Go farther!

Go Farther is the slogan of the Students Run Philly Style program. At today 7:30AM practice, I ran farther than I have before: 5 miles. One of my 8th graders, Jaron, did 5 too. He and I ran together during the last lap, and it was cool how we both were able to push each other. When I jogged up to him, he said that he needed me for motivation to get the last one in. Well, we did! There's something so special about connecting with students outside of the classroom that goes beyond academics and makes the relationship personal.

Last night Seth, John Neely, Nate, Kamil, a guy named Al B, and I went to the movie 300. I gave it 3.5 stars out of 5. As far as war movies go, it was beautifully rendered. The computer graphics were smooth and allowed an artistic element to display a world that seemed like a mix between Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, and Gladiator. Personally, I'd prefer the real world scenic effects of Braveheart or LOTR. The story of the battle is incredible, and it makes me hold my view of Michigan State Spartan fans just a little higher. It's a good movie to watch with guys, which is exactly what we did!

Yesterday Seth, Nate, and I went to the dog park in Northern Liberties. What great fun for dogs! There were about 15-20 of them running around without leashes in a large, contained environment. You could see the dog social life playing itself out with greeting each other, chasing balls, and, of course, the endless sniffing. Murphy was really calm as usual, and he made me feel important by visiting me from time to time to wag his tail and acknowledge my presence! Even when there were cool dogs, he took the time to notice me. =)


Thursday was Will's birthday (big Cubs fan friend from Jefferson). We celebrated by going to Dave and Busters, which I can best describe as Chuckie E. Cheese for adults. Delicious food, interactive games, and fun company. I'd like to go back sometime; you get tickets for every game you play--including trivia, DDR, basketball, racing, skeeball, and others. Sarah and I combined our winning tickets at the end and bought a travel coffee mug and a deck of cards. Sarah bought me the biggest gumball I've ever chewed. (pictures yet to come)

I drove Sarah to the airport early Friday morning. She made a stop in Pittsburgh to enjoy a day with her mom, then drove her sister's car to Michigan for a weekend date with Lydia. Lydia and Walter just snagged an apartment in Washington DC, and they're exactly two weeks away from their wedding! Sarah was looking forward to one last fling with Lydia and helping her get ready for the big day. Unfortunately, talking with her on the phone has reminded me too much of our communication last year. Dating tip: relationships are way better in person! Still, I think the distance can be very beneficial and help the relationship to grow in ways it couldn't if the couple lived in the same town. I know God used it to bless us...but do we need to be reminded what it was like again? grrr...

In the meantime, I have a few days before I fly out to West Palm Beach to meet up with my family. I'm teaching children's church tomorrow, and I need to get organized around here. Productivity, here I come!

Still in the running

Yesterday was a beautiful day--both inside and outside. Sarah spoiled me rotten for our anniversary: making me meals, decorating my room, ironing my pants (that have been sitting on my shelf for about a month or more waiting to be ironed), taking the trolley to come run with my kids, and buying me a Billy Collins book of poetry (he's my favorite poet...even better than Ogden Nash). I was spoiled, and I knew it.

Sarah joined my students and me for another run yesterday. Here's proof!


One week from today I will be visiting my grandparents, parents, and siblings in West Palm Beach, Florida. It's one of my favorite places on the planet, and I'm excited for it! I'll be there from Tuesday evening until Easter Sunday afternoon.

I do so love my principal Sister Owen. When she asked me if I had plans for Easter, I told her that I did. I asked if I could leave school a half day early to meet my family in Florida, and she said "Of course! Can you leave any earlier???" Unfortunately, I told her, my flight time is the limiting factor.

Baseball's opening day is in less than a week! Place your bets on the Cubs now.

Google tip

Google has a text messaging feature that can be a lifesaver. Just text GOOGLE (466453) on your cell phone with the message as your search. They'll sent you a message back with your search results. If you want to try this out without any text charges, visit Google Mobile to test it. I haven't used it on my phone yet, but I plan to if I suddenly need to find a pizza in the 19131 area code! (just type in pizza 19131 and it does the rest!)

