Incredibles

Guess what my kids are watching. Yep. They're certainly not watching me teach them. Nope--I'm here typing. They're watching TV. Wasn't I the one complaining in one of my earlier blogs about how these kids have terrible test grades and they let them watch TV during school? I guess I was speaking in 3rd person.

A lot of stuff to think about! Anyone out there married? What's it like?

Been talking to people recently about marital relationships. You know--living with chicks. 'N stuff. Whoa. ...Uhhh, whoa. Heavy. I guess you change a lot when you get married, but what if you're just not ready to change? Should you still get married and anticipate changing anyway? I mean, I can speak to guys and female friends okay, most of the time, but how do I talk to my wife? I consider myself pretty selfish, irresponsible, a bad listener, an okay communicator, I'm poor, and I haven't had a girlfriend in about three years. I've forgotten a lot, although I've probably lost some bad habits, too. I guess as long as I have a loving heart, it'll drive me to work on a lot of stuff. Right?

Fartknocker

So I'm sitting here again with my little sixth graders--last class of the day. There's a kid in here named Enrique who thinks his butt looks like Beyonce's. He always sags and when I told him to pull his pants up, he told me to stop looking at his butt. I told him to tell his butt to stop looking at me. That's when he told me that I'm just jealous because his butt looks like Beyonce's. He's hilarious. He's the same kid who up and raised his hand in the middle of class just to tell me that his grandpa takes his teeth out when he gets drunk.

Interesting day yesterday. Three VERY interesting conversations--two with people who are close to me, one about a prospective closeness. "That's all I have to say about that."

My church rocks.

Okay, so that was yesterday's stuff. Today is Tuesday, April 26th.

My 1st and 6th hour fartknockers sang a couple of songs for a middle school choral festival. They did okay. It could've gone a lot worse. It could've gone a lot better if it weren't for the people involved (my students and myself). I'm out of place. I went to lunch afterwards and talked to another teacher about the same thing. The out of place thing. I don't know if I've mentioned before or not, but I heard a sermon a couple of weeks ago called, "The Power of a Proper Placement." It was perfect for me at that time. And now, too.

Sayanora!

sittin' on a chair

Sitting here--just made a kid sit down next to me, but now he's reading what I'm typing, so I made him sit in the fourth row away from everyone. But when he went back there, he tripped over all the chairs like a buffoon, so I told him to come and sit by me again but to face the wall. This is one of my better classes, too. These kids are idiots. Kidiots.

So now I'm giving my little 8th hour 6th grade fartknockers a quiz that all but one of them are gonna flunk. They're so stupid and undisciplined (admittedly, I'm not helping the discipline that much).

Today was fun--there was a student who likes to bark in the hallways and as he was coming down the hallways yesterday, he was yelling and I told him to get in the classroom. He proceeded to turn around and yell something again. So, I got in his face and told him, "Don't EVER yell in the hallway again." Needless to say, I didn't lay a finger on him. That's a big no-no. Unfortunately.

A couple of the girls he was yelling to came in, I told them, "Hi, girls." One of them said, "Don't talk to me." I sent them both to the office for disrespect and for being tardy for the ump-teenth time. Next thing I know, I'm writing them up in the office a few minutes later, and I hear them telling the librarian that I grabbed Rigo by the shoulders and slammed him up against a locker.

So, I started this blog a few days ago and I'm finishing it today (April 18).

I was on the UMKC campus a couple of days ago and there was a guy there who was handing out Krishnas. Actually, he wasn't handing them out. Actually, he was, but then we had to pay for them. Actually, we didn't have to pay for them, but if we didn't, than we had to give the Krishna back.

It got me started thinking about how God came before polytheism. Yes, this is obvious. But I think a lot of the people who oppose Christianity oppose the idea that all of a sudden, someone says, "Only one of these religions is right, and it's ours." It's as if they're saying (to Jesus), "How dare you come into this world of many religions and claim that yours is the only true one." But, sadly, they don't realize that the God of Christianity was the first and true God. People knew "the way" but they let sin lead their hearts away from it and, in the process, betrayed God for another, a false god. They sacrificed a relationship for an object.

