Ghosts of Mississippi & Neighbors

Shea just finished her biography on Martin Luther King Jr. and at the same time, had her test on state capitals of the South. Hence, our topic of conversation this past few weeks. When she is having to memorize something as trivial to her as state capitals of the south, I try to make it less trivial. I only say trivial, because to a 10 year old who has never been East of Harlan, Iowa, she does have any sense of the size of our country, let alone the importance of the south. As we discuss each capital, we read the history of it, and I try to elaborate on the importance and significance. We talk about people who are influential, music that came from there, or is about the place.
When she was trying to remember the difference between Raleigh & Columbia, I knew that she is keen on the differences of 1600 Spain vs England. She is hip to Queen Elizabeth vs. the Spanish Armada. I had her look at the map, and take note that England came from the North and Spain came over from the South. North Carolina's capital was named for Sir William Raleigh and South Carolina for Christopher Columbus. I think she could remember that.
A while back, my neighbor asked me, kind of out of the blue, if there was anything that she might do for us. An odd question, of sorts, but with all the great intentions. The lady who lives upstairs from me, is a single African American woman, who works for the government, at MCRD and attends The Rock. She invites us to that often. We were walking one day, and I made it clear that I had no intention of going to the Rock Church, and how in my soul, I was anti-mega church. However, I respected her religion and each to their own. etc. On the note, of her asking if there was anything she might do, I suggested that she take Shea out sometime, and talk to her about her culture.
I was very stoked she she came to our door yesterday, and invited us to the christening of the USNS Medgar Evans next month. We read about him this morning, and I am looking forward to going with our neighbor. :)

Meetings, Committees, Sub-Commitees, Advisory Commitees, Oh Boy

Ironically, yesterday I ran an errand for a temp agency. It was going to a meeting at the Department of Education to give tutoring companies the 411 on tutoring high school students who are at risk, and the city will pay them for it.

What got me thinking however, was the lady who was leading the meeting explained the chain of command all their papers had to go through to reach the finish line.

I am now sitting on 3 committees for Dana Middle, the Association Board, the DAC and the SSC. Was it always like this? Were there always an ass-ton of middle people?
I have never worked in a big corporation, Office Space style. The craziest was at my last j.o.b. years ago, I'd be working a Sunday with me and 3 dudes, all which were "middle management" or shift leaders, as they were called. And I always thought it was funny, 3 managers and me. Talk about a buzz-kill.... :)

How the hell does sh*t get done when 3/4 of the team are middle management..

Anywhoo. Went on an interview today, for a sportfishing boat & marina management team. Oh, man, that would not only be up my alley, but just down my street too!
With that.. how the heck are you suppose to answer questions like 'how do you deal with stress?'.. Um.. I freak out, mute the phone and hurl insults at whoever is on the phone.. aka guys I use to work with. Man, would I love some tips on how to answer that.. Also, 'how do you remember to do 5 different things?'...uh? I take notes?... Figures, the day after I purchase my first business suit to wear to interviews, I am asked how I feel about standing in fish guts taking notes of weights.. Great sir! Love it, the smell of fish? Welp, there isn't a Tunaville sticker on my car for nothing... :)

Mix Tape for Ctrl C & Ctrl V April 2011

Now That's What I Call Music, F* Yeah

1. Kanye West Stronger
2. Freelance Whales Hannah
3. Glasser Home
4. Kanye West Golddigger
5. Kanye West Gone
6. Kanye West Through the Wire
7. Kanye West Stronger
8. M.I.A. XXXO
9. Miike Snow Animal
10. My Morning Jacket Touch Me I'll Scream
11. Noah and the Whale Five Years Time
12. Peter Bjorn & John Nothing to Worry About

Looks like I was on a Kanye West kick this month! Diggit!

Mix Tape for Ctrl C & Ctrl V July 2010

Circa July 2010

1. Sleigh Bells Tell 'Em
2. The Raconteurs Consolers of the Lonely
3. Yeasayer Wait for the Summer
4. Matt & Kim Daylight
5. Passion Pit Little Secrets
6. Phoenix Listomania
7. One Eskim0 Kandi
8. Freelance Whales Hannah
9. Bat for Lashes Daniel
10. Does it Offend You, Yeah Dawn of the Dead
11. Silversun Pickups Substitution
12. The Avett Brothers I and Love and You
13. The Low Anthem Charlie Darwin
14. The Black Keys Tighten Up
15. The Raconteurs Steady as She Goes

'Now that's what I call music, f* yeah'

Dreamin' of DeBeck

This morning Shea walked to the kitchen after I woke her. She stood at the counter giving me the standard "you woke me" dirty look. But she surprised the heck out of me, but accusing me of interrupting John de Beck's speech, to wake her up.

http://johndebeck.org

John's Personal Profile

John de Beck is a graduate of the San Diego City Schools. He attended Cabrillo and Loma Portal Elementary schools, followed by Dana Junior High and Point Loma High School. He earned BA and MA degrees in business at San Diego State University. While he was attending college, he worked in retail, wholesale, and advertising businesses. His first teaching experience was at San Diego City College where he taught Retail Sales and Advertising.

