Here's something that I posted on my flickr page a few days ago.

I feel like I'm just posting pictures taken a long time ago, and I'm not actually doing the whole "photography" thing anymore.

Oh wait. Maybe I feel that way because I'm just posting old pictures and not taking any.

*sigh* I love teaching. Honestly, I do. But unless you've done it yourself, you have no idea.

Try this. Develop an engaging 45 minute lesson. Something that will teach the students something, meet state standards, build on what you've already taught and point towards what you will teach later. Now do 15 a week. Don't forget to include writing (in all forms), literature, public speaking, grammar, and visual literacy. Consider the two Spanish speaking students you have. Make modifications for IEP students.

You got that? Cool. All that great lesson planning you did just created 5 journal entries per student per week, plus one writing assignment per student per week. So come Friday you have 660 items to grade.

Start with the journals. It may seem like 550 things to get through and grade, but remember, each student left 5 bits of his/her life in there, and you need to treat it like it matters (because it does). So be sure to leave some sort of comment on each journal (550 comments). Now read their writing assignment. You have 40 descriptions of a dream vacation (7th grade), 30 descriptions of an event (9th grade) and about 40 pieces of essays (11th grade). Read the paragraphs from 7th and 9th grade and leave marks by mistakes that need to be corrected (we'll do that in class next Wednesday) and then read the 11th grade papers. Leave coments on each of these telling the students what they need to change, remove, add or modify in their paper. That will be their writing assignment for this coming week.

Now go take pictures for your 365.

(If you read this whole whine-fest, then you seriously need to get a life. Go take some pictures or something. I'll get over it.)

Sorry I've not updated in a while. School has been keeping me quite busy.

Dad left last Sunday. A group of bikers showed up and gave him a hero's send off. It was very special. I just found out on Friday that one of my student's dad is in the same location as mine...I'll have to let him know about that.

Saturday night my friend Jason and his family came over. Then a fellow just down the road got a flat, so we ended up spending about an hour and a half helping him out. The spare was chained and locked in place, so we had to get a bolt cutter to cut the chain. We called almost everyone we could think of, and finally Brother Tobbie from church offered us his. So we drove out and got that, then got the tire loose, then had to re-inflate it. But we had fun just hanging out doing it, so it was fun.

Classes are going well. We are reading the book "Killing Mr. Griffon" with the 9th grade classes and they seem to be enjoying it quite a bit. I've got one seventh grade class that is becoming quite a challenge...I'm hoping to get that under control soon. I'm cracking down pretty hard on them right now.

Stokton's birthday party out at Blue Hole was a blast, but I got a bad sun burn. Next time I'll remember to apply sunscreen!

I'm getting off now. I've got to get stuff ready for classes tomorrow.

With victories over the likes of Ken Shamrock, Jorge Rivera, Evan Tanner (twice!) and Wanderlei Silva, you would think you would be in a good position. Add to that some great knock-out highlight material, two succesful defenses of the UFC middle weight belt and a stellar record (25-4-1). Only three men have ever beaten him: current champ Anderson Silva, current light heavy weight champ Lyoto Machida and former Pride champ (in two divisions!) Dan Henderson. There is no shame in loosing to any of those guys. You would think this guy would be on top of the world.

But Rich Franklin is very, very far from the top of the world. He is, in fact, probably the most stuck person in all of MMA. Franklin really should fight at 185, but what's the point? Silva took his belt in brutal fashion. He didn't just beat him: it was a slaughter. Franklin won his next two fights and re-challenged for the title. Silva destroyed him again. There is no way he is ever getting a shot at Silva again, and if he knows what's best for him, he doesn't want one.

But he can't move up to LHW either. Once again, there's no point. He would be fighting men much bigger than him, and the eventual goal would be to fight Machida. But he's already fought Machida and lost. And the Machida of today is much improved over the Machida that beat him before. Once again, there's just not much point to letting them fight again.

And he can't make the cut to 170: he's just too big.

So what do you do if you're Rich Franklin? Hang around, take fights when you can, and lobby like mad for a 195 division. Maybe he'll get it.

You've got to feel sorry for the guy.

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

Grappling class on Thursday was intense. Very few people showed up, so those of us that were there (all three of us!) did a lot of rounds. My legs are so sore I can barely move. We also did 9 minutes of straight ab work...anything except fetal position is painful. Wow.

Silva knocks out Griffin in the first round. Poor fellow never had much of a chance. But who does against Silva? It will be interesting to see how Henderson tries to approach him the second time.

I just finished reading Killing Mr. Griffin. It's a fun book. I think we'll probably read that and do character analysis with it...internal conflict, external conflict, changes in character, that kind of thing. It should be fun. Next week sometime we are going to read the first chapter from All Creatures Great and Small and talk about the basic structure of a story plot. I love that story, so it should be fun.

Friday I had some good conversations with some of my fellow new hires. The new librarian seems like a really neat lady, and I've enjoyed listening to the new band director talk (since I could hardly get a word in edgewise anyway!) Seriously though, he seems like a cool guy and it will be neat to see what he does with band and choir. I also had a good conversation with one of the math teachers and the home ec. teacher. I'm getting more and more pumped about the school year.

Oh! I got my class list for four out of six of my classes...so far my largest is 20 students. I love it!

In other news, Chera's car died on her and we worried for bit what this would do to her moving down, but we've got things worked out now.

Dad spent way too long in the attic today in the 101 degree weather. When he came down and I saw how bad he looked it really scared me. I talked to him later and said basically, "Dude, your 55 years old! You can't pretend this heat isn't there! Don't be an idoit!"

I've been talking with our youth pastor at church about setting up a class to help kids transition from Children's Church to big church. The idea would be to meet during service every other Sunday and go over some church basics: why do we have church meetings? What is the worship for? What is our part in worship? What is our part in the message? How do you take notes during a message? What is the greatign time for? What do you do when spiritually attacked in church (I think this happens far more often than we want to admit)? What if I disagree with the message? Our children's pastor is gone on vacation, but when she get's back I'll talk to her too...hopefully we can start something in September.

Good night!

Interesting article on Kenny Florian's background. I don't see how he can win this fight. But I'm praying he does.

