Happy Decade Day. That would be one decade, ten years, since the day I signed up for Xanga.

I had written quite a bit of the story already here, and then inexplicably I clicked off the tab.

Poof! And so quickly I am reminded about one of the things I really HATE about Xanga. NO AUTO-SAVE.

I told myself… write it in Google Docs, so it will be automatically saved as you go along, then copy and paste it over. But no. WordPress has that feature built in to their blog editor. 

But no… not Xanga. You’ve only been at this for ten years, boys and girls. You couldn’t incorporate such a simple but eminently helpful, even (metaphorically) life-saving feature as autosave, in the midst of adding all your audio and video and social whatnot?

To further infuriate me, although I do have the Lazarus extension on Google Chrome on this computer, it doesn’t seem to recognize this as a text field to recover. If you’re not familiar with it, Lazarus is this amazing little extension that automatically saves anything you type into a web form, so you can quickly recover it. But, it seems not to work for this weblog entry box, although it does work for the “tag” box below. !@#$#%@

I guess I’ll re-type my story later, when I calm down about it. But, I hope this is the beginning of my “reboot.” Happy Decade Day to me and to all the others who were the first class of Bianca Broussard recruits and have still stuck around here (under one name or another) all these ten years.

Xanga has now been around for a decade, a full ten years, and my own personal 10th anniversary here is upcoming, on December 23rd.

I often wondered, back in those early days, if it would still be around in 2010, and if so, what it would look like, and how it would have changed.

Some things have not changed, but others have. Xanga is obviously far bigger now, but it still remains under the radar, not famous as a blogging platform nor as a social-networking service, though it has (unwisely, I think) tried to be both.

The content, site-wide, is more vapid than ever. The popularity contest is more rampant than ever. In early 2001, a dozen comments on a post was impressive. Fifty would mean you were phenomenally popular. Now you’ll see hundreds, even over a thousand comments on posts about nothing. Xanga has become the Seinfeld of blogging communities.

But I keep coming back here. It’s the only place where I know that, after all these years, I can find some people who will read me. Dang it, I paid for that Lifetime Premium so long ago (it was a cool $100)– I should be getting my money’s worth. 

My need to write has been disquietly subjugated by all the other travails of life far too long.

Yes, an unimaginative title– and it’s all downhill from there.

So I last wrote about how June was almost over, and now July is halfway gone. Gone where?

Well, I enjoyed attending the ISTE convention and left excited about the possibilities for technology in education. Professional educators and their students are teaching and learning in the 21st century, but in 20th century buildings and under 19th century pedagogy. Much needs to be changed. Next month I start my M.Ed. in Instructional Technology program. I’m moving into what’s called a “cohort” program. That means I’ll be part of one small group of graduate students. This group will move through the same sequence of classes together, semester by semester, meeting once a week for four hours. I think this will be good for me as I need some structure. I had initially enrolled in a self-designed M.Ed. program at this same university last summer. I enrolled in my first class, which was a “Guided Independent Study” class, back then. G.I.S. means I was not in the class with any other students– it was just me and the instructor; I completed the assignments, e-mailed them to her, and waited for her feedback. That kind of course requires a lot of self-discipline. Well, in the middle of the course my wife had major surgery. Feeling I needed to focus on her recovery, I took an Incomplete in the class. Then school (work) began again in August, and I never got back on track, and I had even with the extended time from the INC I still did not finish the class. So it was then sitting as an “F” on my record. My only choice was to re-enroll in the same course (under the “second grade stands” policy) during this first summer session. This was the class I was speaking of in my last post and, yes, that final assignment received an “A” and that means I got an “A” for the class, which is great, but since I had to pay for the class twice (at a combined tuition total of over $2300) it was definitely my most expensive “A” ever as well. So, no more classwork for me until the cohort begins at the end of August.

After the conference it was my wife’s birthday, and we spent a fun weekend downtown, ending with the July 4th Rockies game. On Wednesday, the 7th, our daughter (almost 18) got her driver’s license (on the second try) and then it was time for the dentist and another Rox game Thursday the 8th. The dentist led to a return on consecutive days this week, once for me getting prepped for a crown– my first, and after 2.5 hours in the chair, I hope to never have to get another one! Later the same afternoon I had a physical therapy appointment. Back in April I hurt my back, not for the first time, but this one was the most serious yet. I don’t even know what happened, but I guess at least one of the discs in the lower part of my spine has been deteriorating for some time. The pain kept me out of work for four-and-a-half days spread over three weeks, and I’ve been in PT on a roughly weekly basis since then, which has helped but I’ve had to develop some discipline to do my stretching routine twice daily. Today we received the exercise balls we ordered, so that will be a help.

