in things like grading papers and lesson planning and getting our own schoolwork done.

It seems like we’ve all been sick the past couple of months pretty consistently, which has made us a bit more tired at the end of the day. Yesterday and today have been the worst for me, but I think I’m starting to get better.

Some Saturdays I attend class for the first half of the day, and every Sunday we’re part of South Bay Church, a new church start. I show up there at 7 to help with setup and leave around 1:30 when we’re all packed up.

Our schedules are jam-packed and we feel like we’re running in survival mode. I think part of the reason we are sick is because we’ve sort of run ourselves into the ground.

It may sound like I’m complaining…and I may be. This is also a world where busyness is considered by many as some kind of badge of honor. We often try to one-up each other with how little sleep we got or how busy we are. There’s probably some of that in this post as well. I’d like to think, though, that I’m also posting this just to keep you updated on what’s going on with us and why you aren’t seeing too much of us lately. We know this pace isn’t healthy but we also know it’s just for a season.

Come July we will both have finished our credential programs, Janelle will have finished her Master’s, I will have four classes left to complete mine, and we will have the summer to recover and look for work in the Fall. The job market for teachers isn’t too hot this year but we are optimistic and know God will continue to provide one way or another. It is a cliche thing to say but God really has provided for us in some pretty amazing ways since we’ve gotten married and He continues to do so. We are pushing hard right now because we believe in the long run we are setting ourselves up to be able to live the kinds of lives we want and that God made us to live.

I recently made the mistake of complaining to a friend about my busy schedule and lack of time to myself and he said this to me: “you’re the one that fell in love and got married and started a family.” Some days I have to remind myself in the midst of my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual exhaustion: I really am living the dream. I have a great wife and daughter, awesome family and friends, a good education, good health, and live more comfortably than 99 percent of the people who have ever lived on this planet.

So who am I to complain?

I’m Jackson, that’s who!

Osteen and Pork

2009-03-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

Yikes. At first I thought for sure he was joking but sadly it doesn't sound like it. Let this be Exhibit A that simply reading the Bible with good intentions and bad hermeneutics can lead to all sorts of whack.

Lincoln's Fart Joke

2009-02-19T20:48:00.000-08:00

It may surprise you to learn that Abraham Lincoln, widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, Presidents in American History, was a big fan of crude humor. He was also apparently a good storyteller - it was said he "could make a cat laugh." I heard this joke of his re-told today and it brought me to tears. Apparently it's not close to the crudest he told (one contemporary referred to him as "possibly the most obscene individual ever"), but it is, in my estimation, gut-bustingly hilarious:

There was a party once, not far from Springfield, and among the crowd was one of those men who had audacity. Cheeky, quick-witted, never off guard on any occasion. The audacious man, chosen to be the carver of the turkey at the dinner table, whetted his great carving knife and got down to business carving the bird. The man of audacity expended too much force and let a fart, a loud fart, so that all the people heard it distinctly. It shocked all.

A deep silence reigned.

However, the audacious man was entirely self-possessed. He pulled off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, spat on his hands, whetted the carving knife again, never cracking a smile or moving a muscle on his face. It became a wonder in the minds of all the men and women how the fellow was to get out of his dilemma. He squared himself and said loudly and distinctly, “Now, by God, I’ll see if I can’t cut up this turkey without farting!”

If you don't think that's funny I really don't know what to tell you. And if you don't think I'm going to share this joke with every single history class I teach from now on you don't know me very well.

The Stimulus – I hope I’m Wrong

2009-02-16T13:40:00.001-08:00

So I figure I’ll post on the stimulus package being signed soon by President Obama (aka the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”). It begins at $787 billion dollars and is certain to cost over a trillion dollars once everything is taken into account. I have a few problems with this bill and think it is going to make things worse, not better. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid I’m not.

I don’t think government spending is the right way to get the economy out of a depression. Keynesian Economics follows the principle that when an economy hits a downturn one of the chief ways for the Government to stimulate the economy is to increase spending. In this way the Government is supposed to be creating demand that the consumers aren’t creating, thus keeping business in business and keeping people employed.

While FDR gets a lot of credit as one of our greatest Presidents, no serious historian or economist argues that the New Deal is what got the U.S. out of the Great Depression. For those of you who don’t remember your U.S. History, the New Deal is the name for the unprecedented Federal spending undertaken by FDR in an attempt to get the U.S. out of the Great Depression in the 1930’s. He started all kinds of Government agencies, instituted Social Security, and greatly expanded the role of the Federal Government. We take it for granted today that many things are the responsibility of the Government that used to be the responsibility of individuals. That’s a whole different post – but it appears to me that when massive Government programs have been tried in the past to rescue the U.S. from a depression, they have not worked. In fact, a recent study led many economists to believe that the New Deal actually had the opposite effect and prolonged the Great Depression.

What makes this so difficult for people like us is that we have “expert” economists telling us opposite things. Some say this massive stimulus package is necessary and others say it is not. They all have lots of degrees and knowledge and whatever else that is supposed to make them know more than us…but they have totally divergent points of view on whether this will work or not. It seems to me if you’re going to borrow and spend around a trillion dollars you should have a pretty powerful consensus that it’s going to work. I’ve heard those in favor of this bill saying that “doing something is better than doing nothing.”

That may be true – but if that something is an unprecedented amount of spending and taxes foisted upon our children and their children – spending money we do not have – I’m not sure this something is better than nothing. From where I stand the burden of proof is on those calling for this gargantuan spending and I don’t think they’ve met it. Especially when you consider the historical context and the failure of the New Deal to get us out of the Depression.

There is all kinds of spending in this bill that seems to have very little with “stimulus” in the form of creating jobs and is more in line with a bunch of government programs that people have wanted to get passed and now they have the chance under the guise of “saving the economy.” I understand there is a genuine philosophical difference – for some any government spending qualifies as “stimulus” (therefore “waste” doesn’t matter because you’re not spending for product, you’re spending just to spend because that by its very nature is supposed to be stimulative – a la this article) but I don’t think it’s controversial to question the stimulative value of much of the crap in this bill. It’s telling that those in favor of the bill would actually argue that inefficient use of money doesn’t really matter as long as we’re spending money.

I for one would like to know that if the Government is taking my money they are spending it efficiently and not just to spend it. Especially in this case when they are spending hundreds of billions of dollars they don’t have – that they are going to take from you and me and our children and their children. We have to borrow this money from foreign countries like China. It can’t be conjured up out of thin air. If we borrow at this rate there’s no guarantee we won’t see some super inflation and see foreign investors stop loaning us money. I see it as a massive trainwreck and I honestly have some fear about how it’s going to work out (or not work out).

Obama has recently been criticizing the opposition to the bill, saying that those in opposition are obstructionists who (and he says this repeatedly) think “tax cuts alone” will solve the problems and have a “knee jerk anti-government reaction.” That kind of dishonest rhetoric coming from someone who talks big about being bi-partisan is pretty disheartening. While Republicans have zero credibility in criticizing wasteful government spending because they spend like crazy, that does not mean there is no valid reason to criticize the stimulus package.

Many who oppose the bill are like myself – believe some Government spending may be a good idea, in combination with tax cuts – but don’t want to spend such a massive amount of money or spend it on so many questionable and wasteful programs. Especially after the TARP (bank bailout) has seen us throw hundreds of billions away with nobody having any real clue what happened to the money (other than executives giving themselves large bonuses at our expense).

I hope this stimulus package succeeds. I hope I am wrong and this spending really does get the economy back on track. History gives me very little reason to believe this will be the case, but I’ll hope for it anyway. That’s all I can do. But mark me down as someone opposed to this stimulus package and someone who is looking at the future of the U.S. with less optimism than I used to.

Stay Motivated 8: Stop making excuses.

2009-02-15T04:00:00.000-08:00

8. Stop making excuses. The main gist of all these suggestions I’ve offered is to remove any kind of excuse you can make to yourself that will keep you from persevering. Excuses are the real enemy, and they come up all the time. Excuses got me to be a big fatty most of my life that was unhappy with how he looked but did nothing about it anyway. Each of the suggestions on staying motivated I’ve offered have been linked to excuses that I’ve had to deal with. You probably have your own set. If you’re going to get healthy, eat right, and exercise – you have to stop making whatever excuses you make.

If you allow yourself to make excuses then you’re going to fail, and it will be your fault. If you’ve decided you want to make a change, then make it. If you’re not ready and you’re going to listen to your own excuses, then don’t make it. But don’t blame anyone or anything other than yourself. Your health is your own responsibility. We all have different obstacles to overcome when it comes to our health. Some have medical conditions that make some stuff harder than others. Healthy looks different for all of us (remember number 7). But you’re not helpless. You have the strength and power to make the change you want – if you will let yourself succeed, and if you will stop making excuses.

You are not too busy to eat right and exercise. I’ll compare my schedule with yours over the past year any day of the week and I can just about guarantee I’ve got as much going on in my life as you do. You have the time. The question is whether or not you will make the time. Saying you “don’t have time” is the lamest thing ever.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life whining and feeling bad about your health or how you look? Then by all means give in to the excuses that keep you in bed in the morning, or the rationalizations that allow you to eat those extra five cookies at the end of the day. But if you really want to change and if you really want to succeed – you have to stop making excuses. Stop selling yourself short. You really can do it. Trust me. If I can do it, you absolutely can do it.

Stay Motivated 7: Don’t compare yourself to others.

2009-02-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

7. Don’t compare yourself to others. Sometimes I look at someone else and think “you know, no matter how hard I work out I am never going to look like that.” That’s not always a bad thing – I don’t want to be as swole as some dudes, so it’s not particularly de-motivating. Other times, it is. Sometimes I look at all the fit, good-looking people and think that I will never look as good as they do. “So why bother at all?” comes the little voice in my head. “You’ll never look as good as they do so why bother trying? Just enjoy eating whatever you want and sleeping instead of getting up to work out. It’s pointless anyway.”

If and when you find yourself thinking that way – ignore it. You’re trying to get fit because you want a change in your own life. You’re not happy with your situation. You need to be happy with yourself in relation to yourself – not in relation to others. It goes back to the reasons you’re doing this – are you working out to look better than anyone else? Or are you working out to look better than you currently do? Are you working out to have bigger broceps than that guy curling 150lb dumbbells, or are you working out to be healthy and live longer? You’ve got to know why you’re doing what you’re doing so you can stop the comparison game. Just worry about yourself.

Stay Motivated 6: Eat and exercise efficiently.

2009-02-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

6. Eat and exercise efficiently. I don’t know about you but I want to know if I am inconveniencing myself I want to know it’s for something that’s going to work. When I changed my eating and exercise habits I did some homework to make sure I wouldn’t just be spinning my wheels. If you’re on some diet or doing some kind of exercise that you’re not absolutely convinced will work – you’re not going to stick with it. You need to have the confidence that you will benefit from the sacrifices you are making.

Do whatever you need to do to learn about and convince yourself that what you’re doing is going to work. If you think you’re just doing another gimmick diet or workout that will not help you succeed in the end, then you’re probably going to give up. You need to be able to shut that voice up inside of you that says “what’s the point, this isn’t going to work” when you’re pushing yourself during a workout or choosing to eat healthy instead of crappy. Be confident that the way you’re eating is going to be effective. Be confident that the exercise you’re doing is actually helping you. Do some homework and be smart about it – it will give you an extra boost when you’re looking for excuses to give up.

Note: this means you do actually have to do homework. I don’t mean you should just pick some diet and then tell yourself over and over that it will work until you believe it completely. There are bad diets out there, there is bad information, there are bad fads. It’s possible to bust your butt working out and eating a certain way and end up wasting your time. So do your homework and make sure that’s not you. Decide what you want and then figure out the best way to make it happen.

Stay Motivated 5: Buy new clothes.

2009-02-12T04:05:00.000-08:00

5. Buy new clothes. If you drop weight and can therefore fit into new clothes – go buy some. It may sound dumb but when I bought a pair of 36” waist jeans (instead of the 38/40 I was wearing before) it was a huge encouragement to me. If money’s a problem just go to the thrift store – you can find at least one article of clothing there that will do you justice. And if not you can at least laugh at how you can wear ugly clothes that are smaller than the ones you wore before.

It is so awesomely motivating to wear clothes you did not wear before because you looked bad in them, and now you look better. Or to wear something smaller than you wore before. Every time I put on a pair of 34” pants I feel motivated. You might also try out new kinds of clothes you didn’t bother with before. Today I am wearing a button-up shirt, tucked into a pair of NON-JEANS (gasp) – and you can see my belt. When I looked in the mirror and actually saw my belt – it made me excited to wake up early tomorrow morning and get to the gym. So you may not think about it – but if you’ve lost some weight go try on some clothes that are smaller than the ones you currently wear – you may surprise yourself.

Stay Motivated 4: Talk to others about it.

2009-02-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

4. Talk to others about it! If you keep your goals or desire for change a secret it’s easier to give up on it. We all know you shouldn’t care what other people think – but we all do to an extent. So tell somebody, or lots of somebodies, about what you want to do. That way you can be shamed into continuing when you need to. Sure, you could give up, but then those people you told are going to realize you’re just another one of those people that talks about wanting to get healthy but never does anything about it. Do you want to be that guy? I sure don’t.

Me blogging about this is another way of talking about it. Look at me talking all big – I better live up to it. Or I’m going to have a bunch of friends thinking “Jackson is so lame.” Come to think of it, I probably already have a bunch of friends that think that. But I want it to be for other reasons. Share your intentions to change with at least one other person and it will increase your chances of sticking with it.

