Today is my 28th birthday. I have no idea what I will be doing later, but I am celebrating this afternoon by taking my worst class to the homecoming pep-rally. I can only imagine how loud this is going to be. Feel free to use the comments section to either:

(a) Wish me well.
or
(b) Discuss ad nauseum how you wish I had never been born.
or
(c) Mention any sexual pervisions you have practiced over the past fortnight.

Happy Halloween everyone.

The vast majority of grammar school children are really sweet and fun to be around, yet most high school kids are jerks. Something happens during middle school, I am not sure what-though I think puberty factors in. I am doing some work with elementary school kids again. It is extremely enjoyable.

In semi-related news, I discovered a really good children's book today. The artwork is outstanding, lots of painted photographs, that leave the focus of the picture untouched, excellent writing and a very cool story-line too. It is called Black Cat and is written by Christopher Myers. The story takes place in Harlem and Brooklyn, the book is written for inner-city children, though any child could appreciate it. The book references Bodegas and Graffitti. How cool is that? If you have kids or are into kid's books you should definitely check it out.

On October 18th a teacher was beaten at Armstrong High School here in Richmond for attempting to stop a student from using his cell-phone. The male student who attacked the female teacher was 15 years old. Reginald Malone the East End representative for the City of Richmond School board, in response to the attack said something along the lines of: teachers need to be careful how they are talking to students. Maybe he was talking to his Mama and she had just had an accident.

Truly amazing. How can an individual justify an attack on a teacher? I don't care how the teacher spoke to the student, no one had the right to attack her. Fortunately, perhaps against Reggie Malone's wishes, assault is still illegal in this country, so the student was arrested. I find it hard to work in a school district where a school board representative basically defends and attempts to justify a physical attack on a teacher. I don't care if his mother was just in an accident, perhaps he should have told his teacher that instead of beating her. The teacher had to be taken to the hospital.

My first teaching assignment ever was at Armstrong High School. It is scary to think that it could have been me.

Unfortunately I can't link to the article because you have to pay for use of the Richmond Times Dispatch archives.

This has been a very exciting week and not in a good way. Yesterday a student called me a "motherf@cker," and then swung at me--fortunately I am quick and avoided the blow. That's right folks, I was almost hit by a student. After his swing he told me that he was going to beat me up, and said "get off me n*gga'." I bet he is the product of a great household, and he certainly knows how to act in a courteous and respectful manner. Needless to say I wrote him up, called security etc...

Now, a few weeks ago I posted about the racism within Richmond City Schools, suggesting that it might be a reason to leave. In hindsight I see that my leaving would solve nothing, but now I feel as though my personal safety has been threatened. I am cool with it, to a degree, but I can't really see myself staying in Richmond City Schools too much longer. I realize that a teacher can be assaulted in any school, but statistically most of those attacks happen in the inner-city school districts. It sucks, but the environment really does drive people out. I teach to help educate the youth of America, not to be insulted, which happens daily, to be cursed at, to listen to comments about the color of my skin, or most importantly to have a child attempt to hit me. I am not getting a Master's in Education so I can be treated this way. Call me a quitter, but after this school year, I'm out. I still plan to teach, but not in the inner-city.

Today, I had to break up a fight in the hallway. I could really use some quiet time right now.

In other news, I got the results back from my ultrasound and my testicles are free of cancer. I am pretty relieved. The idea of losing a testicle was bringing me down.

There's A Fungus Among Us...

I ended up having to go to the doctor about the rash near my balls. It was jock-itch, but I figured better safe than sorry, plus it itched really bad. He put me on that Diflucan crap that's usually for yeast infections, but it is also an anti-fungal drug (jock-itch is a fungus). At least the package was bright pink so that's something. It was $15 for one pill after my insurance co-payment. That is like if I charged you $15 for one tic-tac. Does it really cost $15 to make the pill? Highly doubtful. The doctor also gave me an oral medecine to stop the distracting itching, and also told me to double the dose of the over the counter cream I bought.

