I forgot I had this thing. This blog. I recently started keeping a bullet journal as a sort of daily history and in the process I lost the doggone book. In one of my Facebook memories the link for my blog came up. I wonder if between keeping a blog and a bullet diary (if I can ever find the damn book I wrote in!) if I can maintain some sort of personal journal type thing?
Anyway, I'm reading some of the stuff I wrote back in 2012 and remembering those emotions and then recalling all of the things that have happened and things that I've done since then. I am just a normal dude, but we've been werkin' hard up in here (me and my family that is) and there's so much I still want to do.
I left active duty military, transferred to the Army reserves, moved back home (where I'm weird now because I'm FROM where I live, but I don't already have the set group of people I've been hangin' with since I was 4 because I left for 12 years so people I meet are always surprised that I don't act like a Seattleite and I actually talk to them), I got back into teaching, we bought a house, we're putting roots back into the place where we came from. I'm coaching baseball, I'm taking care of my grandparents and my uncle, I'm there for my parents. Lots of stuff goin' on!
But when I blog instead of journal, what do I write about? Politics?! I'm definitely under-qualified for that, but I still have some very strong opinions that I am encouraged NOT to share considering my military career. Religion? I started that blog several times and what it boils down to is that writing about that crap is just not worth my time. Seriously. I suggest some Richard Dawkins. He has a lot of good things to say on religion. I hear complaints about how mean he is, but have you seen peer reviews in science? They're ALL that savage! How about parenting?! Now there we go! I have two kids that are (so far) not sociopaths! My wife and I were discussing the other night how there's all this crap about how Mom's are Mothering poorly and Dad's could give two shits about someone suggesting how to parent better. I could absolutely write some sarcastic Daddin' stuff! Do like Cosmo/GQ articles for Dads. Oh man that would be funny! I bet someone's already done it!! I wonder if I need to read GQ articles to get a feel for that writing style... Good Bob I hope not. I couldn't read that blathering drivel (or... shit...).
I suppose I could write about the things I still want to do, go to more protests, act more locally in our political system, change my military career to warrant, I wonder if I could find a deployment that way? I sure as hell didn't find one as a bandsmen. What else do I want to do?
I guess I'll just mindbarf for now!
Deadcat42 Out.
Monday, May 15, 2017
DOMA
The Defense of Marriage Act. Marriage (or civil union) rights for Gay people. No brainer to me. But I always get the feeling that people don't know where I stand... Really?!?! So. Let's chit chat... First off, what prompted this? Well a friend of mine who I respect greatly said something about cynical people supporting the DOMA cause, but not thinking that changing their profile will do anything. I'm that person. I'm the cynical one that believes changing a profile pic is about as useful as a trailer hitch on a geo metro... But I also feel like I've probably said some things that I meant to be funny that were probably highly offensive and maybe I owe it to him to support the cause publicly. I know I've said stupid crap in the past...
Quick story... In college a very close friend of mine once heard me make a pretty offensive gay joke. Unbeknownst to me, she was exploring that option in her life. My stupid joke hurt her. She later confronted me about my immature and hurtful commentary. I was embarrassed and hurt that she didn't share that part of her life with me before I stuck my foot in my mouth. She made a big deal later on out of introducing me to her girlfriend. A really big deal. When I finally did meet my friends girlfriend, what I met was an awkward young lady who knew her sexuality, but didn't know who she was yet. She was the first outwardly Gay person I had (knowingly) met. My reaction was along the lines of "Oh. Why was that such a big deal?" I tell this story because my lesson in meeting my first openly gay person was that she was just a normal person. She had insecurities and whatnot just like everyone else. She wasn't more enlightened, she wasn't smarter (that I know of), and she wasn't a better or worse human being because she wasn't attracted to the opposite sex.
Anyway, I've grown more since college (duh) and I've said some stupid homophobic sounding stuff since then as well. I feel like I ought to clarify my stance...
I'm a white, blonde (at least when I had hair I was), male that grew up in a poor household with neglectful parents (see the post I made in February 2012) in a pretty classless part of the world and in college I could be lumped in with the fraternity crowd (I was in a frat, but participated about as little as I could get away with, I didn't even live there!). Today I'm in the military and I'm surrounded by people whose talents generally do not lie in the realm of thinking. So now I'm tied to an organization whose people GENERALLY don't like Gay men and women (my unit in particular is not that way at all, but I only work with them around 16 hours a month, unfortunately for me...). People in this organization often make some pretty horrible jokes at the expense of Gay people.
Everything about who I am, where I'm from, and what I currently do screams "homophobe" it seems like...
That could not be more wrong.
I don't really respond or involve myself much to these discussions about civil rights for Gay people for the simple reason that I think it will happen. If it doesn't happen now, we'll have more national shame to deal with in future generations (we're really stackin' up the shameful behavior these days!), but it will happen. When I was a college kid my thought was "Of course! Why WOULDN'T Gay people get the same rights as everyone else?!" Even as a 35 year old man, I still naively wonder why this is still a discussion??
I still believe it's a no brianer. Gay people will get equal rights. Why wouldn't they? Seriously! Why wouldn't they? Because some religious nutjobs can't read/follow their own rulebook? Psh. Even with their ridiculous news entertainment tv station spouting their hate, it will happen.
I support the Defense of Marriage Act and the right of Gay people to join in the same loving harmony that I enjoy with my wife. It seems dumb not to. Of course everyone deserves to have a relationship that they are happy in and have it recognized by society.
(written in 2013, but I found it and posted it in 2017)
Quick story... In college a very close friend of mine once heard me make a pretty offensive gay joke. Unbeknownst to me, she was exploring that option in her life. My stupid joke hurt her. She later confronted me about my immature and hurtful commentary. I was embarrassed and hurt that she didn't share that part of her life with me before I stuck my foot in my mouth. She made a big deal later on out of introducing me to her girlfriend. A really big deal. When I finally did meet my friends girlfriend, what I met was an awkward young lady who knew her sexuality, but didn't know who she was yet. She was the first outwardly Gay person I had (knowingly) met. My reaction was along the lines of "Oh. Why was that such a big deal?" I tell this story because my lesson in meeting my first openly gay person was that she was just a normal person. She had insecurities and whatnot just like everyone else. She wasn't more enlightened, she wasn't smarter (that I know of), and she wasn't a better or worse human being because she wasn't attracted to the opposite sex.
Anyway, I've grown more since college (duh) and I've said some stupid homophobic sounding stuff since then as well. I feel like I ought to clarify my stance...
I'm a white, blonde (at least when I had hair I was), male that grew up in a poor household with neglectful parents (see the post I made in February 2012) in a pretty classless part of the world and in college I could be lumped in with the fraternity crowd (I was in a frat, but participated about as little as I could get away with, I didn't even live there!). Today I'm in the military and I'm surrounded by people whose talents generally do not lie in the realm of thinking. So now I'm tied to an organization whose people GENERALLY don't like Gay men and women (my unit in particular is not that way at all, but I only work with them around 16 hours a month, unfortunately for me...). People in this organization often make some pretty horrible jokes at the expense of Gay people.
Everything about who I am, where I'm from, and what I currently do screams "homophobe" it seems like...
That could not be more wrong.
I don't really respond or involve myself much to these discussions about civil rights for Gay people for the simple reason that I think it will happen. If it doesn't happen now, we'll have more national shame to deal with in future generations (we're really stackin' up the shameful behavior these days!), but it will happen. When I was a college kid my thought was "Of course! Why WOULDN'T Gay people get the same rights as everyone else?!" Even as a 35 year old man, I still naively wonder why this is still a discussion??
I still believe it's a no brianer. Gay people will get equal rights. Why wouldn't they? Seriously! Why wouldn't they? Because some religious nutjobs can't read/follow their own rulebook? Psh. Even with their ridiculous news entertainment tv station spouting their hate, it will happen.
I support the Defense of Marriage Act and the right of Gay people to join in the same loving harmony that I enjoy with my wife. It seems dumb not to. Of course everyone deserves to have a relationship that they are happy in and have it recognized by society.
(written in 2013, but I found it and posted it in 2017)
Friday, December 14, 2012
gun control?
So I've seen a lot of people posting things on the Facebook machine about the recent shootings. I have too much to say about what I think and how I feel for a mere status post. So once again, I'll put off writing the three posts I have saved and waiting for completion to write this one.
First off, I would like to address the "it's to soon, we need to grieve before we make a political statement about this." Are you kidding me?!?! One of these shootings happened less than two miles from me!!!! HELL NO I AIN'T WAITING AGAIN!!! Suck it up whiny face! YOU didn't have anyone die, YOU don't have anything to grieve (except maybe your broken society, and yes, there's a lot to be grieving for there) YOU need to part of this conversation and hopefully a solution. We need to deal with it NOW when the pain is fresh, waiting only lets us forget. Again, and again and again and again (and again, and again, and again, and again, remember you only hear about this when it's in sleepy white suburbs, it happens DAILY in urban schools. I've been around hostile fire more as a teacher than I ever have or will as a Soldier in the U.S. Army).
How many more people need to die before you are ready to face this problem?
Two: What exactly is "Gun Control?" And why is that a problem? I have the unique perspective of being in the Army and of being responsible for weapons from time to time. The Army has EXTREME forms of control in Garrison (that means not at war or training in the field). It would be silly for me to tell them to you and put myself at risk, but you can easily find the Army Physical Security Regulations and see what they do to control their armaments. Why is it a problem to expect civilians to do the same? It simply means controlling your weapons. Maintain positive control of your weapon at ALL TIMES. The recent shooting down the street from me, the kid stole the AR-15 from a friend who did not take that seriously and 3 people are dead because of it. How is it infringing on your rights to expect you to get control of the instruments of death that you feel the need to hoard? The Zombie apocalypse is a joke if you didn't know.
Third: I often hear this "if more people are armed, maybe this stuff wouldn't happen, we don't need less weapons we need MORE." This is called escalation of force. We went through this once, it was called the Cold War. Thank Bob we didn't actually have anything happen!! But really, it's a ridiculous and idiotic stance. First off, 98% of people who are packing a concealed weapon are gonna' piss their pants when a gunfight breaks out in a bank (read this: http://www.amandaripley.com/book). Second of all, their most likely not going to make the right decisions and their going to shoot someone innocent (don't believe me? It's called friendly fire and/or collateral damage, it happens all the time, but the military doesn't advertise that...) instead of the hostile person doing the shooting. Third, these shootings are happening mostly in schools. Students are not allowed to carry firearms in schools. DUH. I've actually heard people suggest teachers start carrying. I was a teacher once. That's the LAST thing that we should do. The single most asinine suggestion I've heard as a solution to school shootings. That won't make anyone feel safe. Ever.
Ultimately, saying "I have more guns than you, and mine are bigger" will not solve the problem. I wish we were able to grade on social skills in primary grades because you silly people suggesting more weapons as a solution would have (and should have anyway) failed kindergarten! That doesn't solve any problems dumbass! That makes a stupid problem bigger!! Most gang fight shoot outs involving 14-16 year old's involve "he said she said" situations. If I may be a sarcastic jerk for a second... TOTALLY worth dying a painful death from a sucking chest wound. TOTALLY.
