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Ending & Beginning

Ok, so I've really done a lousy job keeping up with this blog. I'll admit it. My attention's been divided too, so that's partially to blame. During the season, I blog weekly on my LOST blog, so at least I'm going something. For now, though, I'm going to give a brief update on the end of the school year and what this summer has in store for me.

This last school year was lame. I was talking about it to a friend at lunch today and no, it wasn't as bad as my 1st half year when I took over mid-year, but it was definitely not good. Granted, it wasn't horrible, but I wasn't really enjoying myself all that much, had WAY too much work to do, and felt like I was battling the students nearly all year, which I really hate. This last week (Friday was the last day of the year) ended just about how the year started: I was frustrated, over committed, discouraged, and not really wanting to be a teacher.

Amidst all this, God has confirmed that I'm exactly where He wants me to be, so at least I know that, hard though it may be. I don't know for sure why I'm supposed to be at KiJH, but I know I am and that's going to have to be enough.

And with that ending, its now on to a new beginning: summer & youth ministry! I hit the ground running yesterday with a morning/early afternoon meeting for my trip to Slovenia and then a senior/freshman overnight at the house of one of the senior guys. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep last night. Tomorrow holds a meeting w/ one of the other leaders for the Slovenia trip to try and get some last minute details pounded out, then I need to run some errands and start packing 'cause I leave on Tuesday!

If you're interested, I'm the officiall team blogger and will be blogging as often as is practical while in Slovenia at: http://slovenia2009.blogspot.com, so feel free to follow along with my trip via that blog (I know, yet another blog I update more often than this one).

I return from Slovenia on July 7th, am home for a week, then leave for high school camp, home for another week, then off for a high school mission camp w/ the junior high students, then its August and I head back to work a week or 2 later. That's summer. Somewhere in there I'm going to try to have a Star Wars Party and a LOST party, but we'll see how those go.

That's about all for now. Hope you all (whoever still actually reads this thing) are doing well!

Goodbye WASL!

Ok, I know its been 2 months since I last updated, but I thought it might be interesting for you to read about the new replacement(s) for the WASL, if you're interested.

http://www.k12.wa.us/WCAP/default.aspx

Also, as LOST starts up again tonight, I will be blogging again tonight on my LOST blog, The LOST Book Club.

Enjoy!

Avoidance Master!

I have gotten lots of things done this Thanksgiving weekend! It actually suprises me a bit, as I'm not usually that good at making myself do things, like balance my checkbook (it's been staking up over the last 3 months). However, I did it. And this morning I've taken the trash out, RSVPed for a wedding, gone through mail I've been avoiding for weeks, continued to run laundry (including the ever dreaded folding).

You may be thinking, "Wow, you're very focused and dedicated!" You'd be wrong, however. I am, in fact, avoiding the thing I need to do most: grade papers. I hate doing it so much that I'm willing to do all these other things instead of actually doing the grading. I'm really good at finding these things to prevent me from actually starting my grading.

For example, I was just over at my file box that has all the papers I need to grade in it. I had just opened it for the first time this weekend when I was hit with the idea for this blog entry, hence the entry in the blog I very rarely update.

The next avoidance thing I can see coming is food. Its now 12:30 an I'm getting hungry. I obviously can't grade on an empty stomach, so I might as well make something and eat first, then I'll get to the grading.

I think grading is in my top 2 things I hate most about teaching. The other being classroom management (having to deal w/ jerk students).

I suppose the good thing coming out of all this is that I'm actually getting stuff done around home that I usually put off. So at least I'm not just avoiding by sitting and watching movies/TV, I'm actually getting something accomplished, even if its not the work that needs to be done.

Ok, enough of this avoidance method. I want a Wii.

Why Not to Play with Handcuffs

Funny story. We had an overnight for the junior guys at church Friday night. We did X-Bowling then crashed at Paul's place. Late night, little sleep, the usual (Side Note: hardwood floors are just that - hard!).

Some of the guys there are a part of Paul's C-Group (small group, discipleship group, whatever you want to call it), and they goof around alot. One of the things they like to do is use Paul's 2 pair of handcuffs to handcuff each other to things/people. This event was taking place late this morning and was about to come to an end when an unexpected twist occured.

I had the key and was trying to unlock Paul's wrist, which was cuffed to another guy's wrist, when one of the other students came at me with the other pair of cuffs. I instinctively recoiled, protecting myself from being cuffed. However, since I was the one holding the key at the time, this was not a good move. While pulling my arms in to myself, somehow the key snapped off inside the cuff I was trying to unlock, and while it would make sense that if Paul has 2 cuffs he would have 2 keys, that just isn't the case.

