Last Saturday, EC had its second poetry slam of the year. The poem you are about to read is my reaction to 20 students reading their stanza about what writing is to them. The last student talks about how creative writing is what she'll be missing and then I recite thereafter....
I wrote it a couple of hours before the showcase... it's not polished, but it's emotion... enjoy
I miss vowels
A, e, I , o, u
Words now lacking essential sound
We need creative writing
In a world
in which
Creativity is replaced for efficiency
In which
phrases are truncated
Into alphabetic text
Eliminating emotion
(excuse me, to prevent
us from being “emo”)
Our basic human responses
Transforming into people
Incapable of laughter
I miss laughter
It’s been stolen by
The LOL’s of the world
Imagine a world where laughing
No longer erupts from our mouths
And a child never learns
The significance of their smile
Society wants info fast and quick
It profiles and assumes answers
We learn to judge books by their cover
Because reading takes too long, but
Sadly people are too lazy to enter
A bookstore or even afraid too…
Then never even bother to see the cover
So now we judge a book by its movie
We wait to be told what to do
We don’t need dictators to conquer us
We have already subjugated ourselves
Apathy now dictates us
And we lose the art of diction
And all the arts are fading to the wayside
Economy trimming what classes can be taught
So this could be my last
Creative writing class
This is the class I’ll be missing
Because these young minds
Feed into my mind so I can find
The time and energy to be me for EC
Teachers ask me everyday
To define how I can work this way—
Meaning the bombs of stress
and no moments of rest—
trying to keep my head as I face
the daily pace of the school year race—
and I usually say I just need to forget
The reality is I never forget
I internalize and let tension build
Hoping to be filled
With tomorrow’s promise
Rather than my mind’s darkness
I really have no significant other
To share a job no one understands
I don’t go home to unload on a spouse, hell
It’s a victory if I even get home
And that is what EC is…
People say I have a wife
And I’ve spent the past 20 years making EC look good.
From when I first took step on the football field
To maybe grace her stage tonight for the last time
I wonder what she has ever done fro me…
Cuz sometimes I feel she only takes
And takes and never gives, but the truth is
She gave me the most wonderful kids
Each one unique in personality and character
My English kids so young
Still looking to find their voice to make the right choice
The kids who’ll get in trouble every so often
But will make you proud in the end
My leadership kids
Who I wouldn’t hesitate to die for,
Who sacrifice everything to make
Their mom happy
Who use their voices to build
Our family
But I admit sometimes
I play favorites,
And the creative writing kids
Have a different spirit
That remind me of my younger days,
But yet they seem so much stronger
Today than I could ever have been…
I need to write
Writing is my tool
My medicine
My lens to the world
I write to massage
Away every kid who lacks the will to write
And failure is easier than living,
To massage away my anger
When I see a student
Hang a penis from the ceiling
Among the names of all my children,
To massage away these rare moments of doubt
When I wonder if I’d be happier
If I didn’t become a teacher,
To massage away the hundreds of voices
Who all need in their own way
I write to remind myself
There is still something of me
Behind the different masks I wear
In each period I teach
Creative writing is the place
Where I can let my guard down
And feel human and breath
For the sake of breathing
Creative writing saved my life
My freshman year of high school
And in that first sonnet I wrote
All the rumors, pains, and fake
Friends of middle school faded away.
Creative writing discovered my soul
reminds me to nourish it.
Though creative writing class
May begin fragmented
every quick write prompts
A connection.
Every poem strengthens the bonds
Every Friday a chance to be heard
In a society in which almost
No one listens anymore
So thank you
All of you
Especially those who bought a ticket
To hear our voices…
Thank you for listening…
As you’ve heard tonight
These voices here
Will continue to profess
Learn from them as I do each day
Let us memorialize the past this weekend
But remember we are never powerless
With the freedom of speech.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Surreality
I know that I've been working a bit much, for the month of May is probably the craziest month of the year for me. Homecoming week might be my hardest week of work, but there are just so many deadlines in May. I have to wrap up the school year and plot out all of next year in the span of a month... and this month has the added stress of preparing for WASC next year. The world around me seems to not be making much sense.
A couple of things of note:
1. My co-worker Alicia Vosberg is one of the finalists for the Comcast Teacher of the Year award. You will hear more about this later from me because you will all be expected to vote for her online when the time comes.
2. My best friends on staff is leaving El Camino for much more lucrative waters. Although I'm excited for her, the cycle continues and I watch another friend leave. This may also explain why I get so crazy in May. Thankfully I have other great friends on staff, but this ranks up there with a couple of others who have left in the past.
3. Last Friday I left the Giants game and saw the man who later died because of the fight on the ground with all the medical personnel surrounding him. I will go more into this and copy the article from the SF Chronicle at the end of this entry.