The good news is, if Penn wins this time, Sanchez will beat him early next year.

July Flickr Mosaic

July Flickr Mosaic
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

This is actually a blog, but should go with the picture. So just click on the picture.

Post UFC 100 thoughts (number 2)

Mark Coleman vs. Stephan Bonnar

Ok, I was entirely wrong. Coleman showed up in shape and demonstrated that he is still the same thing as when he won UFC 10: a huge, incredibly powerful man with world-class wrestling and very heavy hands. On top of that, he showed some improved bjj and control from the back. Bonnar's days in the UFC are numbered.

This may seem way to early to predict this, but if Coleman can keep this up for two more fights, I think he'll be given a title shot. Everybody said Rashad's only hope against Machida was his wrestling, but Rashad isn't really wrestling anymore. Coleman could be marketed as the guy who has what it takes to defeat Machida.

BTW, the next person to use the phrase "rubrix cube of pain" in regard to Machida deserves to die.

Jon Jones (wow!) vs. Jake O'Brien

O'Brien's boxing was much better than I expected. Jones (wow!) fought well, although not quite as good as against Bonnar. I'm not sure if I've ever seen somebody finish with that choke before. Quite impressive. I was also very impressed with the fake take down into spinning elbow. Sweet.

Dong Hyun Kim looked quite impressive. That dude is in great shape and his judo is certainly to be reckoned with. As much as wrestlers dominate in MMA, I wonder if more interest in MMA geared judo might not produce some incredible fighters over the next few years. Wrestlers take people down and end up in guard. Judo fighters take people down and land in half control, often with their weight on the other guy's chest.

We watched the new X-men movie yesterday night. It was a fun action flick. But it has got me thinking a bit about this idea that so many movies have that killing a horrible person makes you like them.

Example: Hero has a chance to kill main bad guy. Hero is the only person who can kill bad guy. Hero knows that bad guy is an avid serial killer, having made a habit of killing people for the heck of it for years. So hero looks at bad guy and says, "I'm not like you." and lets him go.

What? You've done something noble by allowing this guy go and kill again? This makes no sense at all.

I'm getting very excited about teaching this coming year. And incredibly nervous.

Seven years ago I walked into Gymnastics City with no idea what I was about to get myself into. The gym had started a class for homeschool kids, and I figured it'd be fun to learn a little tumbling and have something to do with my younger siblings. So I took the class. Looking back on it, I'm sure the sight of a 17 year old doing cartwheels with the little kids must have looked rather strange. Probably because she didn't know what else to do with me, the coach started teaching me to spot. Before I knew it I was working a couple evenings each week helping out with rec classes, then working some with the team, then teaching summer camps, then coaching at competitions, then becoming the lead teacher for all rec classes and training new employees. I have finished high school, floundered through a couple crummy jobs, crossed the Pacific several times, learned Chinese, earned my black belt, changed churches, changed colleges, graduated from college...through all that, one of the most constant things in my life has been gymnastics.

Today was my last day.

I wanted to do a self portrait today...something that could convey the swirl of emotions I felt as I hugged the kids goodbye, talked to parents about my new job and cleaned out my locker. I even took the camera to gym today. But how do you convey the emotions of thousands of back hand springs, grins, tears, ripped hands, pats on the back, "I can do it myself!", cannon balls into the pit, explaining again which direction they rotate through the stations? I don't know.

One of the kids gave me a thank you card today. I cried. When she first came to the gym she was a scared five year old, still bearing fresh emotional scars from an abusive father. She was terrified of men and it was weeks before she would even let me touch her. It took a long time, but she has slowly healed. Today she gave me a hug and said, "I'll still text you my scores from meets."

Another girl was found locked in car outside a casino. She came to us a shell of a child, quiet and afraid. She's had a tough road, and more than once I've sat with her on a panel mat and talked and let her cry. A few weeks ago her mother wanted to take her back, while her foster parents wanted to keep her, and we prayed the whole week they were in court. The next Monday she runs into the gym, gives me a hug and says, "I'm being adopted!"

Yet another girl came to us with incredible skills, but she was scared of the high bar. Apparently she had broken her arm falling from the high bar at another gym. For weeks we worked on her dismount, starting with two spotters, then just one, then just one hand, then me standing next to the bar. Once she was doing it by herself we called her mom over to watch. The girl landed the dismount and gave her mom the biggest grin you ever saw.

Little victories won. Milestones reached. High fives given. Grand parents impressed. Discoveries made. Fears overcome. Tears cried. Dismounts stuck.

I don't know how to put that into a picture.

But I know I'm going to miss it.

I got a job!

Two years ago I did an internship at Liberty High school. It was just an eight day event, but I enjoyed working with the teachers I was with and learned a lot. A few weeks ago I saw a posting for a job there, so I sent in my resume. Last week they asked me out for an interview and Monday I was offered a job! I actually signed the contract Tuesday! I'm going to be in the same room I interned in. I'll be teaching 7th, 9th and 11th grade English. I have a SmartBoard too, which is really cool!

It's a 50 minute drive one way. :( I don't like that. But I'll live. I'm employed!

Shameless Exploitation of Young Artists

Shameless Exploitation of Young Artists
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

A real post coming soon. While you wait, enjoy this shot from VBS.

UFC 100 thoughts, part 1.

Well, I made several predictions, so now I'll talk about what actually happened. I have yet to watch the prelims, so I'll post part two after I see those.

Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir (chapter 2)

Ok, so I was entirely wrong. Lesnar's strategy for neutralizing Mir's BJJ was excellent. It's very scary to see someone as good off his back as Mir look as helpless as he did in that first round.

Lesnar post-fight was a disgrace. Treating a fighter as respectful and admirable as Frank Mir with such disrespect is highly offensive. At this point I have no idea who can take this guy out, but I hope they do it quickly and send him running. I have high hopes that a heavy handed striker such as Shane Carwin might be able to do this. I was quite impressed with the sportsmanship and commentary provided by Carwin on his blog entry about UFC 100.