Running rapport

Monday mornings are generally the toughest part of my week. In addition to the Monday morning misery that most people feel, I have my busiest schedule, lunch duty, tougher kids, and non-stop action from 8:30 until 12:40. This morning, however, was much better than most. Several students made reference to our runs together on Thursday and Saturday, and they asked me if I was running with them again tomorrow or not. It might just be a coincidence, but their behavior improved greatly this morning compared to most--and this was with each one of my middle school classes! Maybe it was just a fluke. Or just maybe students respond well to teachers who spend time with them outside of the classroom, who encourage them and want them to succeed. I think that's what being a teacher is all about. =)

Tomorrow is Sarah and my second anniversary of dating! How time flies when you're having fun...

Running with the principal

Today Sister Owen (my principal in the white hair and light blue shirt) challenged our Students Run Philly Style students to a race around the cemetery. Once around our "track" is about a mile, and she challenged anyone who would go farther than her three would get a pizza part. The kids ran farther than I've ever seen them! It was neat to see them challenge themselves and go farther than they're used to going. They were pooped by the end!

My one regret is that since Sarah or I always was holding the camera, we never got a picture of the two of us together. We'll have to work on that next time. =)


Stephanie, the gym teacher at both schools, just HATES running, which makes me feel better about it. I ran four miles today, which for me is a big deal. I'm not a natural runner, however, and she isn't either. It's helpful to know that we're both battling on the inside and encouraging kids on the outside.



What was perhaps more exciting, however, was that the vice principal, pastor, and even Sarah joined us! I had been badgering Father Joseph all week, and he showed up! Sarah just asked today if she could come...and how can I say no to that?!? She was awesome with the kids: meeting them, encouraging them, running alongside them, challenging them. I like her.

(counter)Space...the endless frontier

Finally, Seth and I have some counter space in our kitchen. As of yesterday, we had to use our kitchen table or stove to slice and dice veggies for our consumption. All that changed when Seth's friend Adam came over this week. Adam is a professional carpenter, and he and Seth had a grand old time working on a new counter for us. Adam took three wooden Ikea cutting boards, put them together, used 2x4s for legs, and added a few towel racks! Murphy's dog dish and extra food fit underneath, as well as a trash can for leftovers. Makes me want to cook something up right now!

Philly drops to #6

So much for living in the 5th biggest city in the United States. According to data recently released, Philadelphia is the 6th biggest city--falling behind New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and now Phoenix. This isn't official yet because the US Census hasn't declared it so, but the report says that the official data in June will only confirm this to be true. Actually, Philadelphia used to be number two for a while before the other cities overtook it. Let's hope it holds onto #6 for a while.

Still, one-third of the population in the US is within a three hours of Philadelphia. That's absurd! It makes me wonder how the west would look if we had immigrated to America via the Pacific Ocean instead of Atlantic.

New sneaks

As promised, here are some snapshots of my new sneakers (or tennis shoes, as they would be called in Michigan). I'll just avoid controversy and call them "running shoes". They've worked wonders for my feet, and the shin splints I mentioned before are long gone. I played Sarah in racquetball Saturday, and they worked well for that too. It's amazing what a difference new shoes make!



My school was given a donation of The Bible Experience. It's a dramatic reading of the Bible on CD complete with background music and all African-American readers (Denzel Washington included). I like it a lot!

Rita's frozen ice and Dunkin Donuts are both are giving away free drinks on Wednesday--the first day of spring! I think Rita's is only in the PA area...fortunately there's one around the corner from Seth and me here in Fishtown.

Speaking of Fishtown, you can get a really close-up shot of our house using Microsoft's Local Live map technology. Google's is really good, but Microsoft's technology has some great close shots of Philadelphia. If you play around with Local Live, you'll get a photo view of my house--close enough to see my backyard next to my neighbor's pool!! And yes, I still feel safe knowing that satellites can spy into my bedroom window and watch me pick my nose.

