Friday, November 28, 2008

Dir en Grey was in town!!!!! I'm not worthy!!!!!

Since purchasing the tickets in August I'd been waiting and counting down to Tuesday, November 25, for Dir en Grey to perform in Houston. My sister and I were in love with the band when I was about 16 years old (about ten years ago) and she was 11. When I was 15 or 16 I'd purchased a japanese cd with a bunch of random songs featured on television shows and a song by the band struck me. I recognized their name when browsing one day and I bought their first mainstream cd, Gauze, and was taken aback by their style of music. I had no idea they were a heavy metal band, but their music was still phenomenal. Years passed and their music progressed into a more "heavier" sound, and I'd lost interest mainly because I was in college and didn't have time to keep up with the scene.

When I found out they were coming to Houston, I HAD to see them. They were one of the first japanese rock bands I was into, and they are LEGEND. Seriously, their music is edgy, fearless, and even psychotic at times. I really believe they paved a road for music to differentiate, especially in Japan. Just my opinion.

Tuesday finally came, and we got front row balcony seats at The House of Blues. Great seats they were, and really close to the band as well! We just had to lean over a little because of the rail that abstructed part of the view. The opening band was called The Human Abstract. They were great as well, but they didn't get a lot of feedback from the audience because we weren't there to see them. lol.

Then came the moment when DeG came on stage. They were awesome. It was a small stage, so there weren't a lot of fancy special effects, but they did have this voo-doo like background with a video playing in the background as well as some lighting effects. No matter, the band was so LOUD.

Kyo, the vocalist, blew me away. I don't usually care much for vocalists, but Kyo is extremely talented. No wonder why he hurt his throat for a while. Metal and screaming isn't my thing, but this band definitely does it for me. The vocalist sings as if he's an animal descended from another world screaming a message at us. The rest of the band were incredible as well. I had no idea the bassist, Toshiya, was so freaking tall, towering over shorty Kyo. The long instrument really matched him. Die, Shinya, and Kaoru were how I imagined them to be while playing. Awesome.

The music made me feel like I was thrown into a screaming dream world. 'Nuff said.


By the end of the show we were all at least half deaf but satisfied.
Comments (1) | Permalink

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

I'm still here...

Yes. I'm still here. I also realized that I haven't posted since spring break! I forgot to post my latest entry here, so here's a copy/paste from another blog I neglect. For any one who's actually interested:


July 4

This entry is long due. In fact, I’ve written this practically a month ago, but felt a little discouraged to post it. It was about 3 pages long on a Word document, but I thought I’d cut to the point. Some commentary about work:

A year ago my last day as a student teacher was sad as well, but a different kind of sadness. It was bittersweet and full of hope for the future. I can’t quite say that the sadness I had as a first year teacher was the same. Oh no, not at all. On the last day I was sad for myself and for my students because of all the regrets I had. The things I wished I did or didn’t. Regrets are unavoidable, especially when you’re a terrible critic of yourself. I wished I taught some things differently, showed love to the children more, and I wished I wasn’t both so harsh and lenient at times. I wished I’d gotten a chance to hug all of them before they left my class forever.

The year is over, I'm drained. Some people ask me what I'm doing this summer, and they think I'm wasting my time not planning some great adventure because of all the time I have on my hands. But I don't think some people understand how much I appreciate doing nothing. I just need to rest, and get away for a while.


-----------------------------------------------


I had a good rest. Though I'm going to be greedy and say I wish it were longer!

I'm not going to yammer on about how I spent my summer. So. Summer is almost over. What am I doing now? Well, a part of me dreads going back to work. The larger 99% part of me. But there's also that 1% that is curious to see what the next 9.5 months has in store. This time around there will be fewer surprises. Hopefully I'll work out the kinks and be better prepared. But, there's still the chance that this year will hold more surprises. You never know what to expect with people, with children.

Let the preparations begin.
Comments (1) | Permalink

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Post from Sunday.
A Break


Ah, today is the last day of my Spring Break. Then it'll be 9... or 10 weeks of a reign of terror.

The children in my class managed to all pass the state Reading test as reported to me by phone from another teacher. Thank goodness, Hallelujah! I can't say the same about other classrooms, I got lucky with my group of kids. Though at times they are demanding. They worked so hard, we all worked really hard to cram so much into their brains, and mine survived. The admin won't be on my tail about the Reading test anymore, but now we have the upcoming state Math test to take care of. For this one, I have a gut feeling that one will fail. Well, I had this feeling about Reading as well, but this one... Well, if you'd taken a look at the Math benchmark scores, it defies probability to score that number. We'll tear our hair out to prepare the kid for it, but I can't wait for the test to come end of April to get that out of the way.

