A good week

This week:
- finally found my best friend from my year in Brazil
- said "thank-you" to junior high math teacher's widow
- patched things with a very dear friend
- visiting friends/family this weekend

an amazing talent, and it's ok if it's never again honed

Some people like road trips. Others: not so much. Our sweet daughter helped us to learn something new today: if a raisin is stuffed far enough up the nose, tweezers are required.

you can surprise some of the kids all of the time ...

A typical conversation:

"Mr. Ratliff," shocked, "you have a facebook?"
"Yes," wryly.
"What do you DO on facebook?" incredulously.
Retort: "what do YOU do?"
"Well, everything," perplexed, "and nothing."
Smugly: "mm-hmm."

[post-script beyond the 32-word tome: I expressly do not befriend current or potential students]

some cities shut down at the sight of the first snowflake, others drive on ice

It rained pretty hard here today. But I was unprepared for indoor events getting canceled. No Bible study tonight, and our school's Thursday earthquake drill will no longer include a building evacuation.

irony. or something.

While approaching a car that was in the slow lane I noticed it was marked "student driver."

There was no student in the car; only an instructor driving. On his cell phone.

lazy day

Saturday night church became Sunday morning church because of company, but I had over 100 tests to grade. I won't lie: it was pretty nice staying in my jammies until after 5.

don't need no stinking pictures

As I tucked A4 into bed tonight, he requested tonight's Bible story be from mine, not his.

"That means no pictures."

He grinned, nodded, and we read about wisdom from Proverbs 10.

32-word post, Entry IV

Here's what was reinforced from my day's experiences today:

I love my job.
My job can drive me nuts.
I miss my family when I'm gone all day.
I hate the Yankees.

she had a point

After today's test, students had a textbook assignment called "Are You Ready?" Upon the 2nd reminder to one student , she protested, saying "I know I bombed the test. And I'm not ready."

teaching

A student who moved to our country 6 weeks ago might move back, and wanted my advice. In Spanish.

Forget angles and equations; this was the most important conversation I had today.

same blogger, different rules

I have decided to take a pithy approach of posts of exactly thirty-two words. Until my birthday, that is. I have enjoyed other peoples' blogs with a similar approach, so why not?

Hibernation

Following the lead of several others, I am putting the blog on the back burner. I looked back at posts I have made over the past 8 months, and of dozens of comments, only 1 or 2 were from people that don't already follow me on Facebook. So -- I'm still alive ... but I liked one other hibernator's explanation and echo the motivation: I get a lot more feedback and it's more of a conversation than I'd get from the blog. Hope you'll join me there!

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In how many capital cities have YOU lived?

Short version for now. I got a job offer.

I found out this afternoon on my way home from running some errands, including set-up for an accelerated college class I start teaching tomorrow night.

We will be moving to Sacramento. My summer vacation gets cut short, and I could be at work as soon as June 29. But that means 8-9 weeks I don't have to worry about not getting paid, too.

We're already scrambling. New home. New church. New friends. New new new ...

To be continued ...

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All worth it

One of my more contemptuous students over the past few months has been on and off of my good side depending on the day. I have shared with my wife that I really do like her, but some days I want to strangle her (figuratively, not literally) because of her behavior in class and her treatment of others. Yesterday, she told me that she was going to be writing me an apology letter. I told her that I would be glad to accept it, but honestly I didn't really think I would really see anything. Today, though, I did receive it. Please keep in mind that she is aware that my current school has not rehired me for next year, so this was something that could have been blown off.

Here is the letter (the image below was also on her letter):

Dear Mr. Ratliff,

We didn't get off to a very good start this year. I know it was mainly because of me. I thought that you were a kind of push over teacher. But you sure showed me up. Today I finally realized that you really did care. You always put us kids before your self and you also keep giving and giving. And I really appreciate that. So once again thanks. I enjoyed being in your class. Even know I did cause a bit of trouble. Your one of my teachers that understand and cared and I am sure going to miss you if your not here next year. And once again sorry for being so mean to you this year. I truly am sorry. So thanks.

Love always,
name withheld

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Must. Keep. Straight. Face.

Another story relayed by mommy ... A4 and M2 are on the ladder to our outdoor playscape a few days ago. From mommy's vantage point, M2 is near the top, but is getting increasingly fussy. It's the type of fussy that is a clear giveaway that she is being harassed somehow by her older brother. It might be in good fun, but she's not enjoying it.

Seizing the opportunity to share this distinction with A4, Mommy brings both children together. She crouches down to their level, holding one hand with each of hers, and she asks our son what he needs to say.

"Sorry."

"Sorry for what," prods mommy.

"Sorry," he tells his sister, "for pushing you on the ladder."

Mommy thought he was done. But he sighed, then continued "and for kissing your buns."

