The second first day of school!

So, there I was again: getting up, eating honey toasted cheerios (the Kroger brand of honey nut cheerios) with soy milk and drinking orange juice at 6:50am as I got ready to drive to work. I made myself a sandwich, poured some salt and pepper kettle chips into a ziploc bag, washed an apple, grabbed a strawberry fruit bar, and put them all in a Kroger grocery bag, only to be opened again at noon. Water bottle in hand, I walked out the door dressed in a full suit (with no tie) ready to begin another school year.

The car ride was lonely since my car radio mysteriously stopped working a few weeks ago when I took my car to Pep Boys. But I still had a lot on my mind, so it was a good time to think and angrily stare at slow drivers as I sped to work (some things never change).

We started with homeroom, which was not too bad. I basically welcomed the students back and did other bureaucratic stuff (attendance, signatures, personal data sheets, etc). Since I have a homeroom full of juniors, I am going to do my best to get them college resources this year so that they do not wait until senior year to get on the ball. Tomorrow, they are supposed to bring me a list of three colleges they are interested in, and we will take it from there.

Since it was the first day of school, we went to all of our classes today; needless to say, the day went by rather quickly. That's a good thing.

After school, all the male faculty stood in the hot Georgia heat (many of us still wearing full suits) in order to make sure the students got on their buses properly. This was, to say the least, an interesting fiasco. On the brighter side, some of my students that I taught last year as well as mock trial students came up to me to say hey excitedly. It was great to see them, and I am really hoping that everybody has a great year.

Now, let's deal with the elephant in the room: the stye. Well, oddly enough, no students said anything about it all day. The only time a student mentioned it was when one of my mock trial students asked me if I was okay and if I had gotten stung by a bee in the eye (that's a clue to how unpleasant I look right now).

We had a faculty meeting after school, but I left early to go to the doctor again. He said that it looks like it will be ready to be lanced and drained in two days. Until then, he gave me more antibiotics: I'm now on eye drops AND pills.

All in all, it was a good day. I think it's a good sign when you spend extra time in the shower pacing back and forward as you excitedly plan a lesson in your head...

The night before the first day of school (revisited)

So, last year I wrote my first blog around this time. I wrote about how reflective I was before the first day of school and all that jazz. My, how things change...

Well, I am reflective. There is a lot I want to do this year--there are a lot of things I did not get right last year that I really want to get right this year. I did not utilize the co-teaching model effectively. I have to co-teach a lot this year, and getting co-teaching right is a huge priority. It can be very effective, and the kids I serve deserve my support to the fullest.

I also want to be more organized. Not only am I trying to move my kids more than I did last year, but, realistically, I am also going to be involved in transitioning to the next stage in my life. Now, I could lie and say that I will only be worried about teaching, but I am getting too old to be dishonest with myself. I will not put myself in a situation where it is June and I am unemployed and unprepared to begin a life in singing and acting (which is hard enough to break into as it is). So, yes, I will be making waves toward that end as well.

I also, as many of my friends know, love politics. I did some political writing in college, and I plan to get more involved in that this year. There are some really exciting projects in the works, and I definitely want to put my two cents in the debates facing our country and the world. More on this later, though.

Let's get back to education. So, yes, I am excited about this year. Excited about getting co-teaching right, excited about mock trial (woot woot!), and excited about pushing my kids to the next level as well as having the opportunity to learn from them.

I am, however, also nervous.

Not for the reasons you think. I've been practicing my Joe Clark speech all weekend, and I already have my first week planned.

I am nervous because I STILL HAVE A HUGE STYE ON MY EYE! (tragic.) Now, I love my birthmark, but it already gets me enough stares. Do I really need something else to draw attention to my youthful looking face? Especially when I teach people who look the same age as me?

So here we go, the night before my first day of school, and what's bothering me the most is my stye.

Lumumba, sit down. Mr. Seegars, rise up.

Back to School (kind of)

Well, the first day of classes is not until next Monday, but we began our first day of “preplanning” this week. More on that later in this post.

Let me first acknowledge that it has been a while! I am happy to be back blogging. Since I did not blog over the summer, I will give a short recap now:

I participated in my first professional musical, “I Dream” (www.iDreamInAtlanta.com). Jasmine Guy directed it, and the cast and creative team were phenomenal. The orchestra and crew were stellar as well. For the first time in my life, I was able to wake up and do exactly what I love the most (sing, act, perform, etc) daily. There is nothing like it. I have often talked about what it would feel like to do what I was most passionate about every day, but there is nothing like finally having lived it. During June, we rehearsed 6 days a week (Tuesday –Saturday 10am – 6pm and Sundays 2pm - 8pm) until tech week, which was usually 11-11 or 12-10. Including previews, we did 30 shows. During a full week, we performed 8 shows, Tuesdays – Sundays, with double shows on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We had a blast on stage, we acted a fool in the dressing rooms, and we took the craft and the show seriously. We closed this past Saturday, and I already miss the routine.

