Longest Wednesday Finally Over

Today is Thursday, January 9th, and yesterday, Wednesday January 8th, was the day we returned from Asia. Anytime you fly over the international dateline heading east, like we did, makes that specific day very long, as the time-warp sends you to the future going the other way. We skipped Christmas Day altogether, not existing for December 25th, leaving late the 24th and landing early on the 26th.

Coming back stretches the day as you catch up to your own past. Which boggles the mind.

Yesterday we woke up Da Nang, on the Central Coast of Vietnam, and flew to Saigon, which has been called Ho Chi Minh City for the last 39 years. From there we flew to Taipei in Taiwan, and then lasted the long stretch from Taipei to LAX, landing before 8pm last night. We left Taipei, though, at 11 pm on the 8th, flew through darkness and into sun, and through dusk and back to darkness and landed, technically three hours before we left.

I have plenty of things to say about Vietnam, Cambodia, and Lao, but right now I'm still decompressing and taking care of Long Beach business.

Here's a taste: New Orleans in a jungle kingdom--Phnom Penh, capitol of Cambodia:

Preparations for Time-Warp Nearly Finished

We're traveling to the future this evening, and time-warping over Christmas Day...call it our present to ourselves. Go International Dateline!

Our winter holiday trip is finally upon us, and everything has been a blur for a few weeks now.

Not that I've been posting too much here anyway, but soon there won't be much, since we'll be a half-a-world away and transplanted in the jungles of South-East Asia.

But, earlier today, we ran the last errand for our professional lives before vacation officially started: dropping items off at the Pasadena permit office.

I hadn't ever been to downtown, er, "downtown" Pasadena, so I was blasted by what I saw:

Mostly out of place looking, like as if the Hungarian parliamentary building was taken from Budapest and dropped in Argentina, this is Pasadena's City Hall.

Seriously, their city hall:

It could be part of a cathedral in southern Spain; it could be a capitol building for a South American nation; but nope. City Hall, Pasadena.

Check out the black letters below if you don't believe me (I wouldn't have believed it myself, had I not just gone earlier today):

This is almost as big as Sacramento's capitol dome, and is easily more spectacular than Oklahoma's state capitol building, the only state without a dome on its capitol.

Go Pasadena! Who'da thought...

Four County Monday

Today, Monday December 16th (!!!), I took a day and joined Corrie on her journeys around the Southland. It was a beautiful day that bordered on too hot, even getting all the way to 88 on the Fahrenheit scale.

The reason I went was because I had to pick up my passport at the Federal Building in a swanky part of LA sandwiched between Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. The reason I could go was because it's finals week at my high school, and we only had a single final to give.

I needed a rush job on my passport because it expired after we'd return from our winter holiday, but not far enough after to get the visa we needed.

But, seeing as how driving is novel for me as of right now, I drove the entirety of the day, and, seeing as how I'm getting better at playing with components of the computer, I made a map-picture to explain the day's route, fully travelling into four of the five counties that comprise the Southland (or, LA Metropolitan Area if you, like my blog text editor, don;t appreciate the whole "Southland" title).

So, first, the graphic:

Now the explanation: above, Numbers 1 and 6 are the same, our place in Long Beach, in LA County. We started off the day at home, where I drove down the Pacific Coast Highway to Corrie's office, in Newport Beach, Number 2, a drive that took an hour. Corrie's been driving down the coast into Orange County for some time now; even with all the stoplights, it's still more sane than taking the 405.

After about an hour at the office in Newport, we headed out to Glendale, taking CA Rt 55 to I-5. Glendale it nestled up there at Number 3. Corrie had an appointment at the Glendale city hall that we weren't sure how long would take, so I dropped her off and took surface streets to Wilshire and Veteran Ave, the site of the Federal Building, Number 4 above.

From Number 3 to Number 4, on surface streets, both ways, took an hour each way. Guess how long the novelty took to wear off...

After picking up Corrie we headed off to Chino, Number 5 above, a town known for being a great place to raise kids, a suburban enclave surrounded by desert and bordered by a freeway on one side and the prison on the other. I guess relatively inexpensive housing and mostly white neighbors make folks clamor for that sweet suburban life. It seemed pretty boring to me, but what do I know? Another trip to a city hall...

On the way to Chino, while driving along I-210, which turns into CA Rt 210, we passed into San Bernadino County, and on the way home, from Number 5 above to Number 6, which is our place, we passed into Riverside County. That drive took us along Rt 71 to CA Rt 91--AKA the Artesia Freeway--one of the main arterials in the Southland. From there it was an easy drive against traffic through the outskirts of Riverside County and all the way across tiny Orange County, before catching the 710 south, getting home after dusk.

I'd spent the majority of the day driving around greater Los Angeles, seeing many different facets of the beast, and visiting LA, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties--sorry Ventura, we missed you (LA Metro is generally considered comprised of five counties, Ventura and the ones I visited today).