Georges St-Pierre vs. Thiago Alves

I called for fourth round stoppage, but instead it went the distance. In my defense, had GSP not pulled his groin in the third round, he may well have finished Alves in the fourth. Alves is an amazing fighter who has torn through the ranks at 170 pounds, and then GSP totally destroyed him. The man is unreal. He is also the perfect picture of how a champion should act pre and post fight.

Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping

I called for an early third round KO of Bisping and instead he was knocked out mid-way through the second. Not a bad call, if I may say so myself. I don't approve of the follow through punch, but after the way Bisping acted I can certainly understand why Henderson did it.

Now he probably gets to fight for the title again. Silva will finish him. Again.

Jon Fitch vs. Paulo Thiago

Fitch, as I called it. I was impressed with his control on the ground and his constant search for a submission.

In other news, I had a job interview yesterday. It went VERY well. The principal interviewed me, then took me straight to the superintendent for a second interview. At one point I answered a question and the prinicpal actually squealed and clapped her hands. :) So I have high hopes for that one.

VBS is next week. I feel very unprepared. But I think I should be ready by Monday. See y'all later!

Ok, here are my thoughts on UFC 100.

First of all, to those claiming that this is not a great card...what on earth do you want? Two titles, GSP, Mir, Alves, Lesnar, Henderson, Bonner, Colemen, Jones (wow!), Fitch...what else do you want? About all that's missing is Fedor (which you'll never see), Randy (fighting soon), Silva (fighting soon), Penn (fighting soon), Griffin (fighting soon) and Royce himself. They can't throw every single fighter in the cage in one night, what would they do for 101? Is it the best card ever? Probably not, but we can't know 'til the fights are over. Quite belly aching and enjoy it.

Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir (chapter 2)



Yes, Lesnar is a freaking huge man. Yes, he is an incredibly fast learner. Yes, he has a very good chance of keeping that belt. But my money on Mir. In the UFC, Lesnar has defeated Herring, who isn't exactly a standout and Randy Courture. Randy is an amazing man, no doubt, but he's no heavy weight. And Randy was beating him until that one shot landed. While I think Lesnar will be in MMA for a while and will soon be an amazing fighter, I don't see that he's had the time to come up to the level he needs to for a fighter like Mir. A couple years of BJJ defense training aren't going to cut it against somebody like Mir. On top of that, Mir actually does have the strength to withstand Lesnar. No, he won't over power him, but if he fights smart and uses his strength correctly, he can keep the fight from turning into what we saw with Randy.

I'm hoping they decide to stand and we get to see Mir display more of that boxing we saw against Nogueira. But I am predicting a second or third round sub due to a heal hook. I hope Lesnar doesn't get hurt, because he honestly has incredible potential.

Random fact: Herring is the dude who knocked out that guy for kissing him during the pre-fight stare down in K-1. That's like my favorite MMA clip of all time. check it out

Georges St-Pierre vs. Thiago Alves

GSP by 4th round stoppage. It's very difficult to beat a guy who trains like GSP. But Alves has a pretty darned good chance.

Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping
Henderson by early third round KO. Bisping drops to feather weight. Fast forward six months: Silva again destroys Henderson.

Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher
Don't know enough about these fighters to call it. From what I hear it will be a great fight.

Jon Fitch vs. Paulo Thiago
Fitch. The guy is tough.

Mark Coleman vs. Stephan Bonnar
Ok, I see why this fight is happening...you've got to make a nod to the past during UFC 100. So if you're going to throw in an old man with only half a lung...why not let some of the younger blood use him as a stepping stone? Bonnar was totally unable to handle Jon Jones (wow!) in his last fight, but nobody wants to see the other half of Griffin/Bonner to leave. So this should work well for him. If only Bonnar would show improvement in his fighting like Griffin has done.

Jon Jones (wow!) vs. Jake O'Brien
Yes, in my mind the "(wow!)" is part of the guy's name. The fight against Bonnar was unreal. From what I've read, O'Brien is simply a wrestler...and Jones (wow!) is a better wrestler. The only problem I have with Jones (wow!) is he seemed to tire a bit in the Bonnar fight. He needs to be sure to work on his cardio a TON. With his fighting style, he'll need it.

Oh, and btw...I'm seriously hoping and praying that Florien takes the belt. Then Penn will lay on the mat and throw a kicking, screaming fit until his mother comes and takes him off to bed, promising to call her lawyer in the morning. Then maybe White will be so embarressed he'll never let him step foot a UFC cage again.

Well, I am long over due for a real post. I've been enjoying playing around with my flickr page so much lately that I haven't taken the time to blog. Shame, shame, shame!

This week has been a total blast. Wednesday we spent the afternoon and evening swimming and cooking out with the Teague family. The general consensus was that we are really, really bad at volleyball, but it is fun nonetheless. We swam until about 10...which is waaaaay too late, I know, but it was still a lot of fun.

Thursday Ethan and I went back out to Eastwood dojo to learn some more grappling. I've learned two things in the past week: I have almost no clue what to do on the ground, and I'm loving working on it. This week Mike Suggs ran us through some different stand-up and strength drills...I about died. But I did learn a bit about passing guard and how to hold a guy still during an arm bar. Good stuff.

Last night was very interesting. The Teagues invited us to join them for a "poetry reading". Everybody had to dress up in a costume of some sort and bring a few poems to read. We decided to have it at our house 'cause we have more room and everybody brought finger food. The costumes were a blast...Stokton and Joshua both came as punks, Naomi and Anna were gypsies, BJ was a hobbit, Ethan was a menacing figure (and he was too!), Tolkien was a wood nymph and Phoenix was Hans Solo. I got some amazing shots of folks in costume and I'll be posting some of those soon to flickr. I dressed as a political prisoner...I wore a large, dark over coat and tattered clothes. Mom did her make-up magic and made my face look gaunt and hollow. It actually was pretty convincing...I couldn't stop eating! ;-)

Now we're about to leave for Michelle's house to celebrate the Fourth of July. Fun fun fun!

Ready To Dive! (29/30)

Ready To Dive! (29/30)
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with water splashing off of stuff in our sink. This little dude was on the floor in our room and I figured he'd make an interesting subject. I like this one because it looks like he is about to dive into a pool.

BTW, if you leave comments, please leave them on the flickr page (click on the picture and use your Yahoo! id) so I can have all the comments together in one place.