Stay Motivated 3: Know why you are doing this.

2009-02-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

3. Know why you are doing this. Why are you making this change? Why are you trying to get in shape? Why are you trying to eat better? Why are you passing on that glorious piece of cheesecake? Why are you dragging yourself out of bed and getting in your car to go work out when you could get another hour of sleep? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, and if your answers aren’t sufficient for you – you will fail.

When I first lost weight before meeting Janelle my primary motivation was to get thinner so girls would like me. As I ran around Lake Elizabeth or ate my chicken breast at Outback while my buddies savored the garlic mashed potatoes I would remember why I was doing this: for the ladies. Yes, it’s shallow as heck, but it was my motivation. I dropped weight throughout the year, met Janelle, got engaged, and lost my motivation. My habits also took a hit; I wanted to spend lots of time with her, which meant I’d eat with her and her family or hang out instead of working out. I no longer had a good answer to those questions – at least not one I really believed. I knew working out would make me healthier and feel better but I didn’t really care.

Over the next couple of years I developed new motivation and now the answers to those questions keep me motivated. When my alarm goes off at 4:45am and I’m tired because I didn’t sleep well and I don’t want to get up, I can answer the question I ask myself: “why am I doing this?” Make sure you can do the same. If you don’t answer the question before your alarm goes off, and answer it in a way that means something to you, then you’ll have a hard time sticking with it.

Stay Motivated 2: Don’t give up when you hit roadblocks.

2009-02-08T03:50:00.000-08:00

2. Don’t give up when you hit roadblocks. You will mess up and you will fail from time to time. You won’t push yourself as hard as you could have on a workout, you’ll give in and have that crappy food – deal with it and move on. Do not tell yourself “well I messed up that one time so what’s the point, I’ll just eat like crap the rest of this day/week/month/year and start over again.” That is the road to failure and a downward spiral that will ensure your continued dissatisfaction with yourself. You’ll screw up – so keep going!

There will also be days or weeks where you don’t see or feel any progress. You might start off great and then not lose any weight for a couple of weeks. Don’t give up. Keep going. It happens. If you’re really in this for the long term – and you are really changing your eating habits and exercising regularly – you will get healthier. It’s science!

Stay Motivated to Get Healthy: Part 1 – Set Small Goals.

2009-02-06T10:43:00.001-08:00

Losing a bit of weight isn’t that difficult in the short term. Just about anybody can adhere to a diet for a week or two and lose a few pounds. Gyms make all their money on the huge percentage of people who purchase memberships, go for two weeks, and then never return. We all know what it’s like to do something for a while and then give up. It’s really hard to develop new habits, and when it comes to eating and exercise I think this is doubly true. When you live a busy life it’s tough to eat right and find the time to exercise. Unless you’ve grown up eating right you will likely have to work hard to change many of the bad habits you have related to food and activity. So how do you keep going?

I don’t know how you keep going. I can share what has kept me going so far, though. February 2008 was about the time I got serious with my own health, and that was a year ago. There have been a couple times over the course of that year where I slacked off a bit but overall I have been pretty consistent with my good health habits and they are becoming more and more internalized, and less and less of a struggle to maintain.

This is the first of a several-part series of short posts on staying motivated to become healthy. I decided to split it into short posts because that increases the likelihood you’ll read them. I am of course as always interested in hearing your thoughts on each of these posts, and also different ways you stay motivated. Up first…

1. Set Small Goals. This is pretty basic stuff – but set small, attainable goals. I weighed around 245 when I first got started. My first goal was to get to 225 lbs. Ultimately I knew I’d want to lose more weight than that, but even for a merciless cynic like myself setting a smaller goal was helpful. If my first goal was 170 lbs it would be a long time before I could celebrate any kind of victory. My current goal is to get down to 180, though I’m more focused on body fat than weight right now. I’m going to lose weight slower this way but it’s fine. It’s important to set goals in areas besides weight as well.

Set goals for whatever you want to change. When you’re trying to change the way you eat, tell yourself you’ll eat that way 5 days a week, or 6, or whatever. Instead of going from eating 5000 calories a day on Tuesday moving down to 2000 a day on Wednesday – ramp yourself down. The goal needs to be meaningful to keep you motivated and help you see results, but it also needs to be attainable. Do this with your days of exercise, the weights you lift, whatever. When you succeed, set a new goal. I am first to roll my eyes and say “shut up playing stupid tricks on yourself doesn’t work” but I know short terms goals help.

Student Teaching Has Begun

2009-02-05T08:29:00.001-08:00

This is my first week doing student teaching. I’m at Irvington every day and in a number of different classrooms. I’m going to be teaching mostly Economics and World History, with some forays into AP U.S. History. Right now things are busy at the school as students clamor to get teachers to give them breaks to make up for an entire semester of slacking off, and teachers are grading finals and turning in their semester grades. Things still aren’t particularly clear regarding what my responsibilities will be and what the rhythm is going to be…that makes me a little uneasy but I know it’ll get sorted out soon enough. I’m eager to get teaching again and have already learned how to avoid getting “owned.”

Apparently if someone says your first name and you respond with “what?” they can “own” you by then saying your last name. The Sophomores in my World History class tried it on me and I’ve been owned once, but now I’m wise to their little game. You’ve gotta keep your guard up. Yesterday I tried to own a couple of them but they are ever vigilant.

This has led to a more packed schedule for Janelle and I. During the week we have almost no free time…we get home, cook dinner, get stuff ready for the next day, get Belle to bed, and then need to get to bed pretty soon after that in order to get up the next day. Most evenings there’s some school work to be done. We alternate workout days, where we get to the gym at 5am. I know that’s early but if we don’t get up then, we won’t be able to do it at all. We will be cherishing our weekends for the next several months.

100 Often Mispronounced Words

2009-02-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret to those who know me that I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to spelling, grammar, and pronouncing words correctly. I tend to think my reputation as a “corrector” exceeds my actions, but as my sociology professor told me, “things that are perceived as real are very real in their consequences.” Whether I am as much of a Grammar Nazi as people perceive me to be is irrelevant.

My friend Adam is pretty similar to me when it comes to pronouncing words properly and I love it when he and I get to talk about words. We both understand that when you correct someone else’s pronunciation of a word, it is an act of love and consideration for the other person. It’s not a matter of trying to show off what you know, it’s trying to help the other person out.

This past week I came across this list of 100 often mispronounced words. Here are some of the highlights for me:

Irregardless is not a word. The word is “regardless.”

Alzheimere’s Disease is not “Old Timer’s Disease.”

You escape from a bad situation…you do not excape.

I especially hate it when people say exspecially, but find it much more annoying when people say supposably instead of supposedly.

Go read through the list to help yourself out and see what you did or didn’t already know. I was actually surprised to find “spitting image” should be “spit and image.”

Useful Exercise

2009-01-28T04:00:00.000-08:00

Aside from eating right if you want to get healthy you’re going to have to exercise. This can take different forms but I’m just going to share a little bit about the things that have worked for me. The first time I lost some weight in 2003 the only exercise I did was run around Lake Elizabeth. I started walking of course and built up running bit by bit until one day I made it all the way around the lake. The next day I met Janelle and never did it again. That time I got down to 190 but right now I weight about 190 but am way healthier than I was in 2003. That’s because running isn’t the only thing I’m doing.

If you just lose fat that isn’t going to necessarily make you optimally healthy. It just means you have less fat, and are healthier than you were. An important thing to consider is your body fat percentage. When you lose weight you’re not always necessarily losing fat – you can also lose muscle. I wanted to lose fat and gain muscle; I’ve succeeded so far and this is how I did it:

First, I started running with the Couch to 5k Program. This is an incredibly simple program that’s designed to get you from the couch to being able to run a 5k (or 30 minutes solid) in 9 weeks by walking/jogging/running 3 days a week. I started it when I was still above 230 pounds. I was almost insulted by the first day – it said something like “walk for 3 minutes, jog for 1 minute, walk for 3 minutes, jog for 1 minute” up to 30 minutes. As I stepped out my door I thought “this will be too easy, but maybe next week I’ll get some real exercise.” I was wheezing and my heart was pounding at 30 seconds of jogging. Sweet mother of pearl. I stuck with the program though and improved greatly. This really helped me lose some significant weight and get into some better cardiovascular shape. I didn’t stick with it, though. In July of 2008 I switched to something that is even better for losing weight.

Lifting weights. I was surprised to learn this, but if you spend 30 minutes lifting weights or 30 minutes running, over the course of a 24 hour period you will burn more calories from the weights (provided you’re working hard). Running does not build any muscle, but lifting weights obviously does. Muscle tissue burns calories at a greater rate than fat; so as you build muscle your body becomes better at burning calories throughout the day. You build your body into a more efficient machine as you build up your muscle. You actually get stronger and feel much better.

It can be hard to figure out what to do when it comes to lifting weights. The gym can be intimidating and the free weight room, full of bros working on their broceps, can be a strange and frightening land. After looking into different routines, I decided on a modified version of the Starting Strength workout. Follow this link for the information on that workout. (That link is to a forum that is not for the easily offended. If you stay just in that thread you should be okay, but venture out of there at your own risk. There is profanity in there if that bugs you too.) If you want to lose weight and not be skinny-fat, I really encourage you to look into lifting weights. It is way more fun than cardio and more effective. It will also help you look and feel better as you lose weight.

An important note: make sure you get proper form down for the exercises. I hurt my knee in October because my squat form was bad and my knee still isn’t back to the way it should be. You can hurt yourself if you do weights incorrectly but really it’s not that hard to get proper form down and it feels so good to get it done. Don’t let a fear of bad form prevent you from doing weights, but don’t neglect good form either.

Women should lift weights too. Here’s a website specifically talking to women about lifting weights, and letting you know you won’t become mannish and disgusting by lifting. It gives good info on how to do lifts and gives you a workout plan to follow.

This doesn’t mean cardio is worthless – it’s good for building endurance. But lifting weights has been a revelation for me and it will help you in so many ways. Just find a legit workout plan (like the one I linked above, it’s a great beginner workout) and get going. Do not just go in and do curls or randomly do stuff. Get a workout plan and make your time in the gym efficient. Few things are more discouraging than putzing around in the gym feeling like you’re wasting your time and not getting any results. Few things are cooler than seeing yourself get stronger and feeling more vital.

Finally, read this long post here about diet, nutrition, and exercise. Don’t follow that link if you can’t handle profanity and vulgarity (there’s a lot of it there). But it gives some great information on a lot of topics related to what I’m talking about and has helped me tremendously. If you are serious about getting healthy you should read and re-read that post. It is pure gold. Really. I credit the information and resources in that link with my success up to this point.

Book Recommendation: Made to Stick

2009-01-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath. If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point then you should find this interesting too. In it the authors look at why some ideas/concepts/stories “stick” and others don’t. They tie it to a lot of things, from urban legends (waking up in a tub of ice with your kidneys gone) to marketing campaigns (Subway’s Jared) to proverbs (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush). That bird proverb has been around for thousands of years – like into the thousands B.C. Why do ideas like that work? The authors identify a few things that make for good communication of ideas/concepts, and they boil it down to this acronym:

S.U.C.C.E.S.

Yes, I know it’s spelled wrong. But it works okay. I remember it. They stay that for ideas to stick they should incorporate as many of these elements as possible: Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotion, and Stories. Each element gets its own chapter as they authors expand on the usefulness of each of them and ways to use it.

I’ve read a lot of books that I found interesting but not terribly practical. This book is not like that. The authors offer all sorts of ways to help you incorporate the ideas into your own endeavors. As someone who does a lot of communicating I found the book intensely useful and will certainly be looking to use its ideas throughout my career. It will seriously help you out. Read it and consider it an investment in yourself, no matter what your career is. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read re: communication of ideas, and I’ve read a lot.

How to Eat Better

2009-01-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

The most important element of your weight and health is what you eat. This is also referred to as your diet. I use the word diet to refer to what you eat, not some special plan you follow for three weeks and then give up. I’ve changed my eating habits and seen some success doing so. Most of you aren’t fat like I was, but you can still be “skinny fat,” meaning you’re skinny but your body fat percentage is high and you’re not particularly healthy. Here are some tips/suggestions for you if you want to eat healthier:

Remember: food is fuel. Part of the problem is how we look at food. If you look at food as fuel for your body it can help you eat better. In order to eat differently you must not look at food as an escape or a way to cope or a reward – you need to realize that the food you put into your mouth is used by your body to keep it running and build stuff – be it muscle or fat.

Eat Enough Food! Too often when people want to lose weight they cut way down and end up with a big caloric deficit. This can cause your body to shut down and stop working right; you may lose some weight for a bit but it’s your body cannibalizing your muscle rather than burning up your fat. Don’t just guess at numbers. Use these resources to figure out how much you should be eating:

Determine your Basal Metabolic Rate with this calculator. Your BMR is the amount of calories your body would burn if you stayed in bed all day.

Next, use this very simple multiplier to figure out how many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight.

I recommend you first get used to eating that amount of calories, because chances are you’re not. Once you’re eating that amount try to cut down a bit, by 10% or so. See how that works for a while and go from there. Don’t cut down too much or you’ll shoot yourself in the foot. Click here for a little more info on changing up the calories to lose weight. If you want to gain weight, go here.

