Let me use my "I" statements

All of us who graduated from high school/college/graduate school are by default, alums of those institutions. I attended and graduated from The Lakeside School in Seattle, WA. Class of 1988, thank you. So today, there was a Bay Area gathering of alums held at The University Club in San Francisco. The address, 800 Powell, should have given me enough warning to stay away. Why is it that I feel that I am never going to enjoy these events. Against my typical anal retentiveness, I showed up 20 minutes late, which is the outer parts of the margin or error for me. I walk into this stately ballroom and there is no one (out of about a dozen) there that I know or even recognize. I lounged around the food, looked at the spectacular view, glanced at some of the Lakeside literature and talked to the Director of Planned Giving for a couple of minutes. Then, the Director of Alumni Affairs was free, she is someone I know as she was a year younger than me, and after the typical small talk, there was the awkward silence. She broke it by telling me that she saw a bunch of my classmates, you know the ones who always hung out together and lived in the same wealthy neighboorhoods and belonged to the Seattle Tennis Club, that morning at a breakfast held by one of my 1988 classmates. That took me RIGHT back to being 16 and feeling that I was always left out. I know that I should be proud of my life and what I've done and to be happy with who I am, but to hear the names of those classmates of mine in that context once again made me feel inferior. At the time, I didn't understand the feelings, just that I had to get out of there and fast. I know that the unresolved issues of high school are complete and utter BS. There is NO ONE to blame except me and I'm sure all the breakfast eaters are perfectly nice people now that they are 35 as well. I need to suck it up and let it go.

I see those friends of mine from high school and college, the people near and dear to my heart. So, a vow. I will give money to the institutions that I hold so dear, but alumni functions, for the time being, are out of the question.

You know the Apocalpyse is coming when

ummm, yeah, read here.

From Bayview/Hunters Point to The Muir Woods

These two geographic locations were the places I landed Saturday night and Sunday morning respectively. On Saturday night, Hans, his friend Nina and I went to a fundraiser for Public Glass which is a hot glass facility run by a small group of dedicated artists. For a $20 donation, you got a free glass, free beer, a band, some belly dancers and some demonstration glass blowing. It was really a cool experience but I truly felt I was back in college in a fraternity party. What was of particular interest/apprehension about attending this event was the fact that it is located a mere half mile from Candlestick Park, thereby placing it in the southeastern quadrant of the city, Bayview/Hunter's Point, which you are told to never go to at night. It's as if that knowledge is imparted to every incoming resident of San Francisco. But, as was to be expected, the journey to and back was uneventful.

Ernie, Nina and Hans with our new favorite drinking vessels

The selection of complimentary glasses

On Sunday morning (4/17/05), S&M, his mother Mrs. Weller and I took a journey over the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County (Yes, I did get my visa and passport all squared away :)) to make a visit to the Muir Woods. Here are some pictures:

So as a tease, here is a picture of S&M's mother. The family resemblence is a strong one, but alas, still no official picture of S&M.




S&M's Mother hails from Athens, GA

S&M's mother leaves on Tuesday to return to Georgia. Safe travels!

Documentation

Every new teacher to Head-Royce is assigned a mentor. I was asked to be a mentor this year and my mentee is Sonia G. Because Sonia is a veteran teacher (Northwest School in Seattle), I've actually had very little to do in this role. I also served as a mentor to a long term substitute Spanish teacher last year, when Senora Galligan went on maternity leave. Every mentor is given $50 to spend on some social activity with their mentee. Last year, I pocketed the cash and then never actually used it. Oops.
This year, Sonia and I were talking about getting a pair of mani/pedi treatments with the money. However, things fell through and it never happened. In January, I made one of my grand sweeping statements about my disdain for modern art and she said shockingly in her very cool British accent, "WHHAATTTT?". The next thing I knew, I spent $85 on a dual membership to SFMOMA. Here is proof:

Chen and Gomez 4/16/05

What about the art? Umm, I looked at it.