Ah-ha! (23/30)

Ah-ha! (23/30)
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

Mom at Wal Mart. And you wonder why I am the way I am.

So, last week we took a van full of Bavidos and Teagues into Tulsa to watch UP. Several of the family had already seen it, but it was the first time for me. Here are my thoughts.

First, the previews. It seems pretty obvious from watching the trailers on this movie and Night at the Museum 2 that the summer is looking pretty slim in the family features department. I must say I was very interested by the trailer for The Princess and the Frog. Doing a Cajun fairy tale with voodoo practicing bad guys, frogs and gators is an excellent idea. I hope they do a good job of it.

Next, the short. I love the fact that Pixar puts these before their films. Ethan had told me he didn't like the short. Having seen "Partly Cloudy", I have decided that Ethan is a nincompoop. This can easily rival "For the Birds". I'm not going to give anything away (it's hard to talk about a three minute short without giving something away) so I'll just say that it was excellent and will be enjoyed for many years to come.

Ever since seeing the trailer, I have known that UP was going to be the movie of the year. Easily. Only Pixar has the bravery to use an elderly man as the main character. Had any other studio made this movie they would have made the old man crass and rude, but instead Pixar created an amazingly complex character with strengths and weaknesses. His love story is wonderfully, and touchingly, told.

UP contains some of the truest comedic moments in recent memory. Kevin and Doug, a large bird and a bird dog, are wonderful. Kevin is an expanded version of the awkward bird in For the Birds and Doug is a typical loving, stupid bird dog.

What has really surprised people is that, while UP can certainly be enjoyed by kids, it is not a kids movie. It is a very serious study in the topic of death and aging. It carries much more meaning for aging Baby Boomers than 7 year old kids. Nobody seems quite sure what to do about it. When we saw it there were a lot of couples with young children in the theater, and very few, if any, adults without kids. It is going to take a while for people to get used to the idea of animation as medium, rather than animation as genre. If Pixar continues to make films like this, I think people will soon be convinced.

Up until this point, my favorite Pixar movie has been Monsters, Inc. And with every Pixar film since then, I have used Monsters as my measuring stick. So the burning question I tried to answer for a couple days after seeign the movie was, "Is this a better film than Monsters?" And I couldn't answer. I finally decided that they are both wonderful films, but too different to really compare. Pete Docter has given us two of the greatest films of the decade. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Isaac (19/30)

Isaac (19/30)
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

Have you ever placed your hands on the keyboard and started typing away, only to look at the screen and realize that one of your hands was just a little bit off center and hyomh zdifrm;u nrvs,,;u trs;;u dytsmhr N fpm
y eptfu snpiy oy nrvsidr yjrm upi trs;oxr yjsy mpnpfu od hpomh yp trsf oy smuesu/?

I have not coached gymnastics camps for about four years. I've been spending my summers in Taiwan, and didn't have the chance to do much coaching. So this is my first summer in quite some time to coach. I'm loving it.

For years I have wanted to be the TAG level four coach. For various reasons, I have never been able to have that job. Now, the last summer that I work at Gymnastics City, I finally get that job. I have a group of level threes who want to move to level four, plus a couple level fives that I work with each day. In just the week and a half of camp so far I've seen some good improvements. On top of that, I've been working with the higher level gymnasts a fair amount on bars, and I'm really enjoying that.

Another thing I am enjoying very much is posting a new picture every day on my newly created flickr page. It's certainly challenging me to find and take interesting pictures that are worthy of posting.

And now I need to go to bed.

Balance (12/30)

Balance (12/30)
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

Spoon (13/30)

Spoon (13/30)
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

Swirl (6/30)

Swirl (6/30)
Originally uploaded by S Bavido

As you type a querry into the Google page, it tries to guess what you are searching for. For example, if I begin to type in "juggling", a small pop-down menu gives me the options of "juggling balls", "juggling clubs", or "juggling tricks." I just now began typing in "how to make a boomerang" and when I got has far as "how to make a bo" it suggested "how to make a bomb."

I've been looking forward to this summer for some time now, but now that it's actually here I find that I'm having trouble enjoying it because I haven't gotten a teaching job yet. I've put out way too many applications to keep track of and I've had a couple interviews (one of which seemed very promising, but I still haven't heard back from them) but nothing beyond that. I know that many schools don't have the funding in place yet to see about hiring new teachers and it's not at all unusual to get hired in August or even September. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm about to go crazy without a job.

In less frustrating news: Monday night we went to the under belt tournament that Christa Bailey put together and had a blast. Caleb wasn't sure he wanted to fight, but after some talk he decided he would. He fought three fights and took first place! His sidekick did most of the work. Fighting with the bigger guys at home gives him a real advantage when he faces people his size and belt level.

BonnieJean also fought and did very well. She fought Christina Luna, a green belt who has trained a lot with Jason and done very well at tournaments in the past. BonnieJean hasn't really kept up with karate during college, but she decided to jump back in with both feet and fight. It was a great fight. BJ kept hitting Christina in the face (which is not allowed until brown belt) but I told her it'd probably be easier to just get to brown belt instead of trying to train that out of her! ;) Christina won the fight by a couple points, but I was very happy with how they both fought.

At the end I did an exhibition fight with Jeff Logsdon (sp?). It was a lot of fun. Jeff is an amazing fighter and I was actually fairly happy with how well I did against him. I only lost by six points! *grin* Most of the time I was just a split second behind him on scoring the point.

Six Flags is awesome. And I always enjoy hanging out with Uncle Kent's family.

I would post pictures from graduation but I've lost my camera. So once I find that I'll post them.

For the month of June I have decided to challenge myself to post one interesting picture per day on my flickr page. So hop on over to my flickr page and enjoy the show!

In other news, I think I'm going to go crazy until such time as I get a job. Honestly, the last time I was looking for a job it only took me about one week. Now that I'm looking at a much longer job search I find myself getting more and more antsy as the days go by. So please pray I find a job quickly.

What makes Machida so great?

