If you look at the main site, http://saphrym.com, you’ll notice there is a placeholder theme there. I’ve been working on the design in the background. That will be the new location of the blog once I am finished. I have three main passions in life: family, teaching, and writing. The new blog (yes, this one will “queitly” disappear, but not completely) will focus on the writing. I plan on having anecdotes, editorials, creative writing, etc. I will be doing some editing on posts already on this blog to make them just a little bit better for the new blog.

Also, the ads will be going away. I no longer care if the blog makes money. Why? Becuase I feel as if it’s been commercial and it just doesn’t fit me well. You’ll find no paid links on the new blog. You’ll find no ads. There is one exception to this though: While  working on the blog over the last couple of years, I have made some friends who I would like to support. So I will be using CMFAds to support them and to support the bloggers that use them. These friends are people like Turnip, Stan, and Ben. Yes, I have made others also who are linked in my blogroll. Most of the friends I have made are now part of CMFAds, so I will keep that service. They will remain my exclusive ad service.

When will this all happen? I don’t know. Maybe soon. Maybe in the Summer. I just don’t know. I’ll take a line from Blizzard Entertainment and say: “When it’s done.” But I will try and keep my readers up to date until then. Don’t worry. It will happen. After all, I spent good money on the theme I’m modifying for the new blog.

Speaking of my readers, what are your favorite posts from my blog? I’d love to know so I can make sure they are included in the new launch.

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1. Write down all ideas for posts somewhere.
2. Write posts in other programs if necessary.
3. Be willing to deal with site downtime because you’ve been targetted for some unknown reason by a DoS aattack from an unknown assailant.
4. Never wear cotton gloves in the rain.

So, any ideas?

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I’d make some New Year’s resolutions, but I tend to never actually accomplish them. So I’m going to jinx my goals by making them resolutions.

Hope you had a great holiday season! And welcome to 2009!

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1. I have never seen the Godfather movies. There. I said it. My shame is out there for the world to see. I feel so violated.
2. I love coconut. Well, at least I love the kind that is shredded, has sugar added, and is coated in chocolate. It’s my favorite kind. Tends to grow on special bushes out here in Kentucky. I’ve planted many of them in my yard. I’d show you pictures, but you’d only think they were Photoshopped.¹
3. I just took a sip of Diet Dr. Pepper.²
4. I’m thinking about how the 4 is going to show up on the left of this particular line even though I actually placed <li> at the beginning. The beauty of HTML, right?³
5. I love white tigers.⁴ I think they look cool:⁵
   
6. 01001001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101111 01101100 00101110⁶

So there you have it. 6 random things about me. And if you didn’t read the footnotes, you should. They were even more random, and that’s what this is all about, right? Oh, and if you have any random things to say about yourself, feel free to leave a comment including them, or even a link to a post on your blog that has 6 of them already.⁷

1. And they would be because there’s no such thing as a bush that grows chocolate covered coconut. Although it would be a wonderful experiment in cross breeding. Somebody needs to work on that now.
2. Can you tell I’m reaching already?
3. Ok. Now I’m not only reaching but being a geek at the same time. Sheesh.
4. I could never own one. Imagine the feeding costs and the cost to get them declawed. Ouch.
5. Although I don’t think Zebras are cool. Hmmm.
6. See? I’m being geeky again. Try this site to decode that message: http://www.nickciske.com/tools/binary.php
7. Or 7, or 8, or even 172.

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So, I just finished watching the third episode of Leverage. It’s a new TV show on TNT. I have to say it has steadily moved to the top of my favorite shows list. Every episode is self contained, unlike shows like Heroes, and it’s a smart show that has managed to evoke some emotions out of me. Of course, this frightens me because every time a smart show that evokes emotions out of me gets on TV it’s canceled within 5 episodes. So I’ll have to see if this one continues.