Eat Early and Eat Often! Don’t skip breakfast. Eat a couple hundred calories every 2-3 hours. It will get your metabolism going and prevent you from overeating. Sometimes I hear people say “wow it’s 3pm and I haven’t eaten since breakfast” as if it’s a point of pride. It’s not going to help you lose weight. Eating smaller portions of food more frequently will help keep your blood sugar regular and keep you from eating a bunch of crap because you got real hungry.

Eat the right stuff! There are a lot of different people out there saying a lot of different things about what you should eat. I can only go by experience and what I’ve read. I’m currently reading a book called Good Calories, Bad Calories that I’ll post on later. But for now, aim for 40% of your calories to come from carbohydrates, 40% from protein, and 20% from fat. This will be tough to get used to but it’s good. The biggest problem I’ve had is reducing my carb intake. I still don’t have this down just right but it’s a good goal to shoot for. This is called your “macronutrient breakdown” and the 40/40/20 ratio is a good starting goal. Most of us eat almost all carbs and fat with very little protein. We’ve been taught to avoid fat like it’s the plague, but we load up on carbs in ridiculous amounts and get fat.

Yesterday for breakfast I had 2 eggs, 3 strips of turkey bacon, and 2 pieces of chicken sausage. It was delicious, and more healthy than one bagel. A better nutrient breakdown and less calories.

Eating the right stuff also means you will likely have to do some cooking for yourself. You can do so very quickly and easily. It takes less than 10 minutes to cook up the stuff I had for breakfast. Make yourself a lunch so you don’t eat crap like fast food. Plan what you’re going to eat ahead of time so you don’t just eat out. If you don’t have a slow cooker, get one, because they are awesome. Failing to plan what you’re going to eat ahead of time will almost certainly result in you being frustrated and staying unhealthy.

Track what you eat! This was the biggest change for me. Making the above changes is only possible if you actually pay attention to and track what you eat. Most people horribly underestimate the amount of calories they eat in a day. You eat more than you think you do. My stock answer when people ask me “how are you doing it?” has been “I pay attention to what I eat.” We eat so mindlessly, snack on little things here and there, and it all adds up. So track what you eat. I’ve found the easiest way to do this is on The Daily Plate. Sign up for a free account and start tracking your food. The site has a large database of foods and in several months I’ve only had to manually add one thing myself. They also track your macronutrients so you can easily track the 40/40/20 with a neato pie chart right on the front page. DO IT NOW!

If you screw up, don’t stop. There will be meals or days where you just totally blow it and eat like garbage. Sometimes for sanity you just need to have a gigantic piece of cheesecake. You want to change your view of food for the long term, and unless you are some kind of weirdo you are not going to go through life never having another cheesecake or ice cream sundae. It also might be useful for you to not indulge in these things until you get a grip on your food situation – but whether intentionally or not, don’t stop eating right when you mess up once. Keep going and remember you have your whole life to drop the weight and get healthy. Think long term and you’ll be good to go.

If you have any thoughts or feedback I’d love to hear it. Up next, I’ll write a bit about exercise and activity – another important element of being healthy.

So I lost some weight

2009-01-23T08:17:00.001-08:00

As most of you who read this and see me have noticed, I’ve lost some weight over the past year. The earliest I remember really being conscious of my weight was in 5th grade. In 3rd grade my best friend was Jeff Fredrickson, and he referred to me affectionately as “lard belly.” It didn’t bug me at all because I didn’t think I actually had a lard belly. Perhaps he was a prophet, because I remember from 5th grade on for sure I was conscious that I was a fat kid. Every now and then in high school I would try to do something to lose weight like eat cottage cheese and a bagel but I never really got serious about it.

In early 2003 I asked my friend Jesse to give me some nutritional pointers and decided to get serious about losing weight. At that time I started somewhere around 240 and was down to 190 by June. I ate better and started running around Lake Elizabeth. In August of that year I met Janelle and my schedule was thrown off. My motivation also decreased a bit since I’d found the woman of my dreams, and I began my descent (ascent?) back into fatness. It didn’t get totally out of control until Belle was born. She was the perfect excuse to completely let go and I got back up into the 245 range, give or take depending on the day. I’d wear 38/40 waist jeans, and XL or XXL shirts.

I was pretty constantly unhappy about my appearance and low on energy but didn’t do much about it. I recall a few times resigning myself to just being the fat guy. Most of you who know me know I have some pretty big self-confidence problems that have been improving year by year. I used to think that once I lost weight I would feel better about myself. And that is actually true, I feel way better about myself. But in order to really change the time had to come when I thought of myself as someone other than “the fat guy.” I made that change some time in early 2008. Janelle started to lose weight in late 2007 and she inspired me to do something different with myself. I was so low on energy, which made it very difficult to help with our crazy daughter and the house and work and school and all that. It put an unfair amount on Janelle’s shoulders. I don’t recall a day where I put a stake in the ground or anything but I remember in February 2008, when I got the job as a teacher at Washington, I got serious about becoming healthy, this time for the right reasons.

I have a family history of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and so on. Being so obese up to this point has generally been an embarrassment but not really a danger. With a family and a daughter, though, I realized being fat would cut into my time with them. It was also really impacting my quality of life. I didn’t have the energy to be the kind of Dad to Belle I knew I should be or the kind of husband I should be. I have enough problems being the kind of man I should be – I don’t need weight adding itself to my character flaws. So sometime in February 2008 I decided to get serious and get healthy. I’m now down to 188 (finally broke the 190 plateau consistently, I need a belt for 34” jeans to stay up, and wear L shirts) and am in better shape than I’ve ever been my entire life. Not that that’s saying much.

A number of people have asked me “what’s your secret?!” They’ve also made comments like “hey now, don’t get anorexic on us” or “don’t lose any more weight” which, while complimentary, have a tendency to be just the kind of external praise to keep me from continuing to lose weight and thinking I’ve done enough. (I haven’t.)

I educated myself as best I could on how to eat right and get healthy, and then just started doing it. I’m going to do a few posts on some of the things that have been most helpful to me when it came to losing weight and what I’m doing to be healthier and fitter. I hope those of you who need some will find some practical help and information for your own health. I also hope others of you will offer your opinion on the things I say. I don’t proclaim to be a fount of knowledge or to know everything and welcome people who know more than me offering their thoughts and corrections. This should also help me stay focused and not rest on my laurels. I’m proud of the progress I’ve made so far and feel better than ever. But it would be a shame to stop now, so I’m hoping posting a few things here will keep me in a good, healthy mindset.

As if I don’t jump around enough topic-wise on this blog…now there are going to be health and nutrition tips.

A Monstrosity of a Shake

2009-01-21T08:29:00.001-08:00

I love me a good milkshake. I tend to prefer the kind with chunks of cookie or brownie or banana or whatever else you put in it to make it wonderful. I like the contrast of the ice cream with the slightly-more-solid texture provided by the added ingredients. This means I am also a particular fan of things like Dairy Queen Blizzards, where they thrown in chunks of peanut butter cup in very large amounts. Because of this love I might be tempted to try something called the Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake. Just look at the picture. Doesn’t it look delicious?

It has been deemed The Worst Food of 2009 by Men’s Health because of its nutritional content: 2600 calories and 136g of fat (over 1 cup of sugar!). And if you have any experience with shakes like this you know you can suck them down pretty quick. In case those numbers are meaningless to you, that’s more calories than you should be eating in a day (body weight x 14 is a good measure for an active person) and way more fat.

Curse you Baskin Robbins, for making something so wonderful but so monstrous. Click this link to read up on other “worsts” of 2009, including the worst burger, salad, appetizer, etc. They also have other lists related to food. It’s interesting and enlightening.

ht: Lifehacker

Awesome Firefox Extension

2009-01-14T20:39:00.001-08:00

Those of you who use Firefox might want to check out the Ubiquity extension, which received a major update today. It’s sort of like YubNub, something I’ve been using for a while in my Firefox address bar and find incredibly useful. They allow you to use “command line” stuff to do things which can great reduce the amount of time you spend performing tasks. For example, if I want to do a Google search for 49ers I just type “g 49ers” into my address bar and it takes me to the search results page. If I want to look up the book 1984 on Amazon.com, I just type “az 1984” and I’m taken to Amazon’s website as if I’d performed the search there. There are all kinds of things you can do with it.

Ubiquity takes that concept a step further and so far has a lot of nifty commands you can perform within Firefox. I’d like to see it integrated into the address bar (or "awesome bar” as Firefox 3 refers to it) rather than having to press ctrl+space to bring it up but it’s still pretty early in development so I’m willing to live with it.

If you use Firefox and like the idea of doing stuff faster, and/or just like trying out new things, you should go install the extension.

Wasting Education Money

2009-01-13T20:29:00.001-08:00

Before we increase the education budget I think we need to deal with the massive amounts of waste. In a state as large as California I have no doubt that there will always be some degree of waste. We’ll never have a completely efficient educational system and that’s fine. But too often I hear people clamoring for an increased educational budget (and therefore higher taxes to pay for it). Many in that same camp suggest that those who oppose higher education spending are somehow against education, or children, or want to abandon our public schools. This is certainly not the case.

A study recently came out from Stanford (hardly a hotbed of financial conservatism) and here’s some info on it:

Every study of California's school dilemma, including the 1,700-page opus produced by a Stanford University team, has pointed out the correlation between socioeconomic status and academic success.

A new monograph by the Legislature's budget analyst points out that the state has more than 45 programs spending more than $9 billion in state and federal funds to help the 3 million "ED" kids to overcome academic problems. But as the report, released Tuesday, concludes, "We believe California's existing approach for helping these students fails on virtually every score."

$9 billion wasted. This is what happens when you throw money at a problem and think that will solve it. Lots of ineffective programs, staggering waste, and no help for the children who need it. What’s worse is that these programs aren’t likely to be changed or done away with. Such is the nature of government sprawl.

This study also confirmed what many teachers “on the ground” already know: a huge part of a student’s academic success is determined by their home circumstances. For various reasons, some legitimate and some not, many parents are completely unengaged in their kids’ education and do nothing to encourage them. Until that problem is dealt with you can throw all the money you want down the abyss of “helping the children” but it’s never going to do anything. Truly caring for students doesn’t mean wasting your money in order to make yourself feel better. That’s too easy. Truly caring for students means finding out how to fix the real problems and putting the efforts there.

I say this as someone who is going to have an incredibly difficult time finding a job this next school year. I’m finishing my credential program this year and the district I work in is losing millions of dollars and has already instituted a hiring freeze. It will take a small miracle for me to get a job as a full time social science teacher this next year. But I don’t want to raise taxes to increase California’s educational budget.

The money’s already there…it’s just being flushed down the toilet.

Thanks for reading

2008-12-31T13:08:00.001-08:00

It’s the end of the year and as much as I’d like to find something interesting or profound to say I can’t. As I type this I’m sitting in the doorway to Belle’s room while she is going down for a nap. Since we’re on Christmas break we decided to get her out of our bed and into her own; things are going well. Right now she is singing to herself rather than screaming “DADDY I NEED YOU!” for an hour. Pretty soon I expect I won’t have to sit in her doorway and she’ll just go to sleep.

I just wanted to put up a post here to thank all of you who read for reading. I know a few of you read this blog and comment and I know there are some of you who don’t comment. I generally just do this blog to get out some creative energy (such as mine is) and offer my thoughts on a few things. I appreciate any time any of you spend reading this and I especially appreciate any time you contribute by commenting or e-mailing me.

If you read this blog I’d love to hear from you via e-mail or a comment or something so I know better who is actually reading. And if you have any particular thing you’d like me to post about or something feel free to offer suggestions. Lots of times I just don’t know what to write about.

So thanks for reading this year, I hope next year is better, and I hope you have a safe and happy New Years’ Eve.

Interpreting the Bible

2008-12-18T09:01:00.001-08:00

This is the post I have been wanting to write for a long time about interpreting the Bible. I think it is useful reading both for those who believe the Bible is God’s Word and those who remain unconvinced. I think sometimes Christians like myself forget what a big thing it is to say “God says” XYZ, and then quote Bible verses for it. Everything we say about what the Bible says is an interpretation of what it says. So how do we properly interpret what it is saying, so we can get at the message the Bible is communicating rather than the message we want to put into it?

In some previous posts and comment threads, questions have arisen as to how it is that we arrive at interpretations of particular verses – how do we decide what they say? I plan on doing a short series of posts with some basic hermeneutical and exegetical guidelines to help shed some light on that process – but for now, check out what the internet monk has to say. Here’s a little of it:

In all seriousness, evangelicals have a remarkable problem when it comes to treating the scriptures with respect. It’s astounding how many Christians tend to act as if any thought that comes into their head pertaining to the Bible is de facto true because they believe the Spirit is guiding them. If your use of the Bible were like handling a gun, you might have shot several people by now. Put that thing down and learn some basics on using the weapon.

Click here to read the rest. I would recommend different books than the iMonk when it comes to learning about hermeneutics but I think he has a lot of good stuff to say about the importance of realizing just what we are doing when we go at interpreting scripture. Understanding Biblical interpretation is important both for those who accept and those who do not accept the Bible as something special. Those who criticize the message of the Bible while not understanding how to read it are as mistaken as those who use the Bible as a club claiming divine authority all the while using terrible hermeneutical and exegetical processes.