Last week Lyoto Machida knocked out Rashad Evans to become the new UFC Light Heavy Weight Champion. And within just a few minutes, every commentator and analyst in the business began trying to explain (or explain away) the phenomenon that is Machida. The main ideas they present are thus:

1--It's not because he's a karate fighter; he's trained Mai Thai and boxing. He just happens to be a really good fighter. Karate is not back. Karate is old and out of date.

The problem with this idea is that is doesn't reflect reality. Machida is not a boxer or kick boxer. He style is entirely different. His stance may as well be from another planet, his kicks don't look anything like Mai Thai (am I spelling that right?) and when he clinches he doesn't try for Anderson Silva style knees--he takes people down with beautiful ankle sweeps instead. If you want to see what a really good Mai Thai fighter looks like, look at Anderson Silva. He looks nothing at all like Machida.

2--He is great because he's studied karate, but there's no way anybody else can copy him. Stick with Mai Thai and BJJ. You can almost hear these people pleading with you: "Don't study karate! Please! Machida is great, but we haven't the faintest clue why...we know that Mai Thai works, so please, for the love of all things good, don't study karate!"

Yes, he has been studying karate since he was 5. Yes, he has reached a level of skill that you cannot reach or copy in a few short years. But is that a good reason not to follow in his foot steps? These people are saying that because he is highly skilled nobody should try to reach a similar level of skill...that you would be better off getting your face beat in practicing Mai Thai for a couple years, enjoy a short, glorious career and end it like Chuck Liddell: unable to take even a slight shot without going out.

Yet in all this discussion it seems that nobody is discussing exactly what it is that makes Machida so great at what he does. You can say it's because of "karate", but what does that mean?

I would like to submit that Machida is great because of point fighting. Now, I realize that point fighting has it's problems, and I have often felt the need to get away from it myself. But what is it that Machida does so well? He avoids getting hit, it seems like he's never there, but when he decides to attack, he suddenly is there. His opponent eats a fist and then all of a sudden he's not there anymore. It's like fighting smoke. This is classic point fighting. Machida has trained for years to avoid getting hit, get in his quick shot and then get out of the way of a counter attack. He throws almost nothing except straight shots. He knows that a straight punch will always beat a round punch, so he uses the faster technique.

His stance is classic point fighting stance. It's the traditional karate backward leaning stance: the same stance my instructor uses, that I use and that we train our students to use. With that stance he is able to keep his body away from his opponent, yet can still spring in with a strike at any moment.

Machida will remain champion as long as the other fighters continue to train in the school of "take one to give one". Because Machida is simply in the business of giving...after all, it is better to give than to recieve.

I have been thinking about the type of blogs that I enjoy reading. I find Chera's blog in particular to be an enjoyable read. And if I approach things from a somewhat unbiased perspective, it seems hers is more interesting than mine (even when I do update regularly). So what is the difference?

It seems Chera is not tied to the idea that her blog must contain details on all major events of the week. Often she will post an interesting musing, a funny story or a cool picture with no thought towards updating us on exactly what was covered in class or what happened at work.

So I'm going to try and update more along those lines, at least for the next few weeks. Just to try it out.

I had an interview yesterday with Jenks Freshmen Academy and it went very well. Perhaps I am reading them entirely wrong but it certainly seemed that they liked me and my ideas. I'm very hopeful. Jenks is a good district by all accounts (it's certainly a wealthy district, at any rate) and all their classrooms are well equipped. The only thing I don't like about it is the fact that it's a 40 minute drive from our house. I'd rather get a job closer to home.

I find myself to be really interesting at times. I did something the other day that I've been thinking about quite a bit since then. There is a lady who has been coming to our karate class for a few months now who has been working very hard and often asks for further instruction before or after class. This is great. I'm always happy to see students who are willing to come up to brown and black belts and ask for help. So as we're driving home from karate and I turn to Anna and say, "Hey, would you mind taking her under your wing? I think she's needing help with some different stuff but I'd rather you do it, since we're so close in age."

Now why on earth would I decide to do that? This lady has never acted inappropriately or given me reason to want to avoid her...yet my first reaction is something along the lines of, "WARNING! Eligible female!" Why? It's not like I'm afraid of girls. I think perhaps I have taken a lot of the "guard your heart" teachings a little too far.

Right now I'm in a new stage of life, and I'm having to make some changes in my thinking because of that. Up until a few months ago I never gave much thought to winning a girl because I knew I was in no position to support one. Now that is no longer the case. Suddenly I am faced with the fact that if I ever want to get married I must, at some point, make the decision to become serious about a girl. At the moment I don't really have any particular girl in mind, but it is still a somewhat frightening prospect.

I need to go do some other stuff now...next time I update I'm going to give my thoughts on the meaning of Lyoto Machida.

I'm not even sure if this will count as an update but...

--I'm still alive.

--I'm graduating tomorrow night.

--I have a job interview this Wednesday.

--I finished my internship about a week ago.

--I passed my English portfolio and my education portfolio.

--I'm excited about VBS this year.

--Ethan did an amazing job at his black belt test.

--School lets out in one week.

--Chera is coming to see us soon.

--Mayfest is really fun.

--I'll post pictures soon.

--I love my church.

--I got a lot more money than I expected for graduation.

--I spent some of it today to buy some dragon balls and socket my super boots...+15% on all attacks now!

--I'm a level 130 (and it only took me about four years...)

--I'm going to bed.

I think I'm going to die. I just hope I die soon, because what's the point of finishing the portfolio and then dieing?

We're off to Ethan's black belt test!!!!!

This is a picture of me as a blue belt. I'm in the white gi. That's a pretty impressive low block, isn't it?

I don't actually have time to update...so instead, here is a bit of 55 fiction I wrote over spring break. This one is actually 46 words long, so any suggestions for added words would be appreciated. This is a true story from my time in Taiwan.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


“Cabbage.” He pointed to make himself clear.

She served him quickly. He was a good customer, even if his Chinese was poor.

“Carrots.”

Scoop. Splat.

“Pork.”

She hesitated, looking at the incense in front of the meat. He was a good customer, but would grandma understand?

Hey look! It's not morbid! In fact, it's actually a little bit cute! It's a bird doing chin-ups!