And then Christ, in all his romantic glory, comes after us, trying to win our hearts back, and we accuse him of daring to say that he was and is the same God from the beginning.

You've heard it said that we shouldn't complain that Christ is the one and only way and, instead, being thankful that there is a way. But even more important than there being one way now: there's always been one way. It was the same way that we had before we decided to start conjuring up all of these alternative ways. Christianity shouldn't be thought of so much as a sudden restriction. It's more of a invitation home.

I'm back

So, I guess I read it. And my friend read it, too. That's what friends are for. Thanks, Suz.

I'm sitting here in class right now watching TV. Yes, that's right--watching TV. We are one of the worst schools in the state and students watch TV during class.

Hey...education! Don't even get me started on education. Is it just me or has education become salvation for a lot of families? One of the newer parts of the American dream, maybe?

I had a LONG, heated conversation about it with a friend who, I imagine, wants to get a Ph.D. in education. He was convinced that a college degree was about the only way someone could get a job or any sort of "self esteem," which I like to call "arrogance for the sake of arrogance." My idea on this is that you don't need to be a genius to Git-R-Done, although, unfortunately, I'm not sure if getting-r-done is what these smarter-than-thou people have in mind. I think they demand that education is imperative for the pursuit of happiness or whatever else their ideal may be.

How did sin enter the world? Wasn't it Eve eating an apple from the tree? What was the name of the tree? Wasn't it "The Tree of the KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil"? And aren't people doing the same thing today, holding up knowledge higher than virtue? Sacrificing relationships for achievement?

Okay, I better start teaching my class. Is it okay for a teacher to have this attitude?

Or something.

Today...

So, I'm gonna try this diary thing out. Maybe no one, including myself, will ever look at it. Am I supposed to go back and look at it like it's my little locked-up, available-to-the-world diary? This blog thing sure is a humbling experience! Oh, well. I'm (Mr. VanDriessen voice) "opening my mind."

So, today at school, one of my beloved yet extremely annoying students, Tomas, knocked my overhead to the floor. Now I have to figure out what to do each day for bellwork. Maybe I'll write a thought of the day on the chalkboard or something. That class is by far--maybe not that far--my worst.

I went for a drive today. I went by the Extreme Home Makeover house on 79th and Blue Ridge, then I cruised down my FAVORITE road, or parkway, Blue River Parkway. Rolled the windows down, beautiful weather, loud music. That's one hell of a way to finish off my school day. Washed my car. Not very good at it yet. Although I realized that since I now have a new car, I've been washing it frequently. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the summer, at least, I will have washed this car more than any of my other cars put together in the past eight years of car ownership. I'm probably a little too proud of my car. Don't know why.

To all who read this: you have now been assigned the responsibility of holding me accountable for what I'm about to type. I was just thinking about how in church last week we talked about superheroes, and we were to think about some Christian superheroes. Besides Jesus. I'm reading a book called "Waking the Dead," and it talks about the importance of realizing your potential. Okay, that sounds cheesy. But about not being afraid of your potential. I guess that sounds a little better.

I remember listening to a sermon from my church in Dallas, Watermark Community, and there was this track with a black dude preaching the various attributes for about 3 or 4 minutes or so to this phat background beat. It was pretty inspiring, thinking about what Jesus was to so many different people. It was amazing that Jesus could maintain so many characteristics simultaneously that would, for people who aren't God, seem mutually exclusive. But God did it. The black guy kept saying, "That's MY Lord!" We have such a cool God!

Then I started thinking, That's us! We're little Christs, as C.S.Lewis might say. There's no way why we can't at least strive to live like that! We (those of us, at least, who've been born again) have Christ in us! We are superheroes.

That's the challenge to which I should be held accountable. What have I done today? Well, I went to work, didn't share the gospel with anyone, didn't pray (yet), barely got out of bed, idiotically kept hitting the snooze button as if I'd get some rest in eight or nine consecutive five-minute intervals, worried about getting married, went for a drive (possibly helpful, rejuvinating), practiced piano w/o necessarily glorifying God, went and had dinner and watched a movie with some friends, stayed late, and came home. Nothing too gloriously ambitious. Guilt? Not necessarily. Pressure? A little. Hope? A lot.

uhhh...

uhhh... whadoido?