His full-time teaching career started in 1954 at Lincoln High School where he taught journalism, photography, typing, and marketing. During his 36 years in education, he also obtained a life credential in school counseling, and he finished his teaching career in 1990 working with at risk youth at Garfield High. He served as a consultant to over 20 California school districts, specializing in integrating Vocational and Special education. He has written numerous teaching guides, and a computer applications textbook.

He served as a consultant to over 20 California school districts, specializing in integrating Vocational and Special education. He has written numerous teaching guides, and a computer applications textbook.

During his career he has been active professionally in the California School Board Association as an assembly delegate, and has served on numerous committees and task forces including their Nominating, Academic/Vocational, Legislative, and Urban Committees.

Board member de Beck lives in Bay Park with his wife, Maxine, and they have 7 children, 7 grandchildren and 7 great-grand children. His hobbies include water sports, photography, boating, and kayaking as well as travel.

Hierarchy of Importance

Trying to keep up with the bloggin..... In my daily todo notebook, it now starting to have its own "to be blogged" list. Just some little things that I would like to file away so I can read it later.

Shealyn came home with a list of people from school and her assignment was to put the people in order of importance. Scientist, Preacher, Teacher, Farmer, Artisan and I think one more. I showed her Maslow's hierarchy and suggested she match each person to their place on the pyramid. It was an interesting conversation between teacher and preacher. My argument was that teachers weren't responsible for all that the preachers got done in history. I can't imagine a public school teacher, in 5th grade telling a kid that a preacher was more important than a teacher.

Can't Keep Up.. ARGH

Yesterday, I swear I wrote 2 papers and studied from the time I dropped Shea off at school until I picked her up. After school, I took her to Capoeira and the John Harvard Academy, then came home and studied, picked her up and we both came home and studied.

We spent the last few hours watching Bowling for Columbine followed by Flashdane and then we were spent.

This morning, dropped the kid off and headed to class, turned in my papers, studied, studied, studied, finally pass chapter 6 in my damn algebra course. Picked up the kid, headed to a the San Diego Mission Acala for a tour and mass. And dropped her off at gymnastics. Walk in the door, I got to figure out when and which channel the Republican debates are on, and I turn on the news, and before the screen EVEN materializes, the voices are saying "more bad news for Point Loma schools..."

FARK! FArk! FarK!

Class of 2019 to be the last at Dana

First there was a note from a name that I was not familiar with. Then came a note from Principal Ryan.
San Diego Unified School District needs to close ten schools in order to address next year's budget deficit. On October 3rd the District's School Closure Committee presented the following recommendations to the Point Loma Cluster Foundation.

DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE POINT LOMA CLUSTER:

1. Close Cabrillo Elementary effective July 2012.
2. Close Barnard campus but keep the Mandarin Magnet K-6 program by relocating it to the Dana campus effective September 2012. Expand the magnet focus from Mandarin Chinese to a Pacific Rim Language Immersion K-8 program.
3. Close Dana Middle School Grade 5 effective July 2012.
4. Convert Dewey, Loma Portal, Ocean Beach, Silver Gate, Sunset View from K-4 to K-5 schools effective September 2012.
5. Dana's current fifth graders will return to Dana for sixth grade in September 2012. The sixth grade program will share the Dana campus with the Pacific Rim Language Immersion K-8 program for the 2012-13 school year.
6. Completely close Dana Middle School effective July 2013.
7. Correia's grade level configuration remains the same for 2012-13, but will convert to a 6-8 middle school in 2013-14. Correia will serve as the only middle school in Point Loma.
8. Point Loma High School is not impacted by the draft recommendations.


First, the feedback from local FB parents were more like "sounds great! keep kids at elementary longer! positive!" However, I wonder what the feedback is going to be with the closing of Dana all together. I know this much, the past few years at OBE in the fall, when they kept rearranging rooms, teachers and student, it was BAD. I can't imagine the negativity and commotion it will be with rearranging the whole cluster. Ugh. What are other options we could look into? Start applying at other charter schools, other than HTH? This is so not cool.

I *heart* the Shinkasen

We have a major paper/presentation coming up in my argumentation class. Not only do you have to prepare a paper from one point of view, then we are required to prepare another presentation from the other point of view. Many in my class grunted, but I'm picking up with Professor Engstrom is putting down.