I'm not really a list person, but for this week I have created a to-do list for myself. We are on spring break (glorious, wonderful spring break!) and I have several big projects and a couple small things that I really have to get done. Today I have to pay my credit card bill (already done), get my finger prints made (for teaching certificate), write a blog post, update my resume and complete standard one for my English portfolio. This should be enough to keep me busy today without totally overwhelming me.

School is going well. The Lord certainly answers prayers. For the past few weeks, I have been having something of a battle with one of the education specialists at NSU. Last week things come to head just before she was supposed to observe my teaching. I was certain she would give me a bad review. We prayed about it (a lot) the night before, and after she observed my lesson she said I did a great job and said it would be best if we just pretended all that other stuff had never happened.

Here's a picture of my classroo just before we started doing how-to presentations.

Yesterday Naomi and I went to Stillwater for a meet. It was a shame we had to miss church, but it was a fun meet anyway. Naomi got her bar routine completely by herself...including the long hang kip! This is a big deal. Katie almost got her kip, and Hannah got her low bar kip (second meet in a row!) and probably would have made the long hang kip, except she face-planted on her squat on, which kinda threw her off. We did fairly well on vault and not so grand on floor.



Anna is taking (and enjoying) a painting class this semester...here she is doing an abstract painting based on John 15.



And finally a couple pictures from a "portfolio party" we had at Michelle's house to work on some various school stuffs...here's Michelle's boys talking to Kim, and then Robin, one of the boys and Michelle's husband. Hmm...no pictures of Michelle...she was there, I swear!




And now, I shall leave you. I still have stuff left on my to-do list.

Well, if I a reader of this blog, I would be somewhat concerned about the emotional state of the poor writer. It seems all the pictures he posts are of a rather dire nature. Now we're looking at fish suicide...you never know where this blog will go next.

This week has been by far the hardest of my internship. Part of it is probably because Wednesday was the half-way point. Part of it is the fact that the students are very ready for spring break, but we have another full week before that begins. But mostly it's because of what's going on at gym.

Tuesday I wasn't supposed to be at work because I had to drive in to the main NSU campus for a full internship meeting. Typically these take all day. But for whatever reason they let us out early, so I got back to Claremore at around 3:40 and was able to make it into work. This turned out to be a God-thing.

We were doing bars in the nine and up class. I was coaching at one set of bars and my assistant was coaching another set. I looked over at her bar just as a kid stood up on the low bar and jumped to the high bar. Her left hand missed and her right just barely got it. As she fell she reached with her left hand for the floor, and I cringed. I don't actually remember what I did, but somehow I ended up next to her really fast. Her arm was broken.

Bad.

Between her elbow and wrist her arm made a complete Z. My assistant was about to pass out just looking at it. The bone wasn't sticking out (thank God), but it was still bad. The kid at first didn't even seem to realize what had happened. I scooped her up quickly and carried her to the back room, grabbing Ms. Tucker, the gym owner, on the way. The girl was starting to panic, so I kept her calm while they found her mom and brought the head coach of the team in to do a quick splint on her arm. Then I carried her (as gently as I could figure out how) to her mom's car and they took her to the hospital.

The poor girl was a real trooper. I can't imagine what kind of pain she was in, but she never yelled and didn't even really cry much. We haven't heard from her Mom yet, but I suspect she had surgery on Wednesday and is hopefully recovering now.

So that pretty much ruined my week. I've always placed a really high emphasis on keeping my kids safe and even though there wasn't a single thing I could have done, it still really tore me up to see her hurt like that. After classes were over I sat in my car and cried.

So I think that's pretty much what made this week so tough.

In other (good) news, student presentations went VERY well this week. I was very happy with how the students did and with how they applied the public speaking rules I taught last week.

Another good piece of news...I passed my OPTE! I needed to pass that to get my teaching certificate and it was $150 to take it, so I'm very glad I don't have to retake it.

Ok, I need to sign off now and start working on stuff for my teaching portfolio that is due next Wednesday. Pray for my little girl; pray she has a complete and fast recovery.

Here are some pictures from the tournament in OKC and WinterJam last night.

If you ever get the chance to see TobyMac in concert be sure to jump at it. It is an EXCELLENT show.

So...it's been a long time since my last update. I'm sorry. These last couple weeks have been just a little bit hectic. Last semester I got an email from a friend who was doing his student teaching. His exact words were "full internship is hell." I must say that my experience has been far from that, but at the same time it certainly is keeping my very busy.

So...carbon monoxide poisoning. Naomi and I were in Tulsa for a gymnastics meet and on our way home we stopped for supper. As I was getting back on the highway we ended up stuck behind a guy who's car wouldn't move. So I jumped out and helped him push it down the road (actually, it was up the road). What I didn't think about was the fact that the car was still running and I was breathing in all the exhaust fumes. Not good. As soon as I got back in the car I was feeling weak and my heart was pounding very hard. I drove a little way down the highway, then had to pull over into a QuickTrip parking lot to rest because I was starting to feel pretty light-headed. After about ten minutes sitting in the parking lot my heart was still pounding and I was still light headed, so I called Mom. She came out with Anna and Ethan and they drove us home. I had a bad headache that night and the next day didn't feel so good...which put me way behind on school work. The good news is that I think I'm fine now.

Friday I gave my students their take-home final on the punctuation unit we've been doing. It's a killer. The rubric has twenty-five items on it. Looking back, it seems I would have done better to give two different assignments instead of one huge one. Oh well. We did do some fun stuff leading up to the assignment: Thursday we went into the computer lab and created comic strips. Then Friday we took those and started to write them out in narrative format, focusing on the punctuation. Monday they hand them in as their final.

Tonight we're having our annual valentine's party at gym. These are always very fun, and very tiring. It's basically open gym for four hours. Ethan and I will be juggling as well...I'm trying to figure out a way to tell the story of Jack and the Bean Stock with the diabolo.

Ok, I really haven't got time to write anything else. I'm off! Hopefully I can post again sometime soon.

Things learned this weekend:

--Carbon monoxide poisoning is not fun.
--Saturday morning gymnastics classes can be pretty fun.
--It's not a good idea to have gymnasts judging TAG meets. I'm kinda annoyed at the person who made that decision.
--Tiger's Eye is actually a form of asbestos
--The Learning Project is due really really soon...I need to get to work on it!
--I want a large hunk of Tiger Iron. Seriously, who wouldn't want something like this?

