A Jack Sparrow Halloween

I dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween and joined my cousin and his family for a Fall Festival event at there church. There was a chili cook off and some trick or treating. I mostly just wanted a chance to show off my new costume.

Later, I went to Sardo's, a local karaoke bar. Two people I didn't know came up and asked to take a picture with me. Cool.

High School Drama Competition

I went to Valencia High School in Placentia, California, to work as a judge at drama competition for the Drama Teachers' Association of Southern California. Most performances were about average. Some of the student-written scenes were interesting. One scene was about the Japanese internment camps in California where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. The subject matter had merit, but the performance and direction were lacking. Another piece with merit was about Rosa Parks, but, for some reason, portrayed her planning in advance to sit at the front of the bus. That doesn't fit the facts. Strangely, two of the student written pieces were about Charles Manson. I placed one of them as my first place choice. Some of the monologue actors achieved a fine depth and range of emotion in their pieces. The last show I saw was an amazing performance of two young actors who did a scene from Moliere's Forced Wedding - in French! Almost no one understood what they were saying, but the scene was still hilarious. Of course, they won.

Yes on 87 Party

I spent the whole day yesterday trying to give my apartment a quick makeover. I was about to host my first party in my place and I wanted it to look good. The party wasn't really a party. It was a get together of sorts for Yes on 87. I ran out of time for the home makeover and ended up moving the mess in my living room into my bedroom.

The get together was nice. My five guests were mostly free-thinking people who, like me, would like the State of California to get the extraction fee from oil drilling companies that other states get. The oil companies have been getting a free ride for years and it's time for that to stop. We watch a video on my internet connection, but the conference call didn't work. The number wouldn't take a call from my Skype internet phone program. Whatever. It was still the first successful party at my place.

First Blog

This is my first time using Blogger.com for blogging.

I have other blogs at songwright4ever.livejournal.com and www.myspace.com/songwright.

The Problem With Education

This was my last day in that assignment as the yearbook advisor at a middle school in the San Fernando Valley. When this school offered me the job of substituting for a computer teacher, they didn't tell me that I'd be adopting a dysfunctional yearbook staff. They didn't tell me that I'd have to be the one to dislodge the yearbook from the pit of apathy and neglect where the last advisor dumped it. They gave me almost no help at all. I told the kids in the staff that if it hadn't been for me, they would have had a different substitute teacher every day. They asked me why I cared, as if I shouldn't. I cared because it's just wrong for the school to let things get this bad and I hate that. I didn't tell them that, though. I was struggling to lock them out from the computers to keep them from playing games.

I wrote letters to all the parents of the yearbook staff as well as the principal. Only one parent called me, and that was only because I had called her. If the other teachers don't care, and the principal doesn't care, and the parents don't care, why should I? This speaks to the problem with education in Los Angeles, and also with America. The parents just want school to be a place for them to dump their kids, a day care center. The principals are too busy to care about what's going wrong. The teachers who I thought were all saints turn out to be just as apathetic as anyone else. The students who just want to party in the classroom win, and the good students who really want to learn lose. I'm starting to think that I need to get out of education.

My Bronze Medal

The International Society of Poets sent me a bronze medal. I won third place in the monthly online contest for the poem I posted on poetry.com, "My Microwave." That's nice, but it would have been even nicer if I had gotten a little money with it.

Once again, here is the award-winning poem, "My Microwave":

My microwave helps my cooking achieve simplicity
I don't see complicated recipes on my horizon.
I choose my frozen dinners by their ambience.
Otherwise, I could only approach my cooking with courage.
The garlic salt and ketchup I use have such fortitude
That my digestion must occur with a sense of faithfulness