Schools out for SUMMER!

Now time for the Summer time blues...
Jump up and down in your blue suede shoes...
Hey kids rock and roll...Rock On...

School officially ended-ish this week. I'm still sitting at my desk...in an empty classroom...with desks piled high and a lot on my mind.

On my board I had students drawing pictures and writing sayings for the last day or so while they signed their yearbooks. In one corner it says, "Mr. Reeves is Hella Fly!" I erased most of the board but left that up, because it's nice to know that I'm hella fly.

As I walked through the office this morning I had two separate administrative people say that they had parents signing their kids up for next year and that I came heavily recommended. How Hella Fly did I feel? Very...the answer is very.

I learned a lot from my students this year. Though at times I complained about some of the terrible grammar, their attitudes, and their hygiene, I found that a good portion of my students were pretty good. It is so interesting to see the drive of some, and the lack thereof of others.

I had students who turned in all of the extra credit they could, and they earned around 107%
Meanwhile I had students who just refused to write 10 poems, and dropped from an A to a D+

The summer time is a time for rebirth in my opinion. Some would say it's the spring, but I think that summer time is really when a person is re-born. So this summer I have a load of things on my list to do. Read books, bond with family, and WRITE!

I want to write, I really want to write. A movie script? A Novel? A kids book? I don't know, but I feel like I have a lot of good ideas bouncing around this awkward skull of mine, and one of them has to be profitable right?

So this guy gets home from work one day, and he's just angry as all get out. He sees a snail by his doorstep and he chucks it as FAR as he possibly can. He feels better and goes inside...
Two years later a small tap at the door: As the man opens the door he sees the snail.
Man: Hey aren't you that snail I threw over there 2 years ago?
Snail: Yeah what's up with that!?

Hahahahahahahaha....my students didn't really dig that one.

Anywho, I love and appreciate that so many of you read my ramblings. This post would be most excellent if I could ask you to leave a comment with a subject of a book or movie you'd like to see me write. If I ever get famous off of it I'll give you some moneys- Out

A funny story...period

So my friend Brent sent me a link today with a funny story that someone had written on their blog. It involved 2 guys, a men's room, and a lot of laughter....

It dawned on me that I could tell a funny story as well, to make people have a better day. Problem is that most of the people involved IN the story, actually read my blog. So I'll use code names so as to protect the innocent...or not.

So I had graduated from High School in the summer of 2000. What a splendid time to be alive! Limp Bizkit's song from the Mission Impossible 2: Soundtrack was polluting the airwaves, along with "If I die before I wake at least in Heaven I can Skate" and "The boys in the hood." I decided to take my lady friends to dinner at the Olive Garden before we all parted ways to College, and Nanny-ships, and other such endeavors.

I picked them all up and we drove in my parent's ultra mega cool 15 passenger van to THE Olive Garden. One of the girls was feeling, shall we say, monthly sick? Or should I not use a question mark after sick and instead use a period. Not sure, anyways...we get there and I feel bad cause she is doubling over in pain. I find some kind of pain suppressant pill in the car's first aid kit, and it still isn't working.

So we sat down about to order and I asked her if there was ANYTHING I could POSSIBLY get for her to make her feel better.

She replied, "Not unless you can get me some Mydol"

Now I assumed that Mydol was kind of like a tums or a rolaids or something. And I knew for sure that I'd seen restaurants with those medicines sold right at the counter.

When the waiter asked if there was anything he could get for us, I piped up and mentioned that if he had some Mydol that would be great. He stood there...stunned...and finally was able to ask me, "ummm what do you need THAT for?"

At this point my friend who was in all of the pain started laughing and said, "Because he is cramping."

Suddenly everything became so crystal clear! A squared + B squared = C squared. Bruce Willis had been dead the entire time! And yes, if you grab a cigarette lighter, you get burned.

The girls erupted with laughter as the waiter stared at me and I felt like a complete moron. I was excited to have learned something new though: Mydol stops period cramps! So it wasn't that bad of an experience. Any time you can learn something new, it's a good thing right?

Angels and Demons...and Ducks...and Butter...and couches...and hammers....and mud....and dinosaurs...and Leppers...and......

Illuminati! Illuminati!

Worst name for a villain ever. "Illuminati?" Ok maybe they should watch old spy movies to see what good organizations names are: Chaos, Spectre, Sith....the putties- the list goes on. (wait whats' s putty? Those were those weird henchmen from power rangers...don't pretend you don't know that. And please don't deny that you still know that song that the green ranger played on his flute sword to get the dragon up. DOO doo doo DOODOO DOO!)

Anyways. So there were angels, demons, and a lot of dead people. I'm not talking, "oh he was shot, he is dead." I'm saying there were eye balls on the floor, burning alive, corpses filled with dirt being eaten by rats etc etc.