So here I sit
Looking at the traffic light.
The red extinguishes the hope that the green ignites.
--Reliant K

I find that I really enjoy well written lyrics. Above is one of my favorite examples. As a matter of fact, I find Reliant K’s music to be far too repetitive, but their writing is so fun I still listen to them pretty often.

We should get jerseys, ‘cause we make a good team.
But yours would be better than mine, ‘cause your out’a my league.

See what I mean? That is just some really good writing!

Along the same lines, I very much enjoy “Trying to Stop Your Leaving” by Derks Bentley because of the word pictures he uses so effectively in that song. The pictures of a song against a train and a pebble against the Rio Grande (which isn’t actually all that Grande, but few people know that) are very apt.

A song which I find to be rather upsetting but is still extremely well written is “Hate Me” by Blue October. The mood created by the use of certain loaded words is awesome. “Cockroaches”, “porno”, and “suicidal” all conjure up images of a dirty apartment with burnt out light bulbs and the smell of throw up. Like I said, it’s not exactly an inspiring song, but it is still very well done.

A song I have recently become a very big fan of is “I Don’t Care” by Apocalyptica. This isn’t so much because of the lyrics (although they still are well written) but because of the way the music could really tell the story without the words. On the surface it’s just a typical screaming break-up song.

If you were dead or still alive
I don’t care, I don’t care.
Just go and leave this all behind
‘Cause I swear (I swear) I don’t care.

Yet in the midst of all this screaming, hatred and banging guitars and drums there is a single violin mournfully carrying the tune. Beneath all the rage of the song writer, buried so deep that he is hardly even aware of it, is a profoundly deep sense of loss. It’s an incredible example of artfully mixing musical styles to create the desired effect.

A favorite of mine for many years has been a song by 張韶涵. I’ve only heard one of her CD’s and the quality was rather inconsistent from one song to the next, but she still did a couple very good ones. One of my favorite lines from the song:

因為花開的聲音
冬天也會遠離

Which could roughly be translated as, “Winter leaves because of the sound of an opening flower.” It doesn’t really come across so well in English (or at least it doesn’t come across so well when I translate it) so just take my word for it that it’s a very well written couple of lines.

Saving the very best for the last: Brave Saint Saturn. If you have not heard anything by this incredible Christian band then you are living a seriously deprived life. One of the most challenging songs about our fallen state is “Heart Still Beats.”

I’m sickened by compassion
Stifled by my limitations
Anesthetic apathy!
Come take the pain away!

BSS does not shy away from hard issues that are very real in the Christian’s life. Anger, hatred, a feeling of being lost or overwhelmed. Their song “Enamel” has some great lines from a guy whose girl left him for a guy in Mexico.

Well I hope you cannot sleep and I hope you cannot smile
And I hope you are burdened with your guilt for quite a while.
I hope you fall in love but I hope your plans are thwarted
I hope that now your back it’s because you were deported!

“Titan” is something straight from a horror movie, except for so many it’s no movie at all. It’s a song about cancer.

DESTROY!
DEVIDE!
THE DARK!
INSIDE!
Titans rushing over me
Giants that are crushing me.

“Estrella” is a heartfelt and moving song about a young Christian who died of a serious medical condition.

He was twenty-five like I was
But he was deaf and slowly going blind
He made my faith seem worthless
The things I hoped were pointless
And he fought to stay
But always dreamed that he could leave this place.

The angels’ wings will cover you tonight
Hallelujah
Press you head against the breast of Christ
Hallelujah

It made me so empty
Collapsing on some dirty bathroom floor
And isn’t just like me
To mourn his passing breath
When he will never suffer anymore?

Of course it’s not all doom and gloom and sad music. “The Sun Also Rises” is an inspiring song and has been one of my theme songs for the past year and a half.

With all the hope that I could beg or borrow
I can’t wait, can’t wait ‘til tomorrow!
I believe! The sun also rises
Dries our tears, bring the blue skies of day.
I believe! The sun also rises
Lighting our paths, driving the darkness away.
So far away! So far away!

Wow…this is becoming a very long post. If you are still reading, congrats! My advice is that you go to amazon.com and download all three Brave Saint Saturn CDs. I’ll just talk about three more: Daylight, Mercenary and Starlings.

Daylight is the story of a space craft that is lost, on the dark side of a moon and out of contact with their base. A newscasters voice tells us “The crew is out of radio contact and at this point there is no way to know if they are alive or dead.” The emptiness of the darkness away from the sun and the isolation away from their base represent a backslidden Christian. When the ship finally comes back into the daylight we hear

U.S.S. Gloria: Houston this is the U.S.S. Gloria.
Good to hear your voice
We are coming out of the eclipse now.
I see the sunlight. It’s beautiful
The sunlight is beautiful.

Jesus Christ, Light of the World
You never did forget me
And when I bled in darkness, You held me
Still held me
When desperate nights I cursed You
You loved me, still loved me
Jesus Christ, You dry the tears
You break my heart of stone
Your words are life
Cut marrow through
The darkness, to the bone
A heart of flesh You gave me
Only You can save me

Savior
Daylight
I am coming home

“Starlings” is a beautiful and heart breaking song about the senselessness of death.

Starling falling to her death,
Piercing copper steals her breath.
See the flutter in her breast,
Starving babies in her nest.
Raise their souls up to the sky,
Why must helpless creatures die?

“Mercenary” is another great song. Using the picture of a boxer who takes money to lose a fight, BSS addresses the issue of compromise in a world that is not always supportive of God’s plans and goals for Christians.

Here’s to your lame award,
Your phony Nobel Prize.
Here’s to the suckers lining up
To see us compromise.
Let’s light a campfire,
We’ll have a sing along,
I’ll burn some bridges,
You’ll bring the crappy songs.

So…yea. I would recommend any of the above songs.

No, I am not battling depression and coming close to suicide. I am, however, enjoying stuff from despair.com with all of my being. The cruel judgmentalist in me finds a lot to laugh at in this particular poster.