It is amazing how quickly the medical bills add up; between the co-payment and the medecine it was about $85 total. For jock-itch. Did I mention that I only have JOCK-ITCH?! Getting this treated is pretty close to paying $85 to get an infected mosquito bite looked at. There is a serious health care problem in this country. Just thought you'd like to know.

I am truly amazed by my genitals. How much else can possibly go wrong down there? Last night I felt an intense itching/burning sensation on my inner-left thigh. We happened to be out running errands at the time, so a close examination was not exactly feasible. When I got home I dropped my pants and found an inflamed circular patch right next to my left testicle. I did some quick research on-line and discovered that all the syptoms I have point to jock-itch. Now the right ball hurts, and my inner-left thigh itches like crazy.

I had one kind of medicine, but I bought a new kind today. The new stuff requires less applications for a shorter period of time so hopefully this will clear it up. When I was at the drug-store the woman behind the counter had a conversation with everyone in front of me about what they were buying. She looked at my product and apparently thought better of it, instead she talked to me about the $1 off coupon that was stuck to the box and then became stuck to her hand. When you are buying cream for jock-itch you generally do not want to discuss anything related to the matter, you would think a drug-store cashier would have figured this out by now.

Just as I was about to post this, I heard something going on outside our front door, I looked outside the window and saw a 6 year-old and a 2 year old throwing bricks into our bushes and flower beds. I threw on my pants and ran outside with Kim right behind me. I happened to know where one of the kids lived so I grabbed a brick and marched down to their front door--the mother said that she was going to talk to them. As I am writing this the kids are right outside again. Does anyone know how to raise or discipline children anymore? My butt would have been in a sling if I had gotten caught doing that as a child, not right back outside playing.

Sometimes I really don't understand the company I work for. I contacted them 48 hours ago with a new position that was offered to, and discussed with me, directly. They said they would contact the necessary people since evrything needs to go through them. I have heard nothing, in addition I emailed them on Monday regarding some questions I had and I never heard anything back. At this point if they do not get on the ball they are going to be removed from my Christmas Card list. This is a tragedy, because though it looks like the sonogram idea is out, I still have a digital camera and many perverse ideas.

Luke's Daddy/My Genitals

It is certainly no secret that I have been having problems with my genital region for quite some time now. It was a little over a year ago that I had my second hernia operation, and I have now had an infection in my right testicle for about 6 months. I have been on many cycles of antibiotics and nothing has helped more than temporarily. At least it hurts almost all the time so that's something. My urologist ordered a scrotal ultrasound which I underwent this morning. It turns out that having warm jelly spread all over you balls, followed by a hard plastic wand being rubbed across the surface is not much fun at 8:15 in the morning, yet it is simultaneosly somewhat pleasing.

Ever since I found out about the procedure, it is the same type of procedure performed during pregnancy, I have been hoping they would print me out a picture. I figured that they do it for expecting mothers, so maybe they would do the same for me. I had every intention of using the picture for Christmas cards. When I asked the attendant she just laughed and said "No." The way I see it is if they would give me a copy of the x-ray they should give me a copy of the piece of paper with my balls on it.

I did however, get to look at the screen during the procedure. It was very interesting. There is not much detail, but still cool to see my testicles on a large computer screen. During the procedure, there was a sound going on that I thought was probably the blood flowing through my testicles. I asked and found out I was correct. I have now heard the blood coursing through my scrotum. It sounded like Darth Vader after he just ran a marathon.

I discovered that a new Cometbus book came out recently. It is his first autobiographical novel, parts were originally published as Cometbus #42, but the book includes additional stories. The novel centers on a house he used to live in (Double Duce) and his room-mates at the time--they have names like Sluggo and Little G. The book is called "Double Duce" by Aaron Cometbus and can be purchased directly from Last Gasp his publishing company, or can be found relatively easily in your area. It is only $6.50 for a trade paperback edition. The best part is that though it reads like great fiction, it's all true.

As far as I'm considerned Aaron Cometbus is one of the greatest written voices punk rock has produced. If you haven't read any of his writing you should definitely check it out.

My Geekiest Post Ever...