People You Will Meet in a Prayer Circle

2008-12-15T18:07:00.001-08:00

Some of you won’t be able to identify with this, but some of you will. In Christian circles (no pun intended) we tend to pray a lot. The manners and social aspect of prayer with others have always been interesting to me. It took me a long time to be comfortable praying out loud in front of others, but I eventually got over that. That was a good thing, because once I started working at a church I was the Official Prayer at every family gathering. Every time a prayer was called for it was assumed I’d do the praying. But that’s not the point of this post.

One of the more common ways Christians pray is in a prayer circle, where everyone stands around (handholding optional) and takes turns praying out loud. Today I came across this hilarious list that anyone who has been involved in your standard evangelical Christian prayer circle will be able to relate to. It’s a list of people you will meet in a prayer circle – and it is wonderfully accurate. Here’s a taste:

2. The Almost-er
This is the person sitting near you that is constantly on the verge of praying. You can hear them doing that little breath thing, that small inhale that occurs a split second before someone speaks. And you can hear it because it's loud in the deafening silence of the prayer circle. Every time you are about to say a prayer you hear the Almost-er and you stop out of courtesy. And then they don't pray. So you start again and an inhale from the Almost-er stops you again. It's quite a little dance.

Click here to read the rest of that article.

A.W. Tozer on Pride

2008-12-02T09:50:00.001-08:00

I want to share a passage I read a while ago that’s always stuck with me when I think about the issue of pride. In Matthew 11.28-30, Jesus says this:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11.28-30 (NIV)

What follows here is part of A.W. Tozer’s great work The Pursuit of God, where he discusses a bit of what he thinks Jesus means when referring to the burdens we carry around. This is one of my go-to passages when I’m thinking about pride:

The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means "a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion." Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do; it is what comes to use when we cease to do. His own meekness, that is the rest.

Let us examine our burden. It is altogether an interior one. It attacks the heart and the mind and reaches the body only from within. First, there is the burden of pride. The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you hope to have inward peace? The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringin under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them.

Such a burden as this is not necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to His rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say, "Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They ahve whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself and cease to care what men think."

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is, in the sight of God, more important than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteousness shall shine forth in the kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for that day.

In the meantime, he will have attained a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings."

- A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

The Lens of Faith, Part Three (The End)

2008-11-23T04:00:00.000-08:00

This is the third of three posts – read post one and post two for context.

While faith must be grounded in reason and is not just wishful thinking, there is also a certain amount of choice involved. People must reach conclusions of their own regarding what is or is not too big of a leap of faith. I want to believe what is true, not just what makes me feel good. If I simply wanted to believe something to make me feel good I would not subscribe to Christianity. I follow Jesus because I believe He is the real deal. Some beliefs I hold more strongly than others. For example, it is central to my belief in Jesus that He is not simply a good teacher but is God incarnate, a member of the Trinity. It is also central to my belief in Him that He lived a perfect, sinless life and died on the cross as payment for the sins of all humanity. I believe those things strongly because I believe they are clearly laid-out in Scripture and a coherent picture of Jesus drawn from Scripture must, I believe, include those things. Other beliefs about God and what He does on Earth are less well-defined and more up for debate and interpretation.

For example – the Bible says:

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” – James 1.17 (NIV)

That seems straightforward-ish, but how do I identify what a gift is and what a coincidence is? Is every good thing that happens a gift? What about things that may be good but I interpret them as bad? These are the kinds of decisions we have to make – how are we going to view the world? Because I tend to view the world as a critical thinker I am very slow to attribute something to the work of God unless I feel like I have a really good reason to do so. But is there any harm in attributing something to God when He didn’t do it?

For example – the person who thanks God for the good parking space – what harm is there in that? What does it matter if someone wants to believe God orchestrated events so they could walk twenty less feet to go into the mall and buy crap they don’t need? I think it can be harmful or counterproductive in a couple ways.

First, I would argue the harm is not in that particular instance – and perhaps that little incident would “grow” their faith or make them think more about God – but I think that sort of stuff breeds a dangerous kind of credulity that makes the person vulnerable. If someone simply claims God is responsible for various things but doesn’t put much thought into which things, how likely are they to simply believe someone who comes along and says “God told me you need to give me this” or “This is a movement of the Spirit and you should be involved?” If you have no filter or method or criteria for determining what you think God does and does not do when it comes to things in your own life (like parking spaces) then how much more likely are you to simply accept what someone else says? If no amount of thinking or evidence or reason can be applied, and everything is simply “faith,” then I think you are entering dangerous territory.

A second way I think thanking God for the parking space could be harmful is the fact that it may encourage a kind of solipsistic faith. What I mean by that is a faith that thinks mostly about the self and how God makes your life better. It is the kind of faith that misses the point of the gospel and turns Jesus dying on the cross for our sins to inaugurate the coming of God’s Kingdom to earth into Jesus dying on the cross so we can have nice things and go to heaven when we die. This kind of viewpoint on faith can give rise to the kind of person who prays for God to “deliver” them from the struggle of having to rent instead of buy, while they rack up credit card bills buying crap they don’t need and say they can’t afford to give money to charity or the church. It can lead to the kind of vapid faith that so many outside Christendom find hollow and so many (not enough) within find revolting at best.

So what am I to do when I look at the circumstance I find myself in? I’m pursuing a career path that fell into my lap, that’s not what I originally wanted to pursue. If I had been left to my own devices and this teaching thing not come along, my family would almost certainly be in a worse place.

I’ve decided this is an example of God providing for me and giving me a gift. Why this and not a parking space? I can’t exactly list the reasons. But this feels more important to me than a parking space. And I think I will be better for the gospel and my family will be better for it with this new path. Am I 100% positive God brought me this new career and directed me away from the corporate world? No, but I think He did. And I don’t think by praising God for it I am falling into the trap I’ve described. Yes, it’s possible this was just coincidence and not a result of God’s providence; but if I can’t thank God for this, I can’t thank Him for anything.

So I suppose to one extent this is part of what “faith” means for me: being willing to thank God for something even if I have to exercise some faith in believing He brought it to me rather than me being brilliant or lucky. It’s a pretty meager definition of faith by the standards of some, but it’s where I am at the moment. In truth, everything I have

I think I need to perhaps be a bit less judgmental of people who have a less skeptical mindset than I do. Some people rail against athletes who thank God for their success, or people who thank Jesus for winning an award. Critics think it’s stupid of the person to think the God of the Universe would care who wins the Superbowl or who wins the MVP award. To them it smacks of the egotistical, “me-focused” faith I described earlier. I can see that, but I think understood the way I am talking about here it doesn’t have to be ridiculous. If you believe God provided you with the talent you used to win the game, why would it be inappropriate to thank Him when you win? It’s not the same as saying He made you win the Superbowl – but it’s recognizing you have been blessed with opportunities and gifts and whatever else that others don’t have. Two people making the same statement – “thank God” – can be communicating very different sentiments and thought processes. I think one person making the statement could be making an admirable, humble statement and someone else making it could be saying something incredibly stupid and self-centered.

I still think it’s dangerous to place your faith on shaky ground or to look at the world from an “I believe everything I hear even if there’s no evidence presented” point of view – but for me to look down on others with that mindset is prideful and I don’t think very Christ-like.

While it is less likely I will be fooled by errant theology or charlatans, it is also less likely I will notice the ways God lavishes His love upon me. It is likely I will not notice and be thankful for the true blessings in my life. I still can’t bring myself to thank God for giving me a green light or a good parking space – but I feel safe thanking Him for growing up where I did, for my natural abilities, my career, my home, my friends, and my family. I suppose it could have all been dumb luck, but I don’t think it was.

The Lens of Faith, Part Two

2008-11-22T05:00:00.000-08:00

In my previous post I set the stage for this post, so if you haven’t read it (and you want to understand what’s going on here), you should read it.

My faith has come a long way over the years and it is still evolving. The relationship between “faith” and what I call my skepticism or critical thinking isn’t always clear-cut. (As an aside – I would encourage you to read this article on the nature of faith by Greg Koukl – it helps you understand what I mean when I use the word.) Sometimes I don’t know how to interpret the things that come my way.

I don’t believe faith is just wishful thinking – it should have some foundation in fact. If I have no good reason to place my faith in something or someone, I don’t do it. I find no nobility in believing something in spite of evidence or in the face of no evidence. When someone tells me something that they believe, I want to hear why they believe it. But when I think through the various events of my life, or different things that happen, I’m not always sure what to believe.

The whole thing that prompted these two posts is my current job situation. At the beginning of 2008 I decided to no longer pursue ministry as my full-time career. At first my goal was to find a job in some kind of HR position. I thought I didn’t want to be a teacher. I applied to dozens of jobs – probably around a hundred – in the HR field. For months, beginning in late 2007, I applied to all manner of companies, from Google to Safeway to places I’d never heard of. At first I only applied to jobs I liked the description of but later I became less discriminating. I had one interview for a job with a NASA contractor in Mountain View but was the “runner-up” for the position. I received a phone call during the last week of January asking if I wanted to take a long-term sub position at Washington High School beginning the next week. Having previously decided I did not want to enter teaching as a career, I figured this would at least be consistent work while I looked for an HR position.

This “sub” job changed the course of my job search. Upon my arrival a few days after the call, I was informed that I would in fact be the teacher. On my first day I told them I wasn’t really planning on becoming a teacher so I’d let them know if I wanted to commit to the whole semester. After three days with the students, I knew teaching was the right career for me. I enrolled in a teacher credential program, threw myself into the job, and had a great (and exhausting) semester. I’d found the right career. Or perhaps more accurately, the right career found me.

Last week I was listening to the zillionth news report on our economic woes, on the tens of thousands of layoffs, and realized something. If I’d gotten into the HR field I would likely have already received a pink slip. As a newbie in that field I would probably be among the first to go when the cuts came – and they are coming. Right now our financial situation isn’t spectacular – Janelle is student teaching (making no money) and I’m subbing and tutoring to make money. We’ve taken out gobs of student loans (thankfully that is our only debt) to pay for our credential programs, and we will be trying to find teaching jobs in a district that is facing millions of dollars of cuts next year – but we are in a far better place than we would have been if I were an HR mook somewhere. How did I get this job and get put on this path I didn’t even know I wanted to be on?

While I was searching for an HR job I ran into one of the women from the office at Washington and let her know I was available to sub. A week later I received that phone call about the opening. There are two ways I could view this situation.

First, I could consider it a fortuitous coincidence. Yes, it is possible that things just worked out this way. Another possibility exists, though, if I am willing to have an open enough mind to entertain it.

This is the kind of situation that might cause a person to say “I wanted an HR job, but God had other plans for me.” I could look at this situation as dumb luck, or I could take it as God providing for me and my family. Viewing the world through my lens of skepticism this is coincidence, but through the spectacles of faith this is an example of God’s love and provision for my family and me.

If I choose to believe this is God providing for me, does this mean I’m the same as the person who thanks God for their awesome parking space? Maybe, maybe not.

I’ll explain what I think the difference is in my third and final post.

The Lens of Faith, Part One

2008-11-21T13:37:00.001-08:00

I often refer to a class I had as a senior in high school as a pivotal point in my spiritual journey. I’d been raised to believe in God and put my faith in Jesus at a young age. My parents split up when I was in elementary school and after that we stopped going to church. I started going again in high school (to a new church called Crossroads) and it started to impact my schedule and my life. During high school I started to assert myself more as a “Christian” and it impacted some of what I did and when I was available to hang out with my friends, none of whom were Christian. My friends were all pretty good guys so we never really got into any sort of trouble; they weren’t upset because I wouldn’t go get drunk with them because they didn’t do that sort of thing. Still, my increasing religiosity did not go unnoticed. It raised the curiosity of some of my friends and the ire of others.

During one art class, which consisted of about six of my friends and I sitting around painting models and talking, we had “discussions” about all kinds of things. Once we had an argument about whether or not all the ants in the world, if they organized under the leadership of a single hive-mind, could kill humanity. More often, however, the discussion would center around my faith or the Bible or what I said I believed. More often than not it became more of an argument than a discussion. There are a few reasons for that (among them being the fact that we were all high school students) but high on the list was the fact that I was being challenged in ways I’d never been challenged before. I grew up believing in God and while I had doubts from time to time they were never serious or particularly complex. My friends were smart, however, and they asked a number of questions I had no real good answer for. Rather than admit I didn’t know (that would mean I was wrong!) I’d argue and get defensive and it was generally unfruitful.

These discussions helped to further the natural teenage process of figuring out who you are (a process that continues to this day, though for a while I thought I’d figured it all out). I had my parent’s faith, not my own – and it was time for me to start sorting out what I believed and why for myself. For the first time I genuinely considered the possibility that there was no such thing as God. I genuinely thought I might be wrong, that my faith in God and trust in Jesus was unfounded. This prompted me to go on a search for the truth and attempt to develop my own convictions.

I read books by Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, Pluralists – anything I could get my hands on. I read arguments for the reliability of the Bible and those against. I read books telling me why the Earth is 6,000 years old and that evolution is a Satanic lie, and books telling me only crazy people contest the validity of Darwin’s theory. I emerged from this period of time with a stronger commitment to follow Jesus and more conviction that the Christian worldview did the best job of explaining the world.

