Principles of Equality

Today, I gave a lecture on how to solve equations using the Addition/Subtraction Principles of Equality (DEF: You may add (or subtract) the same value from both sides of the equation without changing the solutions to the equation.) I wanted to go over more material, but they already seemed uneasy about today's stuff...

I started out with 47 people. Now I have about 32. That's about a 68% retention rate. It's OK considering that some colleges a have retention rate of 40-60%

prodigal students

'tis the part of the season where students come back from where ever they've been (other than in class!)

E.S.= Mr. S is probably in his mid-to-late twenties. He's always trying to hustle me, having an excuse in every pocket. When he was attending classes, he was usually 15 minutes late to class and didn't have any paper or a pencil with him to take notes. He would have to borrow something from somebody. He earned an F on the first exam and barely did the HW. My last memory of him (last month) was when he brought his two toddlers with him to an exam day. It was at least 20 minutes into class, and I had already passed out the exam and was doing my proctering, when I heard a rumble coming down the hallway. I looked outside the classroom to see Mr. S, with two kids in tow...riding Big Wheels...making hella noise. I told him, "hey, you can't bring them inside like that...people are trying to take a test". Mr S replies, "awwwww...so what...I can't take my exam?" (I let him take it in the hallway, so he could keep watch over his brood...he got an F on that too)

Anyway, today after a month of absences, he finds me on school grounds and says to me "C'mon Mr. Cruz, let me back into class...I'll do good. I'll catch up. My kids have been sick, and I've had to deal with a funeral." I told him, "Try again next semester...I've already given you a chance. You're too far behind and won't pass. Next time stop messing around. You've got to come to class prepared. This is college now."

C.M.=I mentioned C.M. in a previous post. She was the one going through spousal abuse and also did some jail time. She's missed about three weeks of classes. Though a handful, she's improved greatly in the class and earned an A on the last exam. Today she wanted to come back into the fold. Because I know that she will truly try to catch-up, I'm willing to work with her on material she's missed. She introduced me to some new linggo today: "funk season" as in

"Damn Mr. Cruz, you shoulda seen it in my philosphy class...we was talkin about stereotypes when this lady, (whispers) she's white, says 'For example, some people say black people are dumb'. Then all these young knuckle heads start shouting 'Oh HELL NO!! it's funk season now! it's funk season now!!'.

They was about to box, Mr. Cruz! I had to tell them 'It's just an example! It's just an example!' "

so funk season = some ass-whuppin is about to begin...

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reunited and it feels so good...

(drum roll) flew up to canada yesterday...and boy are my arms tired! (ba-DUM-bump)

it's been raining non-stop in vancouver. temperature is in the low 40's. today tina, mom, and i went down to metro-town(a shopping mall). little baby has really been growing these past few weeks (tina's belly button has gone from an innie to an outtie!) and none of tina's dresses fit her now. so, she wanted to pick up a dress over at Thyme Maternity. she tried on a black evening dress and showed it to me outside of the dressing room. tina's even more beautiful now than ever...GORGEOUS!

on a different but related note: imagine sleeping right next to your partner...it's all quiet, and you're in that half-awake zone where the world seems dreamy yet real. all of a sudden, you feel a little poke in your side coming from inside your partners tummy. then you think...huh...was that what I thought it was? it's still quiet and dark...then you get poked again.

yeah it's pretty amazing...the baby is jumping and moving and dancing up a storm!

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somedays you just wanna...

YEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL ;8[

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Life in transition

I found out today that my sister and her husband might be moving out to Mountain House. It's about 45-60 minutes east of Fremont in the San Joaquin Valley. They were trying to convince us to move out there too. I dunno though, in Northern California parlance....that's HELLA far. It would probably mean a 1.5 hour commute each day, one way. Three hours a day on the road seems like a waste of time to me. I would probably end up looking for a teaching gig closer, like in Stockton or Livermore.

But, looking for a new gig with a baby on the way doesn't seem like a good idea. I would need to be sure that I would get a gig. I suppose it doesn't hurt to look, especially since I got a pink slip last week. We are in the midst of negotiations with the district; their bargaining tool was give everyone pink slips. This move gives them the leverage to lay off people down the road.

Life constantly throws curve balls at ya. The trick is to be resilient, roll with the punches, and bend like the reed in strong wind.

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I've been remiss in my blog updates. I used to be pretty good at writing journal entries. In the past few years though, I haven't been able to keep up with it as much. I've been trying to log my thoughts and life for awhile though. I first started keeping a journal in 1988. I probably have at least 8 journal books by now.

In about 45 minutes, I'm gonna drop what I'm doing and read to the baby. The baby has been pretty good at maintaining a regular schedule. If this holds true tonight, then the little one will start to stir around 11pm. Last night Tina and I spent a few minutes watching for the movements in her belly. Little baby is big enough to push up the skin, causing little bumps to rise on her stomach.

