Blogs are the Devil

almost 1am. still doing homework. somebody kill me, please. pretty, pretty please.

on a less suicidal note, now that we are officially into may 22, tiffany and i have offically been married for two years!! yay!! don't kill me, i'm too busy running through the fields of joy!!

i forgot to mention the sad, sad news. elliott is gone. i fought hard for him. i voted until the sweat dripped down my face. i would demand a recount, if i could. i really am sad that he's not coming back. it's like losing an old friend. i suppose it's not surprising that a half jew, half iraqi would not fair well on an american tv show, but the only thing elliott could have been accused of is crucifying my hard heart, flying a plane into my weary soul.

goodbye elliott. i'll miss you.

last night we went over to ryan's ridiculously sweet house and watched Walk the Line in his movie theater (no, seriously. he has a movie theater in his house). i thought that the most enjoyable aspect of the movie was watching Joaquin Pheonix's impersonation of Johnny Cash. it was uncanny how well he was able to imitate Johnny's voice, especially. he really sang his songs quite well.

the movie was clearly well made, but it didn't really move me. i cared about Johnny, but not really all that much. he was kind of a bum i sympathized with his wife and children more than i sympathized with him. in a sense i didn't want him to marry June, i wanted him to go back to his wife, even though Reese Witherspoon played the part excellently and was very likeable.

i thought the movie was similar to Ray with the excellent impersonation, the crazy rock star life, the drug use, the sex with teenage fans, etc., but i think i may have liked Ray better. which is odd considering that i'm much more interested in Cash's life story than Ray Charles'.

yesterday i went to jesse remington high school to take a look at their Humanities program. my principal would like to see us move in that sort of direction - more of the classical model. however, the Humanities program was not what i was really impressed by. their school provides something called "project based learning," which is basically just a fancy way of saying that the first half of their day are normal classes and the second half consists of projects only. this quarter they have three projects running: pottery, computer programming, and timber framing.

the timber framing project lasts all year. they start at the beginning of the year planning it all out using some sort of CAD (Computer Aided Design) program and they work on it for a while until everything is ready to go. then the students in that project take a few days off school and go and put it up on whatever site it was designed for. by the time these kids get out of the school, they could build a barn by themselves. one of the kids was currently timber framing himself a bed.

here are a few of the barns they've built:





in my mind the two best educational models are either the classical model, which is built on the 7 liberal arts, or the practical model, which is more like an apprenticeship. in the classical model, learning is pursued for its own sake without a particular skill in view. the practical model seeks to provide students with a particular vocational skill(s). it seems to me that the current american model is somewhere in the middle of those two without the real benefit of either. our students cannot really demonstrate proficiency in the liberal arts nor do they have any practical skills in which to beautify the world.

don't you ever wish that you could go back and re-do your education?

i don't feel motivated to blog these days. i guess this kick isn't going to last long.

notable recent days:

wednesday - had some peeps over for dins. we had a good time. we ate dinner and watched the colbert report and american idol. what a community we're starting! i realized that tiffany is about the best host in the world. basically every meal she makes is pure gold and she isn't always talking or dominating the conversation, but whenever she does say something, it's usually very insightful or funny. it'd be a good idea for me to be more like her. chris got kicked of AI. this makes me happy. the three that i wanted left standing are: elliot, katherine, and taylor. elliot for president.

saturday - i had to go to the school from 9-1 for an open house. not cool. especially since almost no one showed up. it was raining pretty hard all day, so people were not in an out and about mood. but there was a really nice service at the end in which they dedicated the improved elementary building to the old principal, mr. borchers and his wife kathy. that made it a bit more worthwhile. the rest of the day we were out and about shopping for mother's day things. last night on snl, during weekend update, one of the jokes was "tomorrow is mother's day. so pick up the phone, call your mother, and put out that fire." i could talk for a long time about why that joke is both very funny and very sad, but also very true.

today - i'm going to go to church. grace presby. we'll see if i can get tiffany up for it. all signs point to 'no.' then we're having tiffany's family over for some mother's day festivities.

a cloud is over my life. it's called class preparation. it's a weight that takes much of the joy out of everything i do.

i need to get one of the "currently listening to" options on this blog. those are fun. i'm currently listening to michael buble. if you know what's good for you, you'll download his songs "for once in my life," "home," "come fly with me," and "that's all." if you don't know what's good for you, you'll keep listening to the pussycat dolls.

i've got a few minutes while i wait for my wife to get out of work. unfortunately, i don't have a few thoughts. anything you read below is going to be pure rambling.

just got back two nights ago from the old senior class trip, which would probably be a whole lot more interesting for all/both of you if i could post pictures. should i get a digital camera?

ok, that's it.