I think most people who know me now would describe me as a critical thinker. This was the time period where I think I developed that mindset. I’d like to think I’ve always been that way but I think I’ve just always been prideful. But starting in high school and for a period of a few years I really didn’t know what I believed. I wasn’t sure if I was just unwilling to admit that God was a lie and I’d been believing a fairy tale my whole life. As I did my research and thinking, I developed a more skeptical (at the very least, a less credulous) mindset. I’m sure my friends who consider belief in God unwarranted might take issue with my description of myself as a skeptic, but that’s still how I try to think. Just about the only thing that bugs me more than someone making unfounded assertions or using faulty logic is someone who does those things and tries to argue that they’re right. Listening to someone argue who wouldn’t know logic if it hit them in the face (all the while claiming to be logical) infuriates me. It probably has something to do with my pride problem. I generally think skepticism is a better path to tread than being too credulous. We shouldn’t believe something just because we hear it, or because someone we trust told it to us. Everyone should be a critical thinker. Anyway, my point is this: I think I became so skeptical that it became impossible for me to see God doing anything in my life or the lives of others.

When people would say “thank God I didn’t get into that accident” I would think (but not say to them) “that’s stupid.” When people would thank God for getting a job or a raise or whatever else, I chalked it up to sloppy thinking and superstition. Just about everything has an alternate explanation; I viewed attributing something to God or supernatural means as just unnecessary and believed it bred a kind of simple-minded superstition so it should be avoided. I think I reached the point where I was practically a Deist. To this day I am more skeptical than your average person, and I probably don’t see God acting in the world as much as He does, but my viewpoint has continued to evolve over the years, which is what this post (and the next) are about. Still, for a long time I viewed the world only through the lens of skepticism. I had faith, but I didn’t look at the world through it. It was something I had and something I did, but I did my best to explain things without and and in the end discarded any “spectacles of faith” that I might have used to look at the world.

My next post will about about looking at the world through the lens of faith while still being a critical thinker.

Read This

2008-11-13T08:48:00.001-08:00

If you consider yourself a Christian, I really think you need to read this. I enjoyed it and think I could stand to take the message to heart.

Some Thomas Merton

2008-11-11T15:38:00.001-08:00

I’m reading through a book right now with selections and excerpts from various Christian writers throughout history. It’s meant to help me focus my mind on God and be a better follower of Jesus. One thing I always enjoy when I read the writings of others is that many of the struggles I face have been faced by people for centuries. When I read St. Augustine writing about his struggle with the fact that part of him wants to fully devote himself to God but the other part wants to hang on – it’s comforting (for lack of a better term). It’s also good to see that even many of these people who would be considered giants of the faith (or who have been declared Saints by the Roman Catholic Church) experience the kind of struggles that I have yet still have amazing insights into what it means to follow God.

I don’t have anything particularly stirring to say but I did want to share a couple of quotes from Thomas Merton. He’s a writer I’ve only marginally delved into but I have greatly enjoyed what I’ve read. From what I understand some of his writing and exploration had to do with what Christians could learn from some of the Eastern traditions. He got some flak for that from some, of course, but from what I can tell he wasn’t trying to copy their theology but rather wanted to engage those from others traditions and learn more about them and learn from them. Here are some of his thoughts with regard to meditation, the soul, and the search so many of us are on to find ways to get our spirituality and our life to match up. Each quote is a distinct one, they aren’t all next to each other like this in the book, I just picked a few that stuck out to me:

“There is a “movement” to meditation, expressing the basic “paschal” rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in Christ. Sometimes prayer, meditation, and contemplation are “death” – a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance. Note how common this theme is in the Psalms (see Pss. 39, 56)…”

“We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners.”

“Very often the inertia and repugnance which characterize the so-called ‘spiritual life’ of many Christians could perhaps be cured by a simple respect for the concrete realities of everyday life, for nature, for the body, for one’s work, one’s friends, one’s surroundings…”

“A false supernaturalism which imagines that ‘the supernatural’ is a kind of realm of abstract essences (as Plato imagined) that is totally apart from and opposed to the concrete world of nature offers no real support to a genuine life of meditation and prayer. Meditation has no point unless it is firmly rooted in life.”

- Thomas Merton, excerpts from Contemplative Prayer

The Cost of Non-Discipleship

2008-11-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

"The disciple of Jesus is not the deluxe or heavy-duty model of the Christian - especially padded, textured, streamlined, and empowered for the fast lane on the straight and narrow way. He stands on the pages of the New Testament as the first level of basic transportation in the Kingdom of God.

"Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul.... The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane."

- Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines

Voting Recap

2008-11-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

Go vote tomorrow! If you disagree with my votes, go cancel me out! I didn’t really go into depth on anything other than the Props on here. That was enough controversy. I think Obama will be our next President; I certainly know he’ll win California.

Click here to read a post that captures a lot of my feelings on the Presidential election this year. I didn’t get there quite the same way as the author but our feelings regarding this year’s Presidential election are pretty much the same:

I’m not looking forward to Tuesday. I’ll make a choice, but I’ll be walking home praying for God to have mercy on the United States.

As a reminder, here are my votes on the Propositions. I include them not to tell you to vote my way, but to remind you that there’s a lot more to vote on this year other than President and it will have as big or bigger of an impact on your life. Below is a list of the Propositions and my votes for them. Click the Prop number for a link to my post about it. From there you can follow another link to research it more for yourself.

Prop 1A: No

Prop 2: Yes

Prop 3: No

Prop 4: Yes

Prop 5: No

Prop 6: No

Prop 7: No

Prop 8: No

Prop 9: No (I didn’t do a post on this with all the hullabaloo about 8, but I did research it myself and came to this decision. Yes. Hullabaloo.)

Prop 10: No

Prop 11: Yes

Prop 12: Yes

Now go vote!

Pray at the Golden Bull for Money

2008-11-02T02:00:00.000-08:00

Some of you may be aware of stories in the Bible that center around God’s people turning away from Him and worshipping idols instead. One of the more famous idols is that of a Golden Calf (read here for the story).

I know I’ve been hard on “Christians” (I use the quotes because that’s sort of how I’ve been phrasing it) here lately and I don’t want to pile on. I am going to be more positive soon, I swear. But I came across this and almost couldn’t believe it.

Apparently last week a bunch of Christians got together to pray at the big gold bull on Wall Street to ask God to save our economy. There are so many things jacked up about this I won’t bother to delineate them. I’d think this was some kind of big joke mocking Christians but sadly it seems true.

They even brought a freaking shofar, man. Argh.

Go check out the pics, a video, and the perspective of someone who is not a Christian here. Be warned, there is some profanity there, if that offends you. But if you’re looking to be offended I think there are some better candidates in that link.

Stop whining and climb down from your cross

2008-11-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

"Make no mistake: if you are really going to try to meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier.

“In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, "live for others" but always in a discontented, grumbling way - always wondering why others do not notice more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish.

"In a battle, or in mountain climbing, there is often one thing which it takes a lot of pluck to do; but it is also, in the long run, the safest thing to do. If you funk it, you will find yourself, hours later, in far worse danger. The cowardly thing is also the most dangerous thing.

“It is like that here. The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions - to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good." We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way - centered on money or pleasure or ambition - and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.

And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do."

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The first portion of this passage, referring to being a “pest,” unfortunately reminds me of myself. In high school and the beginning of college I was the leader of the Setup Team at Crossroads. I’d get up early on Sunday mornings and work with a few other guys (for a while only Jesse) to get everything set up for the church services. This often meant I could not stay up or out on Saturday nights as much as I wanted to. And boy did I let my friends hear about it.

I never realized how much I whined about it until my friend Michael brought it to my attention. I don’t remember exactly what he said but I remember being a bit shamed when he would come to help and I as the “leader” of the team would be whining about how other people weren’t helping. Later, when Michael led the Setup team for a different ministry venture I was the overall leader for, one of his rules was: “Do not whine about other people not helping. Help cheerfully, or don’t help at all.” I know he did not intend it as any sort of message to me, but I also knew he made that rule after learning from the misery of working with a whiner such as myself.

I was whining because I was serving for the wrong reasons. I was trying to do what I was supposed to do, to do a good thing, and still hope I had some time and energy leftover to do what I really wanted. In reality what I needed was to let God change my heart and let the Gospel inspire my service. Instead I was serving because it was “the right thing to do” and I appreciated the pats on the back it got me.

Good thing I’m not like that anymore, ever, with anything.

Study shows media portrays McCain negatively

2008-10-31T03:00:00.000-07:00

Check this out. This study shows that the media has portrayed McCain “in a substantially negative [light]…coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable – and has become more so over time.” In case you want to dismiss the study and say it’s biased, there’s a link to the study itself where you can read it for yourself. This isn’t a big surprise to anybody who’s been paying attention. I’m not adding my voice to the chorus of “THE LIE-BERAL MEDIA BIAS” but it’s sure seemed to me that Obama has been getting great treatment in comparison to McCain.

The other day I saw a piece on CNN that was “checking the truth” of claims made by the candidates. First they looked at McCain saying that Obama wanted to “spread the wealth around” a la his conversation with Joe the Plumber. They deemed McCain’s statement that Obama wanted to spread the wealth “misleading,” and went on to say that was just one thing Obama said in a five minute conversation with Joe the Plumber. They then looked at something Obama said about McCain and deemed it “True, but incomplete.” Their reasoning? Exactly the same as they used with what McCain said – Obama left some stuff out of what McCain had said.

Somehow that same action when McCain does it is “misleading” but with Obama it’s “true but incomplete.”

I’m not really a McCain or Obama supporter but the state of journalism in our country pretty much sucks.

Christians and Halloween

2008-10-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

Growing up, my brother Dave and I were not allowed to dress up in costumes for Halloween. My parents (or at least my Mom, I don’t know how my Dad felt about it) thought Halloween had some occult influence that we would be subject to if we were to dress up. Every year our elementary school would have a Halloween Parade, where everybody could dress up and march around the campus to show off their costumes. Each year Dave and I would tell people we forgot our costumes because we didn’t want to explain it all to them.

At some point my parents relented – I believe it was around the time they split up and we stopped going to church at all. I had a few years of trick-or-treating while I was in high school, at that borderline age where you probably shouldn’t go trick or treating anymore. I didn’t really care about that because I’d never gone as a kid so I was going to get mine.

You may or may not know this but the point of view my parents had regarding Halloween is still somewhat prevalent among some groups of Christians. It’s why lots of churches host “Harvest Festivals” in the suburbs where we have no idea what a harvest is. Some churches try to get into the spirit of Halloween by putting together “haunted houses” that are actually a tour of the eternal torments of Hell (as imagined by them).

I know there are many well-meaning Christians who think this way, and I know my Mom was just trying to do what she thought was right. But man if Evangelicals can’t find a way to suck the fun out of everything. There is such a reluctance to break from the established (church) social norm and engage the brain to consider what Scripture really does say about something. Oftentimes instead of listening to Scripture, we listen to the “tradition” that’s been established by other Evangelicals and what they say the Bible says. All the while we claim “we’re just doing what the Bible says” but in reality we’re just doing what someone has told us the Bible says. That’s another post, which I think I’ll be doing in the near future.

I recently read a great post about this perspective some Christians have on Halloween, over at the Internet Monk. Here’s a little bit of what he has to say about it:

It bothers me that any lie, exaggeration or fiction will find thousands of eager believers to pass it along.

It bothers me that the Biblical message about Satan would be co-opted by the fear-mongering and manipulation of the hucksters. (Read The Screwtape Letters for some real Satanism.)

It bothers me that such a wonderful part of my childhood and of American life has been turned into an example of evangelical paranoia and gullibility. We ruined something good, and everyone knows it but us.

I know all about the sophisticated responses thoughtful Christians have about Reformation day and All Saints Day. That’s fine, but it’s not the same. I just want my grandkids to be able to dress up in cute outfits and trick or treat without the local church designating them for exorcism.

Shame on those of us–evangelicals–who allowed Halloween to be taken away from families and many communities, all because we prefer to believe that life is a Frank Paretti novel.

Click here to read his entire post.

Prop 12: Veteran Home Loans

2008-10-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

Proposition 12 would allow the state to sell $900 million in general obligation bonds to provide money for the Cal-Vet Home Loan Program, which provides low-interest loans for California veterans to buy homes and farms. This would allow the state to pull money away from the state General Fund to pay off the bonds if loan payments from participating veterans are not enough to pay off the debt.

California's independent Legislative Analyst says it would cost California $1.8 billion to pay off the principle and interest of the 30-year bonds ($59 million per year), with an estimation that costs would be paid by participating veterans.

My vote: Yes.

Why: I'm cool with this. Several measures like this have passed in the past decades and they haven't resulted in any significant cost to California. It’s an extension of an already extant program. Not a single state senator voted against it and there are actually no pro/con websites to speak of. This seems like a good, reasonable thing to do that doesn't carry much risk.

Proposition 11: Redistricting

2008-10-29T08:17:00.001-07:00

They say not to talk about religion or politics with your friends because it can lead to arguments. Those last couple of posts threw that crappy advice to the wind and combined the two for a wonderful controversy smoothie. This post should engender a bit less controversy (and therefore be a bit less interesting).

Prop 11 would change the way California State Assembly, Senate, and Board of Equalization districts are drawn in California, which is currently done by the state Legislature and the Governor through legislation. These districts would instead be drawn up by a 14-member citizen commission made up of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four people who don't belong to either party.

My vote: YES.