This is the kind of mundane autobiographical blogging I do not care for, but I wanted to write something and need to find the motivation. While our summer has not been truly “busy,” it feels like there’s something going on everyday and the days pass by. Four weeks from tomorrow (Friday) we officially report to work, the beginning of my fifth year teaching– wow. In that time I have to find the motivational key to keep me blogging during the school year, so feel free to make suggestions. In the meantime, I am enjoying the time with family and yes, this time of the year definitely is one of the best perks of the job.

Next time– the wonder of wikis– “hyperlink heroin” or “click crack”– take your pick and let me know. 

The Xanga frontpage lists featured posts. “Featured Content” dates back to the earliest days of Xanga, but I really have to shake my head at some of the “content” linked there presently. I think they may have hit their nadir by featuring some guy’s very first post… which he didn’t even write; it’s just the automatically-created, generic first post. I can only guess that he must have many friends who recommended said post and pushed it up the featured list. It’s kind of hard to take a “Featured” list seriously if this is what’s featured. But it just goes to show you that not much has changed; Xangans then and now are concerned with being popular– the majority of them anyway.

On a related note, I’m trying to finish this grad class and the next-to-last assignment was an essay on an ethical dilemma in education. I chose to write about whether teachers should censor themselves online; where is the line between professional responsibility and the right to personal expression? I didn’t think it was very good, but my instructor called it “outstanding” and wants to keep a copy on file as a model for future students. Maybe I should write the “not my best work” disclaimer every time I submit. 

Over the next three days I’m attending the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference which just happens to be hosted here in Denver this year. Some of these techie-teachers kind of scare me. They toss around jargon that quickly confuses outsiders or newbies. And they love Twitter. I do have a Twitter account, but hardly use it. It’s the one Web thing that I have never been able to just pick up and figure out right away; I don’t understand what all the @ and # are for. I need Twitter for Dummies. But, I’m sure I will learn a lot… which I won’t be able to apply since it’ll be a decade before we have sufficient technology in my school to do so. I shouldn’t be so negative; we did get a lot of classroom tech last year– every teacher has a laptop, every room a digital projector, and several of us have document cameras (like me) or Smartboards, or both. I asked for the document camera last year instead of the Smartboard because it was one-third the cost of the Smartboard and I understood we were in a budget crunch and even though these requests went to the PTA, I thought it was pretentious to ask for such a big-ticket item under such a financial atmosphere. Apparently, that didn’t stop some of my colleagues– and the PTA bought their Smartboards. I guess I learned a lesson; put principle aside when you can ask someone else to buy stuff for you.

Hard to believe June is almost over. Enjoy these last few days. 

If you have one, are one, or remember one; today is a special day. Whenever I want to come back to blogging and start to consider other avenues, I always remember that if it weren’t for Xanga, I’d've never met my wonderful wife and have four beautiful children at home. 

As for this here Xanga, I don’t have any specific plan yet. I’m just going to try to post on a frequent basis and see what develops. I’d eventually like to commit to a weekly format again. The main concern is that I don’t let it lapse once school starts again.

Recently I was at my mom’s house back in suburban Atlanta for a few days, for my niece’s wedding which did not happen, but that’s a different story. Since moving to Colorado in July 2002, I have only returned home four times. Each time, it seems I discover something new. This time, I found (well, I think she found at some point, but it was laying out) my very first journal, given to me on Christmas 1984. I thought it may be interesting to recount what I wrote back then.

Sunday, January 27, 1985

This is my first entry, but hopefully not my last, in this journal. This is in no way unique. On the contrary, it initiates me as one in a crowd as large as the one that flocked to the L.A. Memorial Colosseum last year to see the Summer Olympic Games! But, let us get down to business.

Today the graphite marks chronicle two events that happened this month, on the 2nd, 4th, and 5th. The first is a date when I went with Dad to his office. I helped take inventory (the IRS still stands strong, doesn’t it?) Later, we went to Granny’s Kitchen for lunch. From there he took me home.

The latter one, and more major, was going to my old friend Jeff’s house. We tried to play Trivial Pursuit. Unsuccessful. Anyway, we went to see Pinocchio later in the day. That night, Jeff’s dad brought home an IBM PC. We had lots of fun with it. There was one game where you were boss of an oil company. In one you played football. There were many other games we played, but those were the best and the ones we played the most. I spend the night. Overall, it was lots of fun. (Once I jokingly thought that PC meant “Perfect Computer”). 

Funny how some things change and others, not so much. I can’t help but reflect upon how this very first entry discussed time with my dad. How fitting for today. My father passed away just over seven years ago, but the memories of him shall always remain and be treasured. I hope that you treasure your fathers, or fatherhood, just as much, today and everyday.

It’s summer, which means I’m coming back. Hopefully for longer this time. Maybe for good, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For right now, anyone who reads this should be almost as excited about the prospect as I am. 