As for the show itself, Entertainment Weekly called it “…better than the last two Ocean’s movies.” I’d have to amend that and call it “The A-Team meets Ocean’s Eleven.” That’s exactly what it is. But better. It’s about a bunch of crooks who are headed by an ex-insurance investigator that do good things for people. It’s very reminiscent of Ocean’s Eleven in it’s cinematography and style. It’s also like the A-Team when it comes to a group of people doing good for others but not necessarily following the laws while doing so. You’d have to watch it to form your own opinion. It airs on TNT on Tuesdays at 10/9c. If you want to see the first two episodes, go here: http://www.tnt.tv/dramavision/?cid=44213.

Do yourself a favor and check it out. There’s a line in the second episode that really got me. After you watch it, let me know in comments which line you think it is.

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It’s the same red all of our other vehicles have ever been². A coincidence? Probably. I like black and my wife likes blue. This one was in our price range and gets great mileage. So we got what we got.

1. instead of using one of those FM modulators that only sound like bad radio stations
2. except for the van, which was white

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1. I just can’t help it. I got to know them all so well.

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Yeah. That title would confuse me too. At least maybe. See, I came up with this tweet on my Twitter¹ account a few minutes ago:

Polishing off produce while pondering and postulating pixels for a purchaser.

And it reminded me of one of the tools I use to increase my vocabulary for writing. I pick a random letter of the alphabet and try to use alliteration to create some silly sentence.² For example, if I would have wrote the tweet³ in normal English I would have said, “I’m eating fruit while thinking about the graphics I’m doing for a client.” Instead, I decided to use alliteration to make it sound funnier and/or more interesting. Alliteration is good for that. But it’s also good for “waxing your word wisdom.”⁴

Sometimes you just don’t have enough words in your head to cover the words needed for creating the alliteration. So you look to a thesaurus.⁵ While doing so, you are naturally increasing your vocabulary.

Try it for yourself. Pick a letter of the alphabet and use it to create alliteration in your comment to this post. You’ll see what I mean.

1. Make sure to follow me: http://twitter.com/Saphrym
2. Hey. I used it again!
3. Not everything must be typed of course. You could use some promotional pens to write it by hand.
4. Which means increasing your vocabulary.
5. I use thesaurus.com.

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1. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. And no, I’m not stuck in Fallout 3. On the contrary, I haven’t played it since the post I wrote about it. I’ve been busy with the new job, college, and multiple website and graphic clients I’ve been working with. I just haven’t had enough time to work on the blog. Hopefully that will change soon. And hopefully I’ll get more sleep too.²

2. It seems that when I updated a setting in one of my plugins, it decided to mass mail everyone who has commented on my site. I’m very sorry about that and have removed the offending plugin. For those of you with Word press, the plugin is called Comment Relish. If it’s going to spam people, I’m not going to use it³.

3. I’m also sorry about causing an end to a friendship a couple of years ago. I never meant to hurt anyone.

No, I’m not in a 12 step program or anything. But I needed to apologize to my readers and the third one was for me. I’ll be back tomorrow with more posts that might actually be of interest to you guys.⁴ I’ve collected a few pictures I want to share and I have some good news.

1. There may be others, but I’m too worn out to think of them right now.
2. If I wasn’t male, I’d say I have symptoms of fibromyalgia right about now.
3. I hate spam. So I’m very sorry about this one. I’ll do my best to make sure nothing like that happens again.
4. Might is the operative word of course.

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It’s what I imagined it was. I haven’t gotten that far into it right now as I’ve been quite busy with work and home life. But still. Just playing the character creation and tutorial storyline to the game was quite amazing. The choices I made effected things around me. And the story immersed me right into the game from the very start.

I’m currently at the normal “Fallout” beginning of the game. If you’ve played the first 2, you know what I mean. It’s when that big round door² has just closed behind you and you’re out in the rad-filled world. But before that I started to feel for the characters in the game. Not just my own, but those that he grew up around. That’s a sure sign of great authors. And when a great literary piece can be experienced, rather than just read, I think that makes it even better.