Why: This state is gerrymandered big time. Those in power in the state legislature don't have to fear losing power because of the way the districts are drawn up. California's state government is terrible, our politicians are by and large terrible, and it's due in large part to this gerrymandering. Redistricting won't necessarily fix everything, and this isn't the perfect redistricting bill, but this is better than nothing. The whole point of a democracy is that the people have power, and representatives can be held accountable to the voters for their (mis)deeds. As it stands our state representatives aren't accountable to us, they can do what they want - or perhaps more accurately, they can do what their lobbyists want. I don't think it would necessarily make the state legislature less partisan - but it could help do something about the gerrymandering and oligarchy we've got going on here.

Of course, you probably can't even name your state representative or state senator. If you're in Fremont (part of District 20), they're Alberto Torrico (he's even the majority leader...ugh) and Ellen Corbett, respectively.

Do some reading on Prop 11 for yourself.

My (unexpected) take on Prop 8 – Part Two

2008-10-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

Here’s the conclusion of my take on Prop 8. Read the first post for context, or else this post won’t make much sense to you.

Despite all I’ve written so far, I'm voting No on Prop 8. I'm not happy with where the situation is as a whole, and I would prefer "marriage" be a term reserved for what it has historically/traditionally been - a relationship between a man and a woman. I don't think it should be changed. A gay couple is not the same as a heterosexual couple. They are of the same value, they are no less human, they are equal. It is not discrimination to recognize that the relationships are of a different type. But as long as the government is in the "marriage" business and that word is an important part of guaranteeing the equal rights gays deserve, then I think gay marriage should be legalized. This is a problem Christians created for themselves by trying to make America into a "Christian nation" and trying to use the system to legitimize their way of living. Christians made this bed and now they need to sleep in it. By making marriage an issue of the state in a state governed by the Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for all, Christians have made marriage subject to the Constitution. There are lots of things bound up legally with “marriage” and it doesn’t appear that simply having “civil unions” will guarantee the exact same rights for gays, and that’s not right.

I think Constantine's declaration of Christianity as legitimate/official was one of the biggest blows to the message and movement of Jesus. Instead of continuing Jesus' radical anti-establishment movement of love, Christians fell in love with becoming the dominant power and abused that power. Today Christians are largely more concerned, I think, with maintaining power and making Christian culture the same as American culture - and that's a problem. Instead of being seen as people radically in favor of love and acceptance and the gospel, Christians are seen as agents of the old, agents of hatred and discrimination. It should not be this way. If years ago Christians had tried to find another way to secure equal rights for gays rather than criticize and hate on them, things might be different. But that's a fantasy land. I think Christians have sort of made their own beds on this one and it's time to sleep in it. By making marriage an issue of the state in a state governed by the Constitution I don't think we have any choice at this point but to allow gay marriage.

I hope I've explained and nuanced my view enough. This started as a post explaining why I was voting Yes on Prop 8 but as I thought about it and worked through my view I changed my mind. My guess is this will upset many of you on both sides - those of you who are strongly "Yes" will consider me a prodigal, and those who are strongly "No" will consider me only slightly better than a segregationist. But still, it's where I am.

My (unexpected) take on Prop 8 – Part One

2008-10-23T19:24:00.001-07:00

This post started out as something else and evolved as I thought through it. I’m still a little surprised at my conclusion but I think it’s the right one. This is long so I’ve split it into two posts. The second post will have my conclusion and what I’m planning on voting.

As someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about and figuring out how to communicate, I think words are important. Words are symbols that communicate commonly shared meaning and ideas. Words mean what they mean because we agree they do, and they carry certain connotations/things with them. This is why some words are considered inappropriate to say, like the n-word. Words are powerful. When it comes to marriage, I think the word should be reserved for what marriage has historically been - a relationship between a man and a woman.

This isn't based in religion or bigotry. In fact I believe the insistence on using the term "marriage" for gay marriage is an example of cultural intolerance and insensitivity, which are generally considered cardinal sins by those who call themselves progressive. Let me see if I can explain it this way with a hypothetical scenario. Given the time and energy I have this is the best I could do, as inadequate as it is.

Let's say there's a group of people who do this particular dance. The dance requires three people, and it involves certain steps. This dance is a big part of their culture and it tells the story of their people. Children are taught about the dance from a young age, and most children take it up when they grow older. Sometimes the people mess up the steps, sometimes they screw up the dance and quit in the middle of it - but it always has three people. That's what the dance is. A new group of people come in and they hear about the dance. They like the dance and think it's cool, but instead of 3 people they want to do the dance with two. This means some of the steps change, and the story that's communicated by the dance changes - but the new group likes to do the dance and thinks it's fun. They're not really doing the same dance - but they're doing a dance that sort of looks like the other dance, but it's different and communicates something different.

The original group of people have always called their dance "Jaje." To them, "Jaje" carries with it meaning and it's something that has been a cornerstone of their culture for a long time. They would admit they haven't always done it right and sometimes they mess up, but they still value it and the story it tells. The new group wants to call their dance by the same name. They like the fact that Jaje is a respected and honored tradition - and while they don't want to dance the Jaje, they want to do a dance and they want everyone else to call it Jaje. This new dance is different from the historic, traditional Jaje but the new group still thinks they should have the right to be considered equal even if their dance is different. The original group suggests the new group call their dance something else, but the new group says that's hate and discrimination. The old group says they are trying to hold on to their traditions and culture, and "Jaje" is part of that. The new group says that times have changed, and Jaje doesn't mean that anymore; besides, if the original group cared about Jaje so much they'd never mess the steps up or quit dancing in the middle of it.

I think any anthropologist looking at this scenario would see the new group as overtaking the culture of the old group. The old group would necessarily feel threatened, and while they can still do their Jaje dance, it seems like a bit of a jerk move by the new group to insist their new, different, inspired-by-the-original-Jaje dance be called the same thing even though it isn't the same thing. I'm sure if Americans went over to some other country and started co-opting their cultural traditions we'd be considered "ugly Americans." I obviously use this as an analogue to the gay marriage movement of today.

I think gays should enjoy all the same rights as heterosexual couples. The government should not discriminate based on sexual orientation when it comes to the benefits of domestic partnerships. Truth be told, I would be happiest with the government getting out of the "marriage" business in the first place. I wish the government could just have "domestic partnerships" that bestow the legal benefits of marriage, and both hetero and gay couples would apply for them. The government should not be in the marriage business at all. This is where the complexity comes in. More on this with my next post, which will complete my thoughts on Prop 8 and tell you my vote.

Ethnocentrism is Good

2008-10-21T07:52:00.001-07:00

There - did I get you to click on and read through my post? Haha.

I did this post as part of a discussion board assignment for my teaching credential program and figured I’d put it up here as well for your perusal.

Teacher Performance Expectation F: Developing as a Professional Educator - is important. Two of its subpoints are:
12.2 "Candidates are aware of their own personal values and biases and recognize ways in which these values and biases affect the teaching and learning of students.
12.3 "Candidates resist racism and acts of intolerance."
(Taken from http://pact.gse.uci.edu/tpe/)

These are important elements of becoming a great teacher, and they're related to a lot of what is mentioned in Johnson, et. al (2008) on page 96 under the heading "Ethnocentrism."

Johnson condemns ethnocentrism as the belief that your way of life is superior to others (2008, p. 96). He then condemns the beliefs and cultural values of some religious groups before misrepresenting them. Those religious people that believe the homosexual lifestyle is wrong are said to "not tolerate alternate beliefs" and "believe that their cultural values and lifestyle are the only correct ones" (Johnson, 2008, p. 96). Unfortunately for Johnson his declaration that ethnocentrism is wrong and that these religious people are incorrect is itself an ethnocentric notion. In Johnson's world he has no more right to criticize that (misrepresented) religious point of view than he says they have the right to consider the homosexual lifestyle incorrect.

To say they "do not tolerate alternate beliefs" is a misrepresentation, unless he is talking about those groups who perpetrate violence on others. Simply believing someone else is wrong is not an example of intolerance or ethnocentrism - it's an example of disagreement. Using Johnson's own definition of tolerance and ethnocentrism, he is an intolerant ethnocentrist.
I am not saying this because I don't believe ethnocentrism is a problem. I believe it is. Too many people (including teachers) consider their own point of view superior to others, and think any who disagree with them are fools. This point of view is not limited to religious people or Democrats or Republicans or Americans or Europeans; it is part of the human experience. Being aware of our own ethnocentric tendencies and taking care not to unfairly discriminate against or judge others is essential. It's important for a History teacher to be careful how they discuss/teach/treat the groups in their curriculum. It is also important, I think, to teach students that extreme cultural relativism (the point of view Johnson seems to be promoting) and extreme ethnocentrism are both problematic.

Teachers must all be aware of the perspectives they have and how it influences them and what they are teaching. I agree with Johnson when he says that all teachers "must confront their own ethnocentrism" (2008, p. 96). We must teach the differences between groups and empower students to make decisions with regard to what they want to accept, condemn, or praise. I don't want to produce students that are so enlightened and forward-thinking that they cannot find fault in anything in any culture.
A culture that thinks it is okay to put people into slavery is worthy of being condemned on that point. A culture that tries to exterminate an ethnic group is, I can confidently say, worthy of criticism and I am fine with referring to others cultures as superior in that regard. A culture that mutilates girls and women is worthy of being considered faulty on that point.

At the same time we must not paint every person in such a culture as an inferior person - they are a person in a culture with some messed up ideas. Why do they believe the way they do? They were likely socialized to believe it? How can we work toward a society where people are not socialized into bigotry or hatred? These questions cannot be asked from a point of view totally free from ethnocentrism. I know the ideas from these cultures are "messed up" from my point of view - but if it makes me ethnocentrist to condemn slavery, genocide, and the mutilation and forced servitude of women - I'm cool with that.

It's important for teachers to help students have the ability to make these kind of distinctions. In order for a teacher to do that they must be aware of their own prejudices and ethnocentric tendencies, and be very aware of how they're communicating with their students. And even if a culture is worthy of some kind of criticism - simply criticizing it and leaving it at that is not sufficient. The teacher should engage in the questions I mentioned above and more - help students think for themselves through the issues and reach their own conclusions. I think this is a worthy goal for any teacher.

Props 7 and 10: Renewable Energy

2008-10-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

I decided to combine these two into one post because they pretty much deal with the same issue – renewable energy and how to get it. With the increase of gas prices (which now seems like a small problem compared to the larger economic crisis) these two issues got on the ballot and are an attempt to move California in the direction of renewable energy. Here they are:

Proposition 7: Renewable Energy Generation

Would require publicly and privately owned utility companies to generate 20% of their power from renewable energy by 2010, 40% by 2020 and 50% by 2025 and would impose penalties (subject to waivers in some circumstances) for failure to meet these requirements.

My vote: No.

Why: I don't like the idea of the government forcing utility companies to do this. The trend is going in that direction anyway and energy companies are going to move toward renewable energy in order to stay in business. All I see this doing (besides making some people feel like they're socially and environmentally responsible) is increasing utility bills for us as the companies try to meet certain benchmarks by certain dates.

Find out more about Prop 7 here.

Proposition 10: Alternate Energy Bonds

Prop 10 would allow the state to sell $5 billion in bonds, of which $3.425 billion would be used to help consumers and others purchase high fuel economy or fuel efficient vehicles and $1.25 billion would be used for research and development of renewable energy technology (primarily solar). The remainder would be used to give grants to cities for renewable energy projects. California's independent legal analyst estimates the cost to California to be $10 billion in principal and interest, with additional state costs of $10/million for administration.

My vote: Hell no.

Why: Should be obvious by now. Lots more spending, creating more government administration/bureaucracy - surely we can find better things to do with our money.

Find out more about Prop 10 here.

Prop 6: Safe Neighborhoods Act

2008-10-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

Would require that a minimum of $695 million be allocated from the state budget each year (with the amount increasing to keep up with inflation) to pay for police, sheriffs, district attorneys, probation, and jails. It also makes changes to state criminal laws to identify new types of crimes and increase penalties for certain crimes (especially gang-related crime). California's independent Legislative Analyst says Prop 6 would eventually lead to increased state costs of $500-$965 million annually due to greater spending on public safety programs and new costs for prisons and parole operations. It would also create a one-time cost of $500m to build more prisons.

Fun fact: This is called “The Safe Neighborhoods Act” by some (generally supporters) and “The Runner Initiative” by others (usually detractors). Initiative almost sounds like “scheme,” and we know how scary those are.

My vote: No.

Why: While I really like the idea of this law I have to be consistent. It's increasing spending and California's financial obligations and that's not what we need. And it really bugs me to be on the same side as the Berkeley City Council. Ugh. It’s pretty funny that lots of these groups suddenly become interested in “government waste” when it has to do with crime and/or diverting money from their pet projects.

Find out more information for yourself.

Prop 5: Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act

2008-10-14T03:00:00.000-07:00

Prop 5 would allocate $460 million per year from the state budget to expand treatment programs for criminals convicted of drug and other offenses.

My vote: No.

Why: Many reasons. High on the list include the allocation of yet more state funds (bad), the creation of yet more state agencies (worse), etc. Part of the reason California is in this financial mess is because we vote in all these Props that sound good and obligate us to spend money on things, whether we have the money or not. This is a prime example of that kind of stuff.

Find out more information for yourself.

Prop 4: Waiting and Notification for Abortion

2008-10-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

This is a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a doctor to notify a parent or guardian before performing an abortion on an under-18-year-old girl, and would require a waiting period of 48 hours after notification is given before the abortion could be performed. Parents must be notified but they do not have to consent. There are also some exceptions:

Doctors can notify adult relatives other than a parent if the doctor reports the parent to law enforcement or Child Protective Services.
Notification is not necessary in a medical emergency or if a parental waiver has already been obtained.
A judge can waive the notification requirement if it's in the minor's best interest.