Fourth: Many of the "Gun Enthusiasts" who get all up in arms (pun VERY intended) about Gun Control have no reason except their enthusiasm for having these weapons. No you don't need a semi automatic rifle for home protection. In close quarters (like a home invasion) you want a pistol anyway. Rifles are for hunting (or sniping, like the Washington DC shooter a few years ago... Remember that? Again, your concealed weapon is friggin' useless against that). Gun control is about controlling something that is intended to cause death. Why are you fighting against that? Gun Control does not mean you're not going to get your hobby of collecting instruments of death, you sicko, it means that someone is keeping track of the weapons. Not YOU for my conspiracy theorist friends, the weapons. Like you say, guns don't kill people, but if you hang your Barret Sniper rifle above your mantle because it's cool and the emo kid who's been bullied since he was 8 sees it sitting out there in the open.... You don't have positive control of your weapon do you?
Fifth: I alluded to this in the previous paragraph, but some have said "we need to have people better trained." The kid who shot up the mall down the street here in Oregon only killed two people because his rifle jammed and he didn't know how to clear it. Me and the former Marine who was carpooling with me that day made some morbid jokes about anyone with any military training would "SPORTS" that bad boy and "charlie mike" (means "CM," or "continue mission"). Don't know what I mean by SPORTS? Good! The DC shooter a few years back had training. Your concealed weapon that you think is going to keep you safe would be useless against anyone with any modicum of training and an M16 (or AR-15, or ANY rifle for that matter). I know that if I went off the deep end and was going to do a public suicide like that, I wouldn't charge into a place and start flailing around like an idiot. But then again, I'm mentally sound and while my childhood was tumultuous, I had support that gave me opportunities to move past it.
And there it is... The solution. I had support to get past whatever preteen drama I had to live through. While I "mindbarfed" this little blog post learned that I do support gun control, (no I didn't know that for sure before I started writing!) and conservatives are right that the issue is that the problem is NOT the weapons, it's the people. With that said, I had to get a "Secret" security clearance to do what I do. It was quite the process. Why is it problem to expect that it be more difficult and more rigorous of a process for a civilian to get bigger and faster guns that they don't need and want because it's "cool?" Ultimately, guns were not meant to be a hobby and your "right" doesn't guarantee your gun collecting hobby, it guarantees that you don't have to listen to a foreign invader or a rogue Government (hmm... rogue... where've I heard that before...?). Guns are for killing. The real problem is that these people that do this are not cared for. The solution is in recognizing they have a sickness that our society does not recognize, accept, or treat. In the end, to stop this we need to fix the human part of it, gun control laws are really only a "duct tape and baling wire" fix to a bigger problem of mental health issues that we are stubbornly refusing to acknowledge again and again and again and again. Ignoring the problem won't ever make it go away. Ever.
How many more times does this need to happen?
First off, I would like to address the "it's to soon, we need to grieve before we make a political statement about this." Are you kidding me?!?! One of these shootings happened less than two miles from me!!!! HELL NO I AIN'T WAITING AGAIN!!! Suck it up whiny face! YOU didn't have anyone die, YOU don't have anything to grieve (except maybe your broken society, and yes, there's a lot to be grieving for there) YOU need to part of this conversation and hopefully a solution. We need to deal with it NOW when the pain is fresh, waiting only lets us forget. Again, and again and again and again (and again, and again, and again, and again, remember you only hear about this when it's in sleepy white suburbs, it happens DAILY in urban schools. I've been around hostile fire more as a teacher than I ever have or will as a Soldier in the U.S. Army).
How many more people need to die before you are ready to face this problem?
Two: What exactly is "Gun Control?" And why is that a problem? I have the unique perspective of being in the Army and of being responsible for weapons from time to time. The Army has EXTREME forms of control in Garrison (that means not at war or training in the field). It would be silly for me to tell them to you and put myself at risk, but you can easily find the Army Physical Security Regulations and see what they do to control their armaments. Why is it a problem to expect civilians to do the same? It simply means controlling your weapons. Maintain positive control of your weapon at ALL TIMES. The recent shooting down the street from me, the kid stole the AR-15 from a friend who did not take that seriously and 3 people are dead because of it. How is it infringing on your rights to expect you to get control of the instruments of death that you feel the need to hoard? The Zombie apocalypse is a joke if you didn't know.
Third: I often hear this "if more people are armed, maybe this stuff wouldn't happen, we don't need less weapons we need MORE." This is called escalation of force. We went through this once, it was called the Cold War. Thank Bob we didn't actually have anything happen!! But really, it's a ridiculous and idiotic stance. First off, 98% of people who are packing a concealed weapon are gonna' piss their pants when a gunfight breaks out in a bank (read this: http://www.amandaripley.com/book). Second of all, their most likely not going to make the right decisions and their going to shoot someone innocent (don't believe me? It's called friendly fire and/or collateral damage, it happens all the time, but the military doesn't advertise that...) instead of the hostile person doing the shooting. Third, these shootings are happening mostly in schools. Students are not allowed to carry firearms in schools. DUH. I've actually heard people suggest teachers start carrying. I was a teacher once. That's the LAST thing that we should do. The single most asinine suggestion I've heard as a solution to school shootings. That won't make anyone feel safe. Ever.
Ultimately, saying "I have more guns than you, and mine are bigger" will not solve the problem. I wish we were able to grade on social skills in primary grades because you silly people suggesting more weapons as a solution would have (and should have anyway) failed kindergarten! That doesn't solve any problems dumbass! That makes a stupid problem bigger!! Most gang fight shoot outs involving 14-16 year old's involve "he said she said" situations. If I may be a sarcastic jerk for a second... TOTALLY worth dying a painful death from a sucking chest wound. TOTALLY.
Fourth: Many of the "Gun Enthusiasts" who get all up in arms (pun VERY intended) about Gun Control have no reason except their enthusiasm for having these weapons. No you don't need a semi automatic rifle for home protection. In close quarters (like a home invasion) you want a pistol anyway. Rifles are for hunting (or sniping, like the Washington DC shooter a few years ago... Remember that? Again, your concealed weapon is friggin' useless against that). Gun control is about controlling something that is intended to cause death. Why are you fighting against that? Gun Control does not mean you're not going to get your hobby of collecting instruments of death, you sicko, it means that someone is keeping track of the weapons. Not YOU for my conspiracy theorist friends, the weapons. Like you say, guns don't kill people, but if you hang your Barret Sniper rifle above your mantle because it's cool and the emo kid who's been bullied since he was 8 sees it sitting out there in the open.... You don't have positive control of your weapon do you?
Fifth: I alluded to this in the previous paragraph, but some have said "we need to have people better trained." The kid who shot up the mall down the street here in Oregon only killed two people because his rifle jammed and he didn't know how to clear it. Me and the former Marine who was carpooling with me that day made some morbid jokes about anyone with any military training would "SPORTS" that bad boy and "charlie mike" (means "CM," or "continue mission"). Don't know what I mean by SPORTS? Good! The DC shooter a few years back had training. Your concealed weapon that you think is going to keep you safe would be useless against anyone with any modicum of training and an M16 (or AR-15, or ANY rifle for that matter). I know that if I went off the deep end and was going to do a public suicide like that, I wouldn't charge into a place and start flailing around like an idiot. But then again, I'm mentally sound and while my childhood was tumultuous, I had support that gave me opportunities to move past it.
And there it is... The solution. I had support to get past whatever preteen drama I had to live through. While I "mindbarfed" this little blog post learned that I do support gun control, (no I didn't know that for sure before I started writing!) and conservatives are right that the issue is that the problem is NOT the weapons, it's the people. With that said, I had to get a "Secret" security clearance to do what I do. It was quite the process. Why is it problem to expect that it be more difficult and more rigorous of a process for a civilian to get bigger and faster guns that they don't need and want because it's "cool?" Ultimately, guns were not meant to be a hobby and your "right" doesn't guarantee your gun collecting hobby, it guarantees that you don't have to listen to a foreign invader or a rogue Government (hmm... rogue... where've I heard that before...?). Guns are for killing. The real problem is that these people that do this are not cared for. The solution is in recognizing they have a sickness that our society does not recognize, accept, or treat. In the end, to stop this we need to fix the human part of it, gun control laws are really only a "duct tape and baling wire" fix to a bigger problem of mental health issues that we are stubbornly refusing to acknowledge again and again and again and again. Ignoring the problem won't ever make it go away. Ever.
How many more times does this need to happen?
Friday, October 19, 2012
Social Networking
It's been a while since I wrote a web log and I cancelled my Facebook
and need another, hopefully more productive, use of my internet time.
Why not write about cancelling the Facebooks?! Hey Hey! Makes sense
right...? Yeah I didn't think so either.
So I grew up in a time when it seemed like MANY people didn't realize the long term damage that television could do, and everyone (at least everyone around me) watched hours and hours of TV or sat in front of the Nintendo for hours trying to beat Super Mario Brothers. Today we have ten times the TV (meaning there's 10 times the material on TV on hundreds more channels), video games that kick WAY more ass than Mario Bros., and there's the addition of portable computers and internet. I grew up with a screen and I bought into it!
Except now I'm a parent. In my college studies (education major) and internet research into the effects of all this screen time (neurotic first-time parent), I've discovered that it's actually kind of bad for people, and especially children 0-2, to spend time in front of a screen. Any screen. Dammit... I mean I always knew that parking your kid in front of the TV instead of spending time with them was bad parenting, but now there's research that finds statistically significant differences in children that watch tv and children that don't. OK. Since children mimic their parents, I guess I'm going to have allow myself much less screen time than I did prior to being a parent. Got it, and with Sam, my first, I did it. I hardly watch TV at all anymore and I can't remember anytime since he was born where someone asked "Hey did you see the movie ____?!" That I haven't been able to answer "Nope, I'm a parent..."
Well Sam is almost 4 now and we allow MAX 3 hours of screen time a day, and if it gets to that point, we start to feel a little guilty. Usually it's Sunday's when I'm watching football, and if Daddy gets screen time, it's only fair that Sam does too... Right? Here's the problem though, my daughter Noelle is now 14 weeks(ish) and she can turn her head to the "pretty flashy thing" that we keep in the corner, or to the folding screen that Mommy and Daddy spend a lot of time looking at... and here's where I get into my main theme of this blog, Social Networking.
Since my TV has been commandeered by Barney, The Wiggles, Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, Kipper, Lil' Bill, and the Wonder Pets (among others). I've found that I'll sit with Sam and poke around on Facebook. Now from the beginning of MySpace and Facebook I've always felt a tinge of creepiness and narcissism about what we're really doing and/or posting. If you're the type of person to post constantly, the assumption is that someone's going to read yours posts right? If you're not the constant poster type, then you're just perusing other people's lives and pictures and stuff right? Here's an example for you. A couple years ago I was training for and running the Portland Marathon. I had runkeeper posting to Facebook and people were commenting and making training suggestions and I had a friend in Minnesota that I was "cybertraining" with and we would keep each other honest. That was great! I was keeping in touch with people long distances away, and we were challenging each other and keeping each other accountable (you only ran 15 miles!? DUDE!! SUCK IT UP!!!) After I ran the marathon, I kept posting workouts for a while, but as I was doing one of my runs, I thought to myself "why the hell am I still posting these workouts?! Nobody friggin' cares..." and I stopped. Then I started thinking about ALL my posts like that... Does anyone really care that Sam just pooped in the toilet for the first time? Does anyone really care about my Monday morning quarter back-ing? Does anyone really look at my pictures? Why the hell are they looking at my pictures anyway? My wife doesn't like it when I say this, but I'm not that pretty...