As a whole I was more impressed with Da Vinci code. This felt more like a "National Treasure-ana Jones and the Saw IV of Catholic"

Ewan McGregor and Stallin Skarsgard really carry the film. Tom Hanks was ok, but I just didn't care about his character. Maybe it was that he wasn't the same Robert Langdon that we came to love from Da Vinci Code, or maybe it was the negative remarks he said about my church recently. Point is, it's an ok movie with a pretty decent ending. My advice though: Go see Wolverine or Star Trek instead. I think Wolverine for the 3rd time would have been more interesting than Angels and Demons the first time- OUT

Talkin bout this generation...

I asked a question to my students yesterday for their journal prompt at the beginning of class. "Would you pull the wings off of a beautiful butterfly for $100? How about $1000? How about a Cockroach? $100? $1000? " The students overwhelmingly went for the money. A select few said that they would not do the Butterfly for $100, but the $1000 was too much to say no to.

I upped the ante and asked them, "Ok what if I let you push a button that gave you $1 million dollars every time you pushed it, but by pushing the button it killed someone that you have never met before from anywhere on the planet?"

The answers were appalling, sick, and left me terrified.

"I'd push it at least ten times"

"There's overpopulation in China anyways"

"Odds are I'd get someone from Africa who is dying from Aids anyways"

These answers came from the same students who just LOVE their video games, and for some reason I can't figure out, also LOVE looking at muscly guys from UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). These kids have very low respect for human life and are BIG fans of violence.
I hear of my students going to their own "UFC" fights in their backyards and basements. My brother was invited to go film one of these fight nights at a local college.

Seriously, what in the Hell has happened?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Or did I just answer my own question....

I'm only 9 years removed from high school, and I remember what it was like. Most kids were generally happy, smart, and had bright futures. This generation has some major issues and I can't figure out where it's all stemming from.

The best I can come up with is that many parents have just stopped trying. Buy the kid an I-pod, an X-box, and a car and they'll leave you alone.

We occasionally talk about movies in my classroom (big surprise huh) and it is sad to hear students say things like, "When my mom let me watch Saw when I was in 5th grade I was terrified" "Freddy Krueger gave me nightmares when I was in elementary school"

WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!?!?!!!!!

KIDS SHOULD NOT BE WATCHING THAT STUFF!

ADULTS SHOULD NOT BE WATCHING THAT STUFF!

But hey, hit play and you can leave the room while the idiot box ruins your kids.

I plead with any parents who are reading this blog, to go turn the t.v. off and take your kids on a walk. Play frisbee! Collect bugs! (just don't tear their wings off) Do art projects! Don't let your kids get caught up in the current onlsaught of media distorting this generations' sense of reality! If you want them to watch t.v., go buy the old muppet show on DVD! I have 3 seasons ammased already for when my son gets old enough to understand t.v.

-out

Passing of the torch...

This has been a wild week. It started with my second full night on the job on Monday. (Or Cinco de Quatro, as our "just as eloquent as George W. Bush" President Obama put it...seriously- say what?). I'm starting to realize that unlike my other stint as a teacher for this company- These kids are a lot harder to control. By Wednesday I'd learned that if they start giving me lip...or the bird...I can just summon the mighty powers of, "GIANT TONGAN GUY IN THE HALLWAY WHO ROUGHS KIDS UP WHEN THEY MOUTH OFF-MAN!!!" So that has become MUCH easier.
Today (Thursday) found me using student's valuable time to move my classroom from the outside trailer to the interior of the building. With our new addition, all of the teachers who have been here for years have moved to nice new rooms. I went from homely trailer (complete with actual wood paneled walls and a collapsible ceiling) to one of the classrooms that I actually had class in my senior year. It is located upstairs in the senior hallway which is infested with bats in the ceiling. No joke...ceiling full of bats. And with bats comes BAT GUANO! Long story short- my room smells like Urine when it gets hot outside. The walls are red, orange, brown, and yellowish. I believe that the previous teacher painted it to go for a "zion's national park" feel. My students declared it was an Ode to Nacho Cheese...
Tonight was our church's talent show. The passing of the torch was completed when a kid that I taught...only 14...got up and played/sang Jim Croce's "Operator."
When I was on scout camp outs growing up, my leader; Jim, would always play Jim Croce and the Kingston Trio for us. We eventually put our head phones away and accepted this old person music. Come to find out: JIM CROCE ROCKS. So when I took the scouts out on a camping trip, I made my own "Croce" mix. This kid loved it, so I gave him the mix. Tonight was epic. I filmed it and then took it over to show my old scout leader. We both had a good laugh. Love to all, may this weekend find you happy and productive. I'm going to SUU to start my grad program, celebrate my anniversary, and...well we're going to go see Wolverine together tomorrow so that's 3 great reasons to look forward to the weekend- Out

Star Trek Movie Review...wait doesn't it come out next weekend?