Anyway, we've taken Crisper's advice and started reading The Da Vinci Code, only we're reading the book to baby...

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Blanked

Wow...we were on the water for 9 hours, but only caught two fish between the three of us. My share of the catch was zilch...blank...nohting...but like I said, it's ok to not to catch fish (only every once is awhile.) For me, the enjoyment was hanging out with good friends and enjoying the spring/summer like weather . It was good to be on the water?

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I'm so excited...

Some people have that one activity that they really, really enjoy...almost to the point of fanaticism. They can put countless hours into it, and yet when the day is done, it seems as though only seconds have passed. Maybe it's something like working on or racing a car, playing a sport like basketball or golf, or painting a picture. You put time into it, you put money into it, and though you might not always be successful, it's all good because the enjoyment is in the activity.

I'm lucky(?) to have a few of these kind of interests. You might find me deep in a good sci-fi book; when I had more time, I could read for hours (5+) straight. Or you might find me jamming with friends on Pilipino musical instruments. There's something about getting lost in the music of a Jota or a Kalingga beat.

My second oldest hobby (frist: reading) is fishing. I caught the fishing bug early on thanks to my dad. He used to do a lot of deep-sea fishing when I was young. I must have been around 5 or 6 when I remembered him coming home one afternoon with a bags of fresh caught ling and rock cod. These fish were huge! They were almost as big as me at the time. They were bright red or dark brown, with massive jaws and bulging eyes. He would then take a bolo knife and clean the fish out himself in the backyard. The whole house stirred in excitement during these times. My lolo or uncle (or whichever relative was staying with us at the time) would exclaim several times over "Eh-eh!! Ang laki! Tingnan mo 'yan...presh na presh!" or "Ah-ah! Masarap 'yan sa sinigang o paksiw!!" It was it was nice little village scene in our Union City backyard :)

Later in high school, my friends and I used fishing as an excuse to break curfew. We would go out late at night and call in to say that we were fishing...which we really were. But it was cool...kind of like the movie "Stand By Me" where a group of guys were just growing up through the adventures around them. We learned our independence trhough these fishing trips...late night adventures on beach or a pier and weekend trips on our own to Clear Lake (4 hours away). Starry nights canopying a little drinking, a little smoking, and a lot of talk about life and girls and the future.

Well, as life does so well, my days are now filled with other important things like work and spending time with my wife. So, I relish even more the time that I can spend on the water. This Saturday, I'm going fishing with one of those high school buddies. The anticipation in me has been swelling for the past few days. The weather here has been warm, which will hopefully encourage the wintering fish to bite. I spent three hours last night getting my tackle box together. We launch out tomorrow on our bass boat at 4:30am and will spend about ten hours on the water...but when the day's done, whether or not we catch anything, I'm sure it'll only feel like a few seconds of my life have passed.

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Killing time at work

It's 3:23pm and 2º short of 80º (or using the formula Cº = (5/9)*(Fº – 32), about 26ºC...heh heh...cmon...I'm a Math teacher). It seems hotter than yesterday, so I bet some temperature records have dropped today too. If this were any other day, I would already be home from work, enjoying a cool adult beverage or a scoop of creamed ice. But alas, tears tears to me, I'm here at work today until 5pm.

At 4pm today I will be interviewing a candidate for an adjunct professor position. At this college, I've probably interviewed 15 people since I started work. It's a routine process: first we ask set questions pertaining to Basic Skills mathematics instruction, then we have the candidate conduct a teaching demonstration, then we try to answer any questions that the candidate might have, and we finish off the process (after the candidate leaves) with a discussion on how the candidate faired.

It's been awhile since I've gone through the interview gauntlet. Most of interviews have been panel-style. I sit in front of 5-6 people who take turns asking me questions. Most of my interviews have also included teaching demonstrations. My hardest interview was a group interview. Here the panel interviewed 5 or 6 candidates at the same time. It was tough trying to make my answers stand out or apart from the other candidates...especially when most were essentially saying the same thing!
I've had two bad interviews in my life. In the first, I was underqualified for the job and pretty much BS-ed my way through the interview...and the interviewers knew it too! Heh heh, I think I was slinging it around like mud! During the second worst, I broke a computer during the interview :)

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Findin our groove

Over the holidays, Tina and I spent about a month straight together: part of it in Vancouver and part of it here in the Bay Area. Last summer we spent almost 3 weeks together in Hawaii. So in a sense, we've already sampled out cohabitation, and it's been very very cool. Yet that time together still doesn't compare to life now. Maybe it's because back then we were in vacation mode. Or maybe because back then, come sunday or monday, Tina or I would have to face the sad fact that one of us had to leave to head back home. And because it might be weeks before we saw each other again, we relished every moment together, enjoying every little minute of each other's company.