My friend Thomas, saved my butt big-time this morning. I am generally really bad about maintenace on my PC, I tend to let things go too long, but I downloaded a bunch of updates over the last couple of days. One of the updates totally messed up my computer. I woke up to go to the bathroom this morning and Kim tells me that the computer won't even go past the Windows ME screen, and when she hits escape it gives some strange error message. I called Thomas who walked me through the fix, which ended up involving renaming a file. Fortunately I had made a startup disk last night for a problem I was having with Scandisk, so at least I already had that to work from. Thomas walked me through the fix via telephone this morning. I really need to get rid of ME and move to XP, the former is just a really unstable operating system. Thanks again brother!

I was looking on Amazon, and I found a list with the following Intro.:

A guide by Steve T, Guy Who Knows Everything About Rock and Has the Best Taste Ever.

I looked at his taste which is arguably pretty good, but I came upon the following:

Sigur Ros made an album that really blew me away with Agaetis Byrjun. Making epic songs that are as beautiful as anything you've heard, and a couple that are just as chilling, this Ireland troupe makes amazing music...

Can you spot the problem? The problem is that Sigur Ros is from Iceland not Ireland. This is the main reason that a native english speaker cannot understand what they are saying--they are not signing in English, or Gaelic for that matter. Perhaps this guy, doesn't really know everything.

To Steve,
By the way jackass, most of us music geeks really hate it when someone says that they know everything. You know why? Because its impossible.

Initially I thought his intro. was tounge in cheek, but after reading his summaries of his favorite albums, I think he's actually serious. I don't think that its a typo either.

Check out his list here.

I think that one of my favorite feelings in the world, is the feeling of success I experience when I finish reading a book. Fortunately this is a fairly easy pleasure to obtain, and a feeling I get to experience often.

Maybe I'm just not reading the right articles or looking in the proper places but I never really hear anything about prejudice against caucasians in the african-american community. I would like to state the following: it is in my experience extremely prevalent. I am not saying that there aren't semi-valid reasons behind the prejudice but rather stating that I never see anything written or said about it. I had to write a student up today for referring to a classmate of mixed ethnicity as a "cracker." This is far from the first time I have heard this word used in an extremely negative context, but it is the first time I have written someone up for it. I never make comments about anyone else's race and I am sick of hearing comments about mine. Some comments are even directed at me.

A friend of mine is about to resign after teaching for 18 yearsin the City of Richmond, because he is sick of being called a "white-motherfucker" to his face by his 7th grade students. I would also like to mention that the all-african-american administration at his school will do nothing to help him. I am not trying to downplay slavery or any number of events related to African-Americans, but I am attempting to express that two wrongs don't make a right. We are desperate for teachers in this country, particularly in the inner-city schools, yet excellent educators are being driven out of these school districts as a result of the prejudice they are encountering.

I would like to say that it is just a few who are saying these these things, but in fact it it is many. I am sorry for the things that have happened in the past, but I am in no way responsible. My ancestors did not arrive in this country until the early twentieth century, and never owned slaves or were members of the KKK. It seems ashame that the chain of prejudice filters down and I constantly hear the word "cracker" behind my back, or the word "faggot" screamed in the halls. Well, soon there will be no caucasian educators who are willing to teach in the inner-city and this is why. The most unfortuante part is that there are not enough African-American educators to fill these vacated positions. What will happen then? I am teaching in the inner-city because I feel I am needed, but I should not have to endure the prejudice. A lot of white people are bad people the same as with any race, but many of us are decent people who are willing and able to help. Driving us out will help no-one.

The new Scarface Anniversary Edition DVD came out yesterday and boy is it good. The picture looks amazing. I honestly think that there is more blood in that movie than many of the slasher films out there. I almost consider it a horror movie. Finally saw A might Wind over the weekend and that's damn good too, though I think that it is the weakest of any of Christopher Guest's films.

Electricity is still, and will always be my friend. I missed my DVD player, my computer and my record player. I tried to have sex with all of them, simultaneously, to welcome them back, but they rejected me. Now I am sad and sexually frustrated.