The end is in sight

I must admit that I am feeling that I am just plain terrible at this whole keeping updated on the blog thing. My old line used be that at least I was posting more often than Becky but now that she's started her new one-a-day blog that's just not something I can rely on anymore.

So, this end of the year has been hectic. Seniors graduated not too long ago. It was nice to be able to get rid of them early but they were getting idle towards the end and I was certainly ready to be rid of them. Graduation itself was interesting. During the baccalaureate service the students wore traditional dress which ranged from lederhosen to kilts to sombreros to loincloths. I would have snapped some pictures but would have just ended up feeling dirty. The graduation ceremony was nice. The guest speaker was very good and had a nice message in his speech. The most surreal part of the day was the 'wailing wall.' The seniors all line up on the ramp coming down from the high school and everyone greets them as they go down. There was a lot of tears. Literally, one student left a big wet spot on my shoulder from the weeping. One boy was full-on, open-mouthed wailing sobbing. When you think about it all it makes sense. Some of these kids have been here for 7 years or more. This isn't school they're leaving, it's home. These students and teachers are family (did I just slyly leave out dorm staff implying they're not family?, oh subconscious). I even found it somewhat moving. It just makes me wonder how I'm going to handle things next year when it's kids I actually like.

In other news, we're well into finals week. I've proctored (or as they prefer here, invigilated) two exams and have another tomorrow. It's so boring because all you can do there is sit/stand and watch them work. It gets to the point where you welcome questions to clarify something or, as one colleague put it today, you hope they start cheating just so you have something to do. My exam is tomorrow so I'll have 55 papers to mark before Monday evening. Piece o' cake right? Let's hope so. Beyond that there's a few meetings and some down time. In about a week's time I'll be heading to Delhi and then off on a plane to the States.

Hopefully I can keep my head until then. Wish me luck.

What did I see tonight?

Sorry for the bad pictures. I was washing dishes this evening when I looked out and saw this. I watched him/her for bit before realising I should get my camera! It was twilight, my flash was off and I was shooting through the screen. I'm just glad they came out as well as they did.

A few points for Sunday night

I realise that it has been over a month since my last post. Again, I apologise but surely you have all come to expect such things. I'm exhausted so I figure that a list will be the easiest way to do this:

1. The semester/year is wrapping up. I finished going over new material with my AP kids a week ago and should be finishing up with my IGCSE kids this week. The seniors are busy taking APs and internal exams and the grade tens will soon be in and out of class sporadically as their exams start.

2. Three (or four?) weeks ago was JSB (Junior Senior Banquet). Basically, it's Woodstock's version of prom. The 11th grade had to decorate the auditorium according to the theme (Masquerade) so being the good advisor that I am I helped set things up and get it all ready. Also, being an 11th grade advisor meant that I actually got to attend this year (not that I really had much of a choice, I also had to chaperon). Here's a picture of me with some friends:


3. Last weekend was the annual Jazz Jam. Again, the 11th grade was in charge of setting things up and then serving as were the advisors. I can't really complain too much. It DID give me an excuse to wear my bow tie again and really was quite a bit of fun.

4. Next weekend is the annual Mela. The 11th grade is selling ice cream in shifts so at least it will only be for half an hour and there will be the remainder of the time to check out the remainder of things.

5. I'm finally getting into using my Mac. As I use it more and more I find that I like it more and more too. I'm sure that I'll get plenty of time to work with it over the summer as I visit my family of Mac users.

6. Going along with the Mac, I will also (hopefully) be working on my pet projects this summer. I have purchased a comic drawing/publishing programme and am in the midst of putting together some scripts etc. Mayhaps I'll post a page or two if I find them satisfactory. I dropped $150 on books from Amazon and one of them is a book to help with the programme. Hopefully it works. As it is right now, I'm having difficulty even figuring out how to get the colour to change. Zoinks!