Now, Tina's been here for over a week, and we've been doing a good job settling down! Yet, deep within, the feeling lingers that the old pattern will continue and one of us has to leave...bringing us back to marriage via airplane trips, over phone lines or email, and through Internet cameras. I suppose this is because our relationship, from the beginning, has been a long-distance one. We even had to do it for the first 8 months of our marriage :(

Last night, as Tina was getting ready for bed and I was getting ready for the next day's work, I looked over at Tina and realized "wow...i'm not going anywhere and neither is tina...this is what our life is gonna be like...this is really it." as i watched tina tidy up around the room, it dawned on me that i didn't have to worry anymore about us splitting apart...our life together was well on it's way...in holidays, in vacations, in the day-to-day mundane; and i've never felt more at peace, more sure about anything in all of my life...

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Feeding the baby

this weekend was BUSY! on friday tina and I played tour guide, showing my recently arrived cousin from the PI the sights and sounds of San Francisco. It turned out to be a gorgeous day! In the morning, we started with a clear view of the City from the top of Twin Peaks and then headed out to Golden Gate Bridge. The skies were blue, dotted only with a few streaking clouds. We then drove down Crooked Street on Lombard and ended up at Fisherman's wharf for lunch. Nothing like bread bowl clam chowder and fresh clamari and chips! Top that off with a sunny midday stroll amidst seagulls and street performers and other tourists and Ben and Jerry's IceCream! We finished off our tour with a visit to Union Square to check out Niketown and Old Navy.

Saturday we visited historic Pinole for the the 2nd birthday of cricket, Liza and Moe's daughter. Again, the sun was out, skies were blue, and we had that refreshing bay breeze to balance it all out! We had pancit, macaroni and cheese (for the kiddies), tuna sashimi and some kick-ass barbecue. We were also fortuntate enough to meet with long lost Likha friends...Margie, Jun, Mur, Fides, Raf, Mae, and Ida...with matching brood! It's amazing to see so many Likha kids running around!

Saturday night Tina and I had my groomsmen over with their respective wives. It was a potluck dinner, so I grilled up a few miso-marinated seabass and salmon steaks. We ate shabu-shabu style, grilling kalbi short ribs and vegetables while we shared food, wine, and kuwento!

The next day, Tina and I had dim sum in Oakland at Legendary Palace. It was pretty good, but dim sum in Vancouver was better and cheaper! Afterwards, we flew down to Great Mall in Milpitas in 45mins and after an hour or too of strolling, headed back home for an extended family get together.


Man!! I've been trying to avoid it, but almost all our activities seem to revolve around food! Some friends who've had babies told me to watch out for sympathy weight gain...now I believe it!

On a different tip, all our activities this weekend also revolved around family and friends...8)

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Sprechen Sie CODE?

Call me square, but I like learning code. Sure it's like learning a new language, which in itself is cool. But learning computer code is more; it's like learning how to paint or draw or sculpt. When you learn new commands or syntax or procedures you can use them to create new things...like a comment section. Yeah, it's a basic and almost trivial little add-on, but I live for these small joys in life...these small joys fill in the gaps between big joys in life.

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On teachin...

I teach classes only from M-Th. That's just how my schedule works out. So today is like my Friday. It sounds like a cush job, and in someways it is. But this week, I'm glad it's "Friday." My course load consists primarily of basic skills courses. This means I'm teaching arithmetic and pre-algebra courses to adults attending my community college. My students have been as young as 12 to as old as in their 60's. They can be fresh out of high school, never graduated from high school, or haven't been in school for countless years. We serve an economically depressed area; unfortunately this translates into high unemployment, high poverty, and poor education. I get many students who are not prepared for college. That's where my job begins; my goal is to get these students ready for college level math work when they come to me not knowing how to add fractions.

I teach 5 classes with roughly 30-40 students. So this semester I have about 160 students under my wing. This week, many of my students were like little chicks : ...eep...eep...eep...feed me...eep...eep...how do i do this...eep...eep...how do i do that? They were asking questiong after question. This is my own doing though because I try to make myself accessible to the students. I encourage questions during my lecture and try to foster discussion/debate about the content. I tend to have good student participation...maybe even too much! It's both tiring and taxing attending to the needs of so many.

Today I publicly chided students whose yawning was a bit loud and obtrusive. I was initially irritated, and I'm sure it showed. But I smiled it off...and told 'em I understood because I was in their shoes before:tired of school, bored in class, etc. But it's still rude to yawn so loudly.

I passed back exams today in two classes. For one class, 13 out of 35 got a D or F and for the other class 15 out of 40 got a D or F. One of my former D students got an A this time around. I was very proud of her...this past year she's been a victim of spousal abuse and also done some time in jail. Despite, the drama going on in her life, she's been really trying to turn her life around and focus on her school work. She's made great progess! I remember her first time in my class a year ago. She got in a heated argument with some other students the first day. Man, she was about to BOX. I had to sit down and talk with her about what was appropriate and not appropriate in college classes and in school in general. She dropped out of my class then, but she's gotten herself back on track and been doing well. I like working with these underdogs. That's why I teach...

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