Madness in March

Wednesday's Bulls game with Nate was perfect--we had $55 seats for FREE (but decided to upgrade to the lower level for only $10). The Bulls won 88-87 with a shot by Kirk Hinrich with 26 seconds to go! It was fun to get on a subway, ride to the game, and leave without having to worry about parking, money, or large bulky items. If I were to title that approach, it would be "simply sports". Way fun.

Yesterday was a long, rewarding day at school. I've been trying to get DSL working in the rectory for almost a month now. At first, it didn't work because Verizon thought we needed to get our ADT security system filtered off of the phone line. We ordered a filter from ADT, which I installed a few days ago. After trying some things on the phone for Verizon, they determined that we needed support tech people to come out again. A tech and a supervisor came out, and after inspecting the premises, they determined that the issue was our phone system's age. (it looked really old to me when I saw it, but then again, I've never worked with a phone system before)

Their proposed solution was to run a line from the NID (telephone's network interface device)--which is the telephone company's little box on the outside of the house--straight up to the DSL modem on the second floor in order to completely bypass the phone system. They said they could send a tech person for $200, or I could get someone in the church who knows wiring to do it. I asked them how hard it was, and they said it wasn't too bad. One thing led to another, and pretty soon they were outside giving me instructions for how to do it myself! It was kind of exciting to take apart a wire, sheer the plastic off the copper and connect wires in the NID, run a cable along with the electricity wires into an office and through a few rooms, then install my own jack in a room! The best part was it all worked when I finished! Verizon wasn't allowed to help me due to contact issues (the lady said they would get fired if they did it), but they're allowed to tell me exactly what I needed to do for it. By the time we were done, I felt pretty accomplished.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse here this weekend. After 60s/70s and sunny the whole week, we have sleet and slippery roads right now with 30 degrees. Not exactly great weather to celebrate the weekend with! But, I'm grateful that the days we did Kids Run Philly Style were wonderful.

Yesterday Stephanie (gym teacher) and I left school during our prep time to grab free Starbucks coffee. After getting there, I realized that I couldn't substitute hot chocolate, so I wound up holding a cup of free coffee I didn't have any desire to drink! I asked Stephanie, who is from Seattle--home of Starbucks, if she was willing to go bring it to Sarah as she studied, and she readily agreed. We had fun surprising Sarah, and Sarah was VERY delighted for the surprise as well. =)

March Madness makes me a little disappointed in the University of Michigan...again. For the umpteenth year in a row, they missed the NCAA tournament. Maybe next year.

I read a strange story about a guy who jumped the White House fence and falsely claimed to have a bomb. What was strange about the story was that the security guards used a WATER CANNON to destroy the package! Talk about grownups with super soakers! I'd love to have seen that in action.

Mario Brothers music creator

Koji Kondo is the man who created the simple, catchy theme to Nintendo's Mario Brothers series. Right now he's only 43 years young, and he's considered the best guy to write music backgrounds to your video game (he also composed Zelda). Right now he's working on a new game for Nintendo Wii called Wii Music that will allow players to conduct an orchestra and bang on drums with their remote. Sounds neat!

Here he is on the piano, playing his most well-known work (which has been on Billboard's top 40 ringtone downloads for 126 weeks!) I'd like to learn how to play this song on the piano someday.

Free Starbucks coffee Thursday

Starbucks is having it's second annual National Coffee Break tomorrow! All Starbucks across the country will be giving out free coffee from 10AM until noon. See the website for yourself!

Fishtown pride

Today was an incredible day for me. It started with reading Isaiah 60:1 with Seth: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you." I felt like that fueled my day!

Tomorrow Nate (met him on the in-covenant retreat at Liberti) and I are going to a 76ers/Bulls game! I'm excited!!!! This will be the first time I've seen the Bulls play since Michael Jordan was in town. Man, that was fun. My dad took me to a game against the Nuggets during the season when they won 72 games. Something I'll never forget!