My vote: Yes.

Why: Parents are (or should be) responsible for their children and big things like this should not happen without the knowledge of the parents. While I recognize that some girls may not want to tell for fear of violence or whatever else, there are provisions for them in this law. Children should not be able to do something like this without their parents knowing about it. Yeah, some will get in trouble - but an abortion is a huge decision and minors should not be making them on their own. It’s an imperfect law but I think it’s better than no parental notification.

Find out more information for yourself.

Prop 3: Children’s Hospital Bond Acts

2008-10-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

Prop 3 would authorize the state to sell $980 million in general obligation bonds for the construction, expansion, remodeling, renovation, furnishing and equipping of eligible children's hospitals.

My Vote: No.

Why: Sounds good but again it's obligating more state money (which we don't have) to build something. We passed a Prop like this in 2004 as well. We don't need to further increase California's financial obligation right now.

Find out more information for yourself.

Prop 2: Standards for Confining Farm Animals

2008-10-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

Prop 2 requires that cages or pens be used for calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens, and pregnant pigs to allow them to lay down, stand up, fully extend their limbs, and freely turn around.

My Vote: Yes.

Why: Arguments against this prop seem to focus on an increase in the risk of food poisoning and bird flu as well as a potential increase in the cost of food. After doing some more reading it seems to me the health risks are unlikely, especially the increase of bird flu. I'm generally against "let's do this because it makes us feel good but it's a stupid idea" things and at first blush this seemed like one of those to me. Further reading convinced me otherwise so I'll be voting yes on this Prop. I’m okay with paying a bit more for my eggs if it means the animals are treated more humanely.

Get more information for yourself.

Proposition 1A: High Speed Rail Bonds

2008-10-10T11:05:00.001-07:00

I’m going to work through each of the California Propositions here on the blog to give you my point of view on them. I won’t necessarily go into depth with my thinking, but I’ll provide some basic information on the Prop, what it does, and my point of view on it. You should do some research for yourself. These Propositions are important – and while the Presidential Election gets all the attention these things are a big deal.

This measure would authorize the state to sell $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to build a high speed rail system linking Southern California, the Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

My vote: No.

Why: While I like the idea of this railway, I can't see how California can afford it. Our budget is already jacked up, our State is already spending too much money, and obligating us to build this railway is not going to help the situation. Here’s a pretty compelling report on why this is a terrible idea. Unfortunately the Prop is polling pretty well because as usual people think “oooh pretty train” and not “oooh billions of dollars to be spent.”

Get more information yourself.

Belle’s 2nd Birthday

2008-10-09T16:47:00.001-07:00

I just uploaded some pictures from Belle’s 2nd Birthday Party. Click here to check them out.

California Election Information

2008-10-08T13:36:00.001-07:00

Go here to get more information on the Propositions coming up for us Californians to vote on this November. The Presidential election gets a lot of attention but these Props will probably impact our lives more than (or at the very least as much as) the new occupant of the White House.

You can go to this site and read up on the various Props. I will be posting my opinion on the Props later, but here’s a way for you to check them out for yourself:

http://citizenvoiceblog.wordpress.com/

He’s even disruptive when he’s sleeping

2008-10-08T11:40:00.001-07:00

The first set of kids I have this week for ELD 1 is pretty good. The class size is smaller, around 20, and there are only a couple kids that cause trouble. The other class is the one that gives me real headaches. Anyway this kid can not sit still or do what he’s supposed to do for any period of time. I’m having to hound him constantly to stop touching people, throwing things, getting up, talking, etc. We’re watching a video right now and he fell asleep. At first I was happy because it meant I could let my guard down. Then he started snoring, loudly. I woke him up and the class giggled. He fell back asleep within a couple of minutes and was snoring again. I wish I could let him sleep so he could stop being annoying, but I have to keep waking him up. Gah.

English Language Development Futility

2008-10-07T11:20:00.001-07:00

This week I’m subbing in an English Language Development (ELD) classroom. These are the students who don’t know English, and they’re put into this class to learn it. One of the classes, which I have for two class periods, has 20 students. I’d say about 6-7 of them really want to learn and the rest are pretty unengaged. Many of them don’t even understand the questions they’re supposed to be answering about the portion of The Jungle Book we read together yesterday. In this one class there are several different languages represented. Four or five speak Farsi, three or four Spanish, a couple Chinese (not sure if they’re the same dialect), and two different kinds of South Asian Indian languages. There’s an aide who speaks Chinese and some English. The usual teacher speaks only English.

I’m trying to get the kids to not copy one another’s work, to do what they’re asked, and it almost seems futile. The ELD 2 class isn’t any better. There are more students and no aide. I really don’t see what chance these kids have to succeed. The ones who want to succeed seem to have some kind of chance – but most of them aren’t really interested in learning English. I’d like to see some studies or something on the success rates of programs like this because it can’t be high.

I have each set of students for two periods. For one period with each class we are watching a movie, which theoretically gives you a break. But the teacher has chosen The Diary of Anne Frank and The Secret Garden (1940ish) as the movies. They are both black-and-white and do not engage the students in the least. I’ve already pre-filled some referral forms, because some heads are going to have to roll today. I played “whack-a-mole” yesterday trying to get them to quiet down and it was too draining.

Belle Brings Cute to a New Level

2008-10-01T21:32:00.001-07:00

Belle turns two on Saturday. We've been telling her about her upcoming "Princess Party" (we gave it a name to make it sound special) and all the stuff associated with it. The last few nights she's fallen asleep talking to us about who's coming to the party and what she wants at the party. Last night when she was in a bad mood she said nobody was going to come to her birthday party. Tonight was different.

My Dad, being the awesome cook he is, will be providing the meat. About fifteen minutes ago as we were laying down with Belle to get her to go to sleep we started talking more about her party. Our conversation began something like this:

"Belle, is Dave coming to your party?"

"Yes."

"Is Jesse coming to your party?"

"Uh huh."

"Are you going to have a pink castle cake at your party?"

"Yes. I have Apple Juice too!"

"Is Papa coming to your party?"

"Yes. Papa bringing my meat for me."

Then she began essentially repeating the same few sentences, rearranging the words periodically but making sure we know about it. In the dark, Belle's little hands grabbed for my cheeks and turned my head toward her to make sure I understood the gravity of what she was telling me:

"Daddy, Papa have be careful my meat. Papa, don't drop it. Papa, don't drop meat. Papa have be careful." After this was established she moved on to other things my Dad needs to look out for.

"Papa have cut my meat for me. Papa have be careful. It sharp, Papa. Papa have cut my meat. Be careful, Papa, it sharp. Papa have be careful."

She is freaking adorable. More than that, she apparently loves eating meat. Belle has also taken a liking to the A's and Niners. She puts on my 49ers hat and says "Go Niners!" Her Auntie Shannon got her a foam finger at the A's game a couple weeks ago, and every now and then she puts that on and marches around the house saying "Go A's!"

I am truly a blessed man. As a side note, if my Dad drops the meat and/or cuts himself this weekend at the party I will start documenting Belle's "ramblings" and possibly ask her to pick some lotto numbers for me.

Obama Song

2008-10-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Obama is going to save us all.

Resources on the Economic “Situation”

2008-09-30T11:54:00.001-07:00

Click this link for a great post you can use to educate yourself on the economic crisis. It’s from a quality blog and has a lot of good links and information. If you’re having trouble understanding what’s going on, or if you should do anything, or whatever else, check the link out.

The general message is “calm down, keep your money in the market, invest now if you can.”

Here’s a good quote:

9. Don’t Let Your Friends Be Morons
Don’t let your friends be idiots. If you read this site, chances are you understand that having 20, 30, or 40 years before you need your money gives you plenty of flexibility to invest for the long term, even with major or minor dips in the market. Yet with these terrifying headlines every day, it’s like people have become It’s not just focusing on the wrong things, it’s making poor financial decisions and then throwing up your hands and wondering why you don’t have enough money. If you own only one stock — especially if it’s your employer’s stock — then you are a fool. If you are going to buy a $1 million house with no research because you think it’s a good investment, you are a fool. If you don’t realize that your expensive, worthless mutual fund is costing you tens of thousands of dollars over your lifetime, you are a fool. Worry about the things you can control, not the headlines.

Read The Road

2008-09-28T00:42:00.001-07:00

Last week I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s a novel about a father and son trying to survive in some kind of post-apocalyptic world. It’s not clear what the apocalypse was but it’s made the world miserable. The writing style is pretty unusual, which from what I hear is the way McCarthy writes all his books. I don’t want to spoil anything from the book for you but rather just share I thought it was an awesome book and I’m looking forward to the upcoming movie adaptation (Viggo Mortensen plays the main dude). Even those of you who aren’t so big on reading (Dave) should check the book out because it’s a pretty gripping and touching narrative. It’s pretty bleak though, so not for the faint of heart. Somehow it ended up on Oprah’s Book List. Don’t let that dissuade you, even if her reading club is often full of utter garbage and harmfully ignorant tripe.

The Library is useful…who knew?

2008-09-26T10:55:00.001-07:00

Did you know you can search through the library’s catalog and request certain books, then the library will hold the book for you? And if the book has been checked out, or is at some other library, they’ll e-mail you when it arrives and you can come pick it up? I’ve been hearing about this book called Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) through some interviews with the author. I added it to my Amazon wish list and figured I’d have to wait a while to buy it. Then I discovered how awesome the library is and requested it a few days ago. I just got an e-mail letting me know the book is waiting for me and I’m going to go pick it up on my lunch break.

This bit of news is only useful if you like reading, of course.

Patellofemoral Syndrome

2008-09-25T12:15:00.001-07:00

This morning my right knee gave out during a squat. Luckily I was in the squat cage so I didn't have the added embarrassment of asking someone to lift the bar off of me. This is the third workout I've squatted this weight so I don't think it was too much - it was challenging but doable for me. When my knee gave out I felt it pop a bit but there wasn't much pain. It felt a bit odd after that but I finished my workout, including running a mile at the end and I was able to do it.

I visited my doctor today to make sure I didn't do anything serious to the knee. She doesn't think I tore anything but after feeling around the knee thinks the issue is Patellofemoral Syndrome. Here's what it is:

PFS is caused by an abnormality in how the kneecap (patella) slides over the lower end of the thigh bone (the femur). Normally, the patella (kneecap) is pulled up over the end of the femur in a straight line by the quadriceps (thigh) muscle. In PFS, there is patellar "tracking" toward the lateral (outer) side of the femur. This off-kilter path permits the underside of the patella to grate along the femur leading to chronic inflammation and pain.

She ordered me to stop doing squats for a while until the knee feels normal again. When I resume squatting she wants me to use reduced weight. This sort of sucks because squatting is a major part of the workout I've been doing. It also sort of sucks because my knee feels funky. I'm going to have to find another workout regimen.

Upon reading more about Patellofemoral Syndrome I learned it is also called "housemaid's knee" or "secretary's knee." This discovery did not do much for my hope of it being a manly injury.

Thought for today

2008-09-12T16:44:00.001-07:00

Too often in my life and heart God is an idea, a concept, a belief, an argument, a system of thought, a set of rules, a religion - too seldom is He God. I would be nowhere without grace.

Julius Caesar and reading aloud in class

2008-09-11T09:18:00.001-07:00

Today I’m subbing a 10th grade English class and am helping the kids read through Julius Caesar. As you may remember from your high school days, the students are assigned roles to read and we’re to go through the first two scenes of Act I. As I listened to 1st period stumble through the words I’d pause periodically to ask them if the knew what was going on. At almost every turn the kids had no idea what was happening. Shakespeare may as well be gibberish to them. I’d even re-read a short quote and they’d have trouble figuring out what the sentence meant. I’m not sure if it was like this when I was in school…I think it was, considering what I remember of some of my classes…but this makes me glad I’m not an English teacher. I want to work through primary sources with my History students and those can be as difficult as Shakespeare – but I’m glad this isn’t my primary assignment. Although it was nice being able to sort of translate for them and see some of them actually get what was happening.

Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-10T09:22:00.001-07:00

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) goes online today in Europe. It’s a gigantic laboratory where they will smash protons together and do other awesome physics-related projects. You can probably see a lot of articles about it on any news site so I won’t link to those. But here’s a link you will find interesting if you are at all intrigued by the LHC.

It’s a thread in a forum posted by a guy who works there. His first post is really informative, with good pictures and an explanation of what the LHC does. It’s pretty awe-inspiring.

McCain and Fiscal Responsibility

2008-09-04T16:01:00.001-07:00

Here’s an editorial discussing McCain’s talk about cutting pork and comparing it with his spending plans. The author says McCain talks big about cutting spending, but if you look at his spending plans and compare it with his intended tax cuts (or even just a refusal to raise taxes) you are left with a growing deficit. I’m not sure about this guy’s math (I have to look more into McCain’s specific proposals and compare them to Obama’s) but he raises the issue that I think may decide how I vote. At the very least it will factor in to the decision.