Anyway, this has been going on for a while and then of course the recent political shitstorm that has infested America, and the innumerable instances of, "someone on the internet is wrong and I have to correct them" posts about politics or sports or education or whatever. It seems like I haven't had positive interaction on Facebook with anyone in quite a while. More than a year if I were to guess... I mean yeah I chat with people every now and then, and that's kinda' cool, but in general, I'm just wasting time sitting with Sam while he watches whatever annoying pseudo-educational show he's into that week (Dora is the WORST SHOW EVER... sidebar over...) and arguing with ridiculous political assertions, with no prospect of influencing anyone ever. Why am I kicking this dead horse, I say? I should shut off the TV and my computer and wrestle with the kid, or make a mess with something. Boys like that stuff!
"Dude, what does all of this have to do with social networking?!" You ask? Well, I'm glad you asked! One real quick thing here though for some context... A few months ago Tina and I discovered Mark Gungor and his video "Laugh Your Way To a Better Marriage." If you're in a relationship, or planning on getting into one, you should watch this. It's good. I mention it because one of the subjects that he addresses in this video is internet pornography (awkward!). Mr. Gungor is a pastor/counselor (I'm not a religious dude at all, it's still good, he doesn't get preachy or try to do any recruiting) and has seen porn ruin many relationships and seen many people substitute porn for real the relationships in front of them. I don't want to dwell on porn because it is awkward, I'm not accomplished enough of a writer to actually dig into this subject, but you can check out Mark Gungors' website, or for another perspective, look here: www.postmasculine.com and take a gander at the message board about all the men who gave up porn and got back their lives. I bring up this fairly awkward subject matter because both of those sources posit that internet porn is ruining peoples' ability to function as half of a couple. Obviously that's a huge generalization, not everybody who looks at nudie pics has problems functioning in their half of a relationship, but I think you get the idea... People out there are replacing intimate relationships with computer (screen) relationships.
I would hypothesize (reference to Dinosaur Train there!) that Facebook and social networking is doing the same thing to real communities that porn is doing to relationships, in that it makes us think that we are doing something communal, when we're really not. We're still interacting with a screen!
Like I said with porn, Facebook isn't causing complete destruction. Not everyone that uses Facebook has problems functioning and avoids contact with real humans. The one thing that I have noticed on Facebook is that people don't act like they do face to face. For me that's the real evidence to what I'm saying here. I've gotten into what would be knock down drag out fights on Facebook, that I would NEVER get into with someone standing in front of me. I've also had complete strangers on Facebook be unnecessarily rude to me for no particular reason, and I'm not talking about teenagers, I mean people in their 60's and 70's who absolutely know better.
I'm not suggesting we give up all of our technology, and I'm not going to leave my Facebook down forever (just until after elections), but I think we need to take a step back from the screens and realize what's going on around us. Interacting with people through a screen takes away so much of the humanity of the interaction. Watching real live actors do their thing and do it well has so much more power and meaning than watching the Bachelorette or Walking Dead. Hearing and feeling a live professional musical performance has so much more humanity to it than an album, mp3, m4a, or whatever. Putting up tents and having a potluck in the pouring rain with your neighbors has so much more meaning than my homebrewers community on Facebook. That's real communal interaction.
When I start up my Facebook again, I think I'm going to attempt to use it only as a tool for keeping track of people, but not necessarily for keeping in touch. A tool for scheduling and communication, but not as my sole interaction with other humans, maybe not even a significant portion of my interactions!
Shut off the screens people (after you read my completely amateur blog first though!), and go climb a mountain and play in the rain. Do something!
So I grew up in a time when it seemed like MANY people didn't realize the long term damage that television could do, and everyone (at least everyone around me) watched hours and hours of TV or sat in front of the Nintendo for hours trying to beat Super Mario Brothers. Today we have ten times the TV (meaning there's 10 times the material on TV on hundreds more channels), video games that kick WAY more ass than Mario Bros., and there's the addition of portable computers and internet. I grew up with a screen and I bought into it!
Except now I'm a parent. In my college studies (education major) and internet research into the effects of all this screen time (neurotic first-time parent), I've discovered that it's actually kind of bad for people, and especially children 0-2, to spend time in front of a screen. Any screen. Dammit... I mean I always knew that parking your kid in front of the TV instead of spending time with them was bad parenting, but now there's research that finds statistically significant differences in children that watch tv and children that don't. OK. Since children mimic their parents, I guess I'm going to have allow myself much less screen time than I did prior to being a parent. Got it, and with Sam, my first, I did it. I hardly watch TV at all anymore and I can't remember anytime since he was born where someone asked "Hey did you see the movie ____?!" That I haven't been able to answer "Nope, I'm a parent..."
Well Sam is almost 4 now and we allow MAX 3 hours of screen time a day, and if it gets to that point, we start to feel a little guilty. Usually it's Sunday's when I'm watching football, and if Daddy gets screen time, it's only fair that Sam does too... Right? Here's the problem though, my daughter Noelle is now 14 weeks(ish) and she can turn her head to the "pretty flashy thing" that we keep in the corner, or to the folding screen that Mommy and Daddy spend a lot of time looking at... and here's where I get into my main theme of this blog, Social Networking.
Since my TV has been commandeered by Barney, The Wiggles, Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, Kipper, Lil' Bill, and the Wonder Pets (among others). I've found that I'll sit with Sam and poke around on Facebook. Now from the beginning of MySpace and Facebook I've always felt a tinge of creepiness and narcissism about what we're really doing and/or posting. If you're the type of person to post constantly, the assumption is that someone's going to read yours posts right? If you're not the constant poster type, then you're just perusing other people's lives and pictures and stuff right? Here's an example for you. A couple years ago I was training for and running the Portland Marathon. I had runkeeper posting to Facebook and people were commenting and making training suggestions and I had a friend in Minnesota that I was "cybertraining" with and we would keep each other honest. That was great! I was keeping in touch with people long distances away, and we were challenging each other and keeping each other accountable (you only ran 15 miles!? DUDE!! SUCK IT UP!!!) After I ran the marathon, I kept posting workouts for a while, but as I was doing one of my runs, I thought to myself "why the hell am I still posting these workouts?! Nobody friggin' cares..." and I stopped. Then I started thinking about ALL my posts like that... Does anyone really care that Sam just pooped in the toilet for the first time? Does anyone really care about my Monday morning quarter back-ing? Does anyone really look at my pictures? Why the hell are they looking at my pictures anyway? My wife doesn't like it when I say this, but I'm not that pretty...
Anyway, this has been going on for a while and then of course the recent political shitstorm that has infested America, and the innumerable instances of, "someone on the internet is wrong and I have to correct them" posts about politics or sports or education or whatever. It seems like I haven't had positive interaction on Facebook with anyone in quite a while. More than a year if I were to guess... I mean yeah I chat with people every now and then, and that's kinda' cool, but in general, I'm just wasting time sitting with Sam while he watches whatever annoying pseudo-educational show he's into that week (Dora is the WORST SHOW EVER... sidebar over...) and arguing with ridiculous political assertions, with no prospect of influencing anyone ever. Why am I kicking this dead horse, I say? I should shut off the TV and my computer and wrestle with the kid, or make a mess with something. Boys like that stuff!
"Dude, what does all of this have to do with social networking?!" You ask? Well, I'm glad you asked! One real quick thing here though for some context... A few months ago Tina and I discovered Mark Gungor and his video "Laugh Your Way To a Better Marriage." If you're in a relationship, or planning on getting into one, you should watch this. It's good. I mention it because one of the subjects that he addresses in this video is internet pornography (awkward!). Mr. Gungor is a pastor/counselor (I'm not a religious dude at all, it's still good, he doesn't get preachy or try to do any recruiting) and has seen porn ruin many relationships and seen many people substitute porn for real the relationships in front of them. I don't want to dwell on porn because it is awkward, I'm not accomplished enough of a writer to actually dig into this subject, but you can check out Mark Gungors' website, or for another perspective, look here: www.postmasculine.com and take a gander at the message board about all the men who gave up porn and got back their lives. I bring up this fairly awkward subject matter because both of those sources posit that internet porn is ruining peoples' ability to function as half of a couple. Obviously that's a huge generalization, not everybody who looks at nudie pics has problems functioning in their half of a relationship, but I think you get the idea... People out there are replacing intimate relationships with computer (screen) relationships.
I would hypothesize (reference to Dinosaur Train there!) that Facebook and social networking is doing the same thing to real communities that porn is doing to relationships, in that it makes us think that we are doing something communal, when we're really not. We're still interacting with a screen!
Like I said with porn, Facebook isn't causing complete destruction. Not everyone that uses Facebook has problems functioning and avoids contact with real humans. The one thing that I have noticed on Facebook is that people don't act like they do face to face. For me that's the real evidence to what I'm saying here. I've gotten into what would be knock down drag out fights on Facebook, that I would NEVER get into with someone standing in front of me. I've also had complete strangers on Facebook be unnecessarily rude to me for no particular reason, and I'm not talking about teenagers, I mean people in their 60's and 70's who absolutely know better.
I'm not suggesting we give up all of our technology, and I'm not going to leave my Facebook down forever (just until after elections), but I think we need to take a step back from the screens and realize what's going on around us. Interacting with people through a screen takes away so much of the humanity of the interaction. Watching real live actors do their thing and do it well has so much more power and meaning than watching the Bachelorette or Walking Dead. Hearing and feeling a live professional musical performance has so much more humanity to it than an album, mp3, m4a, or whatever. Putting up tents and having a potluck in the pouring rain with your neighbors has so much more meaning than my homebrewers community on Facebook. That's real communal interaction.
When I start up my Facebook again, I think I'm going to attempt to use it only as a tool for keeping track of people, but not necessarily for keeping in touch. A tool for scheduling and communication, but not as my sole interaction with other humans, maybe not even a significant portion of my interactions!
Shut off the screens people (after you read my completely amateur blog first though!), and go climb a mountain and play in the rain. Do something!
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Adult life
So while not technically graduated, I was full time student teaching and for all intents and purposes, a college graduated adult on my own. I was at Nathan Hale during the day as if I were teaching, and then I would work nights serving tables at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Rich Sumstad was my cooperating teacher and probably one of the MOST influential people in my life because of the ways he influenced my teaching philosophy, music performance philosophy, getting me my first (and still best!) teaching job, and, of course, introducing me to my wife! Student teaching was a bit of a wake up call, but I survived and I even got to go to Hawaii for a week for free!
I had to leave the UW Medical Center because the schedule didn't really work with student teaching, I asked Mike if they were hiring at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and I got a serving job there. I averaged about $120 a shift and 4 shifts a week. About $2000 a month in tips and maybe $500 in regular pay. The problem is that your tips are cash, give a 22 year old cash, what do you think is going to happen? Yep. I bought booze. I won a scholarship from my last year in the Husky Marching Band saved my butt! I owed my roommate/landlady about $2000 for rent! So I was finishing college, student teaching, serving tables, and applying for teaching jobs. Busy busy busy!
