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
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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