The Mother-in-law

Even though S&M and I have recently started dating, it just so happened that his mother had already planned a trip from her home in Athens, GA to visit her one and only son. The implications? It meant that I had dinner with S&M, his mother and his cousin who also lives in San Francisco. Me, being the charming, witty and scintillating dinner guest was well received by S&M's mother. It helps the cause when she is, herself, loud and full of life. Oh, and by the way, to all you single straight women reading this, S&M's cousin is a single straight male. In San Francisco? This breed of male is almost extinct!

I'm being stalked....

.....by the mother of one of my students. Well, stalked has the wrong connotations. How about, admirer. In my ten years of teaching, I have seen the spectrum of students and have a good sense of when a student has something about them that is seriously out of whack. However, I have some to realize that there are some parents out there who have one child and that child is their sample size. So this mother, has a son, who she adores, but has no idea whether or not what he says or does is within the realm of normal. Therefore, I occasionally get calls from her on my voicemail asking me to check in with her to give her feedback on what her son is doing. I'll say that her son is a great kid and as a 9th grade boy, being monosyllabic to one's mother is completely in the realm of normal. In fact, I told the mother that if he told her everything going on in his head and life, he would be abnormal. What is abnormal, however, is the fact that about once every two weeks, I get a Hallmark greeting card to the affect of "just for you" and the like. I won't mention the Valentine's Day greeting I got, however.

Two for One Posting

I met my friend Carl, from Sacramento, at the FTE conference last summer in Chicago. He is constantly checking Air-Fare.com for cheap flights, so he can accumulate miles to take international trips sitting in first class and not having paid for the high priced ticket itself. He invited me to join him on a quick overnight jaunt to Washington, DC to go and visit the new National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian, which is located right near Dulles Airport. He and I were going to both leave Sacramento at around 12:15PM Friday and arrive into Dulles late Friday evening. See the museum Saturday morning and then fly back to Sacramento that evening. The fact that we were flying on separate flights is key.

Side note: What I really wanted to see at the museum was the Dash-80, or what became known as the Boeing 707. It was the commercial aircraft that revolutionized air transport and ushered us into the modern aviation age. That original aircraft, pictured below is housed at the museum.

The original Boeing 360-80, aka the Dash-80, aka the Boeing 707

You could probably say that this plane is the reason I am in the place I am today. It's launch brought the Boeing Company to the fore of commercial aviation, this is the corporation that both my parents worked until their retirement. It's stock increaed in value over three decades as well as split numerous times and left me in the enviable position of leaving college with no debt, allowing me to choose teaching as a profession and not having to worry about making money in a more lucrative profession. I guess it all started with the Dash-80.

Returning to our story. I left San Francisco at 845AM, giving myself two and a half hours to get to the airport. The trip should take no more than an hour and fourty five minutes. Who would have predicted that a torrential storm would track me from SF to Sacramento and also at times include tornado warnings. The traffic was hellacious. At one point, I called Carl and left him a message telling that I might not make my flight. I roll into the airport and go to check in and my reservation had been cancelled. Apparently, Carl had thought since I wasn't going to make the flight, that he would do me the favor of canceling my reservation and therefore be able to use the money I paid towards the ticket as credit instead of just losing it. Oops. So, I hung out with Carl all afternoon and that evening returned to San Francisco and got a bonus night with S&M, the guy I'm dating. Shall we say boyfriend?

For those of you who have read this far, yes, I am officially announcing that I am dating a great guy who will for now be code named S&M, it's an inside joke between the two of us. You will find out more as time progresses as I allow myself to be more comfortable with all of this and make sure that I don't do something stupid to mess it all up. So far so good.

The quotes keep pouring in

I'm online chatting and one of my students messages me to rub it in my face that he's in Italy and I'm not. Here is a part of the exchange....

laxdude82504 (11:44:34 AM): i'm in italy and you're not
echensf (11:45:03 AM): you're also in 9th grade, have 3 years of high school, 4 years of college all ahead of you, think of all that homework
laxdude82504 (11:45:13 AM): wow, you're an ass sometimes :D

If you want to know how I treat my students (and how they treat me back), here is a classic example. And Sam M., if you are reading this, remember what everyone's homework assignment it. If you want me to tone it down when you get back, you better start grovelling, a lot. Or, something expensive from Italy will also suffice.