My first job offer was a job Rich recommended me for, Mercer Middle School in South Seattle. I got it (I was the only viable applicant), and I added cleaning that hott mess of a classroom to my list of daily things to do. I could spend a lot of time describing my first year of teaching. A lot. I'll try to make it mercifully short and give details in later postings maybe... My first school, Asa Mercer Middle School, was on Beacon Hill in South Seattle. Down the street a little ways was Garfield High School, home to 4 time Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival Winner GHS Jazz Band. My principal was excited about getting a decent music program based on what she saw at Washington Middle School down the road (they played better than a lot of high schools in Washington State), and saw the same potential in the kids at Mercer. It was a title I school that was actually diverse. I say that because a lot of times a school will claim diversity when it has a population of 80% Black and 20% other, or 60% white, 15% Asian, and 25% Hispanic/Black/Native. That's not really diversity. One Pakistani kid doesn't make your school diverse. Mercer, at the time, was about (I'm not giving specific numbers because it was a LONG time ago, and while that information is available, I'm not going to look it up), 20% Black, 20% Hispanic, 20% Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and even a little Japanese) 10% White, 10% Pacific Islander, 10% Native American, and 10% other (Arabic, Ethiopian, Eritrean...). My friends, THAT is diversity.
My immediate predecessor from the year prior was an older gentlemen that was not at all prepared for the rigors of teaching 6-8 graders, it was disastrous and there was a lot of broken mess that I cleaned up from him. The last consistent music teacher there had been there for 18 years and I don't believe he had done ANY music organization and/or cleaning his entire time there. So needless to say, it was a difficult start. I was a first year teacher in a seriously challenging situation with little to no information on what the situation with the students actually was. I had to train the support staff how to do their jobs for me, and not the way the guy who had been there for the last 18 years did it. It's hard to be 22 years old and telling experienced adults how to do their job differently when they've been doing it for decades... To put this in perspective, my first Sunday night after the year started, I cried like a 3 year old that doesn't get ice cream (that's Sam's most recent tantrum that I can think of...). The only thing I can relate it to is the 2nd week of basic training when I was done in-processing, I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night, and I was getting "smoked" about 18 of the other 20 hours of the day. Your thoughts aren't about anything except how stupid you were to make this decision and how it's not worth the pain you're enduring to get to the end-stage. The difference is the pain at Basic was physical. My first year teaching, it was emotional. Much worse in my opinion. More on Basic later...
9/11/2001 was during my second week and I seriously considered joining up to get out of my teaching contract. I met Tina and that stopped that proverbial train.
Anyway, I spent two years at Mercer. I have a lot more memories of that place, and after the first few months they're mostly good. Most students I have on my Facebook are students from Mercer. I liked them and they liked me (in general). I didn't know how good I had it there and if I had stayed, my life would be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY different.
I also had a SWEET gig playing trumpet for a Mexican Dance band "Banda del Sol." $100 per gig and 2-4 gigs a month. Cash. I was playing trumpet a lot (Banda del Sol and elsewhere), had a full time teaching gig, had 3 or 4 private trumpet students. I met Tina at the end of January that first year at Mercer. At first she didn't want to date me because of religious differences, so we "not dated" for about 3 months until she admitted that we were having enough fun to make it "official." That's a fun story that I'll save for a marriage blog! I moved away from my college apartment back into an apartment with Mike during the summer of '01. The second year at Mercer was FAR less traumatic, and I was determined to not become a statistic of failed teachers... oh the irony... Tina got a job (it was MY job, but I wanted her to hang around...luvya sweety!) at Ingraham High school. She later got laid off and Tina and I decided that we were going to move to Chicago for no reason than an adventure as a couple, and to see if we could make it in the big time!
August 9th 2003. Tina's Mom claims that's our "real" marriage date... I can see that... It's the day we finished packing and left for Chicago.
So Chicago. Wow. I might have to make a separate blog about our story in Chicago, but here's a summary I guess...
We got there on the 14th. I was scared poopless about living somewhere completely new with no job or friends. I recommend that everyone take a risk like this at some point in their life... Anyway, this move and the move back financially cost us tens of thousands of dollars that later set us back behind many of our friends that didn't spend their hard earned money on moving, but you can't buy experience. So on to the story!
We didn't have jobs. We couldn't get teaching jobs because our teaching certificates (sent last May) hadn't processed into Illinois yet (5 months. 5 friggin' months. Even the Army isn't that slow) and we didn't have Illinois identification so couldn't get other types of jobs. So Tina tried starting a Mary Kay business, I worked on getting our paperwork for living in Illinois squared away and we both played Playstation 2 for about 3 hours every morning... and we racked up a credit card bill! Tina met Michelle at a Mary Kay meeting and we met her then boyfriend Edd, so we found our Chicago friends. Let the Bourbon and Ginger Ale flow like water! She also found the Chicago archdiocese for the Catholic church and started singing for their volunteer group. I somehow or another got our paperwork fixed and got two jobs as a cashier at Albertsons and a host at Olive Garden and started playing with community bands in the area. I found a bald Italian guy with a bad toupee that could push our paper work through the system (funny how that worked in Chicago eh?) so we finally got jobs in Chicago public schools. I started at Steinmetz Academic Center in January as a building sub, and Tina got a gig in the Calumet Park district at Burr Oak Elementary school. Both of us were in for extremely rude awakenings on how horrible schools can actually be. SAC had weekly shoot outs (Friday's off campus usually), constant gang violence, and extremely harsh conditions in the school. We both got hired on full time for our second year there, Tina moved into Chicago Public Schools at Mather High School, and I got into Steinmetz as a full time music teacher instead of just a building substitute ("just" wow...I saw some pretty horrible stuff as "just" a sub). So both of us had some extreme experiences with the worst type of administrators in education, we both left those schools. I got "laid off" and Tina told them to "F" off. We applied for jobs in both Illinois and Washington and whoever got whatever job first is where we went. Tina got a job in Longview, WA at Mt. Solo middle school. We were moving home!
So! Back in Washington now, but in Clark county Washington in August of 2005. We moved into Mike's HUGE house in Woodland, WA and stayed there until November. Tina was getting ready for the school year to start in Longview and I was looking for any teaching job out there. I got a job in Vancouver public schools teaching all choir at three different schools. Boy was I in for it... But first, Tina was not happy at Mike's and wanted out as soon as possible. I understood why, but I wish we had waited a little longer... it was the height of the housing market and we just couldn't afford a decent place in a location we liked. We ended up buying a piece of crap house in Battle Ground, WA.
The next 5 years of our lives is a damn emotional roller coaster. Some great and amazing things happened for us, but mostly our house was depressing, my job was soul sucking, and Tina's commute was grueling. The house is the shortest story, I'll start with that one. It was on a 1/4 acre lot which sounds great, until you have to mow it weekly in the spring. There was new roofing on the house, but the flashing underneath wasn't replaced and it was moldy. I saw this when we did our inspection and the real estate agent said "it's the Pacific Northwest, EVERY house has some mold. You don't want that on record." Which sounded kinda' sketchy, and it was we found out later... We put in new flooring and found that at some point there was SERIOUS water damage, and mold in the floors. After we replaced the flooring we started all getting sick from mold spores we had unknowingly stirred up. When I left Vancouver schools, the housing market had just crashed and we tried to work out something with the bank, but they weren't willing to work with us so we stopped making payments. That got their attention! In the end, we got out of the house with a Deed-in-Lieu of foreclosure. There's someone living in the house already, and they're doing some cool stuff, so it worked out well for everyone (including the bank) I think. There's a lot more details to this story, maybe it too needs it's own post...we'll see how that works out!
My first year in Vancouver School District (VSD) was teaching choir at Fort Vancouver High School, McLoughlin Middle School, and Jason Lee Middle School. While there I met a man named Bob Thompson, who changed my life! The words "National Guard Band" rolled off his tongue and I said "tell me more about this National Guard Band" I'd mentioned earlier that I wanted to join the military, but it wasn't the right opportunity, this was! Anyway, my second year in VSD was choir at Fort again, drive to Alki middle school to teach beginning band, drive back to Fort to teach 6th period band. This was a BRUTAL schedule. I went to Basic Combat Training in April of that year (2007) and I was almost relieved to be gone. I got back from BCT just before the school year ended and poked my head in once (40 pounds lighter) and saw that my sub had done well, and that everything was still intact, but I should've known when I walked through the door and was NOT excited that I should've left then, but I didn't. I finished my Masters in Music Education at Northwestern that summer, which after BCT was extremely difficult (going from not moving or talking unless told, to presenting my projects and questions to Dr. Janet Barret... whew!!!)
My third year I believe was retaliation from my district for going to BCT. I was teaching TWO high schools, band at Columbia River and band and choir at Fort Vancouver. River had a competitive marching band, and I was completely set up for failure. I did it because VSD had some significant stipends and no one was really checking on if we followed them. They did after that year!!! =) Mostly because of me, but I paid off a LOT of students loans that year =) I knew I was set up for failure so I did well enough to consider it a success. I had just finished BCT AND my master's program, did they really think they were going to throw me a challenge and watch me back down?! Hell no!!! But I didn't make any friends there either... I've run into the boosters president in town since then and she won't even make eye contact with me. I'm not sure why, but ok... 4th year in VSD I FINALLY got a reasonable schedule. Band, choir, and guitar at Fort and choir at McLoughlin. I started making it rain. At least in choir... the band was falling apart. My predecessor at Fort I respect a ton, but he babied them a little (but was successful!). I had more realistic expectations and was not successful. Also, the guitar class I taught based on a project I did at my masters program on teaching the way popular musicians learn. The district didn't like that. I didn't give a flying turd that they didn't like it, and told them (not my best choice). My 5th and final year in VSD I had the same schedule, and I was hanging around with the 8th grade band at Mac a lot my 4th year, so I was starting to get some good kids back in, but there were only 23 of 'em. Nothing kills morale like a small band where only half the kids can play. I started doing creative stuff like having guitar kids join band and making it into a funk band kind of thing, a really big horn section... =) I had some serious plans to make Fort an example of the future of music education and an example of success in a difficult low-income school. I had plans and ambitions! Then they cut the guitar class from the curriculum of the entire district. I had EIGHTY KIDS signed up for the next year. EIGHTY!!!!!!!! That was it. I tried to deploy so I could take a year off, but it didn't work out so I just resigned. I'd had enough. I'll talk more specifically about that some other day too...
One of the best moments in my life did happen while we were in the Clark county phase of our lives, Tina and I had our first child Samuel Allen Sterne on November 19th 2008. It really is the best thing ever. Parents complain, like Soldiers do, because there's lots to complain about, but in reality, we wouldn't have it any different. Well... most parents (and some Soldiers).
After I left VSD, I tried to go active duty as a bandsmen, couldn't do it, tried to commission as an infantry officer, couldn't do it, tried to re-class to a combat arms NCO position, didn't do it in time because I stopped making house payments. Army won't take you if you have outstanding debt. But it all turned out well when I got and Active Duty position in the Oregon National Guard. It's a good job! I won't be here the rest of my life, it's basically being a secretary... (but it's in the Army and we don't call it that, so it's ok for tough guys to do it...but I've seen what school secretaries do, and I'm doing THAT now). We'll see though!
This concludes the Bio portion of this blog. If all two of you read through all of it, I owe you beer. And if you're not saying this, I am "Thank Gawd THAT'S over!"