Ok so my dream job would be movie reviewer, so expect a lot of them on my blog this summer. This summer is going to be awesome for movies. Wolverine, Star Trek, Angels/Demons, Night at the Museum, PG-13 TERMINATOR!, Harry Potter, Transformers, and the list goes on da da dump de dum HEY! If you've seen the movie I review, please feel free to comment and agree or disagree.

Star Trek-
So though it doesn't come out officially til next weekend, I won tickets to a special sneak preview this last Saturday. So so cool, they had security with night vision goggles making sure that nobody was pirating the movie.

STAR TREK WAS AWESOME! I can't give this movie lower than an A-. It was seriously so so so much fun. Now the problem is that when somebody says, "Star Trek" a good portion of people say, "NERDS!" and they run away. I'm not a "trekkie" so here's what I know about Star Trek: I used to watch Patrick Steward as Picard in Star Trek the Next Generation. I know the old school Star Trek was cheesy, but it had Shatner, so it's forgivable. I thought that Deep Space 9 was cool for the last 2-3 seasons because they brought back half of the Next Generation cast and the whole thing was one giant war. Now the reason that I'm going off on this is because I want you to know that I know very VERY little about Star Trek. I know 2-3 alien species names, I know the captains, and that's about it.

This movie is a prequel to the original series. We learn about Captain Kirk's ascension to captain of the Enterprise. We get introduced to the original crew of the enterprise as well. Spock was the best because I already know the actor's work as Sylar in Heroes, my favorite TV program. There was comedy, there was AWESOME action, and there were great space battles and special effects. Leonard Nimoy (original spock) shows up and does a great job. The only reason I gave this movie an A- as opposed to an A is that there were some plot issues where characters find the "needle in the haystack," only with the possibilities of space and such I would think that finding a needle in a hay stack would be MUCH MUCH easier than what happens in the movie. The point is though: If you are not a trekkie, if you have no idea what Star Trek is about, it doesn't matter in the least. You WILL like this movie, I promise you that.

Because I'm a Wolverine fan first and formeost, I still enjoyed that film more, and I advise all to see it, but as soon as you walk out of the theater, walk right back in and get a ticket to Star Trek. One of the only downsides to this movie is that you may sit next to a hefty guy who smells like "world of war craft" and has pointy ears. If you don't like this movie: you are a moron. That is all- out

Wolverine Review...SNIKT!

It's 2:36 a.m., do you know where your kids are? Well I was just at Wolverine's midnight premier. I started my day by dressing as Wolverine, including steel toed boots, black leather jacket, no shaving, hair slicked back, and yes I have two black leather gloves with 6 chrome painted pencils attached. I was the "belle of the ball." My students ate it up.

I hooked up with my good friends: Dave, Tyson, Scott, Bret, Cody, Damon, some spouses, and at the last minute (my wife was feeling sick) my old missionary companion Johnny. (Part of the movie took place in Springfield Ohio, that town was my area :) )

Anyways: The movie was awesome. But not awesome in the regular sense. I've known Wolverine's back story and origin for a long time. Heck I did the math and I've been waiting for this movie for 17 years already. The story line was excellent, and it flowed pretty quickly. I was sucked in from opening shot to final "after the credits" treat. The action was intense. I mean you have to dumb it down a bit to make it PG-13. We're talking about a guy whose super powers include long sharp pointy objects. In the comics, heads roll all the time and insides are routinely displayed outside. But they managed to get graphic enough to please the comic fan. There were great explosions, EPIC battles, and some pretty cool deaths. Plus Ryan Reynolds (and the girls say, "HEY I KNOW THAT NAME! HE'S IN CHICK FLICKS!") as dead pool was hilarous. For those of you confused as to who deadpool is, Here's a picture.

There were cool guest spots of mutants which I recognized, but the casual movie goer won't care about. Some great one liners, and some fairly revealing shots of a naked Hugh Jackman running around the forest. Speaking of Hugh Jackman, this guy is a great great actor. I've heard he's a genuinely nice guy in real life. He plays Wolverine perfectly, and I do hope he signs on to do another film. Kudos for somebody haveing fun in a movie that they co-produced. Oh, and Lieve Schreiber as Sabertooth was very VERY cool. They finally cast a comic book movie right. People can complain about cheesy lines, but at least they aren't delivered in a "cookie monster with emphasema batman voice." All in all it was exactly what I had hoped it would be, which is a good story, good action, and a good viewing experience. I totally recommend this movie to anyone who is in the mood for a great start of the summer movie season. To the weathered comic book fan, this will probably mean a bit more to ya. 31/2 out of 4 stars for the general public. 4/4 stars for me- out