7. I really enjoy teaching chemistry. I especially enjoy the introductory classes because I feel I can be far more informal with the kids and make up stories and what not in order to help them visualise the material better. The only problem is that I tend to use sarcasm and a lot of the time I have to stop and explain the jokes to the ESL kids. Recently, I was discussing how substitution reactions work in organic chemistry. I decided that it really is like a soap opera. Someone's always dieing/coming back from the dead, getting brainwashed, or involved in some wicked love triangle. You see, C and H are happily married and have been for years so the writers decide to shake things up. They introduce a new character, the Chlorine Radical. She's gorgeous, sexy, witty, and is properly concave and convex in all the right places. She just happens to work at the same law firm as C and you know the drill. Late nights working on a make or break case. Ordering out, talking, laughing, the peck on the cheek, the full on mouth to mouth kiss. Well, being a substitution, the H gets replaced by Cl. Honestly, it's not as good written out like this. Maybe I should just try taping my lectures and then I can just edit to the good parts and just put them up.

8. Cindy, my step-mother, has officially obtained her doctorate degree. Hard work does pay off eh? Well done and congrats to her.

9. Today is Mother's Day. I found out about it about an hour or so ago. I'm out of touch with that sort of stuff. I made it back to the States on Father's Day last year and didn't even know it until I overheard some guy talking about it on the phone in the airport. Here's to the moms.

10. I'll be back stateside again this summer. I am making pretty much a full west to east tour. First I'll fly in to Tucson and see Mike and his family for about a week. I'm sure it will be full of beef, farts, nieces and comic books. I then will drive back to Illinois, hopefully with a stop in Colorado to see Jon since I was only to make it in two dimensions to his wedding two months ago.

But I'll be dammed if I still wasn't the life of the party. Extremely popular with the ladies in the 35-55 range.

I plan to then spend a few weeks at home in Illinois with friends and family. Don't worry Becky, I will be making a trip up to see you guys. After that I'll be making a trip out to North Carolina to see more family. The big, exciting part though is going to Washington DC area for the National Scout Jamboree. See, it's the 100th anniversary of scouting in the US so it's kind of a big deal. Dad and I are both on staff (he's doing shooting sports stuff and I'm working the international hosting stuff). I'm pretty excited to be doing it.

11. I have decided to let my hair grow out. Not in a crazy manner mind you, but enough that I can at least comb it and put a part in it. The thing is, though, that for some reason when I part it the front tends to flip up a bit. Now, I noticed it and immediately it reminded me of one of my favourite comic book characters. I wasn't going to say anything about it until a student pointed it out to me too. At least it shows I'm not crazy. Right?! Anywho, you decide.

Me, with my most emo look. (Doesn't yellow just scream emo to you?) I had to do it this way so that the flip would be evident.

And the comic book character in question. Tintin. You tell me, do I have my Halloween costume figured out for this year?

Quarter Break

So, it's been quite a while since my most recent update. For that I truly and most sincerely apologize. One must understand, however, just how crazy life gets here. Life during the spring semester just becomes obnoxious. The seniors checked out in November so there's no hope in teaching them anything (as evidenced by my most recent test in AP chem). AP and IGCSE exams are looming upon us. Come May I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing at all. My seniors take their exams and then they're gone. At any given time my tenth graders can be out of class taking an exam leaving me with anywhere from zero, to two, to twenty three students at any given class time. It makes planning ahead all but impossible. Add to that a lung infection and a curriculum overhaul for moving from a three to two school model. Oh let's also not forget about being an eleventh grade advisor and having to help out with JSB (prom), JazzJam, and mela. Life's hectic. Gimme a break if I don't post for weeks at a time.