I had to leave the UW Medical Center because the schedule didn't really work with student teaching, I asked Mike if they were hiring at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and I got a serving job there. I averaged about $120 a shift and 4 shifts a week. About $2000 a month in tips and maybe $500 in regular pay. The problem is that your tips are cash, give a 22 year old cash, what do you think is going to happen? Yep. I bought booze. I won a scholarship from my last year in the Husky Marching Band saved my butt! I owed my roommate/landlady about $2000 for rent! So I was finishing college, student teaching, serving tables, and applying for teaching jobs. Busy busy busy!
My first job offer was a job Rich recommended me for, Mercer Middle School in South Seattle. I got it (I was the only viable applicant), and I added cleaning that hott mess of a classroom to my list of daily things to do. I could spend a lot of time describing my first year of teaching. A lot. I'll try to make it mercifully short and give details in later postings maybe... My first school, Asa Mercer Middle School, was on Beacon Hill in South Seattle. Down the street a little ways was Garfield High School, home to 4 time Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival Winner GHS Jazz Band. My principal was excited about getting a decent music program based on what she saw at Washington Middle School down the road (they played better than a lot of high schools in Washington State), and saw the same potential in the kids at Mercer. It was a title I school that was actually diverse. I say that because a lot of times a school will claim diversity when it has a population of 80% Black and 20% other, or 60% white, 15% Asian, and 25% Hispanic/Black/Native. That's not really diversity. One Pakistani kid doesn't make your school diverse. Mercer, at the time, was about (I'm not giving specific numbers because it was a LONG time ago, and while that information is available, I'm not going to look it up), 20% Black, 20% Hispanic, 20% Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and even a little Japanese) 10% White, 10% Pacific Islander, 10% Native American, and 10% other (Arabic, Ethiopian, Eritrean...). My friends, THAT is diversity.
My immediate predecessor from the year prior was an older gentlemen that was not at all prepared for the rigors of teaching 6-8 graders, it was disastrous and there was a lot of broken mess that I cleaned up from him. The last consistent music teacher there had been there for 18 years and I don't believe he had done ANY music organization and/or cleaning his entire time there. So needless to say, it was a difficult start. I was a first year teacher in a seriously challenging situation with little to no information on what the situation with the students actually was. I had to train the support staff how to do their jobs for me, and not the way the guy who had been there for the last 18 years did it. It's hard to be 22 years old and telling experienced adults how to do their job differently when they've been doing it for decades... To put this in perspective, my first Sunday night after the year started, I cried like a 3 year old that doesn't get ice cream (that's Sam's most recent tantrum that I can think of...). The only thing I can relate it to is the 2nd week of basic training when I was done in-processing, I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night, and I was getting "smoked" about 18 of the other 20 hours of the day. Your thoughts aren't about anything except how stupid you were to make this decision and how it's not worth the pain you're enduring to get to the end-stage. The difference is the pain at Basic was physical. My first year teaching, it was emotional. Much worse in my opinion. More on Basic later...
9/11/2001 was during my second week and I seriously considered joining up to get out of my teaching contract. I met Tina and that stopped that proverbial train.
Anyway, I spent two years at Mercer. I have a lot more memories of that place, and after the first few months they're mostly good. Most students I have on my Facebook are students from Mercer. I liked them and they liked me (in general). I didn't know how good I had it there and if I had stayed, my life would be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY different.
I also had a SWEET gig playing trumpet for a Mexican Dance band "Banda del Sol." $100 per gig and 2-4 gigs a month. Cash. I was playing trumpet a lot (Banda del Sol and elsewhere), had a full time teaching gig, had 3 or 4 private trumpet students. I met Tina at the end of January that first year at Mercer. At first she didn't want to date me because of religious differences, so we "not dated" for about 3 months until she admitted that we were having enough fun to make it "official." That's a fun story that I'll save for a marriage blog! I moved away from my college apartment back into an apartment with Mike during the summer of '01. The second year at Mercer was FAR less traumatic, and I was determined to not become a statistic of failed teachers... oh the irony... Tina got a job (it was MY job, but I wanted her to hang around...luvya sweety!) at Ingraham High school. She later got laid off and Tina and I decided that we were going to move to Chicago for no reason than an adventure as a couple, and to see if we could make it in the big time!
August 9th 2003. Tina's Mom claims that's our "real" marriage date... I can see that... It's the day we finished packing and left for Chicago.
So Chicago. Wow. I might have to make a separate blog about our story in Chicago, but here's a summary I guess...
We got there on the 14th. I was scared poopless about living somewhere completely new with no job or friends. I recommend that everyone take a risk like this at some point in their life... Anyway, this move and the move back financially cost us tens of thousands of dollars that later set us back behind many of our friends that didn't spend their hard earned money on moving, but you can't buy experience. So on to the story!
We didn't have jobs. We couldn't get teaching jobs because our teaching certificates (sent last May) hadn't processed into Illinois yet (5 months. 5 friggin' months. Even the Army isn't that slow) and we didn't have Illinois identification so couldn't get other types of jobs. So Tina tried starting a Mary Kay business, I worked on getting our paperwork for living in Illinois squared away and we both played Playstation 2 for about 3 hours every morning... and we racked up a credit card bill! Tina met Michelle at a Mary Kay meeting and we met her then boyfriend Edd, so we found our Chicago friends. Let the Bourbon and Ginger Ale flow like water! She also found the Chicago archdiocese for the Catholic church and started singing for their volunteer group. I somehow or another got our paperwork fixed and got two jobs as a cashier at Albertsons and a host at Olive Garden and started playing with community bands in the area. I found a bald Italian guy with a bad toupee that could push our paper work through the system (funny how that worked in Chicago eh?) so we finally got jobs in Chicago public schools. I started at Steinmetz Academic Center in January as a building sub, and Tina got a gig in the Calumet Park district at Burr Oak Elementary school. Both of us were in for extremely rude awakenings on how horrible schools can actually be. SAC had weekly shoot outs (Friday's off campus usually), constant gang violence, and extremely harsh conditions in the school. We both got hired on full time for our second year there, Tina moved into Chicago Public Schools at Mather High School, and I got into Steinmetz as a full time music teacher instead of just a building substitute ("just" wow...I saw some pretty horrible stuff as "just" a sub). So both of us had some extreme experiences with the worst type of administrators in education, we both left those schools. I got "laid off" and Tina told them to "F" off. We applied for jobs in both Illinois and Washington and whoever got whatever job first is where we went. Tina got a job in Longview, WA at Mt. Solo middle school. We were moving home!
So! Back in Washington now, but in Clark county Washington in August of 2005. We moved into Mike's HUGE house in Woodland, WA and stayed there until November. Tina was getting ready for the school year to start in Longview and I was looking for any teaching job out there. I got a job in Vancouver public schools teaching all choir at three different schools. Boy was I in for it... But first, Tina was not happy at Mike's and wanted out as soon as possible. I understood why, but I wish we had waited a little longer... it was the height of the housing market and we just couldn't afford a decent place in a location we liked. We ended up buying a piece of crap house in Battle Ground, WA.
The next 5 years of our lives is a damn emotional roller coaster. Some great and amazing things happened for us, but mostly our house was depressing, my job was soul sucking, and Tina's commute was grueling. The house is the shortest story, I'll start with that one. It was on a 1/4 acre lot which sounds great, until you have to mow it weekly in the spring. There was new roofing on the house, but the flashing underneath wasn't replaced and it was moldy. I saw this when we did our inspection and the real estate agent said "it's the Pacific Northwest, EVERY house has some mold. You don't want that on record." Which sounded kinda' sketchy, and it was we found out later... We put in new flooring and found that at some point there was SERIOUS water damage, and mold in the floors. After we replaced the flooring we started all getting sick from mold spores we had unknowingly stirred up. When I left Vancouver schools, the housing market had just crashed and we tried to work out something with the bank, but they weren't willing to work with us so we stopped making payments. That got their attention! In the end, we got out of the house with a Deed-in-Lieu of foreclosure. There's someone living in the house already, and they're doing some cool stuff, so it worked out well for everyone (including the bank) I think. There's a lot more details to this story, maybe it too needs it's own post...we'll see how that works out!
My first year in Vancouver School District (VSD) was teaching choir at Fort Vancouver High School, McLoughlin Middle School, and Jason Lee Middle School. While there I met a man named Bob Thompson, who changed my life! The words "National Guard Band" rolled off his tongue and I said "tell me more about this National Guard Band" I'd mentioned earlier that I wanted to join the military, but it wasn't the right opportunity, this was! Anyway, my second year in VSD was choir at Fort again, drive to Alki middle school to teach beginning band, drive back to Fort to teach 6th period band. This was a BRUTAL schedule. I went to Basic Combat Training in April of that year (2007) and I was almost relieved to be gone. I got back from BCT just before the school year ended and poked my head in once (40 pounds lighter) and saw that my sub had done well, and that everything was still intact, but I should've known when I walked through the door and was NOT excited that I should've left then, but I didn't. I finished my Masters in Music Education at Northwestern that summer, which after BCT was extremely difficult (going from not moving or talking unless told, to presenting my projects and questions to Dr. Janet Barret... whew!!!)
My third year I believe was retaliation from my district for going to BCT. I was teaching TWO high schools, band at Columbia River and band and choir at Fort Vancouver. River had a competitive marching band, and I was completely set up for failure. I did it because VSD had some significant stipends and no one was really checking on if we followed them. They did after that year!!! =) Mostly because of me, but I paid off a LOT of students loans that year =) I knew I was set up for failure so I did well enough to consider it a success. I had just finished BCT AND my master's program, did they really think they were going to throw me a challenge and watch me back down?! Hell no!!! But I didn't make any friends there either... I've run into the boosters president in town since then and she won't even make eye contact with me. I'm not sure why, but ok... 4th year in VSD I FINALLY got a reasonable schedule. Band, choir, and guitar at Fort and choir at McLoughlin. I started making it rain. At least in choir... the band was falling apart. My predecessor at Fort I respect a ton, but he babied them a little (but was successful!). I had more realistic expectations and was not successful. Also, the guitar class I taught based on a project I did at my masters program on teaching the way popular musicians learn. The district didn't like that. I didn't give a flying turd that they didn't like it, and told them (not my best choice). My 5th and final year in VSD I had the same schedule, and I was hanging around with the 8th grade band at Mac a lot my 4th year, so I was starting to get some good kids back in, but there were only 23 of 'em. Nothing kills morale like a small band where only half the kids can play. I started doing creative stuff like having guitar kids join band and making it into a funk band kind of thing, a really big horn section... =) I had some serious plans to make Fort an example of the future of music education and an example of success in a difficult low-income school. I had plans and ambitions! Then they cut the guitar class from the curriculum of the entire district. I had EIGHTY KIDS signed up for the next year. EIGHTY!!!!!!!! That was it. I tried to deploy so I could take a year off, but it didn't work out so I just resigned. I'd had enough. I'll talk more specifically about that some other day too...
One of the best moments in my life did happen while we were in the Clark county phase of our lives, Tina and I had our first child Samuel Allen Sterne on November 19th 2008. It really is the best thing ever. Parents complain, like Soldiers do, because there's lots to complain about, but in reality, we wouldn't have it any different. Well... most parents (and some Soldiers).
