February 2012
17 posts
I'm not sure if this what was going on...
…but this is how I saw it.
I spent just about all of today helping family move. They’ve lived in this house for the past 21 years. That’s a lot of memories piled in one house.
In all the piles of memories I saw a skateboard. There was nothing really special looking about it, but since I used to skate a lot, I felt drawn to it.
I didn’t recognize the brand of the board but the shape reminded me of a blacklabel I used to skate. It had venture trucks with riser pads and the wheels that were so worn down it was hard to tell the brand.There was still a good amount of pop and the concave was just how I liked. After a few failed kickflip attempts, I stopped to continue helping load the uhaul.
Thirty, maybe 45 minutes went by, and I noticed one of my cousins trying to show one of my nephews how to skate. She was the cousin that first put me on a skateboard when I was four or five and sent me down a steep driveway.
I’m not sure if she was as excited to show him as she looked when she first put me on a board, but there was definitely a light in her that I haven’t seen for a long time. It was kind of refreshing to see. It kind of reminded me that no matter how much time changes people, they’re still the same person.
Christina D... Straight. No Chaser.: I sometimes get the feeling that some religious leaders in this country (and most of their flock) ultimately fail to ask... →
str8nochaser.tumblr.com
I think this is why I’m starting to get uncomfortable with “The Church”.
I love God. I love Jesus. I am a person of faith….
I find The Church who are supposed to be God’s light to the word, creating darkness, hatred, bigotry and intolerance.
That doesn’t jive with the Jesus I came to know.
The Jesus that hung out with society’s “throw away people”.
Adventures in Learning: Teaching: a profession I believe is one of the most important in society.... →
adventuresinlearning.tumblr.com
Yesterday I posted a paragraph from Grace Lee Boggs book The Next American Revolution, it caused a lot of anger from some classroom teachers and I moved by the passion expressed. I don’t think students are alone in being failed by the way schools are organized, I think teachers are also failed….
“If I should have a daughter, instead of “Mom,” she’s gonna call me “Point B,” because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.” And she’s going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry. So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried. “And, baby,” I’ll tell her, don’t keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I’ve done it a million times. You’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him.” But I know she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that’s the way my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this. ♫ There’ll be days like this, my momma said. ♫ When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away. You will put the wind in winsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. “Baby,” I’ll tell her, “remember, your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.” Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. And always apologize when you’ve done something wrong, but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small, but don’t ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.”
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- Sarah Kay
Poem
(via krislorifuentescortes)
There's a lot brewing in this life of mine...
I did a shoot for PuppetRadio yesterday (check them out http://puppetradio.com … the current pictures on their site aren’t mine). I briefly looked through them and I’d have to say I’m pretty happy with them. Especially since the shoot was scheduled for a time of day that didn’t offer the best lighting. While I was trying to plan out some shots for this shoot I had a thought about myself that I’ll have to think about a bit deeper to come to a conclusion. I wonder if I’m more of a graphic designer that has quite a bit of knowledge and know-how of photography, or a photographer that knows a lot about graphic designing and has the know-how to get the job done well. I know I could say that I’m both a graphic designer and a photographer, but I noticed I don’t think of shoots like other photographers I know do, and when photos are involved with a design I don’t exactly look at them the same as other graphic designers I know do.
One other thing I’m quite involved with is The Ukesperiment. It’s free classes a friend and I teach at Libraries every Saturday for three months. It’s for kids up to 17yrs old. The main goal of it is to give kids another way to learn how to learn how to play an ukulele other than watching youtube videos and copying what they see. Last week we met with JFK Library in Vallejo to get things set up there to teach. The classes there are scheduled to start on March third from 1-2pm every Saturday. After the three months we’ll give the kids about three weeks to work on what we’ve taught them and then we’ll teach a workshop open to everyone, young and old, where the kids of The Ukesperiment will have a chance to perform. It was quite successful at the Suisun City Library and we’re hoping for it to be just as successful, if not more, at the JFK Library.
There’s more going on right now but this post is already longer than I intended. The rest of the stuff will end up in different posts in the near future. Now I should get some sleep before my bike ride later on this morning.
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Teach for America and the Transformation of the US into a Low Wage Nation
More and more, Teach for America seems to be an instrument for union busting by local school districts. Here’s the scenario: A local school district is having budget problems. They lay off, or fire veteran teachers, then bring in Teach for America to replace them. The school districts saves millions of dollars in labor costs, short run, and even more money in the long because of reduced pension costs. The students lose because teachers who devoted their lives to their profession, and live in the community, are replaced by sojourners trained for five weeks who rarely stay beyond their two year commitment. But the community also loses because a sector of the local labor force which has decent pay and benefits is destroyed, thereby making it easier for employers in the private sector to keep wages low. Make no mistake about it, union busting, though it may reduce the tax burden on residents of municipalities and states, accelerates the transition of the United States as a low wage nation ruled by a wealthy elite of CEO’s and managers. Teach for America, by actively accelerating this transition, is doing deadly damage to the young people it is trying to help by insuring they graduate into a labor force where work opportunities, for all but a small minority, are low paying and insecure. Those young people who seek to become part of this once admirable organization need to very carefully examine what its role in the United States social and economic system is TODAY.
” —Mark NaisonTeach • Occupy Wall Street(via adventuresinlearning)
Today was a good day...
I don’t really talk too much about how my life goes too much on this tumblr, but something compelled me to this time — at least a brief summary of today.
I got to start my day by talking to one of my nieces that’s graduating soon. Last time I talked to her about how things are going I got the default answers she probably tells all her aunts and uncles and parents and anyone else that she thinks would expect her to have everything together. This time she was more open and honest with her answers. Even though it is nice to hear her say she has her plan set out and she’s following it, really how many of us really have a plan set in stone that we follow. She set some guidelines to follow leaving room for life. She’s super nervous about growing up but that’s normal. Anyone that was never nervous about growing up is either a liar or a different breed of human than I’m used to.
Afterward I got home and got to go on a short bike ride. I’ve been trying to raise my average speed while increasing my endurance. Today it was 17.1mph. I’d like it to be at least 20mph doing 25mile rides. I feel like that’s so far away but I’m getting there.
This ride wasn’t really for the sake of riding (it kind of was), but I was meeting with a friend to brainstorm a bit for an online series we’ll be filming in the near future.
After that I got home again, changed, and left to help shoot an interview for a documentary another friend of mine is putting together. I’m not gonna go into detail about the interview (you’ll have to wait for the finished product to know about it, but let’s just say if you like hip hop, you’ll like this documentary), but something that the interviewee said kinda hit home with me.
He said, “I do a little bit of so many things, I’m not really known for anything.”
That kind of describes me a bit, just in different context than he meant. I’m completely fine with never being known for anything. There’s so much to life I’d like to experience, in the short amount of time we live, I can’t really stick with one thing.
Now it’s time to work on a shirt design I’ve been trying to get done. It could be done if I stopped starting over. If I have time I’ll start another painting that I’d like to get done in a few weeks.
Good night tumblr.