I wrote this on another site in regards to “remembering” 9/11, and feel it’s worthy of re-posting here:

How could any American ever forget?

I hadn’t had the TV on. As is still typical for me I got on my computer before anything else that morning. A friend had e-mailed me, saying she hoped I didn’t have any family or friends in NYC or DC. Confused, I went to Yahoo News, and read it all. I didn’t see anything happen live, and frankly I’m glad I didn’t.

Two events, two years apart most profoundly have influenced my life. The first occurred on April 20, 1999 less than five miles from where I live now. At the time, I lived in Georgia and it didn’t impact me that much, but I never knew what a role it would come to play in my life. That was Columbine. And then 9/11/01. I was in my third semester of grad school, already feeling a bit disillusioned about the whole process. The events of that day created a whole new perspective for me. With each passing day I felt more and more that time should not be wasted doing something you’re not sure you want to do. Life suddenly felt far more fragile than it ever had in the 26 years I’d lived to that point.

Now I’m working to make a difference. I don’t know what my influence will be, but as a teacher, one thing I’m striving for, every day, is to instill a little bit more compassion, a little bit more understanding of others. I can only hope our next generation will learn tolerance and respect for differing views, but I’m doing whatever little I can to make that hope a reality. Because it was the lack of that which led to 9/11, that is the fuel of all terrorism. Young men and women blinded by pure hate, actually led to believe that their God wants them to sacrifice themselves to cause the deaths of others.

I look around at our nation today and feel disheartened. We are so divided and polarized. One need only examine the venom in the healthcare forums, or the abject silliness of debating whether the President can speak to students, or the utter lack of decorum that could actually cause a member of the United States Congress to call the president a liar in the Senate chamber and on live television. What have we lost in those eight years? ”United We Stand” and so we did in those strange days of mid-September. Heartaching as the tragedy was, I never felt prouder to be an American than in those days when people put aside differences and realized the treasure of our common bonds. While part of me feels that the former President squandered the opportunity he had, the tremendous support he had from citizens and goodwill from other nations, ultimately we are all to blame for allowing ourselves to lapse back into exactly the same kind of “I don’t like you because you don’t think like me” mentality that, taken to its very extreme, led to those awful attacks.

This week’s post comes courtesy of the ill-founded furor over President Obama’s planned address to the schoolchildren of America on Tuesday…

We struggle to teach kids the importance of history, and deny them the chance to participate in it as it happens.

It’s not political. It’s the President addressing the children of the United States. When I was their age, it would have been Reagan… and there’s no way there would have been such furor. I doubt there would have been significant opposition.

What have we come to in this country when EVERYTHING is perceived as having a political agenda? When we are completely polarized, left and right, even though in fact, the majority of Americans are more or less in the middle.

The President wants to tell kids to stay in school and work hard, that they are responsible for their own education and ultimately their own success. If anything it’s a CONSERVATIVE message!

Yes, I voted for Obama and yes, I almost always lean Democrat. But had this been one year ago and President George W. Bush was giving this address, I would have been 100% for showing it then as well. Party doesn’t matter, it’s the PRESIDENT. Is there no respect for the office left?

I understand if parents want to opt-out. I think they’re playing ostrich– I think it’s shameful that, wow, we might actually allow our children to be exposed to an opinion that differs from ours. We might actually have to let them know that not everyone in the world thinks the same way their parents do. There’s a real world out there they’re going to have to grow up and join one day, but let’s not prepare them for that…

But all that being said, I understand the need for the opt-out. But as a teacher, my hands are more tied than that. After my principal went through three days of hell fielding nonstop e-mails and phone calls, he decided on a policy that left it up to individual teachers, with two conditions: 1) we would have to send home a permission slip, offering both opt-in and opt-out– not such a big deal; and 2) we had to tie the address directly to the current unit we’re teaching– which is all but impossible.

I just don’t have the energy to play parlor tricks to create a justification for allowing The President of our nation, The Leader of the Free World to speak to my students. Apparently, it’s no big deal that during their two years of middle school, they will listen to speeches by both MLK Jr. and Hitler; they will see man’s inhumanity to man from the Holocaust to the atrocities of slavery and Indian “removal” here in our own country; but they can’t listen to their current President telling them the value of education.

I mean, god forbid some mention of government-run health care might slip in, because, you know, that’s would be so much more horrible and “indoctrinating” that learning about the Nazis’ rationale for the Final Solution.

So, Mr. Teach, you will smile and nod and play the game, and then go home and shed a tear for the next generation.

Teaching is wonderful. Grading, not so much. And sleep, though not overrated, is kind of inconvenient.

I haven’t given up
On the Sunday thing
But school started
We all went back to work this week
And that’s
A different story.