After I left VSD, I tried to go active duty as a bandsmen, couldn't do it, tried to commission as an infantry officer, couldn't do it, tried to re-class to a combat arms NCO position, didn't do it in time because I stopped making house payments. Army won't take you if you have outstanding debt. But it all turned out well when I got and Active Duty position in the Oregon National Guard. It's a good job! I won't be here the rest of my life, it's basically being a secretary... (but it's in the Army and we don't call it that, so it's ok for tough guys to do it...but I've seen what school secretaries do, and I'm doing THAT now). We'll see though!
This concludes the Bio portion of this blog. If all two of you read through all of it, I owe you beer. And if you're not saying this, I am "Thank Gawd THAT'S over!"
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Me, College
Ahhhh college....
So I finished high school and did the Beatles Tour with the Cascades. That summer was very intense and forming on my young mind. I read somewhere that the two most influential times in a persons life are their first two years of life, and then their college years when they move away from their parents. I took my opportunity full force!! I got back from tour and worked full time for almost 2 months until the Fall quarter started, that was good for me! It solidified my assertion that I didn't want to (yet) be working full time. College saved my butt! My first experience of college was the Husky Marching Band. I went to pre-school drills, AKA band camp, and learned traditional marching style. I already knew how to march pretty well, so this was not difficult to adapt to, but the other social aspect was a completely new thing to me. I wasn't a drinker, and it seemed like partying was a big part of it. I had some trust issues based on my childhood experiences and these weren't people I would trust myself getting trashed with... Anyway, Husky band didn't turn out to be the super intense marching experience that I expected. I thought college has smarter people, it'll be way better than Drum Corps because of that. Nope. I did however meet what I thought was going to be the girl of my dreams, she didn't agree... If she reads this, she knows who she is. Hi! =) The equal sign and end parentheses was specifically for you, because I know how much you like it as a grammatical tool.
So I had a little experience with college having done running start, and I knew a big part of what I was going to do included music, so I started music theory and history classes and then built the rest of my schedule around that. Which made for some craaaazy class schedules! I auditioned for the jazz bands but didn't get in, and my goal for that quarter was to make my trumpet teacher (also the jazz band director) Roy Cummings tell me that he wished he had put me in the jazz program instead of this other person that was particularly unpleasant... I did meet that goal, and when I told him of my goal, he handed me my major declaration packet. Music Ed. I didn't waste ANY time declaring the major and didn't waver once the whole time I was there. I could do an entire blog (and I'm sure you've noticed I write long ones...) about Roy, and I might do that sometime. Huge influence on me. Anyway... Winter quarter that year I got into jazz band, and Spring quarter I got into Wind Ensemble. My first piece in Wind Ensemble was Grainger's "Power of Rome and a Christian Heart." I talked in an earlier blog about musical experiences... woah... So my freshman year I had already decided my career path, and I was well on my way to getting there. First year music theory and history, I had (including running start credits) one of 5 years of my college "path" done, and with frequent visits to my advisor, I had the rest of 'em planned out.
College is a lot about the new people you meet, growing and making mistakes (like drinking and doing things you regret), stretching your mind, gaining skills, and easing into the adult world with more coping mechanisms than your average high school grad. I had all of these experiences, but I feel like I did miss out on some things. I lived off campus with my grandma in Shoreline. It was WAAY cheaper, and did often allow for some separation that gave me thinking room, but it also discluded me from a lot of social things that are common. I didn't go to many raging parties, I didn't meet very many people outside of the school of music, and I didn't have the dorm experience that most people have. Would my life now really be that different if I had? Who knows, but it is something I will recommend that Sam (and the younger sibling) do when they go to college.
That summer the Cascades took a year off of tour. I was still very involved. Back then the Corps still met at the Bingo hall, which happened to be down the street from my grandparents house. So I went to board meetings! The only person there that was old enough (by that I mean young enough) to march. I mostly just sat there and kept my mouth shut, but I was involved. Other than Cascades Board meetings, I found a job at another oil change store on 125th and Aurora. That where I learned about the potential for dishonesty in car repair. I was considering not doing Husky Band again, but it was a great excuse to end that summer with that employer.
Sophomore year I did marching band again, but as I said, grudgingly. My first year I played mellophone (marching french horn) because the director heard that I played mello in drum corps and he wanted a stronger mello section. I was not doing that again. I played trumpet, and I went to the trumpet section. The second year, knew what to expect more, but it still didn't really give me what I wanted in the marching band experience, but I finished the season, and even did basketball band that year ($20 a game! The only way for me to see basketball is for you to pay ME). So with marching band, I got into the first jazz band that fall, and then wind ensemble, and practicing, I was playing trumpet about 8-12 hours a day... ahh the good 'ole days... What I wouldn't give for that now!!! Winter quarter I started playing lead in the second band (which was a sort of promotion, 4th trumpet in the first band to 1st in the second) and I was doing my classes, I had started working for the UW medical center my freshman year, and I got a new position with a nice pay raise so I was working a lot too. Busy Busy Busy!!
That summer the Cascades came back with the Chicago show. This year was a serious let down for me for many reasons... I was now one of the few "super vets," the other super vets weren't music majors (weren't yet, for Mike) so I felt more so than I had in the past that I could do a better job than the people that were currently running things, at least in the music department. The younger members just thought we were all old, crusty, and trying to relive our glory days. They had little actual respect for us and it personally drove me crazy. At one point I even thought about filling a hole with the Santa Clara Vanguard and bailing on my peeps, but I didn't in the end. I also had one of my first longer-than-3-months relationships as a sophomore, and I was away from that. THAT was tough. 'Nuff said on that!
Back home in August, worked at the UWMC for a month ($$$$) and this year, I was done with marching band for a while. With my job, I felt comfortable enough to move out and onto campus. I rented a room on the bottom floor of a house with Mike. The top floor was all girls =) Sounds fun huh? Nope! I was trying to be a good boy that year seeing the way those girls (and Mike) behaved made being good hard. That's ok tough. I said in an earlier blog that girls are yucky! I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa were a little bit relieved to have their house back too!
I played lead in the second jazz band, wind ensemble, and started doing brass ensemble stuff. I was improving really fast, and winter quarter, I kind of hit a wall. Roy saw it in my trumpet playing, but really it was a lack of understanding and context for music in all aspects. I had contracted drum corps disease... all I could think of was technique and how to play trumpet, and not why play music or to what end. I started to drift a little bit. I took mallet percussion lessons, stopped practicing trumpet so much, got kicked down to third in the second jazz band, and spring quarter I didn't make the wind ensemble. At the very least it was a good opportunity to fulfill my choral credit with the University Singers... whew! If I had only known that I needed a few more years of choral training then... oy ve... The good thing about my junior year was finding the brass ensemble thing (Gabrielli Guerrilas, a good joke if you're a music geek like me!). Reading music FINALLY clicked in my brain. A whole new world opened up to me! Now if I could just figure out how to play musically, I could start to treat my drum corps disease.
That summer I worked at the Medical Specialties clinic. Good stuff. $$$. I could have marched one more year of drum corps, I even tried out for Santa Clara Vanguard, and made lead soprano (first trumpet), but mentally and emotionally, I had aged out. I was done with that crap, and it turned out for the better too! I didn't work full time, and I took 15 credits of summer school which ensured that I actually graduated in 5 years and not 6, like most music ed majors do. Again, whew!
Senior year #1. I finally got back into the 1st jazz band with a BAD ASS trumpet section. Man that was awesome and we did some damn cool shit. Ahhh college... I was still not very musical though, and I wanted a treatment for my drum corps disease, welp, I asked for it, and I got it. Roy Cummings, my trumpet and Jazz Band teacher, a very caring, loving, supportive, and guiding person in my life, a recovering alcoholic, and a recovering asshole, died of a major heart attack the first day of Winter Quarter in 2000. At his memorial service 2 weeks later, we played a big band arrangement of "Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles. This was my first non-marching musical experience, I could argue that it was my first actual "musical" experience. The hardest lesson for me to learn, how emotion plays into music, and what the purpose of music really is, was still taught by Roy and it came in the form of his passing. I went through a lot of crap as a kid, but this was my first experience with death. Today, I'm not the best trumpet player in the world, not by a long shot, but I am a damned good musician. I attribute that to Roy.
That seems like it should be the end of this chapter of the story, but real life doesn't work like that... I finished the year in the first jazz band with a couple different directors. I started my music ed classes, and met Christy in the music library. I learned so much about my budding musicality from Christy, I will cherish that. The way she would question me on why I thought the things I did was awesome! Thank you for that Christy. I also had the opportunity to study trumpet with Allen Vizzutti for the last 3 quarters I was at UW. That opportunity was too good to pass up, and it was life altering. Vizzutti told me that he thought I had what it would take to make it as a trumpet professional. I didn't necessarily want to do that, I wanted to be in charge, but knowing it is enough for me and my confidence. My growth and personality on campus was noticed. The Husky Band director asked me to audition to be section leader for the trumpet section for the next (my last) school year. I was floored by this suggestion, but I did. I got the position and I was back for my third year of Husky band next year and my final year of college (by the way, Mike had convinced me drinking wasn't that bad, and I had learned how to party college style, so marching band could be different for me now...). Wow. The Wind Ensemble director was also taking a sabbatical next fall, the teaching assitants asked me to be the principal for the Wind Ensemble! Holy Crap! But to finish this first year, I had found my musicianship, I found my confidence, music ed classes were going great! I felt good about moving forward, and I was looking forward to getting out there and doing it. One year left...
My final year! I ran the Husky trumpets. I wasn't well liked, but I didn't really care. They saw me as a deserter who came back with no knowledge of what the trumpets were about now. My thought was, I'm better than you. Shut up. =) At the end of the year, we got most improved section and I got a scholarship for most musical band member of the year. Praise Bob for that! I was 3 months behind on my rent (oh I was living with dream girl back from freshman year, platonic-ally, of course, in Wallingford)!!! But the point was, I did a good job, even if the peeps didn't like me. Good training for my future career... I got my part-time student teaching assignment at McKnight Middle school down the street from the housing projects I grew up in (that was weird!). My cooperating teacher had kidney failure at one point, and I had 2 weeks of teaching on my own!! I didn't have to do it, but I did two weeks there all day, all by myself. That was a HUGE wake up call. Spring quarter I met Rich Sumstad and student taught at Nathan Hale High School in the Seattle School district. He was a former student of Roy, a former Marine, and an awesome teacher. I had to quit my job at the UWMC because working hours were generally the same as teaching hours, and I just couldn't bring myself to go to the clinic after a day of teaching. Brutal. I got a job at the Spaghetti factory waiting tables! That was some gooooood times!
I feel like full time student teaching with Rich is really the end of my college life. I knew I was done and going to graduate, I wasn't in any ensembles at school for the first time since my freshman year, and I felt ready. So I think the adult life blog should start with Rich and I at Nathan Hale high school. Time to be a grown up! As if I hadn't already grown up... psh!