Figure 8s through the brain, folks...driving all day and barely getting anywhere...but somehow seeing so much...

Happy Friday the 13th!

From us Walt Kelly and Pogo fans, Happy Friday the 13th, one of the luckiest days of the year!

(Thank you Internet for the image!)

Sharing Nelson Mandela with Kids who Need Him

A few weeks ago when the news was released that Nelson Mandela, 95 years young, was gravely ill, I remember thinking, Holy cow, I haven't thought about Mandela in too long. I realized that had the former South African president died there would have been a global mourning period and tributes galore.

And, naturally, when the end came for Mr. Mandela, that's precisely what happened.

I wanted to say something about him to the young people I'm around daily, young people who, by and large, share his skin color, if not his country of origin. They need to learn about things relevant to their situations, as well as how and why it relates.

My own memories drifted back to my fifth and sixth grade classrooms, and the walls adorned with "End Apartheid" posters, and about how Mandela was the face of the movement. From prison. I remember hearing my classmates asking, "What's apar-theed?"

The answer, accompanied by a loving smile, was, "Well, first it's apar-TIDE. And..."

When Mandela was elected president in 1995 I remember thinking, Wasn't he already president?

The smile lines on his face still get to me...they represent hope in so many ways to me.

So, the next day after his passing when the young people and I were together again, I droned on and on about what I knew about the man: former boxer; first black lawyer in South African history; 27 years as a political prisoner; Nobel Peace Prize laureate; somebody who should resonate with these youngsters on the same level as Obama.

We'll get to the Angela Davis' and the Stokely Carmichaels later.

Heavy Recruiting

I haven't been so specific about my "working" activity throughout the posts on this blog over the years. That was a mostly tactical decision. In any case, as occupational activities have changed, I find myself in a secondary school setting in South LA, and there are many things that offer ideas for posts.

In this specific case, I've made some observations that I find alarming.

In high schools around the country, one of the main thrusts about discussions of the future is college. When I started working at the school I'm at, I had an unrealistic idea of how much attention was being paid towards college; I figured between the kids and the teachers, that nobody cared about college. That was unrealistic. Almost every student regards college as a useful thing and a noble goal, even though some kids have unrealistic expectations about themselves.

One student, when I asked what he wants to do after graduation, responded that he wants to play football for USC, and then move on to the NFL. Sports as a viable option out of the 'hood--this is a very real means of escape. But this student, notwithstanding his slim chances of actually graduating, doesn't actually play football right now in high school.

Our football program itself doesn't quite condition kids well enough for Division I college ball anyway, but we don't talk about that; we're not dream killers...

There is plenty of attention from big Ivy League schools back east being paid to our elite academic students, and I imagine federal money for admitting South Central LA kids is a motivating factor in that. BUt really, out of 1400 kids over four grade levels, we have, like, 19 seniors with a GPA higher than 3.5. Nineteen.

This all brings me to my first alarming observation: there are more than Ivy League schools recruiting around here.

DeVry, ACC (American Career College), Phoenix University, and Everest Career College are some of the heavier recruiters on campus, and they specifically target the students that have a GPA under 2.0.

On the one hand it's nice that students who don't shine so well in high school are being recognized and even encouraged to learn and be better prepared for a career.

But these are students who don't have the drive to succeed at the high school level, and who may be at a loss for understanding how student loans work, how much money it ultimately costs to go to one of these for-profit universities, and what the prospective salaries will be in the (rare) event of a program's completion.

I was a pretty stellar high school student, and the finances of my university education were mostly foreign to me for years.

I've always been a bit wary or for-profit universities, and until now I had no idea they actively recruited students.

Should I be anxious about this development?

Sleeping in the Woods

This past weekend I went to my first professional conference, the CMC-South, held in Palm Springs, and I can say I got plenty out of it. That surprised me, actually. In any case, it was a conference---of math teachers. Lots and lots of math teachers...spooky.

In any case, upon returning home, I was reminded that we were going camping the next weekend. Of course, how could I forget?

Corrie, in her driven way, has made lists of the things we'll be needing to organize to be ready to enjoy ourselves in the Big Siggity. She laughed and said, "I've never planned for a camping trip, and it's more challenging than I thought, you know? We've never gone camping before..."

Before I could say, Really? I think there's photographic evidence pointing to the contrary, she finished her thought, "We've only gone out sleeping in the woods."

I had a good belly laugh and agreed. The trips that we'd embarked upon in the past were far more of the "sleeping in the woods" variety than any planned activity resembling camping.

So, we're trying to crack that pattern. Which means, really, Corrie's trying to break that pattern. I can't even keep the trip in my head.

AND it's to freaking Big Sur! One of this planet's Official Beautiful Places...