However, as my principal put it in his welcome back letter to the faculty and staff that I received on Saturday, “The time for blissful rest has come and is now gone.” Now, I may not have been resting this summer, but my work was definitely “blissful”; therefore, if I can speak candidly, it is true that I was not necessarily looking forward to returning back to school after singing, acting, and dancing on stage (not to mention tossing pool sticks around!). There was also another problem: I had not seen 6:30am in two months…not cool.

I arrived at school today with a few types of greetings: (1) Good morning, Mr. Seegars! (2) Hello! (3) How was your summer? Welcome back! (4) OMG, WHAT IS THAT ON YOUR EYE?!?!

Pause. Let me explain.

A few weeks ago when the show began, I used some eyeliner in order to make my eyes “pop.” After two days, my eyes got a little irritated, so I stopped using it. I kept wearing my contacts for each performance, but my left eye started to get irritated and I could feel it itching sometimes. This past Wednesday, my left eye started to get a little puffy. I woke up Thursday morning and, BOOM, there was this swollen redness over my eyelid. Not good. I decided I would put a warm compress over it, and I planned to wear only one contact (in my right eye) for that night’s show. Over the next two days I tried other therapies, including cold compresses, eye drops, and a stye ointment from CVS – I also did the final four shows with only one contact lens. Each morning I kept waking up to more “booms” in the form of a swollen red eyelid, until finally I woke up this morning and it was like BOOM BOOM BOOM! The eye was itching, burning, and hurting.

So, yes, I arrived at school with this deformed eyelid and a few people saw fit to comment on it. That, however, was not a problem. The worst insult came from a friend in my cast who claimed I had syphilis in my eye (it’s only funny because it’s not true). Anyway, I felt horrible. After spending a few hours trying to find my boxes (my school is in a different location this year due to renovations, but I’m sure there will be a post dealing with that later), I felt that it was a better use of my time to go to the doctor and get my eye checked out.

I went to the doctor; he came in and looked at my eye for five seconds, touched it for about five more, then told me that I in fact did have a stye, but that it was also infected. He asked me a few questions about my life (straight/gay, single/married – pretty routine after two months in show business), and after about 5 minutes, I was on my way, armed with some new eye drops and instructions to rub baby shampoo on it and resume the warm compresses.

On another note, I saw some of my students today, and my heart absolutely melted. I know it will be a tough year, but seeing their faces reminded me of why I must throw my entire self into my work this year. To quote my principal in his welcome back letter once more: “I hope and trust that you enjoyed a restful, peaceful summer break and that this restful period has prepared you to inspire, encourage and motivate the young people who will be entrusted to you on August 9, 2010.”

Rough times will surely be ahead, but I am looking forward to a year of mutual inspiration, encouragement, and motivation with my students and colleagues.

Time to go put a warm towel on my eye.

Voice lesson!

Today, I had my first voice lesson! I have not had a lesson since the week before I left for college back in 2005. It really enjoyed the lesson, and I am looking forward to more.

On another note, I saw the Kuumba Singers at a dinner last night. They sang, and tore it up! I'm looking forward to them singing at my school on Thursday. I hope the students take a lot from the experience. Kuumba is going to sing and also take questions about college. It should be a good time.

Congress: Tear Down this Law!

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” must be repealed. Now.

I recently read an article in the New York Times about two Generals who are now against the law’s repeal. One of the Generals is quoted as saying, “I do have serious concerns about the impact of repeal of the law on a force that’s fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for eight-and-a-half years.”

Question: When will it be okay to repeal the law? Will that time come after we finish fighting for “freedom” all over the world while we continuously discriminate against people in our own society? Will we be ready once we finish exporting “American values” of fairness and openness while we hinder people who are risking their lives for those values from expressing their full selves? Or maybe it will be time to repeal the law after we decide that we want to get off of our moral high ground and stop telling the rest of the world what to do while we mask pure discrimination, contempt, and prejudice with “concerns” about prejudiced people being forced to actually confront their discriminatory views.

Oh I forgot: we live in a country where protecting minority rights amounts to preserving a broken senatorial system in which 40 senators can obstruct the majority as opposed to protecting groups of people from blatant injustices and inequalities. My bad.