So I finished high school and did the Beatles Tour with the Cascades. That summer was very intense and forming on my young mind. I read somewhere that the two most influential times in a persons life are their first two years of life, and then their college years when they move away from their parents. I took my opportunity full force!! I got back from tour and worked full time for almost 2 months until the Fall quarter started, that was good for me! It solidified my assertion that I didn't want to (yet) be working full time. College saved my butt! My first experience of college was the Husky Marching Band. I went to pre-school drills, AKA band camp, and learned traditional marching style. I already knew how to march pretty well, so this was not difficult to adapt to, but the other social aspect was a completely new thing to me. I wasn't a drinker, and it seemed like partying was a big part of it. I had some trust issues based on my childhood experiences and these weren't people I would trust myself getting trashed with... Anyway, Husky band didn't turn out to be the super intense marching experience that I expected. I thought college has smarter people, it'll be way better than Drum Corps because of that. Nope. I did however meet what I thought was going to be the girl of my dreams, she didn't agree... If she reads this, she knows who she is. Hi! =) The equal sign and end parentheses was specifically for you, because I know how much you like it as a grammatical tool.
So I had a little experience with college having done running start, and I knew a big part of what I was going to do included music, so I started music theory and history classes and then built the rest of my schedule around that. Which made for some craaaazy class schedules! I auditioned for the jazz bands but didn't get in, and my goal for that quarter was to make my trumpet teacher (also the jazz band director) Roy Cummings tell me that he wished he had put me in the jazz program instead of this other person that was particularly unpleasant... I did meet that goal, and when I told him of my goal, he handed me my major declaration packet. Music Ed. I didn't waste ANY time declaring the major and didn't waver once the whole time I was there. I could do an entire blog (and I'm sure you've noticed I write long ones...) about Roy, and I might do that sometime. Huge influence on me. Anyway... Winter quarter that year I got into jazz band, and Spring quarter I got into Wind Ensemble. My first piece in Wind Ensemble was Grainger's "Power of Rome and a Christian Heart." I talked in an earlier blog about musical experiences... woah... So my freshman year I had already decided my career path, and I was well on my way to getting there. First year music theory and history, I had (including running start credits) one of 5 years of my college "path" done, and with frequent visits to my advisor, I had the rest of 'em planned out.
College is a lot about the new people you meet, growing and making mistakes (like drinking and doing things you regret), stretching your mind, gaining skills, and easing into the adult world with more coping mechanisms than your average high school grad. I had all of these experiences, but I feel like I did miss out on some things. I lived off campus with my grandma in Shoreline. It was WAAY cheaper, and did often allow for some separation that gave me thinking room, but it also discluded me from a lot of social things that are common. I didn't go to many raging parties, I didn't meet very many people outside of the school of music, and I didn't have the dorm experience that most people have. Would my life now really be that different if I had? Who knows, but it is something I will recommend that Sam (and the younger sibling) do when they go to college.
That summer the Cascades took a year off of tour. I was still very involved. Back then the Corps still met at the Bingo hall, which happened to be down the street from my grandparents house. So I went to board meetings! The only person there that was old enough (by that I mean young enough) to march. I mostly just sat there and kept my mouth shut, but I was involved. Other than Cascades Board meetings, I found a job at another oil change store on 125th and Aurora. That where I learned about the potential for dishonesty in car repair. I was considering not doing Husky Band again, but it was a great excuse to end that summer with that employer.
Sophomore year I did marching band again, but as I said, grudgingly. My first year I played mellophone (marching french horn) because the director heard that I played mello in drum corps and he wanted a stronger mello section. I was not doing that again. I played trumpet, and I went to the trumpet section. The second year, knew what to expect more, but it still didn't really give me what I wanted in the marching band experience, but I finished the season, and even did basketball band that year ($20 a game! The only way for me to see basketball is for you to pay ME). So with marching band, I got into the first jazz band that fall, and then wind ensemble, and practicing, I was playing trumpet about 8-12 hours a day... ahh the good 'ole days... What I wouldn't give for that now!!! Winter quarter I started playing lead in the second band (which was a sort of promotion, 4th trumpet in the first band to 1st in the second) and I was doing my classes, I had started working for the UW medical center my freshman year, and I got a new position with a nice pay raise so I was working a lot too. Busy Busy Busy!!
That summer the Cascades came back with the Chicago show. This year was a serious let down for me for many reasons... I was now one of the few "super vets," the other super vets weren't music majors (weren't yet, for Mike) so I felt more so than I had in the past that I could do a better job than the people that were currently running things, at least in the music department. The younger members just thought we were all old, crusty, and trying to relive our glory days. They had little actual respect for us and it personally drove me crazy. At one point I even thought about filling a hole with the Santa Clara Vanguard and bailing on my peeps, but I didn't in the end. I also had one of my first longer-than-3-months relationships as a sophomore, and I was away from that. THAT was tough. 'Nuff said on that!
Back home in August, worked at the UWMC for a month ($$$$) and this year, I was done with marching band for a while. With my job, I felt comfortable enough to move out and onto campus. I rented a room on the bottom floor of a house with Mike. The top floor was all girls =) Sounds fun huh? Nope! I was trying to be a good boy that year seeing the way those girls (and Mike) behaved made being good hard. That's ok tough. I said in an earlier blog that girls are yucky! I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa were a little bit relieved to have their house back too!
I played lead in the second jazz band, wind ensemble, and started doing brass ensemble stuff. I was improving really fast, and winter quarter, I kind of hit a wall. Roy saw it in my trumpet playing, but really it was a lack of understanding and context for music in all aspects. I had contracted drum corps disease... all I could think of was technique and how to play trumpet, and not why play music or to what end. I started to drift a little bit. I took mallet percussion lessons, stopped practicing trumpet so much, got kicked down to third in the second jazz band, and spring quarter I didn't make the wind ensemble. At the very least it was a good opportunity to fulfill my choral credit with the University Singers... whew! If I had only known that I needed a few more years of choral training then... oy ve... The good thing about my junior year was finding the brass ensemble thing (Gabrielli Guerrilas, a good joke if you're a music geek like me!). Reading music FINALLY clicked in my brain. A whole new world opened up to me! Now if I could just figure out how to play musically, I could start to treat my drum corps disease.
That summer I worked at the Medical Specialties clinic. Good stuff. $$$. I could have marched one more year of drum corps, I even tried out for Santa Clara Vanguard, and made lead soprano (first trumpet), but mentally and emotionally, I had aged out. I was done with that crap, and it turned out for the better too! I didn't work full time, and I took 15 credits of summer school which ensured that I actually graduated in 5 years and not 6, like most music ed majors do. Again, whew!
Senior year #1. I finally got back into the 1st jazz band with a BAD ASS trumpet section. Man that was awesome and we did some damn cool shit. Ahhh college... I was still not very musical though, and I wanted a treatment for my drum corps disease, welp, I asked for it, and I got it. Roy Cummings, my trumpet and Jazz Band teacher, a very caring, loving, supportive, and guiding person in my life, a recovering alcoholic, and a recovering asshole, died of a major heart attack the first day of Winter Quarter in 2000. At his memorial service 2 weeks later, we played a big band arrangement of "Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles. This was my first non-marching musical experience, I could argue that it was my first actual "musical" experience. The hardest lesson for me to learn, how emotion plays into music, and what the purpose of music really is, was still taught by Roy and it came in the form of his passing. I went through a lot of crap as a kid, but this was my first experience with death. Today, I'm not the best trumpet player in the world, not by a long shot, but I am a damned good musician. I attribute that to Roy.
That seems like it should be the end of this chapter of the story, but real life doesn't work like that... I finished the year in the first jazz band with a couple different directors. I started my music ed classes, and met Christy in the music library. I learned so much about my budding musicality from Christy, I will cherish that. The way she would question me on why I thought the things I did was awesome! Thank you for that Christy. I also had the opportunity to study trumpet with Allen Vizzutti for the last 3 quarters I was at UW. That opportunity was too good to pass up, and it was life altering. Vizzutti told me that he thought I had what it would take to make it as a trumpet professional. I didn't necessarily want to do that, I wanted to be in charge, but knowing it is enough for me and my confidence. My growth and personality on campus was noticed. The Husky Band director asked me to audition to be section leader for the trumpet section for the next (my last) school year. I was floored by this suggestion, but I did. I got the position and I was back for my third year of Husky band next year and my final year of college (by the way, Mike had convinced me drinking wasn't that bad, and I had learned how to party college style, so marching band could be different for me now...). Wow. The Wind Ensemble director was also taking a sabbatical next fall, the teaching assitants asked me to be the principal for the Wind Ensemble! Holy Crap! But to finish this first year, I had found my musicianship, I found my confidence, music ed classes were going great! I felt good about moving forward, and I was looking forward to getting out there and doing it. One year left...
My final year! I ran the Husky trumpets. I wasn't well liked, but I didn't really care. They saw me as a deserter who came back with no knowledge of what the trumpets were about now. My thought was, I'm better than you. Shut up. =) At the end of the year, we got most improved section and I got a scholarship for most musical band member of the year. Praise Bob for that! I was 3 months behind on my rent (oh I was living with dream girl back from freshman year, platonic-ally, of course, in Wallingford)!!! But the point was, I did a good job, even if the peeps didn't like me. Good training for my future career... I got my part-time student teaching assignment at McKnight Middle school down the street from the housing projects I grew up in (that was weird!). My cooperating teacher had kidney failure at one point, and I had 2 weeks of teaching on my own!! I didn't have to do it, but I did two weeks there all day, all by myself. That was a HUGE wake up call. Spring quarter I met Rich Sumstad and student taught at Nathan Hale High School in the Seattle School district. He was a former student of Roy, a former Marine, and an awesome teacher. I had to quit my job at the UWMC because working hours were generally the same as teaching hours, and I just couldn't bring myself to go to the clinic after a day of teaching. Brutal. I got a job at the Spaghetti factory waiting tables! That was some gooooood times!
I feel like full time student teaching with Rich is really the end of my college life. I knew I was done and going to graduate, I wasn't in any ensembles at school for the first time since my freshman year, and I felt ready. So I think the adult life blog should start with Rich and I at Nathan Hale high school. Time to be a grown up! As if I hadn't already grown up... psh!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Teaching
So I actually did write a Mindbarf on "me" part 5, but it was crap. I'm not motivated to finish that story yet... In fact, I had intended to write on things in order of precedence in my life (after the bio of course...). Which would be, family things (Tina, Sam, the littlun forthcoming...), music, teaching, religion, and then after that I was just gonna coast and write MUCH shorter essays and thoughts on whatever the hell came to mind... But at this damn Army course this is pissing me off right now, and dammit, I'm going to write on it.
I recently read this book called Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term fulfillment, by George Leonard. It's a quick, easy read (sorry the citation is not correct APA format...whatever, I don't HAVE to do that now), but lends some perspective and thought on society and our laziness. His specific experience was with Aikido, a martial art, and the process of learning Aikido. Getting the basic concepts, getting the intermediate concepts, putting them into use in a martial situation (in combat, or in a bar fight if you will...), then more advanced concepts that are all completely and absolutely dependent on how well you did your basics. If you did not do a good job on basics, then your advanced concepts will suffer significantly. I see this in music now, clear as day. It's so obvious to me that I sometimes wonder WTF people are thinking when they don't practice their basics. Actually, the thought goes more like this, "If you want an example of what happens when you don't practice your basics, HELLO!!! HERE I AM!!!" I'll probably write on that later when I talk about music specifically, I don't want to get distracted too much (that's why I'm not writing part 5 yet, I don't really know how I want to present the normal part of my life in such a way that someone will actually read it, and not just because you're nice people that like me and feel that you should read it for me, that's like beginning band concerts...you go because it's your kids, not because of the musical experience! Here I am digressing again...), and music, obviously, distracts me quite well.
