Crazy or Brilliant? Does it matter?

As most of you know, I've been teaching for a long time. Over the years, I've taught hundreds of kids, and each year there's always a kid or two who leave a lasting impression. These are the kids I'm forewarned about...the kids nobody wants because they were horrible the year before. They have a reputation before I ever meet them, and lucky for me, they seem to always end up in my class. Having always been the youngest teacher or the newest teacher in school, I'm blessed with these little monsters who spent most of their prior years hanging out alone in the hallway because they were kicked out of their kindergarten or 1st grade class for being naughty & disrespectful.

The crazy thing is, these are the kids who make my days teaching so much fun. As much as I want to strangle them at times, they are the ones who entertain and challenge me. I'm fascinated by the way their mind works, and as exhausting as their antics can get, it keeps me on my toes, and they help me to become a better teacher. I learn to be more tolerant and learn to be in awe of how different people's brain works. And usually, these are the kids who are brilliant with a mind of their own & these are the kids who question rules they are told to follow. They usually end up being the sweetest and most loving (even though they don't appear to be on the outside) and they excel in my class because I let them be who they were meant to be.

I have a friend who reminds me of one of these kids. And the reason I'm writing this post is because I just found a copy of an online chat he had with a gear expert at Backcountry.com. (I had to print it out because it was so outrageously funny.) His name is Hasen (pronounced /haw-sin/). He's crazy...but oddly, brilliant. About two months ago, he and my other friends Matt and Phil (who's also weird & talented) came over for dinner. We spent the evening hanging out, talking and playing music. We were up in my bedroom/loft playing piano & guitar while Phil tinkered on my computer. It was a pleasant evening, nothing out of the ordinary, just me getting to know the boys a little better since they were all fairly new friends.

Next morning, I remembered I'd forgotten to turn off the computer. So I went over to my desk and clicked on the mouse to shut it off & noticed an on-line chat screen still open. This is what I found:

Chat information. One moment please while we route you to a gear expert. You're currently number 1 in queue. Like hot deals on gear? Check out www.steepandcheap.com & www.whiskeymilitia.com for killer deals on the best gear on the planet. We'll be right with you.

Thanks for holding. Chat Information. Thanks for contacting us. My name is JJ, how can I help you?

Jason: I'm looking for something that can hold a lot of milk. (That's my friend Hasen. So you know, he doesn't own dogs, not even one.)
Jason: Like, a lot. I have 2 St. Bernard dogs that come camping with me and I need to feed them tons of milk.
JJ: Ok
Jason: They slurp it down like water but the other problem is carrying that much on the trail.
JJ: Let me see what we have.
Jason: Ok.
Jason: They won't drink water, it has to be milk. So it has to be lactose friendly.
JJ: MSR Dromedary Bags - click here
JJ: We have that available in a large 10L size.
Jason: Is that one lactose friendly?
Jason: Is that one alright? What's the diff between a camel and a dromedary? Is dromedary milk?
Jason: Wait, hold on, dromedary is just the name.
JJ: Yes, that is the name of the bag.
Jason: I can put any milk I want in it, right?
JJ. Yes
Jason: Got it.
Jason: So...how do I carry that thing?
JJ: You could just close it up and put it in your pack.
Jason: It's not its own backpack?
JJ: No, it is not.
Jason: Ok.
JJ: Would you rather have a backpack style, those come with a smaller capacity, usually max of around 3L.
Jason: How do I get my dogs to drink out of those? Some sort of dog straw or something? Or I could just pour it into a small dent in the ground or just bring a bowl...
Jason: But they would fight over it and they're big.
JJ: Ruffwear Quencher Cinch Top Dog Bowl- click here
Jason: And it's scary as heck when they fight.
JJ: That is a great portable bowl.
Jason: Oh.
JJ: You could get 2 of those and they will fold up small for you.
JJ: Mountainsmith Dog Trippin' Kit - click here
Jason: I could separate the dogs and tie them to a tree so they can't fight, but then they'd just cry.
Jason: One time the one, Jarb Honey, bit me cuz he got pissed at me.
JJ: That is a pretty cool kit with the bowl, food dish, bed, and dog pack so they could carry their own milk too.
Jason: No shit? Let me look at it real quick.
JJ: Ya, pretty cool, I'd always make my boy carry his own food if he wanted to come with .
Jason: Cool. My dogs are gonna be lovin that leche.
Jason: That means milk.
JJ: Nice
JJ: Let me know if I can help with anything else.
Chat Information Thanks for chatting with us today.

(I wonder what JJ was thinking chatting with Hasen.)

The thing is, I don't think any of us knew he was having this on-line chat while we hung out. When in god's name did he do this, and why in god's name did he decide to query about a leche bowl for his imaginary dogs in the middle of us hanging out, I'll never know. But like I said, it's fascinating to be around people like him, and I bet he was loathed and loved by his teachers, depending on how crazy they were themselves.