I had my subject picked. No Child Left Behind. We passed a sign up paper, so classmates would avoid giving the same research and lo and behold, Joshua go there first. I shook my fist at him, in mock anger and thought.

Then I picked the bullet train. I absolutely LOVE the idea of these. I cannot fathom WHY we do not have high speed rails connecting our major cities like Japan.
This research will alot me the time to find out why. Good, I'm glad. Trains are cool. 400 MPH Shinkasens are cooler!

When Someone Passes

I woke this morning to Mikee calling. I didn't pick up. It called again, something was wrong. I picked up. He told me Hugo had passed away, in his sleep, overnight, heart attack.

I don't know many men that I actually look up to. I don't know many good fathers, who would be "my" father's age. In my little world, there is only a handful. Hugo was one of them. Just a good guy. A grown man with a huge heart. His wife and him sponsored Shealyn's catechism classes and an art camp a few years back. He treated Mikee like a son and was a really really nice guy. My sympathy goes out to his Martha, his daughters, son's in law's and grandson. He was an integral part of our lives and will be missed.

DAMM YOU ~ NKOTB.. Err I mean.. NCLB

Each year in elementary, the kids are bombarded with testing. I have always kinda winced at it because I was under the impression that it was directly a result of No Child Left Behind. True, however.....

The GATE program, as you may or may not know is the Gifted & Talented Education seems to also be a direct result of the same damn test, that I have been mocking. Either I missed the info, most likely, or never got the memo.. whichever. Here is what I learned now, too late for GATE Seminar, but maybe not too late for GATE cluster.

The STAR testing, also known as the CST testing which occurs in 2nd grade puts kids into the program. But, according to this little form I just got, there is a SECOND chance. IF since then, they have had 2 advanced scores on they get tested again for GATE Cluster and if they had 5 advanced scores, they get a second shot at seminar.

Since we made the decision to put the kid in the John Harvard Academy and take a serious proactive take on these academics, her scores went through the roof! It goes to show with the right encouragement, your average kid can do anything! She only got 3 our of 6 advanced scores on her STAR testing. I am still very pleased with that. We just set the bar higher, and through it she leaped.

She may or may not make it into the program. I hope she does, I hope she get an even higher bar to leap over.

What bums me out, is my attitude towards those tests. I am saddened at my general anger at the whole 'testing' thing, and it being used to grade schools & teachers.
I know our kids are being raised to be test takers and not well rounded thinkers.
And I am feeling like a hypocrite.

I am also facing this damn hourglass. At any moment, she will be a teenager who hates me and thinks everything is "boring". Hope we can cram enough smarts in her little head so she may make it through. :)

I pray she has enough hobbies and interests that will keep her away from all the things that can destroy your youth. It is a slippery slope, as I say with experience. After you loose it all, it is hard to get it back.

On that note. I was working in the administration office of the Zoo today. I was filing all these donation letters. One was a donation of 6.6 million. I wasn't envious of that family, I wasn't envious of the higher ups around me, I was envious of not finishing college before starting a family. When you are young, there is this notion of having kids makes you all grown up. It is hard raising kids while still working on your degree. What did I read the other day? It costs 64K a year for a family of 3? How do you make that on minimum wage? Ugh.

God, give this kid the smarts to do it right. School, College, CAREER then start a family. That equation is so tough rearranged...

48th Annual Cabrillo Festival

Again! I missed Cabrillo arriving on the shore! Next year, the Portuguese ladies tell me every year, he arrives at 1. I need to keep that in mind! It is really cool to be able to be on Sub-Base for the one day of the year.

But we did get to see Cabrillo, who did from gangrene after messing up his shin. Good to know, but he also had named SD San Miguel.

After the festival, we took Shea to St. Agnes and to Volare. :)

Lesson for Me @ Halloween!

Something that Shea has instilled in me. For all the "go, go, go, I do. Which I do self-chastise for slowing down and/or taking a break, Shea keeps up very well. However, I often tell her that "this" is only "this" long or, finish this class for "this" amount of time, then take a break. I am finally doing that mind set for myself.

I felt immediately guilty for logging into my blog, and seeing that I haven't wrote for a while, then was like.. "eh, no biggie, you took a break!"... ah!

October has arrived, and Shealyn came home on Saturday, so that her Pop could go to a party of sorts, and she knew exactly what day it was. It was October 1st, meaning that it was TIME to get the Halloween schwag out of storage. I made it a big deal that we don't acknowledge holidays until the MONTH of. I can't stand seeing Halloween crap in stores in August or September. :0

Saturday night we drove up to Old Del Mar and rode the Haunted Hayride! Shea tackled another fear! At first I had to drag her into the area, but at the end, she was taunting the ghouls. The hayride is for those who have a hard time putting foot in front of another in the normal haunted houses.