So Mr. Leonard wrote about Aikido, we'll come back to him... I'm currently learning how to play racquetball. Mostly because I'm sick of running and doing workouts because I have to maintain Army standards. I want to have some fun to do! Running on your own with no specific goals (or goals that you say "screw that" after 2 weeks, I'm sure I'll have more to say on that someday) gets tedious and boring. Really, I just need to run another marathon, but parenting is more important right now. ANYWAY!! Focus Tyson! I'm learning racquetball and I've been playing at a different location these past few weeks than I normally play, with people I'm not normally around. What I mean to say with that, is that I don't give a ladybugs turd what they think about me, imma be gone in 5 days now! Back to where I don't want to make an ass out of myself! =) So while I'm in this new location, I'm asking for tips, drills, and advice on what these racquetball bad asses see me doing wrong.
Okay. Teachers! Did you see it? I asked for 1) Factual information: How is this game played? 2) Technical information: How do I play this game and win? Meaning techniques, and 3) What am I doing wrong, or what do I do consistently that you took advantage of that I should fix. A great conductor told me this in much simpler terms than that: Analyze, Diagnose, Prescribe. Analyze: this piece sounds like poo in this part (speaking of a piece of music). Diagnose: It sounds like poo because the flutes are out of tune. Prescribe: Give the flutes several different options for playing more in tune (or if you follow musician jokes...shoot one!).
You may be wondering why I even talked about Mr. Leonard now right? (you don't have the patience to be taught do you!? Haha!!) Well, if you don't know how to keep an audience in suspense, I'll tell you in a second...
So as I'm playing with the racquetball studs of Yakima, they have drills they tell me about. They can tell me what they did to get better, but none of them can really put into words what it is they saw me doing that the could take advantage of to win. I figured out my racquetball "nemesis" in town here won't tell me because it's how he beats me, but he's a teacher too... But out of town, even when I asked, they couldn't tell me. There was no analysis. In music, you get private instruction so you can have an expert on your instrument tell you what specifically you are doing that will inhibit you in the future, and what you should fix if you want to get better and maybe eventually work in this field. Granted, I wasn't paying these people like I paid my trumpet teachers, but I honestly don't think they knew what I meant when I was asking them if they saw something that I could do, and I wasn't going to push it with people I didn't know.
All this to say that I think that the vast majority of people don't understand the difficulty and action of delivering instruction. George Leonard didn't! (There it is haha!!) He wrote about mastery of anything, but when he talked about instruction, he talked about finding a teacher that could work with you individually and personality would mesh, and blah blah blah... Mr. Leonard, that is in fact, NOT GOOD TEACHING!
Public secondary school professional teachers, in general, have to see on average 100 to 300 kids a day. Obviously it can go lower, and it can also go higher (but not much). It is impossible to match a personality to every one of those kids. It is still possible to deliver them instruction in such a way that they will gain knowledge and skills that they may have not wanted at all.
I would argue that delivering instruction is a skill that takes mastery. It takes practice. It takes patience, it takes more introspective honesty than ANY other profession (even music!). If you're not honest with yourself about your faults especially, kids will eat you up. They will disrespect you, they will be defiant because you can't deal with yourself and are not worthy to deal with them, and you get paid like crap for it! (I knew about the pay going into teaching, so I have no intention of dwelling on it, but if the salary was commiserate with the training and stress, you would see MANY more excellent teachers in for the long haul).
Teaching well, and doing it for 3 decades is near impossible. You know those "bad" teachers that we're hearing so much about? They didn't start that way. If they started poorly, they would have left after 1 or 2 years. In fact, about half new teachers do that anyway. Bad teachers (off topic real quick, I watched the Cameron Diaz movie of the same name, I wanted to Falcon Punch the people that made that movie. F. U.) are teachers that did wonderful things early in their career, then eventually figured out a reason not to do that much work. They didn't get paid more every time they reached a kid that no one else could, their friend from college was working a corporate gig making 3 times as much and they got weekends off, a principal found a reason to harass them (that's my story), parents that are incapable of listening to an objective, professional, adult about their child, and on and on. The point is, if someone gets 10 years in, and find that they can half ass it and get the same pay, the path of least resistance my friends... I was on that path. I left. I miss the act of teaching A LOT. Especially when I'm at an Army training and the instructors are HORRIBLE. Nice people, but they couldn't teach a dog to shit in a park. But I don't miss the adults. You ever met a person that says "trust me" a lot? Do you trust them when they say that? I don't. In teaching, if someone says "it's what's best for the kids." Generally, it's what's best for their career, and not the kids. If you want to keep your teaching job, generally you shouldn't call them out on their decisions... Hold teachers accountable, but not principals... bad idea folks... Thus, I now work for the Army.
In summary, teaching is an art and profession that most people don't understand and are incapable of actually doing to the degree of a pro (that's why they're pro's people!! Do you send ME in to play QB for the Seahwaks?! HELL NO!!!). I have racquetball and Army instructors as my immediate evidence, and finally, don't piss off your bosses, they'll make your life hell. =) A happy post today! Anyone got that sarcasm font yet?
I recently read this book called Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term fulfillment, by George Leonard. It's a quick, easy read (sorry the citation is not correct APA format...whatever, I don't HAVE to do that now), but lends some perspective and thought on society and our laziness. His specific experience was with Aikido, a martial art, and the process of learning Aikido. Getting the basic concepts, getting the intermediate concepts, putting them into use in a martial situation (in combat, or in a bar fight if you will...), then more advanced concepts that are all completely and absolutely dependent on how well you did your basics. If you did not do a good job on basics, then your advanced concepts will suffer significantly. I see this in music now, clear as day. It's so obvious to me that I sometimes wonder WTF people are thinking when they don't practice their basics. Actually, the thought goes more like this, "If you want an example of what happens when you don't practice your basics, HELLO!!! HERE I AM!!!" I'll probably write on that later when I talk about music specifically, I don't want to get distracted too much (that's why I'm not writing part 5 yet, I don't really know how I want to present the normal part of my life in such a way that someone will actually read it, and not just because you're nice people that like me and feel that you should read it for me, that's like beginning band concerts...you go because it's your kids, not because of the musical experience! Here I am digressing again...), and music, obviously, distracts me quite well.
So Mr. Leonard wrote about Aikido, we'll come back to him... I'm currently learning how to play racquetball. Mostly because I'm sick of running and doing workouts because I have to maintain Army standards. I want to have some fun to do! Running on your own with no specific goals (or goals that you say "screw that" after 2 weeks, I'm sure I'll have more to say on that someday) gets tedious and boring. Really, I just need to run another marathon, but parenting is more important right now. ANYWAY!! Focus Tyson! I'm learning racquetball and I've been playing at a different location these past few weeks than I normally play, with people I'm not normally around. What I mean to say with that, is that I don't give a ladybugs turd what they think about me, imma be gone in 5 days now! Back to where I don't want to make an ass out of myself! =) So while I'm in this new location, I'm asking for tips, drills, and advice on what these racquetball bad asses see me doing wrong.
Okay. Teachers! Did you see it? I asked for 1) Factual information: How is this game played? 2) Technical information: How do I play this game and win? Meaning techniques, and 3) What am I doing wrong, or what do I do consistently that you took advantage of that I should fix. A great conductor told me this in much simpler terms than that: Analyze, Diagnose, Prescribe. Analyze: this piece sounds like poo in this part (speaking of a piece of music). Diagnose: It sounds like poo because the flutes are out of tune. Prescribe: Give the flutes several different options for playing more in tune (or if you follow musician jokes...shoot one!).
You may be wondering why I even talked about Mr. Leonard now right? (you don't have the patience to be taught do you!? Haha!!) Well, if you don't know how to keep an audience in suspense, I'll tell you in a second...
So as I'm playing with the racquetball studs of Yakima, they have drills they tell me about. They can tell me what they did to get better, but none of them can really put into words what it is they saw me doing that the could take advantage of to win. I figured out my racquetball "nemesis" in town here won't tell me because it's how he beats me, but he's a teacher too... But out of town, even when I asked, they couldn't tell me. There was no analysis. In music, you get private instruction so you can have an expert on your instrument tell you what specifically you are doing that will inhibit you in the future, and what you should fix if you want to get better and maybe eventually work in this field. Granted, I wasn't paying these people like I paid my trumpet teachers, but I honestly don't think they knew what I meant when I was asking them if they saw something that I could do, and I wasn't going to push it with people I didn't know.
All this to say that I think that the vast majority of people don't understand the difficulty and action of delivering instruction. George Leonard didn't! (There it is haha!!) He wrote about mastery of anything, but when he talked about instruction, he talked about finding a teacher that could work with you individually and personality would mesh, and blah blah blah... Mr. Leonard, that is in fact, NOT GOOD TEACHING!
Public secondary school professional teachers, in general, have to see on average 100 to 300 kids a day. Obviously it can go lower, and it can also go higher (but not much). It is impossible to match a personality to every one of those kids. It is still possible to deliver them instruction in such a way that they will gain knowledge and skills that they may have not wanted at all.
I would argue that delivering instruction is a skill that takes mastery. It takes practice. It takes patience, it takes more introspective honesty than ANY other profession (even music!). If you're not honest with yourself about your faults especially, kids will eat you up. They will disrespect you, they will be defiant because you can't deal with yourself and are not worthy to deal with them, and you get paid like crap for it! (I knew about the pay going into teaching, so I have no intention of dwelling on it, but if the salary was commiserate with the training and stress, you would see MANY more excellent teachers in for the long haul).
Teaching well, and doing it for 3 decades is near impossible. You know those "bad" teachers that we're hearing so much about? They didn't start that way. If they started poorly, they would have left after 1 or 2 years. In fact, about half new teachers do that anyway. Bad teachers (off topic real quick, I watched the Cameron Diaz movie of the same name, I wanted to Falcon Punch the people that made that movie. F. U.) are teachers that did wonderful things early in their career, then eventually figured out a reason not to do that much work. They didn't get paid more every time they reached a kid that no one else could, their friend from college was working a corporate gig making 3 times as much and they got weekends off, a principal found a reason to harass them (that's my story), parents that are incapable of listening to an objective, professional, adult about their child, and on and on. The point is, if someone gets 10 years in, and find that they can half ass it and get the same pay, the path of least resistance my friends... I was on that path. I left. I miss the act of teaching A LOT. Especially when I'm at an Army training and the instructors are HORRIBLE. Nice people, but they couldn't teach a dog to shit in a park. But I don't miss the adults. You ever met a person that says "trust me" a lot? Do you trust them when they say that? I don't. In teaching, if someone says "it's what's best for the kids." Generally, it's what's best for their career, and not the kids. If you want to keep your teaching job, generally you shouldn't call them out on their decisions... Hold teachers accountable, but not principals... bad idea folks... Thus, I now work for the Army.
In summary, teaching is an art and profession that most people don't understand and are incapable of actually doing to the degree of a pro (that's why they're pro's people!! Do you send ME in to play QB for the Seahwaks?! HELL NO!!!). I have racquetball and Army instructors as my immediate evidence, and finally, don't piss off your bosses, they'll make your life hell. =) A happy post today! Anyone got that sarcasm font yet?
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