I think this was the first real mix tape that I ever made. I made it especially for a New Year’s Eve Party I was throwing in 1996. I made a few tapes so that I could just let the tape play and entertain my guest at the house party. I don’t have a scanner…

I asked for a pay-as-you-go cellphone for Christmas. I wanted to have one to take in the car with me on my trips, just in case of an emergency. I’ve never needed a car phone before but it felt like the right thing to do. My mom agreed and got me one. It felt nice…

When I was a kid, this year would’ve been completely inconceivable for me. In grade school, I remember brainstorming what the year 2000 would be like for a project. We all assumed everything would be different and that the calendar flipping over would be something monumental. It turned out that we were wrong. 2000 came…

It’s a good thing to reflect on your life and realize that there are some things that are worth changing. Today a lot of us will be examining our lives in detail as we prepare ourselves for a brand new year. As such, it may seem like a fresh start. 2009 will be the year…

Merry Christmas everyone! I wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season. I will be taking a bit of a break from my blogging routine to enjoy the holidays. I will post my annual Best and Worst of the Year list next week. You can also look forward to some sporadic posts this…

The kids in my class were looking forward to the last day of school and our Christmas party. They’d been asking about it all week. I prepared some games for us to play together this morning. Several students told me that they were bringing in treats to share. The kids were a bit crazy and…

I went to a two-day workshop two weeks ago that was quite enlightening. One of the presenters told us how prepared he was for every class he ever taught. He had all the curriculum expectations that he was covering written down on his lesson plans. He knew what he was teaching and what his student…

– I was trying to copy a large double-sided worksheet for my students– I set the machine to the 2 sided to 2 sided copy– The paper selector automatically sets it to 11×17 ledger-sized– I’m all set– I hit start– Three copies come through just fine– But then it jams. – I open up the…

The 3 A’s; arts, academics, and athletics. These are the three components of a good education. I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms before. But as soon as I heard another teacher mention this at the workshop I attended two weeks ago, I scribbled it down as a pearl of wisdom. I have…