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It takes a long time to make this type of money

Yesterday I was scheduled to umpire a baseball game at 4:00pm. On my way south from school, changing from school garb to umpire uniform in the car, it was evident that the forecasted rainstorm was here to stay. But I had received no indication of cancellation or postponement.


I arrived at the field, met the other umpire, who was equally shocked that they were going to try to get a game in with these conditions. We walked onto the field about 20 minutes before gametime. Both teams were ready to play, so we started at about 3:46pm. Apparently it's the last chance either of them have to get in this league game.

By virtue of us arriving at the field, we were guaranteed half the game fee. It's the home team's decision to start the game, but once the game is underway, it's the umpires' decision to cancel the game.

With two outs in the bottom of the first inning, the home plate umpire thought he noticed the pitcher slipping as he made his deliveries to home plate. He called time, and I went to the mound. When I took a step forward from the pitcher's plate, my foot then slid about 8 inches in the muck. There was no way we could continue the game, and the rain was persistently falling.

While we gladly would have toughed it out in the elements had it been safe, we had no choice but to call it.

But that meant we racked up some nice rates, including over $10 per out, and -- with a game time of 12 minutes -- an hourly rate closing in on $300.

Too bad I couldn't keep that up for awhile.

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Have you dreamed a dream?

Here is the latest viral video, again from Britain's Got Talent.

You will be blown away.

The 7-minute video from Les Misérables is here.

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Only those medically necessary

During a recent trip to the post office, so says mommy, A3 noticed a sign on the door on the way out. He quickly and accurately read it, saying out loud to mommy, "that sign says no pets."

No sooner was mommy saying "that's right," that A3 continued.

"No fish, no dogs, no cats." A brief pause. Perhaps to think up the finale. Perhaps to draw emphasis to ostensibly the most important part of the list.

"No squirrels."

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What time is it, anyway?

I'm rather surprised, but one of my sharper sophomores just looked at the wall clock in my classroom, trying to discern how much time remains until the bell rings to start class, and threw a hand at it, saying "I don't know how to read those."

I looked in my PDF copy of the state mathematics framework and found this Kindergarten standard (page 11): Demonstrate an understanding of concepts of time (e.g., morning, afternoon, evening, today, yesterday, tomorrow, week, year) and tools that measure time(e.g., clock, calendar).

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Shamless plug

In my efforts to provide some "real-life" connections for my remedial math courses (3 of the 4 I teach), I tapped a long-ago coworker who currently works with DeVry University. He came to my classroom yesterday to present "Career Shop," which was probably 20% DeVry and 80% career and personality assessments.

The local paper stopped by, and today's Local section has a front-page write-up on the visit. The online version is here.

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There's irony in here somewhere

"Do you have a copy of today's paper?" I asked, in an office previously known to have several.

"No," was the reply. "It's online now. It's paperless."

"A paperless paper," I pondered.

Semantically, making a paper paperless would make it ( ). Kind of like when you take the cheese out of the cheeseburger, and then take the burger out.

The best "Danny Boy" rendition you'll ever see

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A vowel makes all the difference

Our son, almost 4 years old, dug in his heels the other night over the topic of his mother's cooking. As soon as the plate of new potatoes, peas and carrots, and shredded beef was set before him, he replied with a vociferous "YUCK," drawing out the final sound as if he were practicing his Deutsche.

Mommy needed a rest from the tirade, and I obliged as she took our daughter for a bike ride (daughter in the trailer). Since Aden had failed to make progress on his dinner after about 30 minutes, he received the pre-announced one-way trip to bed. At 6:25. No AWANA. No dinner. No evening time with the family.

Through his hysterical pleas for mercy, I was sharing with him how rude it was to respond to mommy's hard work to provide him with good food by saying "YUCKKKKK," making sure to add the static to the "K" that he had intentionally drawn out.

His crying slowed a bit, and he managed to say between gasps. I didn't say "YUCKKKKKK," I said "ykkkkkkk." (Imagine the word sans vowel).

Had I only known.

Not pink

Since I'm on an internship and a temporary contract to teach this year, I was fully expecting a layoff notice; even had the market conditions been different.

So my biggest disappointment of the process so far is not that I don't have employment after June 4. It's that a "pink" slip came on white letterhead.

That Guy

Got hooked up with spinning classes at least for this week (maybe next week, too). I'm in Boot Camp. Again. This morning during spinning, though, a guy brings his bike into the room about 20 minutes into the 60-minute class.

Then he starts pedaling away like mad. I couldn't figure out if he thought he was all that because he could pedal 200rpm's 20 minutes into a spinning class, or if he thought he would catch up to us.

If he was trying to catch up, we had already climbed like 18 hills already, so his pedaling around like mad was tantamount to him just going in circles at the bottom of the first hill we climbed.