Summer School

I had originally hoped that this summer I would finally be able to devote large increments of time to writing and my freelance work. I had it all planned out, too - morning coffee(s), extensive literary sessions in the Man Room, followed by sunny afternoons and evenings with the Fam.

Sounds awesome, right?

Well, it turns out that, for at least the month of June, the ol' writing thing is going to have to be a weekend feature...

Yours truly is teaching Summer School.

Yes, indeed.

I was recruited by my school administration to teach Social Studies to a motley assortment of 6th graders. Monday - Thursday, 8am - 12pm. Now, 6th grade Social Studies is unlike the 7th grade Social Studies I usually tackle - its completely different content. I'm accustomed to teaching kids about Ancient Rome, Europe, the U.S. and Canada, and Latin America. For Summer School, I'll have to take on Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

Not too bad, really... until you consider I have to plan for 240 minute consecutive class sessions. I've never taught that long straight before - my longest bout of teaching (two years ago, when we were in block scheduling) was 90 minutes. How the hell does one hold a twelve year old's attention for four hours straight... during summer vacation, no less? That's what I have to figure out between now and June 14th, when we kick off three weeks of our Eastern Hemispherical knowledge injections.

I've got twelve, four-hour long days in which to teach this band of 6th graders everything they were supposed to have already acquired during their 180-day, 6th grade Social Studies experience last year.

I'm preferring to remain optimistic about all of this, as the only thing I know about Summer School is the movie, Summer School... which, all in all, seemed pretty cool. Here's hopin'...

- Brian

Summer Vacation. Engage.

here we go.

technically, my summer vacation started monday. i'm sorry for the two-day late start.

monday was a half day for me, more or less, but we were all required to go anyway. had to turn in my school laptop, my set of room keys, get a bunch of other random blah-blah signed off on. not too difficult. most of the day was spent working on the book in my now-barren classroom, as i had taken care of most of the cleaning-out and wrapping-up process the previous friday.

getting paid to do nothing is awesome... which is why i'm looking forward to the next three months.

last year, about this time, we were prepping up for the cannonball's arrival. the three months that followed were lack-luster in terms of shenanigans, as we ran on little or no sleep and every move we made revolved around the newborn. this summer, yours truly has a few initiatives that he's going to try and push through before he has to once again juggle a bunch of ape-ish teenagers come mid-august. they are as follows:

1. keep up on grad school crap and finish assignments as early as humanly possible. this is way easier than it sounds. yes, i have nothing else to distract myself from getting my master's, now that i'm done with work... except for that whole 'kid' thing. you try writing terms papers while a toddler is ripping DVDs and books off the shelves and screaming her ass off. go ahead.

2. develop a work-out routine. this hasn't been nearly as difficult as the grad school crap - i've actually managed to get off my ass every day since school let out. this should account for something, too, as it comes from someone who despises exercise just as much as he despises cats or diane sawyer.

3. work on my writing. now that i've been accepted into the writing program, and am getting professional advice and guidance, i can finally start the ball rolling with freelancing writing. (if i can find the time).

4. update and manage all mundane side-projects. lots of boring shit that isn't really important or entertaining, but time-consuming and eating away at the back of my conscious. clean up my files on the computer. finish the last african adventures movie. organize all my work files. pfft...

5. prepare lesson plans and classroom management/discipline plan for the 2009-2010 school year. bwah-ha-haha! yeah right...

we'll see how all this crap works out with me now being a full-time housedad. i'll be in touch, kids...

the world's greatest DILF,

- brian