Oh, and I got my first chance at V.A.T.S. It’s the “turn-based” aspect to the game. You hit the “V” on your keyboard³ and you get this neat little green aiming system. You pick a few body parts while the game is paused, hit the “E” key to tell V.A.T.S. you’re done picking, and the slow motion starts up. Your shots come slowly out of your gun⁴ and the huge cockroach goes >splat<. It was quite cool.

Now, I will say this game is not meant for children. It’s mature for a reason. So, parents, be careful about buying this for your kids. I know I would not let my daughter play it or even watch me playing it. But for the older gamer, the storyline looks likes it’s going to be great⁵ and the graphics look quite awesome. So I’ll be playing this one for a long time to come. After all, it was created by Bethesda, and their games are always epic in length.

1. Banner image comes from the official website.
2. Must have took tons of linear motion parts to make that happen.
3. I have the PC version.
4. or the bat moves slowly in your hand
5. when I have the time to play it through

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Ok. The Splenda thing is cool. Johnson and Johnson may own like half the companies out there, and people may think they’re the “devil,” but you have to admit they have some pretty cool healthcare products. I mean Splenda is a dieters dream.¹ It gives you sweet stuff without calories and carbs. So it’s also great for diabetics. And now they have this flavored water stuff that comes in lemon and raspberry. Gotta love it.²

But then you have those other two. One is a quick shower and shave thing and the other is a stress reliever. They are both geared towards women. Why? What about us guys who want our own quick shower and shave. I’d love to be able to wash my hair, bathe my body, and shave my face using the same stuff from the same bottle. I think any guy would. But no. They have to market it to ladies. Well, I’m going to try it anyway. So nyah!

And that stress reliever. Sheesh. I work at a middle school. I could use a little stress relief myself. And no, I don’t mean the kids. The kids are awesome compared to other schools I have had the, um, pleasure to work in.

The same thing happens with some books. The Uglies series is a great young adult series with action and sci-fi. But it’s marketed to girls. I have no idea why. Boys would love it to. But since it’s called “Uglies,” and has a picture of a girl on the front, guys shy away from it.

Well, here is the feminine side of me saying just because you may be a guy doesn’t mean you have to stick to only guy stuff. We’re allowed our guilty pleasures just as much as women. And other than the xBoxes, PS3s, and Guitar Heroes of the world, I see nothing wrong with using some stress relief after a quick shave in the shower to make myself feel better.

So those environmental minded people over at J & J better watch out. I might start a trend and have guys buying products geared towards women more often. Then they’ll have to make even more of it, and maybe change some packaging.³

1. At least in my opinion.
2. I’m a fan of raspberry.
3. I know. I know. The trend will never happen. This is one of those times where I’m dreaming that I have much more influence than I ever could.

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Some of my favorite quotes can be used to describe the “perfect” teacher.¹

“The mind is a terrible thing to close.” – Saphrym

Yeah. I said that one. It’s a play on the old slogan of the mind is a terrible thing to waste. But it means that we should always keep an open mind. And that goes double or even triple for teachers.

“If you capture kids’ hearts, you have their heads. If you don’t capture their hearts, you have no business messing with their heads.” – Menville Flippen

Teaching is not just about spitting out information for students to learn. Teachers are role models whether we want to be or not. Students will come to us for advice. They will want us to understand them as people. If a teacher doesn’t want that part of teaching, they should probably pick a different career.

“Know your students.”

I have no idea who said that, but it is the foundation of teaching. How can you possibly provide the best education for a student without knowing about that student? Sure, a mediocre education can be provided to just about anyone, but the best education can only be provided when the teacher knows how to teach each individual student. That requires knowledge of the student.

Those are the 3 quotes I live my life and professional life by. Of course, I’ve recently added another one to that:

“Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.” – Claude Bissell

It may be a common cadet quote, but I think it fits the teacher profession quite well too. Don’t you?

1. Although there is no such thing as a perfect teacher because there’s always more to learn.

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Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.