Watch him dance:

Little Miss Molly

Just had a little visitor. Normally when people knock on my door, I duck & hide. (My front door has glass panes & you can see in.) I can never say no when they want me to buy something or sign up for a "good" cause, so I've resorted to hiding. Also, you never know if it's going to be a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon Missionary trying to give out stuff for me to read. Last time, it took me four months to get rid of the Book of Mormon this guy left me. Didn't want to throw it away & I couldn't get anyone I know to take it.

I've also tried pretending to be Chinese not speaking any English or broken English at least, but that never works because I'm awful at it. I should take lessons from Hasen since he's so good. Speaks to me with the oriental accent when he thinks I'm having a difficult time understanding him. So rude. (He doesn't get that it might have something to do with him talking 100 miles per hour.) Anyway, I inevitably end up laughing or turning bright red from being embarrassed & feeling guilty.

That reminds me of this time I was at the beach with a friend of mine. This creepy looking dude (okay, not creepy, but no matter how hot they are, I hate being approached at the beach...don't ask me why) came over to us. I was laying on my stomach so it was my friend who ended up talking to him. Since I wasn't participating in the conversation, the guy says, "Your friend's really quiet," to which my friend Grace replies, "Oh, she's a foreign exchange student from China. She doesn't speak much English. I'm in the Chinese class she TA's in." I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't bust out laughing.

Dude: Oh, so you speak Chinese?
Grace: A little. Enough to hang out with her.
D: Will you tell her I think she's beautiful?
G: Sure. To me, "#$%^&*()__)(*&^%$%^&*"

To which I can't help but bust up with my hands over my face.

G: She's shy, but I think she's flattered. Look at her turning red and giggling.
D: What's her name?
G: Sheshuan.
D: Hm, Sheshuan. Does she have a boyfriend?
G: Not that I know of. Why don't you talk to her? She understand a little.

D: YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL NAME!
(Why do we all yell when someone doesn't speak English. I find myself doing the same thing...it's not like they're deaf.)
Me: Thank you, (with the best foreign sounding accent I could muster up.)
D: YOU SPEAK VERY WELL! I DON'T DETECT AN ACCENT! WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO OUT ON A DATE SOMETIME?

I look over to my friend who's sitting there with a straight face. I wanted to kill her for putting me on the spot & as funny as it was watching her speak to me in "Chinese" I started to feel guilty. She pretended to interpret for me with a few more @#$%^&*($#$%^&* and finally told the guy that I had a man waiting for me in China.

Sorry, went on a tangent. Back to my little visitor.

The knock on my door was strong. I knelt to the floor up on my loft and crawled over to the short wall. I slowly moved my head up so I could peek below without them seeing me, but couldn't make out anyone. Then the knock, again. It had to be a dwarf. A kid couldn't knock that hard. I was curious to see what the dwarf may be selling and ran downstairs. When I opened the door, there stood Molly, a cute little red head with freckles- a student of mine from this past year. She stood there with her arms out with a large card she had made for me in her cute little hands. (Have no idea how she knocked so hard.)

Molly had missed me as much as I've been missing her and stopped by with her grandma to say hello. I picked her up and twirled her around and we hugged for a long time. She and I were all smiles and I listened to her as she timidly told me what she's been up to all summer. (Kids get weird when they see you outside of school...hence the timidness.) Sadly, her family is moving to Red Lodge, Montana so her dad can manage the ski resort up there. (And she had promised to teach me how to ski next season so I wouldn't get stuck on a black diamond like I did last year.) I was heartbroken to hear the news, but she assured me she'd come visit.

So that was my little visitor today who came not to sell me anything or talk me into changing my religion, but to just give me lots of love. I miss that about being a kid...just going over to friends' to say hi just because. When did we get so uptight & weird that we have to make appointments to see our friends?

Locally Grown, the Easy Way...

I need to move back to San Francisco. Remember my farming post? (My Farming Fantasy) Look what my friend just sent me... a link to an article about a hired backyard farmer.

Getting Aquainted with the Mormons

Before I met my ex (he's the first Mormon... well, ex-Mormon I had ever met & the catalyst for me being in Salt Lake City,) I thought Mormons were Amish/ Jehovah's Witnesses. Basically I didn't know the difference and thought the tall, skinny bike riding guys with the white helmet & backpack in the city were called Jehovah's Witnesses when they came knocking at your door, and became Amish with seven wives when they returned home to ride their buggies and work the land. (I was obviously confused.)

So the first time I went to Provo to visit my ex's parents (who unlike my ex are still LDS) I was excited to spend a week in a house with no electricity and wondered if I should bring a full skirt, cape, and apron so I didn't stand out in my New York winter garb. But to my disappointment, his childhood home looked more like a page out of Architectural Digest and his parents looked as though they had just stepped out of Bloomingdales.

To help me better understand the culture he had left behind (in seeing my confusion), my ex showed me Southpark's season 7: All About the Mormons. That's where I learned everything I know about the Mormon church and Joseph Smith. So when I moved to SLC against the wishes of my friends, my ex, and my parents to wait for the housing bubble to pop so I could move back to San Francisco, I promised I'd stay away from the Mormons and their divine inspiration from the golden plates, aka the Book of Mormon. The move to Utah was strictly a business venture in my eyes and a way of making another fortune through real estate so I could go back to the city I adore.