4. Senior Ball was Saturday night and it was a pleasant evening. It was a little strange remembering that I missed last year's ball. I took a couple of interesting poses and I will post those when the pics come in from the company.
5. I made my long arduous return to competitive softball this Sunday night. It had been almost a year since I last played a true game and not just practiced. To make things even more interesting, my brother just left for his honeymoon (at least what I call his true honeymoon) so I had to pitch in the first game of the playoffs. This was one of the most exciting games I had played in in a long time. My team lost in extra innings 12-10 unfortunately. My tendons are inflamed and the thought of surgery is starting to sound appealing (and I would truly become part beast when the doctors replace my achilles' tendons with animal ones). My team didn't hit well; I was horribly rusty and even struck out looking. On the positive side, I think I pitched 5 scoreless innings out of 8. The game was a tight pitching duel the entire game. We even came back in the 7th inning to tie, but my legs (quad muscles in particular) felt like they were going to detach and I gave up 6 runs in the top of the 8th inning. My team picked me back up when somehow I got on base as the second batter of the inning and Will hit a 3 run homer. We were able to get the winning run to the plate to hit but we fell short. I really wanted to play in two more games next week for a championship, but my play encouraged me that I should be good for the summer softball season.
So let me go back to last Friday night...
the night was just surreal... you know, one of those nights when you think it's a full moon out...
Johnny came with me to the game and for a change of pace we decided to save a little money and take the train to the ballpark. Immediately, I thought how odd it is i'm there because one of our students sadly lost his life in a train accident just a couple of weeks ago at that same station in San Bruno. We just missed the train and realized it would be 20 minutes until the next scheduled train. Then a marquee sign flashed that the train would be 10 minutes late... then 15 then 20. I grew agitated, especially because it was cold.
We noticed the people around us and many of them were in their early 20s and looking like they had no common sense whatsoever. You could just sense there was going to be trouble... many of the guys were yelling and obnoxiously hitting on some of the women. Three idiots jumped the barrier and were almost hit by an express train. And after what I just knew about one of our students, I couldn't help but think why aren't some people more careful.
After getting off the train and missing the first 2 innings of the game, we walked to the ballpark and 2 of the idiots on our train immediately began yelling loudly and getting into it with other fans around us. For the length of two blocks, these idiots were fighting a few other guys and let it spread into the other hundred fans walking along King Street. One of the idiots was a short guy about 5'2" & 90 lbs. and was wearing a football jersey that could probably fit me. He tried to punch every person who came near him or that he would run into. He was sucker punching people who were not even involved. He would be running down the block accidentally run into somebody and punch them. At one point he ran into a 6'3" dude about 180 lbs and punched him right in the chin. The dude seriously looked down on him and yelled "Are you f**** serious?!?" He grabbed him and tossed him aside, but he immediately got up and started trying to hit others again. He almost ran into me once and all I could think of was that if he attacked me I was going to step on him.
Finally, we made it to the ballpark and 138 was in odd form. The bleachers were filled with all kinds of strange people. Your occasional Friday night fight happens, but the stupidity of behavior all around me was disgusting. One fool (drunk male, very small) kept trying to fight a woman. One of the Giants regulars who sits a bit further away came over to us in 138 and said that he read an article in Sports Illustrated that reviewed all the ballparks. Its comments about AT&T were you don't want to be sitting in the bleachers on a Friday night especially if the Giants are playing the Dodgers. If anyone can get me a copy of this article, I would appreciate it.
Upon leaving the ballpark I saw the consequences of yet another fight... a fight that proved fatal. Click here if you want to read the article.
While walking back to my friend's car after the game, some other idiot was walking alongside the buildings making a scene. He ran up to the window of Amici's and hit the windows yelling at a party eating inside. He kicked the glass windows and doors the entire length of the block and continued to spit at each wall panel. He wanted to fight anyone who would approach him.
For the first time, I thought to myself that I was getting to old to be around this kind of crap. But why should I let idiots ruin my fun at a Giants game. I was kind of reminded of opening day when two guys kept trying to attack one of my buddies... they even followed us into a bar and circled around us. Thankfully nothing happened.
Well, this Tuesday in our school district fundraising night at the ballpark and I hope it's a safe night all weeklong for the Asian Heritage Nights during the homestand.
To end on a happy note... here are pics from sr. ball
A couple of things of note:
1. My co-worker Alicia Vosberg is one of the finalists for the Comcast Teacher of the Year award. You will hear more about this later from me because you will all be expected to vote for her online when the time comes.