I know this because I recently purchased a plaque for my wife that had that saying on it. Figured it would be a great decoration on her desk. She’s now a special education teacher. So I thought the quote was quite appropriate when I saw it. That last part is especially important: “Expect more than others think is possible.”

Isn’t that what we should do as teachers? We should always expect the best from our students. And when I say that, I don’t mean they should always get 100s on their tests. What I mean is we should always expect them to do THEIR best. And we should always push them to do better. This means EVERY student. We should never give up on our students. We should never say, “Well, he’s got [insert disorder here] so he’ll never be able to [insert activity or goal here].” There are students with disabilities that have surpassed any expectations that were put on them because people believed in them and expected the best from them. What about those people without arms who paint beautiful paintings with their feet? What about the blind people who can navigate a room better than most sighted people? What about deaf people who can see things we never could see?

Students can and will meet our expectations with the right tools and dedication. So if we set those expectations low, then can we be surprised when they meet them and go no further? And those labels should have absolutely no bearing on us expecting their best. None. Nada. Zip.

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I bought this game yesterday and have played it for about 10 minutes at a time in various locations. For instance, while waiting for High School Musical 3 to start², I checked on my villagers to see how well they were building the school in their village. I also got some more research started and played a few mini games to get their progress going a little faster. All of this within a 6 or 7 minute stretch while sitting in the middle of the theater.

Mobile games are great for those few minutes here and there lifestyles. And this game lets you play something very similar to the Sims in concept any place you want. Since I have my iPhone everywhere I go, this is a great game to have. It’s definitely worth the pittance³ I paid for it. My rule is I must get at least one hour per $5.00 I spend on a game. Well, with all of the time I’ve put into this game and will put into this game, I’ll definitely get my money’s worth.

You’ve definitely got to play it if you’re a fan of the Sims and like easy to pick up and quick to play games. Check it out here:

Virtual Villagers: A New Home

1. works on unlocked cell phones also
2. Yep. Went to see it today with my wife, daughter, and friends.
3. $8.00

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²

But now Fallout 3 is coming out. If you know me, you know I’m easily bored. I constantly change games and have never really played many games all the way through. I’ve been screamed at for not finishing KoToR³. I’ve never finished leveling a character in an MMO as far as they can go.⁴ But I have completed exactly 3 games since graphical RPGs have come out. Those 3 are: Mass Effect, Fallout, and Fallout 2. So, Fallout 3 excites me. And the fact that it will be an open world done by Bethesda excites me even more.

Check out this trailer for it. It definitely shows the 50s retro style from the original 2 games that I fell in love with. Oh, and did you notice the 3 games I finished were not fantasy based games. And the only MMO I fully leveled in was a Sci-Fi? Hmmm. Sorry. Got off track. Back to the trailer that also shows the great graphics:⁵

1. like the $0.99 apps for the iPhone or the cheap WiiWare games
2. Banner image comes from the official website.
3. If you don’t know what it stands for, you won’t understand anyway
4. Well, other than Star Wars Galaxies, but that was different.
5. Although I may now have to go shopping for video cards.

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But I have kept the weight off. Considering it’s been over a year since this diet started, I think it’s actually a great thing that I’ve lost 90 pounds and kept it off. It’s gone. It’s not coming back. And I’m not going to let it.

So, no. I haven’t lost any more weight. But I’ve done something that is just as tough. I’ve kept it off. I’ve kept 90 pounds of weight away from me. And I’m quite proud of that.

1. Although I have found a few casserole recipes I like.
2. Seriously. It does. I’m only substituting for them right now because their teacher had a baby, but she will be back next week. I’m going to miss my kids. I’ve had them for over 2 months, so yes, I claim them as mine right now.

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It is impossible for any test to measure personality perfect. This is why there are general terms for people. The problem with people trying to figure out who they are on their own is some people don’t know where to start. Some people have no idea. And just the act of taking the personality tests can get a person thinking about how they feel and what they would do in certain circumstances. So, in that case, the test results are not the important part. And again, the act of reading the result and finding a little of yourself within it helps you think more and more about who you are. In no way should a personality test results be deemed perfect. It’s impossible ¹. But the act of taking it and reflecting on the results helps a person to become more aware of who they are.