Understatement of the day...

"This kid is taking up more time that I thought it would."

-Brian S on 4/7/05 in reference to his
newly born daughter Cora born 12/11/04"

Spring Cleaning

Before


After


So, this was a major project I've been dreading now DONE. Thank the lord for somehow giving me the motivation to attack the clean-up and organization of my office. You see the shredder? I put her to work HARD. It's interesting how during my shredding time I would ebb and flow between "oooh, I should keep this just in case" to "shred it, shred it, you don't need it".

Five new fans of Klaus Teuber

After I purchased the Teuber games at the HRS auction, I dashed an email to the friends here in the Bay Area who I knew played the games or would be interested in playing "Settlers of Catan". The response was positive and so nine of us played two separate games of Settlers were played. Here at table #1 we have:

(l to r) Thomas, Scott, Michael and Teresa

Here at table #2 (playing at a table brought into the kitchen) the particpants were:

(l to r) Hans, Larry, Carl and Dave (who looks nothing like this picture of him though)

The winners of the games were Michael and Carl. Nonetheless, all had a great time.

For the record: Carl's presence this night was by virtue of a favor swapping between his wife, Shahana and I. Shahana's father owns an athletic club in Orinda and twice a year they host a sprint triathlon and need volunteers to man the registration table the serve as a timekeeper. Therefore Shahana asked me to be a volunteer and payment for my services this morning at 745AM (with losing an hour to daylight savings time, so essentially being in Orinda by 645AM) she had to let Carl join us for game night. We're even

Making Tibetan Monks Happy

Every year, because the music groups take a big trip and miss the day before Spring Break, the rest of the school takes the day off to do community service or take alternative education trips. Think J-term. This year, and last, I took a group of Head-Royce students to assemble books for the Yeshe De Project (YDP), which is funded by the Tibetan Aid Project in Berkeley. Find out about the teachings of this organization at The Nyingma Center.

In short, every year in January, there is a large celebration in India at which thousands of Tibetan monks gather. At this gathering, the YDP distributes texts to the airport, that the Yeshe De Project have printed and put together back here in Berkeley. These are sacred buddhist texts that the monks have never had in printed form. This year, 2005, the YDP will be printing the first 30 Sutra's which are teachings of the Buddha. About 17,000 of each of the 30 Sutra's will be printed, cut, assembled and wrapped by November, which is when they will ship out. So, doing the math, the YDP must make one Sutra per week and a half, which turns out to be just over 1,000 a day.

Chanel B. (9), Naomi O. (12), Brittney T. (10), Katie R. (11th), David T. (11th) and yours truly

So our group had two tasks to perform. One needs to know the reason why our two tasks exist is because these sacred texts are not bound, but simply sheets of rectangular paper sandwiched between to pieces of tagboard. So task one was to take the texts and assemble them.

Putting the back cover on

Turn over

Put the front cover on and keep together with two stretchy ponytail things

Here is task two, wrapping the texts. Here our hand model is my Honors Geometry student, Chanel B.. Props to Chanel for being such a great wrapper.

    

We and the volunteers that worked along with us, assembled and wrapped 850 books. Here's a picture of one of the two pallets of books we finished.

I assembled books and stacked them on the pallets. Let's just say the my wrapped books had to be done over again regularly. I got the message loud and clear.

The Gross Domestic Product

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time.

"GDP does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our courage, nor our wisdom, nor our devotion to country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."
--Robert F. Kennedy (1968)

In Economics class, which I am teaching for the first time, we have just started our section on Macroeconomics and the first thing we study is how do we measure the health of our economy. It's the GDP. Think of GDP as a pie. For the US to continue to experience the high standard of living, we must grow our GDP at a rate of 2% a year. Or, we have to continue increasing the size of the pie. So the question came up today in class, but what if the quality of the pie isn't as good as it used to be? Food for thought!