I fully believe the Government already gets more than enough money, and it is incredibly wasteful. If I had my druthers, Government spending would be cut and taxes would be lowered. George Bush increased spending and cut taxes – hence our gigantic budget deficit and bloated national debt. If McCain’s plans truly are cut-taxes-and-increase-spending then our debt will keep growing and our economy will not be the better for it. As someone who desperately wants our Government to get smaller and for people’s attitudes to change re: Government’s role and responsibility, I don’t like having these two options:

1) Raise taxes and raise spending (Obama)

2) Lower taxes and raise spending (McCain)

I think both of the above approaches are bankrupt (hah) for different reasons, but neither are good.

Sarah Palin’s Speech

2008-09-03T21:02:00.001-07:00

I'm watching the Sarah Palin’s RNC speech right now and figured I'd take some notes as I watched through it.

I hate it when people say "pundints." The word is "pundits" people.

Her kids are named Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. Bristol's been the pregnant one and she's there with her boyfriend, who looks a bit nervous.

She's introducing her family right now...boring...but I guess it helps people feel more like they know who she is.

Describing people in small towns as those who "run our factories, fight our wars, and are always proud of America." It's a good applause line, but it does strike me that our country has done things we shouldn't be proud of.

"What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick." Lots of talk about the hockey mom demographic since Palin entered the race...not many of those around these parts.

"I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." Funny line, but as someone who's worked in a non-profit I know there are actual responsibilities present there.

Reference to Obama's mention of people "clinging to religion and guns." She's definitely not being shy about going after the Democrats.

"I'm not going to Washington to serve their good opinion, I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country." This is her in response to some of the criticism of her lack of experience in politics. She says the right reason to get involved in politics is to challenge the status quo and change things for the better. She's clearly framing herself as the reformer coming in from the outside, trying to take advantage of her lack of experience rather than avoiding it.

Discussing some of the stuff she did as Alaska Governor. Eliminated private jet and Governor's personal chef. Didn't feel those things were necessary. Running through some accomplishments in reforming the oil industry and its hold on Alaska.

Saying we need to produce more of our own oil and natural gas to reach energy independence - drill in ANWAR. They want to build more pipelines, more nuclear plants, move for clean coal, and build more renewable energy sources. Sounds like a good plan to me.

"This is a man who has authored two memoirs, but not even a single law." re: Obama. Again, taking clear shots - she herself is taking shots at his experience. Pretty bold.

Making lots of comments about Obama as a celebrity and full of hot air.

Obama wants to increase the tax burden on the U.S. He does - but unless we stop spending so much money that's necessary. The solution is to stop spending money - are McCain and Palin up to that? They say they are, but I'm not sure how possible it is.

"There are some candidates who use change to further their careers. There are others, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change." I'm pretty confident Obama isn't just trying to further his career - I think he really does want to effect positive change.

Haha - she said Harry Reid's quote "I can't stand John McCain" is the best proof they've chosen the right person. Funny - but I think one of McCain's strengths is his experience in the Senate and ability to work with those on the other side. They're trying to cast him as a total maverick, not something I think I buy.

The GOP is really hitting McCain's POW time hard tonight. I respect him for it and think it's very admirable...but I think you can only reference it so much before it loses impact.

Overall she's coming across as a pretty good speaker. She's not delivering the lines mechanistically and her voice isn't terribly grating. She has the good "look of determination" thing going. I'd say she did a good job overall and I enjoyed listening to her speak. I'm sorting out the issues thing but she did a good job portraying herself as someone who is smart and capable. There's more to see but I think she acquitted herself pretty well.

Joe Biden

2008-08-23T15:20:00.001-07:00

As someone who has not made up his mind but is pretty strongly leaning against voting for Obama, the addition of Joe Biden to his ticket helps him a bit in my eyes. I watched some of the Democratic debates when Biden was still in the race and he impressed me in just about all of them. He has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth but that’s fine with me. He sometimes says things that may be ill-advised, or sometimes overstates his case, and I pretty strongly disagree with him on a number of things – but I appreciate the way he’s willing to stand up and say things and not necessarily worry so much about what other people are going to think. I’m pretty confident he will absolutely demolish whoever the Republicans throw up against him in the VP Debate. So while I disagree with Biden on a lot of things I’m glad he’s in the race and I don’t think I’d terribly mind him being the VP.

Didn’t Get It

2008-08-19T21:10:00.001-07:00

For those of you keeping track, I didn’t get the job I wanted at Washington. The school wanted to hire me but the district office wants them to hire a credentialed teacher. I knew my only hope was it being too late for them to get a credentialed teacher but apparently that’s not the case. It looks like for the Fall I’ll be subbing and tutoring (I got a job with a tutoring company) while Janelle does her ~~indentured servitude~~ student teaching and then come February she’ll sub while I student teach. With whatever income I’m able to cobble together, plus student loans, plus our savings, we should be able to eke by for the next year. By this time next year we’ll both have full teaching credentials and will hopefully be able to land teaching jobs, at which time we’ll be able to begin the wonderful task of repaying our student loans.

It’s like the monkey said when he got his tail caught in the fan…

2008-08-15T08:20:00.001-07:00

It won’t be long now!

You can thank my 10th grade Geometry teacher, Mr. Strausser, for that gem. That guy was awesome. Anyway – I should find out this evening or Monday morning (most likely Monday) whether or not I’m going to get the job at Washington that I’ve been waiting on. The position is open to those within the district who want to transfer in until today. If anybody wants to transfer in they get the job. All those involved seemed to think it’s unlikely someone would transfer as late as August…but we’ll see. If nobody requests the job, I will get it and be a US History/World History teacher at a school I love, have a paycheck, and have my teaching credential in June. Man that would be sweet.

Teaching is fun

2008-07-31T08:04:00.001-07:00

Over the summer I’ve continued taking classes for my teaching credential, looked for a teaching job, and taught a six-week theology class at Crossroads (last night was the last session). In all of this my love of teaching has been further cemented. Well, all of it except “looking for a teaching job.” That part has been decidedly lacking in fun and excitement.

The class I’m taking right now is the best one yet in my credential program. It has been about teaching itself, collaboration, and planning out lessons/units with goals in mind. I think it takes a particular kind of person to get excited about planning out a teaching unit, and I am that person. Sitting in front of a sheet of paper planning out what to teach, how to teach it, and so on, is really fun for me.

Teaching itself is awesome too. I loved teaching the theology class these past six weeks. I learned more about myself as a teacher, about the class, and about how to sharpen it further. I enjoy the give-and-take of the teaching environment and truly believe I was made to teach. The fact that one of the people in the class gave me a Peet’s card is icing on the cake.

For those of you that don’t know, I’m currently waiting on hearing about getting a position back at Washington. Essentially the job has to make it to August 15th without anybody wanting to transfer into it that’s already a teacher. Once it gets past that point the chances of me getting the job skyrocket. It would be too perfect, because I’d have a paid teaching job for the year teaching something I love, at a school I love with a great department, and at the end of the year I’d have my credential so I should keep the job. That would rule.

Um, no

2008-06-30T23:08:00.001-07:00

No.

Pray at the Pump

2008-06-21T15:22:00.001-07:00

I don’t have much time to post this since Belle is clamoring for another round of “Farm Animal Friends” so my commentary will be left to a minimum. We all know gas prices are high right now and it’s hit some of us more than others. We’re reacting in different ways – some of us by cutting down on “unnecessary” driving (because all our driving is so necessary) or riding bikes more or whatever else. Apparently one group is responding through prayer. I encourage you to go read the post from Jesus Shaped Spirituality (a blog I am greatly enjoying), but here’s a taste:

“For example, one evangelical has taken his particular view of rising gas prices and started a movement called “Pray at the Pump.” Somehow, the rise of gas prices is a sign of the end times and praying at the pump for God to lower prices will apparently prove that he’s in charge.

Of course, one wonders if it ever occurred to anyone that the inconvenience to the American lifestyle of mobility and affluence isn’t really something that God would respond to as an act of mercy…So somewhere a homeless man or a family struggling to put food on the table will see a group of middle class suburban Christians gathered around a gas pump, praying that God will have mercy and get things back to where we can all go on about our business.

I don’t have to spend much time asking if Jesus would join such a prayer meeting.”

Police kill man seen beating child to death

2008-06-16T06:51:00.001-07:00

Police kill man seen beating child to death - Crime & courts- msnbc.com

According to this news story people saw a man beating a toddler up on some country road in Turlock. Apparently people "tried to intervene" but the man brushed off their efforts and "went back to it." I'm not sure I understand what "try to intervene" means, and I understand the whole concept of diffused responsibility, but the fact that anybody could watch a man do this to a child is beyond my ability to understand. Even the elderly couple could have made themselves enough of a nuisance to force the guy to stop. Tragic.

Correlation between names and crime

2008-06-10T09:25:00.001-07:00

A recent study has shown a relationship between weird names and crime. Apparently the more unusual your name, the more likely you're involved in criminal activity. Michael is the most popular name, which means those named Michael are least likely to be criminals.

Of course we all know correlation does not equal causation, but I figured Michael would appreciate it.

Owwwww

2008-06-08T23:35:00.001-07:00

Being the old man that I now am with a job and a baby and all that, I hit the sack around 8:30ish tonight. I woke up around 10:40 with a pretty severe toothache. After sitting in bed for a while I got up and took some painkillers, something I've had to do a few times today. I tried to lay back down but the pain was too severe...hopefully the meds will kick in soon and I'll be able to get back to sleep for school tomorrow. It feels like I may have to get a root canal on this tooth that I had work done on last Wednesday. That would make three...but a root canal would be a welcome sweet release from this pain. Good Lord. It's pretty lousy timing...my dentist is closed Mondays.

I highly recommend everybody go to the dentist every six months, brush and floss twice daily. You'll save yourself a lot of pain and money.

Pictures up!

2008-06-06T09:29:00.001-07:00

This morning I uploaded some pictures you should enjoy.

First, a set from the trip we took to Marine World (Six Flags) in May.

Second, a set from Mother's Day Weekend of this year.

Finally - yesterday our neighbors invited us over with Belle to pick some very fresh (and very awesome) berries in their backyard. We got some great pictures there too.

Enjoy - there are some great ones there. We got a new camera so we're able to capture Belle more clearly and in action than ever before.

'Uncontacted tribe' sighted in Amazon

2008-05-30T07:09:00.001-07:00

'Uncontacted tribe' sighted in Amazon - CNN.com

No that's not a Diablo 2 screenshot. Apparently a plane did a couple of flyovers to take pictures of this tribe of people in the Amazon that have not had contact with the outside world. Some anthropologists believe there may be up to 100 tribes worldwide that remain 'uncontacted.' Neato.

Read my post on history

2008-05-29T08:21:00.001-07:00

I put up a post up at The Noob Teacher about teaching history. I'd be interested in the perspective some of you have on it. So hop over, read the post, and leave a comment. Pretty please?

I don't want to be a paragraph (Part 2)

2008-05-29T07:57:00.001-07:00

Yes it's three weeks later. No I don't care. This is a continuation of the previous post by the same name, so read that first if you want the full context. In that post I mentioned the fact that as I study history I realize there are so many people who seemed so significant but at best they end up being a paragraph in a history book that students don't care to read. So many of us want to be significant and live meaningful lives. But how do we do that?

I'm not sure exactly what the secret is but I know what it is not. The secret is not worrying about what other people think and striving for significance in the eyes of others. I am a huge sports fan and I love both baseball and football. I pay attention to the sports more than 95% of the population. But I'd have a hard time telling you who won the Super Bowl four years ago. (It was probably the stupid Patriots.) In the moment those guys winning the Super Bowl was the biggest thing - it was all over the news, they went to Disneyland and on talk shows - and then, nothing. Nobody cares anymore and a new season begins. When the king dies and five, ten, twenty years go by he is nothing but a memory. A hundred years go by and he's a paragraph in a textbook.

I don't want that to happen to me!

Looking death in the face can be a terrifying thing. I'm on this planet for a short time and then I'm gone. What will be left of me? I know this sounds lame, but all that will really be left of me are the memories the people I love and that loved me have. The only things that will really last forever that I did on this earth will have to do with the people I spent time with and the relationships I developed. Time I spend pursuing goals outside of people will be essentially wasted time.

So I don't want to be a paragraph. I want to be a husband, father, friend, disciple of Jesus, teacher, mentor, coach, etc. I want to fight against the constant desire to be admired or looked up to or whatever else it is I want by other other. As long as that is the goal of my life I'm going to be disappointed. This isn't anything terribly profound but it is something that's hit home to me more lately. Having a daughter and thinking about her future, thinking about the fact that the day will come when I'm not there, makes me consider how much more precious life is.

As my favorite radio show hosts have said, "you never walk away from a dinner saying to yourself 'man I wish I had some more of that pie!'" Well I'm fairly confident I will not reach the end of my life saying "I wish I'd had that better gaming rig" or "I wish I'd had that award" or whatever else. All my regrets are probably going to have something to do with people. So I'd better do what I can to focus on people and avoid the fate of becoming a paragraph.

You know, this whole two-post thing was a lot more eloquent in my head at 5am when I first came up with it three weeks ago.

The Noob Teacher

2008-05-27T08:55:00.001-07:00

The Noob Teacher is a new blog I'm doing to try to focus my writing a little more. Of course you will probably laugh, considering my total inability to regularly post here, but this other blog will be a place for me to put down things that will hopefully be helpful to me and other teachers and/or anybody interested in my adventures as a new teacher (or this summer, as someone looking for a teaching job).

I will post the other part of that paragraph post thingy this week, too. Sorry. Hah.