Also, a personality test is sometimes false because we don’t answer truthfully or don’t realize some of the things we do. I used to use a program called Dr. Shrink with my friends. It was just a fun thing to do. It was very accurate in many cases though. But my rule was that at least 2 other people who knew you had to agree on the answers given. If nothing else, the results were more reflective of how other people see you, and that can be an enlightening journey all by itself.

Finally, I will end by saying that for a person to truly love another individual, they must love themselves first. Not in the egotistical way. Self-esteem is very important in my own opinion². But I agree that self understanding is even more so. Both lead to a fuller life.

I really do believe that personality tests can help someone to understand themselves better. But not necessarily the test itself. It’s the journey, not the destination.³

1. Almost as impossible as doing well in futures trading.
2. The other person believed it to be dangerous to have esteem in oneself.
3. Some philosopher said that, and I agree with it.

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So I decided to try it in my class. I bought a very soft ball. It kind of looks like a big golf ball but it squishes down flat on the table.¹ You could hit someone and it wouldn’t hurt. Actually, this one could probably even be played with inside a house easily.² My point is, the ball is safe. A sponge ball would work well too. You, know, like those orange ones that Nerf put out.

Now, what I do is I make all the students be quiet. Only the person with the ball can talk. So I throw it to the students I want to answer questions and such. A good side benefit of this particular method of classroom management is the fact that I also throw it to random people who might not have their hands up. What this does is makes the students pay attention to me so they don’t get hit with the ball without notice. So, now the students are paying attention, they’re having fun, and they’re answering questions. It’s hard to beat that as a classroom management tool.

1. I know this because I like to flatten it and watch it grow again. I know. I’m easily amused.
2. Of course outside is even better on sunny days. And no need for outdoor furniture covers to protect them form the ball either.

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The students will be divided into groups of 4 or 5 students. The students should be grouped in such a way that at least one creative student and one student who is not shy are in each group.

Day 1: The students will be introduced to the poems The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes¹ and Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen². They will be asked to read them in their groups and try to comprehend as much as possible. Teacher lead discussion will be used to help the students understand the poems.

Day 2: The students will write a compare/contrast short essay about the two poems. One essay is due per group so they can work on this together.

Day 3: The students will use the information they learned on the first two days to rewrite both of the poems. The poems will be rewritten in such a manner that the poems still contain the same meanings that the students found but in a modern day language.

Day 4: The students will continue rewriting the poems and will also prepare for the poetry reading.

Day 5: Each group will present their custom written versions of the two poems. They will also read their comparison/contrast essay to the class.

Some notes about this assignment:

• Students should be encouraged to be as creative as possible with their rewrites of the poems. To incorporate more “modern” language, they could make the poems sound like a conversation that takes place on the Internet or use jargon that is prevalent these days.³
• Students should also be allowed to prepare for the poetry reading in a creative manner. The poetry reading should be set up to be a similar atmosphere as could be found during the Harlem Renaissance. The smoky jazz clubs are where these took place, so provide candlelight and maybe some piano jazz in the background. Dry ice could be used to create the smoky environment. The children could wear costumes that fit the time period or if that’s not feasible, maybe hats could be found to give some semblance of the era.
• The instructions are provided in a simple manner because the creativity of the teacher truly comes into play with this type of lesson. The school administration might allow this to be a presentation to the entire school. Parents could be invited and asked to dress in their Sunday best. There are many routes a teacher could take with this lesson to make it fun for the students⁴.

1. Hughes, Langston. “The Weary Blues.” Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson. New York: Oxford Press, 2000. 504-505.
2. Cullen, Countee. “Yet Do I Marvel.” Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson. New York: Oxford Press, 2000. 530-531.
3. As long as they leave out the spam language like “Leptovox” and other such nonsense found in e-mails today.
4. Or even the whole school

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