-heat:

GAME WAS A BLOWOUT!! 115-83!!

LeBron James 30 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists.
Dwyane Wade 28 points, 2 steals and 2 assists.
Shane Battier 13 points (4-5 3pt FG)
Mario Chalmers 8 points, 11 rebounds
Udonis Haslem 10 points, 6 rebounds

LETS GO WHITE HOT HEAT!!! #HEATNATION!!!!

So I have two different modes for teaching:

1. You respect me while I am giving notes, and you can do the independent problems with others and leisurely talk with them, making the classroom experience smooth and relaxed

or

2. You disrespect me by talking during my notes, which will ensure that I have to be a jerk and become the “timeout teacher.” This means no talking when you could have had time, and me being a total drill sergeant

I just cannot stand people talking when I am presenting information. So I respond accordingly, though I would prefer students choose option A by their actions.

I love teaching, regardless. But sometimes a class calls for a different method, and I am down for that. 

Switch me to abstraction
Ignore me in your thoughts
For what was once the bitter truth
Is now stifling in its loss  

I just want something I can never have.

Just a fading, fucking reminder of who I used to be…

I have a student who comes in every 6th period because he doesn’t like his class or teacher. Since it was just me and him in the room, I asked him why he always skips and how he plans to go on next year. He wants to get his GED and then go on to medical school here at the local college. So for now, he sits in the system, 2 years older than a 9th grader should be, all F’s, his mom wanting him to complete HS. And he just takes up space. He is a pretty good kid from what I have seen, just doesn’t want to be here. 

Really makes me wonder. Will he go on and actually do that, get in the medical field? I don’t want to doubt that or diminish his goals…maybe he really is dead set on it and is just waiting to start his GED and go on. But from my very limited perspective, he is wasting his present time. Hmm.

One thing being religious taught me was to fear.

I guess in some ways, it was a well-meaning request; it was merely saying fear your Lord. Or, in other words, to have reverence toward Him.

…

I took a nap earlier in the day, and didn’t fall asleep again until 4am. But even then, it was a very light sleep, and an hour later I found myself just laying on my bed in the dark. I turned on some music in hopes it would put me to sleep.

With my eyes half-open, staring into darkness, my eyes and the faint lights in my room gave me some cool images to look at in my half-asleep position. What started as an image of black became a swirl of dark, rich blue mixing in with the black, and it was fun to watch. The blue was so richly dark that I almost wondered if it was actually there in my mind.

That is when I realized that, for years on end during my religious days, that I had developed a lot of doubt into what I saw everyday. I don’t mean skepticism. I mean that, when things were presented before me, I had learned to think that I was perhaps imagining things or thinking about them incorrectly.

That fear of the Lord taught me to forget my own desires, and I think, in the process, it taught me how to forget my own abilities with confidence.

This self-doubt is the opposite of confidence in oneself. And a lack of confidence is a terrible thing. I have developed a lack of total confidence in my abilities to do things. I need to gain this back.

What a way to make a realization. Without the ape of religion on me, I aim to make this change.