Evidence that I'm becoming an "old person"

Actually, since writing the title of this posting, I took a trip to the kitchen and a second event happened that supported my theory that I am becoming one of those "old people" I used to wonder about.

When I first started my teaching career, it was back at Lawrenceville when I was 25 years old. My, can it already be my ninth year of teaching? Oh my. But I digress. Back then, I would be in my department office and I would listen to the veteran teachers complain about this and that and wonder to myself, "COME ON, CHILL out, who cares if the theater department needs to use the room for a performance, we'll just move our lecture to this room....", you get the drill. Something out of the ordinary happened and things needed to be rearranged and so no big deal.

Well that was the 1995-96 version of Ernie Chen. So, what happened today that the 90's Chen would have told the modern Chen to chill out? The long and the short of it is the chorus and bands are leaving at lunch on Thursday for their big trip of the year. I scheduled a test for one section of one of my classes for Thursday and they meet after lunch. I threw a hissy (have I been throwing a lot of those lately, eh) in my department office in front of my colleagues about how I have to rearrange things and teach an extra period on Tuesday for those seven students who will be missing class on Thursday. Ok, hissy might be the wrong word, how about I grumbled loudly. It's just interesting that my first reaction is no longer, "how cool for those kids to have the opportunity to take this trip to perform" and is now essentially, "damnit it, that sucks that I have to change things in my life" or more succinctly, "what about MEEEEEE???" Yeah, yeah, maybe it's not a growing old thing but there has to be something different. The real lesson in all this is that events that throw the ordinary out of whack IS the ordinary.

Oh and the second thing. I went to refill my water and got REALLY EXCITED that I had some cut up cantaloupe and honeydew. Hello 9PM snack!

"It's as if they built it just for you!"

This was the subject line of an email I received from my college roommate/buddy Peter S.. In the email was simply this link.

He hit it right on the nose. Thanks, Pete!

I agreed completely with......The Republicans

As I was driving to school this morning I heard a story on NPR about voting qualifications in Georgia. If you choose to listen to the story, I think you will immediately fall on one side or the other of this debate in the Georgia state legislature.

I know that one of my big life lessons being a teacher is imparting the idea that we all are accountable for our actions and that inherent in all of us who live in this society have to take on personal responsiblities. So for the Democrats in Georgia who make the argument that not having a valid photo identification leading to a disqualification from voting will disenfranchise voters is bull. So there are people who live in rural Georgia counties who may have to go out of their way to get a valid ID outside their county. It is their responsibility to get an ID and not have laws be left on the books simply to accomodate their lack of effort (notice I did not use the work lazy). Perhaps I am missing something or do not know the entire story, but I really can't think of any situation in which someone could not find a way to get a valid photo ID. So in this case: Republicans - 1 Democrats - 0

Ode to my backscratcher

Bamboo Happiness


Everyday I come home from work, and you lie there just as I left you on my bed in the morning

Your simple existence can bring me such joy and physical relief/pleasure that I must simply yelp

Then yesterday, you were no where to be found. Where had you gone? Could a visitor have absconded with you, my Bamboo Happiness?

For a miserable two hours, you were no where to be located and I felt as if I had lost a great friend

But you are located under a large leather chair? What are you doing there? No answers required, though. It is good to have you back at my beck and call

Our Economy Must Be Healthy

This past Saturday, the Head-Royce parents association held its annual auction. I've always felt that if a couple is willing to spend (ok, let's be honest, it's a redistribution of cash between the already rich and wealthy) $7,000 on a homemade ceramic pig that was uniquely decorated, things in our economy must be good. The NY Times actually had an article about the correlation between school auction success and the US economy.

My guest for the evening was my beloved friend Kathryn K.. If that last name rings familiar to you older generation of readers, does this Time Magazine cover jog your memory? If not, the man on the Time cover is the late Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. He is best known for leading the Senate Commission that broke organized crime. Ok, back to Kathryn. She is a writer and I want to give a plug for being published in a book about travel writing. Here's a link to buy The Best Traveler's Tales 2005.. The two of us came home with loot.