Anywho, what's been going on since my last post? Let me see if I can recollect everything. It's all a blur really. I seem to remember lots of grading, being sick, and some badminton. Probably the highlight of the past few weeks was last weekends staff talent show. Much like last year there was lots of songs, dancing, cross dressing and some fabu emceeing. I helped our finance director, Ben, to emcee the show. We didn't have any time to get together before hand and plan what we were going to say so it was mostly improvised. The people I talked to said they really liked it and that we did a good job. All those years of campfires has paid off I guess. We had a fashion show to start things off. It was really fun to see some of the staff members get all dressed up and strut their stuff. I think the best was Chophels in their traditional Tibetan garb. There were also a few bands that rocked the house. My HOD (Head of Dept) told a continuation of his story for the wee kids that he did last year. There was a Flashdance done by some of the men on staff that literally brought the house down. By far it was the best act (and I only got to see it from the side). I took part in a skit called "3 Woodstock Alums" based on an old Monty Python skit. One of my fellow science teachers took it upon herself to rewrite the script down to three people and tool in a bunch of Woodstock references. The kids really enjoyed it when we talked about having urine dripping on our beds in the dorms back in those days. (Yes, that really happened to a kid. Gotta love temporary dorms.) The show ended, as it usually does, with a big Bollywood dance number. The kids love this stuff. My dance was something about I'm totally smitten with the girl and she's a flower and I'm a bumble bee. She asks me if I like her (or something like that) and I get all embarrassed and say 'no no.' I freeze up as I put my arm on her shoulder and my buddy Nassir has to come out and tell me to just ask her to marry me. I was told I was very cute in my dancing. Aww shucks.

The Chophels in their Tibetan garb with Ms M.

The staff Bollywood dance.

Flashdance!

Our opening bit. Big heads on little bodies is just adorable. (Family: Would a Maggie joke be inappropriate here?)

Rockin' out Woodstock style.

"You lived in a shoebox?! Luxury!"

Bantering. Really, the bow tie makes it work.

Oh, the weekend before that was the opening for Hostel, the boys' dorm. They completely renovated the place and have really made it look amazing. I think I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves on this one.







Lastly, my buddy Jon (all the way back from fourth grade) got married the same time as I was doing the talent show. I had really hoped I'd be able to get to go and partake but being so close to the end of the quarter and how crazy travel would be I just couldn't do it. So, what's the next best option? Why life-sized cardboard cutouts of course. Apparently I even got to dance a bit with one of the bride's aunts. I tell ya, it's the ol' Rice-Charm. Wish I could have been there for real-real and not just for play-play. Congrats to the both of you.

The two most handsomest groomsmen ever.

Even in two dimensions I am still the life of the party.

Thanks to Karan, Casey, Cookie, and other anonymous people I borrowed pictures from for this post. Let me see if I can't upload the Bollywood dance in another post. In the meantime, enjoy whatcha got.

Last Night

So last evening I went into the bazaar and I looked into ovens like I had promised dad I would do. Well, I picked one out and got the necessary baking items and headed back home. It certainly seemed like it was the night to be out with the kids. The entire middle school had their class night and I ran into most of them on the way home. Aywho, the majority of that information is immaterial, much like one of those word problems from trig class. The fun comes from the fact that my neighbor had his advisor group over for dinner and whatnots as well. I knew they were still there because there was somewhere around 20 shoes outside his door.

I noticed that the lights were on low but I didn't hear a movie playing. My neighbor has decent speakers and I can hear when he has a movie going pretty easily. I was about to open my door and go inside when I heard one of the girls say something about ghosts and I just couldn't help myself. I went back over to his door and slowly opened it. Our screen doors make a nice creak when you open them. I paused for a minute to see if anyone inside was going to say something. Nothing. I then pounded on the door and was greeted to screams from the kids and barking from his dog. He opened his door and I popped in to see eleventh grade boys hugging and clinging to each other for dear life. The boy sitting in the chair right next to the door had a particularly scared look on his face. It was priceless.

In other news, I picked up some gooseberries from the market today and threw together a cobbler. I just pulled it out of the oven. It looks a bit like it might be a aqueous underneath but the top is a nice golden brown and it smells really good. We'll see what it tastes like when it cools.

Gym Night

So, I definitely get a bit more exercise here than I typically would back home in the states. That happens when you live on the side of a hill and actually do walk up hill to school and back home. Well, there have been staff gym nights pretty much ever since the new gym opened up last semester. I, however, have neglected them.