My new sneakers worked great for running today! I felt like I was running on clouds. So much fun!

Yesterday Seth and I bought our first Fishtown shirts. They double as a St. Patrick's Day icon, too! Gotta love the dual purpose. We donned some bags that Seth got with his jersey-style new bed sheets and had a photo op in our hallway.

I thought it made me look French.

Consumerism!

I'm feeling a little consumeristic right now. Seth and I went to several stores tonight and, I might add, were very successful in our shopping. We hit up GNC for free vitamins, Thrift Way groceries for lunches produce, Family Store for jersey bedsheets for Seth, and the Dollar Store for candy and envelops. Later tonight we went to Target, too. We shopped shrewdly and swiftly, and it made me feel excited about the ordeal--a rare occasion for those who know my violent history with shopping! It just felt really good to be productive, spend money wisely, and hope for things to come. We got some great deals on cereal and heavy duty trash bags (we're hoping to start picking up trash around Fishtown to improve the neighborhood). It was great!

This weekend my shins started hurting from my recent running (I've ran 8x in the last two weeks). The shoes I was using were over two years old cross trainers. After several people advised me to invest into new ones, especially since I'm really committing to this Kids Run Philly Style program, I decided to get input from my running consultant, Scott Parrott, and get some new sneaks. I went to Philadelphia Runner, which I found on Google today as I was looking for running shoes. The store was AMAZING..perfect for what I was looking for. I told the sales woman what my situation was, my recent shin pain, that I was a teacher in West Philly, etc. She said I would get a 10% discount on anything I bought since I was in the program. She had me take off my shoes and walk down the carpet so she could analyze my arches for what type of shoe I'd want! I felt like my shoes were being personalized to me (for those of you who are interested, I have a high arch that doesn't flatten out when I walk)!

I tried on several pairs, all of which felt really good. Finally, I decided on some Asics, which turns out to be the most popular brand of running shoe. They had a good return policy, so I decided to buy my first pair of running shoes. I love them!

What made me happier was when I got home and did a search for a cheaper pair of the same shoes. With the 10% discount, I could only find a pair for $2 less--certainly not worth the time and shipping...and plus, I wanted to give Philadelphia Runners my business for their personalized service. I'll have to send pictures of me in the shoes in future posts.

Friend raising

When I last left you, I was right about to leave for a conference in Baltimore. I returned safely Friday afternoon. The conference was called "Strengthening our Schools" and was hosted by the National Catholic Educators Association. The conference's purpose is to help schools raise money through development. At first I felt out of my league; I was the youngest person there by at least 15 years, and the job title answers went like this: "president, head of school, development director, principal, advancement director, board member, technology teacher." Guess which one I was! I was fortunately to be able to contribute to the discussions as the tech guy, which made me feel more confident and a needed/wanted part of the group. It was nice to walk away with a free mug and some useful ideas!

Raising money isn't something that naturally appeals to me by title. It's not something I've ever tried before, but it is area that intrigues me. I love getting to know people, meeting new people, learning about people's hobbies/interests/passions, and spending time with them. Actually, while I was there, I was reminded of a clear picture/vision I had of myself standing up in front of a group of people telling them about an experience I had in another culture. That thought first came to me several years ago, and I've been reminded of it from time to time. Perhaps I will be raising money someday, and if so, God may have used this conference to prepare me for that.

While I was in Baltimore, my sister Maria had some spills! She's been sick for a few weeks with mono-like symptoms. After some negative test results, the doctor decided it was a weird virus that had paralyzed her energy system. She missed several days from student teaching as a result. Her first day back to school, however, she fell down the stairs and severely sprained her ankle! She's on crutches now, but she'll hopefully be off them soon. Between visits to the doctor, hospital, student teaching communications and conflicts, and overall disappointment for not being 100%, she had a rough week. Please keep her in your prayers!

Baltimore bound

Phew! This week's already half over! It's gone by quickly.