So, two weeks down, only 14 to go in my full internship! Things have been going quite well. According to the suggested timeline for this internship, I am supposed to begin teaching next week. Haha. I started teaching the second day. We're a little bit ahead of schedule but Mrs. Deweese agrees that I would probably go stir crazy if I just had to sit and watch her teach for two weeks. She did give me a complement though by saying that, "Of course if you couldn't teach it wouldn't matter how bored you got! But since you can teach, it's fine."

With regards to the whole grammar side of things...I feel like I am mostly prepared for what we're doing. Grammar, as you guys know, is not my strong point, nor do I feel that it really is all that important to spend so much time on it. There are a few things that I have had to look up to make sure I know what I'm talking about, but for the most part it's all worked out pretty well.

In other news...we are enrolling about 80 million kids per night at Gymnastics City. Add to that the fact that we've got a bunch of kids doing make-ups for snow days and this past week has been crazy. Then Wednesday night one of our teachers hurt her knee, so she couldn't come in Thursday. Then another called in with car trouble. I was trying to figure out how we could arrange things to have enough teachers and finally just called Mom and asked her to go pick up the teacher who was broken down and bring him to gym! :) Mrs. Tucker laughed a lot at that, but it worked!

I've noticed something amazing about public school kids. They have the ability to blow their nose silently. As in, they make no noise. I don't see how that is possible. But apparently they do it. As a homeschooler I guess I never had any chance to worry about my friends (or enemies) staring at me while I blew my nose. Interesting how your up bringing affects you in so many little ways.

Last night Mom made annabread. Annabread is the most wonderful thing ever. When Anna was little she couldn't eat full blown whole wheat bread, so Mom would make a half and half mix that she baked in butter in the over. BJ and I would always beg and beg for some and Mom normally gave us each a piece, but it never seemed like enough. We were always slightly upset that Anna got so much more than we did. It's not like we were getting something special by being able to eat whole wheat...why did she get the best stuff ever because she coudldn't? Most of those feelings are now gone (or at least burried rather deeply) but nonetheless I was very happy to receive my fair portion last night. :)

I am coming to hate my computer. I can't really justify purchasing a new one for at least a couple more months but I'm really sick of the fact that anything even slightly taxing throughs it into thorough and complete fits. Wanting to watch a simple movie trailer online? Good luck! Operate two programs, at the same time? Well...I'm not sure about that. And don't even think about trying anything when the anti-virus is running scans! It's highly annoying.

So, what else is new...Wednesday night was interesting at gym...my boss was a little edgy and we were a couple teachers short...not all that fun. I wish I wasn't a floater...I don't have any classes that I am actually in charge of teaching...but I'm in charge of making sure that each class is covered and dealing with absent teachers, etc. This means that most of the time I end of running all over the gym, jumping from class to class.

Wednesday night I stayed for tumbling class with Ethan. Wow...I haven't tumbled seriously in a very, very long time. I am way out of shape for that kind of work. So I've started doing a little bit each night...ouch! I'm not used to this. It's so easy the first night...it's two mornings later that you feel it!

I'm reading the Book Thud! and enjoying it a lot. It's awesome.

And now I have to go get my hair cut. Fare well, fair readers. (And good luck to those of you with darker skin, too.)

Pearls Before Swine rocks. So much more than For Better or For Worse or Cathy. Those are horrible. Pearls Before Swine is the way comics are supposed to be.

So I've completed two days of my internship. Yesterday was really, really boring. The students were doing worksheets all days, so I got to stair at the tops of their heads as they leaned over their desks and wrote. For six hours. Yea...it was boring. Today the lesson was on subject verb agreement...I watched two classes of that and then asked the teacher if I could try my hand at it. Technically I'm supposed to observe the first week and then start teaching the second, but I was already getting bored. S/V agreement is not my favorite topic but it sure beats sitting. So I taught that...and actually had a good time doing it. We did a fun activity with people reprenting nouns and verbs and passing an s back and forth between them.

The sad part of all this is that I can no longer teach the homeschool gym class. :( I'm really going to miss that class...

In other news...last night at karate we had three of the Garza blackbelts show up! Mr. Garza and three of his kids were some of my first instructors and I have a lot of respect for them and their skills. The incredible thing was that when we lined up at the end of class I was standing in between Christina Garza and Josh Garza! That was...amazing and scary at the same time. (not scary as in "they're going to get me!" but as in "I'm in the same position as them and the lower belts are looking at my like I used to look at them!")

I'm going to get off now...there is more to write but I am very tired. Good night.

Cool new look. And comments are back! What think ye?

Happy new year to everyone! I've been working on making the comments work again but instead they have just disappeared. Gone completely. I'm hoping that a new post will bring them back to life.

Christmas was (is) wonderful. We decided to wait until the first of January to celebrate this year, so that we could take advantage of after Christmas sales when buying presents. We had intended to open presents this morning, but after staying up to welcome in the new year everybody wanted to go ahead and open presents then. So we didn't get to bed until about 2 am, but it was certainly a lot of fun. I got two CDs (the newest from Brave Saint Saturn and Nickleback), a Monet calender (I'm a huge Monet fan), lots of various eatable stuff, new pj pants (very comfy) and the whole family got a bunch of DVDs. Then we all went to bed and slept in until very late. It feels great.

So Monday I start my full internship. I'm both excited and scared to death. I met with Susan, the teacher I'll be working with, on Monday and we discussed some things about how we will go about working together. It looks like my first week I'll just be observing and I'll do some teaching the second week and then start to take over by the third week.

Monday morning we were working with the level 6s on the dance portion of their floor routine. Now, understand that the bread and butter of coaching gymnastics is yelling "Get tight!" every few seconds. A loose body is out of control: all good gymnasts maintain a tight body throughout their skills. So at any rate, Jeniffer is trying to get Hope to do a dance move correctly. Finally, in frustration, she says "Would you just quite being so tight?!" My boss and I literally collapsed laughing. It's just not the type of thing you hear very often from a coach. Perhaps it doesn't sound so funny on my blog, but it sure was at that point in time.

I guess that will be it for my new year's post. Hope you guys all have a wonderful '09!