For two years, I was pretty successful at staying away from the non-drinking, perpetually happy, Book of Mormon toting populous of this City. Then I met HasenPfeffer. He showed up at my house one night (I had thrown a party for a friend's birthday) uninvited with my friend Phil's ex-wife who I also had never met. Being the gracious host that I am, I walked up to them and said, "Hi. Hmm... I should know you, but I can't seem to recall... Where do I know you from?" When in fact, I was thinking, Who the h*ll are you & why are you on my property? Well, he ended up staying, drinking and partying with the rest of us and even entertained us with a song. Then I found out he was Mormon. A church going Mormon who drinks and parties. I was intrigued...really intrigued.

He was Mormon alright. Without me asking, he came over with his friends and took all my empty bottles from the party to the recycling place at the golf course. In all the parties I had thrown, no one had ever really helped me clean up the mess; and this Mormon I hardly knew volunteered to help. Not only was he nice, but as I subsequently found out in hanging out with him & his friends (he lives pretty close), he turned out to be incredibly cool.

He and I had many discussions about the Mormon religion while getting intoxicated with vino & beer over the next several weeks, but it was never really in-depth as we were partying with friends. Then I met Beau. He is Hasen's friend, and a real Mormon meaning he not only goes to church every week, but follows the church doctrine to a T. But unlike the gray-suit wearing church goers I see on Sundays, he is hip. The first time I met him, he was on his way to church, but looked more like he was going to a young, hipster fashion show in Soho.

Beau and I have had extensive dialogues about his faith in the last few weeks. I even went to the Mormon church with Hasen-Beau last weekend. Even last night I was on the phone with Beau until 2 a.m. exchanging our ideas and beliefs about god. I'm finding out that Southpark might have not been the best source for learning about the Mormons. I'm also realizing Mormons aren't freaks as so many people think they are. They don't have seven wives, they don't have tassels on the nipples of the undergarments they wear ( I don't know where I got that idea), and they actually are quite fun to be around. (Oh and not everyone wears those undergarments.)

Not to worry, I'm not converting. However, what I am being is being open to the people I swore I'd keep away from. Instead of judging and excluding a group of people just because they don't drink coffee & believe in some golden plates, I've decided to embrace them for who they are. My non-Mormon friends here think I'm crazy & on a mission to deflower all the Mormon boys, but that's not it. I've found that a lot of things I believe in are in sink with what the Mormons believe in. It's just that we use a different language to explain our faith.

I love my new Mormon friends, and as my friend Kevin (a native Utah-n who was raised Momorn) from SF always says, "Utah-rds are people, too, you know..." And they really are.

Underpaid & Underappreciated

Teachers get so much slack for getting the summers off. Everyone always says how easy we have it... getting off work at 3:15, working 180 days out of the year, and getting paid during the summer. But that's total bullsh*t. We don't get paid during the summer. They just stretch our nine-month pay into twelve months. What's more, most teachers attend workshops during the summer on their own time, sometimes even forking over their own dough to be there.

I just got back from my summer workshop. It started last Thursday night with a 3-hour, torturous viewing of one of my least favorite operas, the Magic Flute. It was done as a modern adaptation by the NY Metropolitan Opera. They probably spent millions, but it was crap. It felt like the medieval coffin torture and it didn't help that we had to watch it on one of those ancient, large screen TV (the size of a refrigerator) some douchebag invented (the quality also sucked making the viewing even more painful)... you know the one - the ones most meatheads used to salivate over so they could watch football with their buddies screaming bloody murder. (I wonder how the landfills are doing with those suckers now that we can't watch TV on them starting February of next year.)

This week, it was a painful 8 hour day deal (which I must admit I was a few hours late to on one or more occasions, but that's only because I've been to them before & they're very similar except for the Operas we study), just so my students can have a fabulous learning experience. If you were lucky enough to have teachers who did cool stuff with you, you have to realize, they spent many unpaid hours, days, and summers preparing for that sh*t. So don't give me this crap about teachers getting paid plenty for having the summers off!

My friend just emailed me who's spending her summer with her two boys at home for the first time because they are no longer on a year-around school schedule. She writes: I'm going nutso with my kids home 24/7 for the whole summer...I'm not sure I am going to survive!!! And these are her own children she's talking about. We have to deal with 25-34 kids, 7 hours a day for 180 days. What do you think will happen to us if we didn't get the summers off!?

So those of you always giving me crap about how little I work & how much I get paid...shut it. Plus, I'm tutoring a kid who struggled all year with her math without pay, just because... I would like to know how many of you work overtime without pay unless you have to, just because...

And so you know, I stayed up many nights without sleep and without pay so my kids could have this experience at the Rose Wagner Theater. (It's a small clip, but enjoy. Watch the parrot on the right.)