Well, last Friday I got talked into attending. I played volleyball in my dresspants and socks. Now, anyone who knows me knows I never played any sports growing up. Sure, mom and dad made EVERY OTHER sibling of mine play soccer but finally gave up when it came to me. I think that has part to do with my lack of hand-eye coordination and depth perception. It's enjoyable even if I suck terribly. Tonight I played badminton with some friends. I lost every game I played but did improve throughout the night (I think). I went from losing a game 21-0 to losing a game 21-19. I still think it was because we switched partners though. I took a few dives (out of dedication) and we'll see how my knee is doing tomorrow morning.

Gym nights are every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I think I'll go at least once a week (maybe twice). Of course, our Tavern nights are usually Wednesdays or Fridays so maybe I'll just commit to the gym whichever night I'm not consuming mass quantities.

It's not too late to make New Year's resolutions is it? Heck, the lunar new year was only a few weeks ago.

Bizarre Dreams

Yesterday was an amazing day. On the way to school I knew already that I had worn too many layers for the day. Spring was in the air. The sun was out and shining. There was that smell in the air that spring had sprung. That sort of musty, woody smell. Well, by the time that I had wrapped things up to go to our monthly short story reading group things had turned for the worst. Clouds rolled in and the sky was overcast. The air got bitter cold. The smell of spring was replaced by the smell of a cold, cold rain. By the end of the evening rain was coming down pat- pat- pattering on the corrugated sheet metal roof and thunder was heard in the distance.

Now, I've probably mentioned on here some time that I'm a very light sleeper and usually have extreme difficulty getting any kind of a full night's rest. I sleep with a fan on year round for the white noise it's blades and motor provide. I actually welcomed the rain. The area has been so dry since monsoon was virtually non-existent this past year and we really needed it (by we I really mean the people of Mussoorie as Woodstock supplies most of its own water). Also, that pattering on the roof provides great white noise. Sometime in the early morning the storm reached us. Lightning flashes were quickly followed by the loud boom of thunder. Around 3.30 the power got briefly knocked out. Sleeping with the fan on, I quickly awoke when the dull buzzing was cut off. I spent a good, long time moving and shifting, trying to get back to sleep but to no avail. Eventually I must have because I woke up again a few more times as the power came back on and then off again and then on again.

Now, the thing is that I must have been startled out of a dream because I was (and still am) imprinted with images of a dream I had. The dream itself was just so bizarre and disturbing that I really needed to share it. I can't say that I remember very much of it. Just snippets really.

What I really remember was having a sense of dread throughout the dream. Just about everything was in greytones. I was in an apartment building saying something to a group of people that something needed to be done. I remember looking out of a window down into a courtyard. I think I was looking out for something. The next thing I remember was that I was outside. There was a chainlink fence behind me as well as a large, leafless tree. I was startled by a giant flock of birds suddenly taking off into the sky. As I turned around I was further startled by the fact that the entire flock suddenly was turned into a vapourised mist of red blood as if some unseen force had instantly pulverised them all. I turned, thinking, "We need to get out of here. Now." And as I started to move people away there was a deafening roar from above and as I looked up I saw a plane/passenger jet engulfed in flames come crashing down. I remember how close it was to the ground when I first saw it because of how huge it looked. When I saw it hit the ground not far I suddenly felt compelled to run over and help but I quickly stopped. I had noticed that there was already some military vehicles rushing to the scene. Seeing the jeeps and vans I felt more terrified than when I saw the birds or plane. It was only then that I decided to flee. The subconscious can be pretty funny sometimes. The vehicle I left in was like one of those large doubledecker buses you think of going around London. The only thing was that it was much, much smaller. Literally, not much wider than I am. We rushed down the highway at top speed and I guess we got away. I don't really remember much else. There is more to the dream but all I can think of was having to get away again and something about antique quilts. Maybe I'll remember some more later.

So that was my bizarre/disturbing dream from this morning. I'm sure I wouldn't have remembered it if I hadn't been woken up by the power going off. It still gives me the willies. Especially the part about the birds.