And let me now just say, these are real police-grade handcuffs. I don't fully understand how Paul got them, but trust me when I say theses we're the toy cuffs you might have played with as a child. No, without the now broken key, there was no getting them off.

This left Paul and Eliot (the other student) cuffed together and no way of fixing the problem. I really felt like I was in an episode of I Love Lucy or something.

So from there, Paul decides that we need to head up to Snohomish where his roommate works at an autobody shop. This was also an adventure, as he proced to cut the cuffs off (which is really not easy at all).

I'll spare you the details, but we were there for 1.5 - 2 hours to get the cuffs off both Paul and Eliot, and it was quite involved. Eliot may have a scar from the heat from the saw to cut it off. Cool, huh?

Yes, this was my Saturday. Not quite what I planned, but interresting none the less. Let that be a lesson to you: don't goof around when trying to unlock handcuffs, unless you want to stay in them for good.

Hi Ho

Its back to work I go! The busy summer has finished and I was back at work (for the first time since school was out) yesterday. In good Ryan fasion, I didn't leave until about 7:15pm. Ah, back in the swing of things.

I'm not fully back to the regular busy schedule yet, thankfully, but I am working all week this week. Today I'm headed to a tech training in the morning, then helping with a web training in the afternoon. The rest of the week consists of science and web trainings, as well as some collaboration w/ teammates at school.

Just to wrap up summer stuff, JH Ranch was amazing. Last year was really rough for us as a staff, and God blessed us this year with a super trip. The Holy Spirit was working in the lives of students and staff alike this past week, and some great things happened within the junior class (which I focus on). We'll see how much lasts after the high from camp wears off, but I'm hopefull.

With that, this Friday we're doing a junior guys bolwing night & sleepover which should be fun. The sad thing is it'll probably be the last social event I do for at least a month, as the start of school is rapidly approaching. Chances are good that this will be my last post for a while; its back to the norm.

3 Down, 1 to Go

I've now completed 3 of the 4 trips slated for this summer: Olympic Peninsual w/ Ben, Spokane for the Biotechnology Workshop, and Daroga State Park for SMT Safari.

I haven't given much of an update on the workshop. The quick and dirty is that it was good, I learned alot and had some great time to reflect on my teaching and network with other fabulous teachers. Now the challenge will be to integrate what I've learned in a practical way into my classroom. That's the hard part.

SMT Safari was amazing. The team was probably near the best team I've ever been a part of. There was no complaining the entire trip! The attitude of the students was outstanding and they were always willing to work. Granted, they weren't perfect, but who is, really, right? The trip was great. The staff I worked with was amazingly supportive and I couldn't have done it without them. Matt O'Brien did a fabulous job teaching and balancing my anal-retentive tendencies. : )

While in many ways I'm still processing what happened on the trip, it did confirm one thing for me: I don't really want to be in charge. I much prefer supporting someone else who's in charge than actually being the guy in charge. God definatly showed me that I can lead with His help, but that doesn't change that its not my first choice. If God again asks me to do something like that, I will, but its more an act of obedience than of desire, which sometimes God requires.

I also realize that I didn't do a good job of taking care of me on the trip (I know you're all shocked about that). (Side Note: this post is serving as my processing of the trip, so I'm sorry if it seems a bit dis-jointed) I felt an incredible responsibility to the team and even though I was tired much of the trip, I didn't take any direct down time for myself, really. There were a few times when I was just chatting w/ students, but that's part of my job description, and when I stayed in the same place for a while I did start to feel like I should be doing other things. I wonder if I would have done better the last few days frustration-wise if I had taken the time during the day to nap or read or something. Ah well, live and learn.

I also really felt alot of parallels between this camp and my first year of teaching, in that there are lots of things I would do differently if I were to lead the trip again. Thankfully, however, I'm not beating myself up about those things. Instead, I'm drawing from my teaching experience and writing them down, knowing fully that I did my best and that I can't do it all right the first time.

Like I said, the trip overall was fabulous. There were little things I would have liked to have gone differently, but they are just that: little things. It was clear that God wanted me to be a part of the trip and have a leadership role. Though I don't fully know why, I do know that I was doing what God wanted me to be doing, and that's enough.

Tonight I pack for the last camp of the summer, JH Ranch. We leave uber early Sunday morning and are gone until about 10pm the following Saturday night. It'll be great to have less responsibility and just be a staffer again. : ) Then, the following week I'll be doing training for school again, so this last camp is really my last hurrah of the summer. Then its back to the "real world" whatever that is!