Besides the feeling of impending doom, I've had a good break. Short, way too short, though. I made a trip up to Austin for 3 days. It was nice. Austin is a nice place to be, even if you live on Riverside. =). It was nice to be away from Houston. Met some old folks, and learned a bit more about how much I dislike myself at times.

Japanese beer has an incredible aftertaste.

My motivation to waterpaint has stirred. Though by the time I bought paper and paint, it's suddenly Sunday, and I have no idea when I'll pick up the brush again.

Oh my goodness, don't even get me started on Rock Band. That shit is pretty damn fun. Drums rock my socks. Nuff said.

Did I mention I have a damaged bone on the bottom of my foot that causes me to walk like a 20th century bounded foot Chinese girl?

Things not accomplished: car wash, painting, biking plans, friends, school work, cleaning, guitar, etc. But, it was still a good break. Not long enough in my opinion!

Comments (0) | Permalink

Sunday, February 3, 2008

They say that our campus is not a test-focused campus. That we don’t teach to the test. They say all this stuff, but we know that when they took a look at the children’s benchmarks, they’re worried as hell. I wasn’t worried until now. It’s not so much the thought of kids not passing the test that scares me, but the thought that it’s so high-stakes that a kid can’t move on to the next grade level because they can’t pass the test.

Shoot. In all honesty, some of these kids should not even be in this grade. The teachers who must administer all this testing wonder: How? Just how in the world did some of these kids get this far without anyone ever noticing, anyone ever attempting to intervene and provide some sort of decent remediation? We can’t play the catch-up game now that they’re in third grade! I’m not talking about the kids that failed their benchmarks, no, I’m talking about the students who read on a Kindergarten/First grade level, the ones that scored in the twenties and BELOW on their benchmarks. In order to score that low, you must be purposely choosing the incorrect answer because statistically, one who randomly guesses on a 4-choice bubble test has a chance of scoring higher than that. I’m serious. Passing or failing a test doesn’t say everything about a kid, but to fail it with a score below 30%? That tells you SOME thing.

In the beginning of the school year, I had 4 students reading on a first grade level. Now I think they are about mid-second grade level. But I know other third grade teachers with students who are still on Kindergarten/First grade reading. In one month we’ll be taking the reading test.

When I was in college I heard about all this stuff about tests that go on in school, but is the reality ever grim now that I’m a teacher.

Why does it keep getting worse? Just when I thought, “hey, I’ve got this, it’s all right now—“ then test-taking mode hits.

I hate that I have to give up an hour of my day every day to teach kids how to take a fucking test. As much as I dislike teaching science, I’d rather be teaching science instead of having to cut science in half, and practically cut out all of social studies.

We’ve always had the best rankings as far as test scores go on our campus, except for one year when we were “average”. I don’t care about the rankings, but I know that we’re going to haul ass to have to keep it up.


Comments (1) | Permalink

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Half a Year Later
It was wonderful being a bum over the winter break. And I got to catch up on the Naruto Shippuuden episodes. Yes, I'm serious, I'm still into that. I really should've listened to people when they told me I could just skip through the filler episodes from the first series, but I didn't. What a waste of time! I think I'm going to spend a lot of time on anime and manga during the summer. OMG I can't wait! .....I guess I just won't grow out of it.

And this leads to a point of more substance in my entry.....



Sometimes the kids laugh when they realize how childish their teacher is sometimes. The lame jokes she makes, the clouds and rainbows on the shoes she wears, the expression she makes when she realizes her stomach grumbled so loud the whole class could hear. I guess it's a good thing.

I had a friend who was really upset when her grandmother was suffering from cancer. She told me that when she looked at her grandma, she realized that this woman was once someone's little girl. How people, with their careers, families, grandchildren, no matter how old they are, we have these impressions of them on the outside. They're still people like us, with faults and vulnerabilities. Growing old on the outside, but on the inside can be or feel like a child. I guess I elaborated on what she said, but I remember her expressing it more eloquently several years ago, a conversation that really stuck with me. I look at my mom, and I wonder why the hell doesn't she grow up sometimes, and I see that in myself. When I'm in my forties, some kid is gonna look at me and tell me to fucking grow up. I look at my sister, and she dresses well, and will probably marry before me. Then I look at myself, and wonder if I should continue shopping where I do or take a man already. But this is me.

As I grow older (and I'm not that old compared to all the "old" folks I know), I realize that I'm not too different from people I know in their 30's or 40's, and so on. Something I have is..... more time. And whether I use this time wisely, sometimes yes, sometimes no. I guess I'll have an answer to that when I'm old.



Comments (1) | Permalink

» Archives