The 8th grade student who ran away has returned home. Details are still being sorted out, but she was found at the home of the school crossing guard! Rumors persist about if she simply stayed there and spent time with other people or what. Regardless, it's sad it happened, and I keep praying that other students don't see her actions as being cool and decide to do likewise.

Related to the run away, I've been pausing the regular cirruiculum and talking with my middle school students (and 5th grade a little bit too) about MySpace.

I turned in my grades for this trimester. We have report card conferences next Thurs and Fri...which is mostly hang out time for specialists. As a general classroom teacher, I would be pretty nervous and worried, but there haven't been any concerns from parents regarding technology.

In other news, Krista Carter confirmed that we made it into of Shadows, the movie we were dancing extras in.


I had hoped to write more, but I'm off to Baltimore for a conference (the second part of the development workshop). More later!

B-E-A-UTIFUL!

The weather here in Philadelphia has been delightful this weekend. Yesterday's high was 60 with brilliant sunshine, and today has been more of the same! This morning I went for a jog with Sarah, and it felt like Florida! Simply delightful. After I cooled down a little bit, Seth and I made a delicious meal of breakfast burritos (onions, garlic, salsa, cheese, tortillas, and eggs complete with a fruit salad!). No joke, it was the best breakfast I've had in months! Sarah, Seth, and I decided to eat breakfast in the backyard. Wow! I can't wait for spring/summer now!


Seth and I enjoying fine dining in our backyard.

I think that Sarah looks even more beautiful when contrasted by my post-jogging attire.

Last night a bunch of us went out to Mama Palma's for scrumptious gourmet pizza. Sarah, Seth, Melanie, Kallie, Justin, and Casey from Liberti went too. While we waited, we went for a walk and enjoyed the warm March air along the Schuylkill River. We even saw some stars. After waiting for about an hour for seats, the manager surprised us by giving our table free appetizers, then later with two free desserts for us to share! Quite delightful. The pizza was better than 84 East even, which is saying a lot. =)

Note: Seth is on a self-proclaimed campaign to have his eyes closed intentionally in almost all pictures taken of him in public. I asked if it was in order to get back at all the people who close their eyes in photographs he takes of them, and he said no--the campaign is just to be funny.

Seth and I went over to Kamil's house Thursday and made some INCREDIBLE BBQ meatloaf muffins. We ate them with some leftover oven roasted rosemary red potatoes that Sarah and I had made for our homegroup. The meatloaf muffins melted in my mouth. Next time I make meatloaf, I'm making these!

You might ask if all this cooking recently has affected my weight. Well, it's hard to say since we don't have a scale. However, if my belly size and belt size is any indication, I think I've officially gone into hibernation mode for the winter. After talking with my personal trainer/health consultant about it (aka: Sarah), I've decided to make a conscious effort to work out more. So far so good: I went for a run three days this week and started doing push-ups/sit-ups again. Let's hope it continues!

Head banging

Last night our church's homegroup had our final "multiplication" meeting. Okay, so it wasn't a meeting, but a potluck supper. We've had counts of 20-30 people at our homegroup meetings, which is a little much for intimate gatherings! So, we had to split--er, multiply--into two groups. This week was our meeting in the new location for people who live East of Broad St. It's hard to split a good group into two different ones! Unfortunately, God sometimes calls us to do things like that. On a positive note, we have TWO great groups now! We should consider ourselves lucky: the disciples had to go out in only groups of two. (that is, I don't consider our group's quality or dedication the same as the disciples who left their homes and finances and walked through towns in pursuit of God's Kingdom...at least yet!)

Sarah and I will be attending the new location in Alex and Lisa's house. Unfortunately, they are a little shorter than our two previous hosts, and their ceiling lighting fixtures reflect that. I managed to bash my head twice on their lamps. A photographed dramatization is below:

We're getting lazier

This invention is just ridiculous. No other word for it.

Now this video about new computer screens, is just futuristic. We're pretty close to it!