Kathryn won the table raffle prize which turned out to be a couple gift certificates (Noah's and Jamba Juice I think) and a beautiful orchid/floral arrangement. She was very happy. I, on the other hand, put in a bid on a set of five Klaus Teuber board games during the Silent Auction. I bid on these games last year at the auction but was outbid at the end. This year, I ensured myself of not being outbid by enlisting a student volunteer to keep having me rebid if someone out bid me. Here's a picture of them.

The Settlers of Catan and four other Klaus Teuber games

Two new things today

At what location in San Francisco would you be standing at the highest elevation above sea level? Twin Peaks? EENNNHHH! Pacific Heights? What???? The correct answer would be little appreciated and oft forgotten Mt. Davidson. If you stand in Oakland and look across the Bay to San Francisco, Twin Peaks would be the pushy attention grabbing bratty twins right in the center of the picture. The dignified Mt. Davidson stands off to the side and behind Twin Peaks. At the top of the peak stands a large cross, which I found out to be a memorial to the Armenians who perished in the 1915 genocide. If you are inclined, here is a comprehensive history of Mt. Davidson

Since the mountain is in the, residential streets come to about 100 feet below Mr. Davidson's 938 feet. I took at stroll to the east ridge lookout and it inspired me to learn how to use the panoramic setting on my digital camera. Here's an attempt at putting them together!

Two for one. Mt. Davidson and the panoramic camera shots

Man, did therapy actually pay off....

Yes, there has been radio silence here on the blog for just over a week. The reason? The arrival of Mom and Dad. They were here from the evening of Thursday March 3rd and I dropped them off at the Oakland Airport at 6AM Monday March 7th. There were some good moments during the weekend such as our dinner with my cousin Henry as well as a visit to Frank Shen and his family.

Chens on left, Shens on right (photo courtesy of Chester Chen's mastery of the self-picture)

However, the weekend did provide some tense moments and I certainly was not an angel in all of it. I won't go into the details mainly because I am trying to preserve some dignity and not reveal how horrible of a son I am, but there was great relief when I dropped them off at the airport. But about three minutes later I began to feel so bad that I was so relieved they were leaving. I mean, hello, these are my parents and they are doing the best they can from the life experiences they had.

So I began sifting through my flareups during the weekend. The first conclusion is actually a rehash of an old learning moment I had as a teacher. At one point a female student was telling me about a problem, I tried to tell her what to do and she comes back with, "Mr. Chen I don't want you to solve my problems, just listen." ZOINKS!! And that has stayed with me for years. Unfortunately Dad (and to a lesser extent Mom) always have some suggestion, comment, improvement, etc. They may mean them with the best intent, but the fact that they are trying to tell me what I should do along with the fact that it's coming with that same voice I heard as a child causes me to go into a huge rage. So lesson #1 for M&D is to listen. If they continue to "make suggestions" they will find themselves even more shut out of the information they really want to know.

Then on Friday, Mom and Dad took the car during the schoolday and at some point went to K-Mart to get an umbrella and then bought lots of other things, one of them being a new area rug for my television room. The good son in me should have said thank you, accepted it, laid it on the ground when we got home and then removed it when they left. But NOOOO, I had to throw a hissy ove some arugment like, man I can't remember and it was so bad, and we had a huge fight over it. Again, I come across as ungrateful for not accepting a gift from my parents. However, this was one of many things that they changed while at my place. Some good, but the carpet stands out. So this solution splits the difference. I need to be more grateful for gifts given to me and my parents need to think about whether or not i actually might want something and then calling me. Lastly, after having a week away from all this, I realized that no one in my familly is good at receiving gifts. I mean, how was I supposed to learn how to be grateful and good about receiving a gift when my role models didn't themselves. Ok, this last part was a little harsh. My bad.

There were a couple more incidents like this over the weekend, but the revelations are not nearly as grand, so I'll leave them be. All of this brought to you by my two years working with a therapist, because I actually now do sort through my feelings. CONCEPT.