2. My best friends on staff is leaving El Camino for much more lucrative waters. Although I'm excited for her, the cycle continues and I watch another friend leave. This may also explain why I get so crazy in May. Thankfully I have other great friends on staff, but this ranks up there with a couple of others who have left in the past.
3. Last Friday I left the Giants game and saw the man who later died because of the fight on the ground with all the medical personnel surrounding him. I will go more into this and copy the article from the SF Chronicle at the end of this entry.
4. Senior Ball was Saturday night and it was a pleasant evening. It was a little strange remembering that I missed last year's ball. I took a couple of interesting poses and I will post those when the pics come in from the company.
5. I made my long arduous return to competitive softball this Sunday night. It had been almost a year since I last played a true game and not just practiced. To make things even more interesting, my brother just left for his honeymoon (at least what I call his true honeymoon) so I had to pitch in the first game of the playoffs. This was one of the most exciting games I had played in in a long time. My team lost in extra innings 12-10 unfortunately. My tendons are inflamed and the thought of surgery is starting to sound appealing (and I would truly become part beast when the doctors replace my achilles' tendons with animal ones). My team didn't hit well; I was horribly rusty and even struck out looking. On the positive side, I think I pitched 5 scoreless innings out of 8. The game was a tight pitching duel the entire game. We even came back in the 7th inning to tie, but my legs (quad muscles in particular) felt like they were going to detach and I gave up 6 runs in the top of the 8th inning. My team picked me back up when somehow I got on base as the second batter of the inning and Will hit a 3 run homer. We were able to get the winning run to the plate to hit but we fell short. I really wanted to play in two more games next week for a championship, but my play encouraged me that I should be good for the summer softball season.
So let me go back to last Friday night...
the night was just surreal... you know, one of those nights when you think it's a full moon out...
Johnny came with me to the game and for a change of pace we decided to save a little money and take the train to the ballpark. Immediately, I thought how odd it is i'm there because one of our students sadly lost his life in a train accident just a couple of weeks ago at that same station in San Bruno. We just missed the train and realized it would be 20 minutes until the next scheduled train. Then a marquee sign flashed that the train would be 10 minutes late... then 15 then 20. I grew agitated, especially because it was cold.
We noticed the people around us and many of them were in their early 20s and looking like they had no common sense whatsoever. You could just sense there was going to be trouble... many of the guys were yelling and obnoxiously hitting on some of the women. Three idiots jumped the barrier and were almost hit by an express train. And after what I just knew about one of our students, I couldn't help but think why aren't some people more careful.
After getting off the train and missing the first 2 innings of the game, we walked to the ballpark and 2 of the idiots on our train immediately began yelling loudly and getting into it with other fans around us. For the length of two blocks, these idiots were fighting a few other guys and let it spread into the other hundred fans walking along King Street. One of the idiots was a short guy about 5'2" & 90 lbs. and was wearing a football jersey that could probably fit me. He tried to punch every person who came near him or that he would run into. He was sucker punching people who were not even involved. He would be running down the block accidentally run into somebody and punch them. At one point he ran into a 6'3" dude about 180 lbs and punched him right in the chin. The dude seriously looked down on him and yelled "Are you f**** serious?!?" He grabbed him and tossed him aside, but he immediately got up and started trying to hit others again. He almost ran into me once and all I could think of was that if he attacked me I was going to step on him.
Finally, we made it to the ballpark and 138 was in odd form. The bleachers were filled with all kinds of strange people. Your occasional Friday night fight happens, but the stupidity of behavior all around me was disgusting. One fool (drunk male, very small) kept trying to fight a woman. One of the Giants regulars who sits a bit further away came over to us in 138 and said that he read an article in Sports Illustrated that reviewed all the ballparks. Its comments about AT&T were you don't want to be sitting in the bleachers on a Friday night especially if the Giants are playing the Dodgers. If anyone can get me a copy of this article, I would appreciate it.
Upon leaving the ballpark I saw the consequences of yet another fight... a fight that proved fatal. Click here if you want to read the article.
While walking back to my friend's car after the game, some other idiot was walking alongside the buildings making a scene. He ran up to the window of Amici's and hit the windows yelling at a party eating inside. He kicked the glass windows and doors the entire length of the block and continued to spit at each wall panel. He wanted to fight anyone who would approach him.
For the first time, I thought to myself that I was getting to old to be around this kind of crap. But why should I let idiots ruin my fun at a Giants game. I was kind of reminded of opening day when two guys kept trying to attack one of my buddies... they even followed us into a bar and circled around us. Thankfully nothing happened.
Well, this Tuesday in our school district fundraising night at the ballpark and I hope it's a safe night all weeklong for the Asian Heritage Nights during the homestand.
To end on a happy note... here are pics from sr. ball
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