Last Friday, an honor roll student at Fenger High School on Chicago's south side was beaten to death. The student, Derrion Albert, 16, was caught between a feud between youth from the Altgeld Gardens housing projects and youth from the surrounding neighborhood. Unfortunately, this will not be the only Chicago school student to be killed by violence this year. What is going on? A person with their cell phone camera captured the scene:
Michael Jackson videos that premiered on Fox, TGIF, America Online when it first came out and every kid talked about how their family was using their 10 hours a month (we were the family that got 10 hours when everyone else was up to 50 hours a month, 14.4 when everyone else was 28.8, with your parents getting pissed because the phone line was always busy because you were on the internet), Real World when they had 'real' people on it and you knew you were too young to be watching it but you watched because your older sister did,In Living Color, Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise", the O.J Simpson trial when you would come home from school and watch all the way until your parents came home from work, the transition from cassette tapes to cd's, Virtua Fighter and Sega Dreamcast and Neo Geo and Super Nintendo and Ridge Racer and Final Fantasy VII and Sonic the Hedgehog (not having any of those made it a requirement to know how to make and keep friends), Fruit Gushers, Fruit by the Foot and Eggo waffles and, of course, Golden Grahams, where they were only good during the first minute and became a chore to eat once they crossed the one-minute threshold and became soggy. Those moments shaped our mind and souls, thoughts and interests, wishes and desires. Memories.
Lost under the music radar this week following the pushed-up release of Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3 album was Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II, his follow-up to his first album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Almost 14 years to the day Raekwon released his magnum opus, he returned this week with the sequel. Quick aside: In those 14 years, he released two other albums: Immobilarity (overlooked in exactly the same vein as Nas' It Was Written; check The Table, Casablanca, Live from New York and Sneakers to see for yourself) and The Lex Diamond Story (let's just say it makes Nas' Nastradamus seem like a classic). Needless to say, the new album is getting rave reviews (which it thoroughly deserves). The standout track for me is Ason Jones. You might have known him as: Ol' Dirty Bastard Osirus Big Baby Jesus and Dirt McGirt (my favorite of all)
Even though he passed away five years ago, this was Raekwon's tribute to his deceased brother from the Wu-Tang Clan, Ol' Dirty Bastard. It doesn't get more hip-hop than this.
Teaching begins for me in just about a week. It represents my 5th year as an educator. As now made famous by Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book, there is something called the 10,000 hour rule. Basically, mastery of a craft or subject requires, on average, 10,000 hours of practice. By my calculations (which means even having to include the first year, which was something of a punch to the gut of self-esteem), 9 teacher-related hours x 180 days x 4 = 6480 hours. So I'm at 64% on the Mastery Gauge, right? Now, obviously reaching 10,000 hours at anything doesn't mean that you are guaranteed to become a master or expert. Some people have been rapping since they were 12; yet they sound more like a Muppet baby than Mr. "Weezy F. Baby." The theory simply posits that most people famous for a craft or art (musicians, athletes, etc.) required practice above and beyond the 10,000th hour to truly demonstrate mastery of their artform. Somehow, I can already see a dad somewhere in America calculating just how his son will become the next Pele or Federer using fuzzy math equations. Back to me, though. I enjoy teaching for reasons too numerous to recite. I'm anxious for the new school year to begin. I have gotten better as a teacher every year. And while I might not become an expert in two years or so, I will most certainly be better, and my students will be all the better for it. ** The title pertains to one of the few teachers I actually remember. I had a Spanish teacher in middle school named Mr. Lora. He would always pontificate, "Education is the key. Either you can go to Yale or jail. Penn State or the State pen." The Penn State reference aside (not quite on Yale's scale), his influence always stuck with me. Those are good teachers. Teachers either have moments that stay with you or they 'stay getting on your nerves'.
This is a video of the school where I teach. Enjoy.
Just recently, my fiance and I created a system where we are given an allowance to spend for personal expenses (cd's, clothes, shoes, eating out, etc.) each month. Not a new concept at all. However, it is new for me. In our system, instead of keeping track of how much money is being debited out of our bank account, we take out the monthly amount allotted in cash.
You know that phrase, Act your age and not your shoe size. Well, I know at least a few people whose age number is larger than their bank statement at the moment. In fact, when I was switching banks a few weeks back, (run-on sentence alert) one woman Usain Bolted out of the bank back to the store where she just bought a t-shirt 5 minutes prior because the teller told her that she only had $4.30 in her account when she tried to take out $80 so she could get a new train/bus card and that $4.30 was showing up on available funds and this was before the t-shirt had went through the final bank transaction because the store transaction was showing up as pending so she was hoping to return it in time and get a refund or pay a $45 dollar overdraft fee.
So, at the risk of underestimating the importance of saving so as not to hear the word overdraft, what are you doing to save?
Might be hard to find since it's an indie flick, but I highly recommend finding a theatre that is showing the documentary, Unmistaken Child. Basically, it is the journey to find the reincarnation of Lama Konchog, a famous Tibetan master. One young man, Tenzin Zopa, is given the arduous task of finding the infant that is the reincarnation of Lama Konchog.
