A whole new level of old ...
Sound Off!
CD review
So I go to EMP the other night and cash in my membership freebie tickets and get handed a CD from EMP's "Sound Off!" school age battle of the bands competition ... In and of itself this is hardly interesting, but when I looked at the photos of the bands, there was a student I regularly work with ... I felt a whole new level of old when I realized this ... I can't quite place it as to why, when I deal with stuff every day that clearly defines my age in relation to my students, but somehow this is different to me ... but still cool ...
The CD itself is an interesting mix of different ways "young people" are making rock and how it is morphing with this generation ... all I can say is that some of it I like and some of it I don't ... tastes are one's own and I am glad so many "young people" are going out there and doing this ...
With myspace and the web, it is so different today for musicians in a good news slash bad news sort of way ... it is good news that people can browse and find new acts sort of randomly, but it is bad news that they may only give it a few seconds before moving on ... Still, 16 year olds can now record and post their stuff online and find an audience where bands when i was that age simply did not have that opportunity ...
I have decided to combine the post above with an update to my regular postings about life as a substitute teacher ...
Recent funny subbing stories ...
The fifth grade class i was working with was doing an art project and so all sorts of materials were out. I asked, "Does anyone have any white out I can borrow?" A moment passed and a girl walked up to me, empty handed, and informed me, "Mr. L ... you can get white out for 59 cents at Office Depot." She returned to her desk. I was told.
I was at a local high school lately when a student informed me that he had used you tube to turn in his work the night before and emailed the link to the teacher in order to time stamp that he had finished the project at a certain time ... I am officially now in the 21st Century and feeling more like a Luddite every day ...
I can work electronics okay, but sometimes the hookups in classrooms can be kind of off ... I was set to play a video for a class when i looked down at the dvd instructions for the player and projector... there was a full page of instructions on how to run the projector ... I thought at first the teacher was committing a gross act of overkill ... they were actually needed ... and I saved them ...
There is nothing quite like the gleam in the eye a 5th or 6th grade girl gets when about to peg a boy in the ... midsection ... while playing dodgeball ... I asked a couple of girls if they enjoyed the game and they told me the following ... "They deserve it ... well ... most of them", "duh", "they squeal" ... any further explanation would be superfluous ...
I was checking my messages outside on a break between classes when I noticed something shiny and colorful in the grass ... funny that it was in the grass ... yep, a pipe ... at least it wasn't smoldering ... but the pipe hardly got a shocked reaction from the security guard or admin ...
I overheard a comment from two lunch ladies discussing what to do about a suspended kid buying lunch ... apparently he was sneaking into school during lunch to not only see his friends but to cash in his free hot lunch ... ingenious in its own way ...
A bunch of students were speaking in Spanish and I did not feel that they were discussing classwork ... so I said one phrase of Spanish and that was all it took to get them on task since they could not be certain how much i was really understanding ... I don't speak Spanish ...
I have also discovered that I want a nanny ... any further explanation would also be superfluous ...
More later ...