Saying that “people are not ready” is a cop-out. If we wait for the ruling class of society to simply rid itself of all its prejudices and broadly begin to accept everybody it sees as different from the norm before we take action on issues of discrimination, then we might as well get some ice skates and prepare for a hockey game in Hell.

Yes, it will make people uncomfortable. Rightly so! When it comes to matters dealing with discrimination, our decision should be based on what is morally correct as opposed to the comfort of the privileged. It sickens me to see politicians and other leaders riding around the country, professing to champion the underdog, the regular American, Joe the Plumber, Main street, etc, and continue to be too afraid, politically timid, or unscrupulous to object to a law that so clearly violates the very ideals for which our soldiers are supposed to be fighting.

I fully agree with Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the New York Times article mentioned above, Admiral Mullen states, “No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” asks our troops to operate under a policy that is misguided at best and the antithesis to everything this country proclaims to be about with regard to freedom, justice, and inequality at worst. Let’s fight for our values while living by our values.

Afternoon Treat!

Today I gave myself a little treat. But we will get to that later.

The day started off not so well. I have been having attendance issues with my first period class, and today the majority of the students were not there. That’s an understatement, actually. Only one student made it before we were told not to let any more students in. Yep.

So, I still conducted class as usual, but I also took it as an opportunity to do a little mentoring. I have had some discipline issues with this student, so I tried to figure out things he was interested in while he completed the warm up. It just so happens that I had this student in mind when I was creating the worksheet for that class period. Therefore, I actually had different sports and pop culture references on the charts that I made (we were doing variance and standard deviation). We still had some issues, but I think I am building a closer relationship with him. I’ll see how it goes.

Now back to my treat. During my planning period, I had a little extra time since it is also my lunch period. I talked to the choir teacher a while ago about observing a rehearsal, and I finally did it today! It was really great to watch the choir teacher work with the students. It reminded me of when I was in high school and was fortunate enough to spend at least 3 hours (usually much more than that!) each day studying music. I enjoyed hearing them sing and watching her talk technique with them. I definitely plan on observing them again.

My last period went well. The students are still enjoying the book. I can definitely see the students start to grow in their ability to comprehend different aspects of the book.

Ahh, my roommate made tacos tonight, so it is time for me to go grub!

Back in Business: Still Alive

It has been a while, but I am back. The past couple of months have been hectic and filled with tons of ups and downs. It has been a struggle to express the span of my thoughts over the past weeks, and I won’t try to do that now either. Instead, I will just start with today.

So…

What happens when you rush out of the house and grab your shoes out of a dark closet? I’ll take a stab at this one: You end up wearing two different pairs of shoes. That’s right, I wore one type of shoe on my left foot and another on my right foot today. I did not notice until I stepped out of my car in the parking lot at school this morning. Luckily, both shoes were black. I was nervous that students would notice; however, nobody made a comment about it (except for the teachers that laughed when I showed them my mindless faux pas).

I also woke up with a huge pimple under my lip. Now, this normally would not be a problem, but I was worried about having a mark of puberty strapped to my face when I already do not look much older than the puberty-stricken adolescents I teach on a daily basis. Again, I was happy that nobody commented on it all day, despite my discomfort with it.

Why would I be surprised that nobody made note of it? Well, it would not have been far-fetched since a student (not the first) cried out at me, “MOLEY, MOLEY, MOLEY” in class yesterday. Yep, that still happens. I took her to the office. It’s a good thing I learned not to be sensitive when I was in middle school.

So, back to today. My first period did not start off great. I had to call two students’ parents during class. Some students decided that they already knew the material for the lesson that I was trying to teach, so I went ahead and gave them their quiz since they did not want to pay attention. I think their grades taught them the lesson far better than I could have any other way.

In my final period, social skills, I had a great time. We are reading a book called The Hatchet, and it is fascinating! I think the kids are getting into it as well, and it is so great to see them get excited about learning! I also had two of those students come to my classroom during lunch to read. As much as I enjoy my alone time sometimes, it is always heartwarming to have students want to challenge themselves outside of the classroom. I gladly welcomed them in.

On a more personal note, I am embracing my artistic side again. I recently began taking an acting class once a week. It is such a blast! I can already see myself growing as an artist, and I am looking forward to pushing myself even further. I am also looking for a voice teacher, so I will see how that goes. I joined the choir at church, and it is so amazing to be singing again.

All in all, life is far from a cakewalk, but I am happy. There is so much more to tell, but I will stop here—I will fill in the details as I begin to post more regularly from now on.

Music on my mind: “Shenandoah” as sung by Paul Robeson.