M A R C H 0 3
Hey, welcome to the March archives; you're in for a veritable HTML treat. During this month, Dave wrote Chapter Two of his TFA chronicles. He got the new Gamecube Zelda game, beat it in a week, and loved every minute of it. After a quick reflection on concept art, there was a colored treehouse sketch that really got Dave interested in drawing again. Hilarity ensued when Andrew visited Dave and they watched the trailer to Shaolin Soccer. There were five photos that summed up February in Baltimore pretty well. Dave had too many girl scout cookies one night and hallucinated about music of the future. Don was excited about his Jamaica vacation. Dave got a great birthday present from Andrew: Battlefield Earth en espanol. And finally, another great Brass Monkey show was recounted by Dave; the story of when he and Mike won a Battle of the Bands by themselves!
Dave's Teach For America Chronicles / Chapter Two: Road To New York
There was a small reception at the Biltmore (a popular Charlottesville bar and restaurant) for those students accepted into Teach For America. I got to meet the three other UVA'ers going to Baltimore and have some questions answered by the same guy who ran the first info session I attended. Almost immediately after graduating in May, there was a three-day pre-induction in Baltimore. The Baltimore directors asked us to bring up some completed forms and resumes along; we would be visiting a Baltimore City job fair during our stay, as well as checking out possible places to live and getting acquainted with the schools. I drove down one afternoon, checked into the hotel, and watched that show for several hours where the guy talks to dead people. I was pretty early.
Slowly but surely, more people started settling in. I went to dinner with five other guys and I was silent for the most part, taking in the conversations around me. Kendall was moving in with his girlfriend, Dave went to college in New York and Jesse was engaged at one time. When we went back, a TFA crowd had formed in the hotel lounge area and we joined in. The crowd got bigger through out the night, and although I don't really remember any of the conversations, I met most of my future Baltimore friends for the first time that night. I went back to the room early, borrowing a cell phone to give Jasmine a call and calling it a night.
I'm not sure of what order the other pre-induction activities went in, but I remember a few highlights. We went on a fairly boring "Live Baltimore!" bus tour of the various city neighborhoods, but not even the exclamation mark could liven things up. Andrew Newman continually asked the tour guide if there were any good Mexican restaurants, the only bright moment in an otherwise long and confusing trip. The job fair was a disaster - only certain schools were partnered with Teach For America, and only certain certain schools needed Language Arts teachers. It's interesting - I put down elementary as my grade level preference when I applied to TFA, but I just assumed they needed more middle school teachers when I was sent my assignment. I observed several teachers teaching at Robert Poole Middle School, including my future Program Director, Camika Royal (remember the name, she plays a prominent role later on in this journey). The classes were seemingly small and under control, and the teachers were excellent.
But it was at the Gin Mill bar and an after-party where things got interesting. One guy took my wallet from my pocket without me even realizing it. And so I met Nick, my future roommate. By the end of the night, we talked about trying to find a few other people to live together with. Nick then proceeded to continue his soon-to-be-infamous magic antics by levitating David-Blaine-style on the sidewalk, making up a story to this girl about being trained by monks. I was pretty sure that we would get along just fine.
When I came back home to Virginia, I went on a week-long vacation to St. Maarten with my family, only to turn right back around and head up to New York via train. The Teach For America Summer Institute was a five week "teacher boot camp" where we walked in as normal college students and would walk out as motivated save-the-world teachers. Headquarters was Fordham University in the Bronx. I walked from Penn Station to Grand Central and took the subway to Fordham (Dad had shown me numerous times how to get there on a map). It was a pretty cool feeling walking through the crowded tunnels of New York with 3 suitcases strapped all over me. It sank in that I would be a city kid for five weeks. Figuring my way around Grand Central was like a rite of passage or something.
I arrived at Fordham late that afternoon and picked up some forms, an ID tag and free stuff. I ran into Kate, a friend from UVA who was assigned to the Washington D.C. corps (New York was the training ground for about half of TFA; Houston held the others). I met my institute roommate, Akshay, and my old UVA roommate, Chris. Many of the Baltimoreans were housed in the same hallway of one dorm building, so I got to know a lot of them much better when we had to share a dorm bathroom. It was the first year of college all over again. I ran into Nick, who informed me that he'd added Mike and Tammer to our list of roommates. I was excited, especially after I actually met the two of them. Splitting the rent four ways was going to be helpful, and everyone seemed like they would get along well.
New York training was about to begin. On Monday I was reporting to to C.I.S 22 Middle School (hereafter known as "the double deuce") in the Bronx. The reality of having a job in the real world was sinking in. After a few days of training, I would be teaching a group of summer school students. These five weeks in New York were probably the most fun I had with Teach For America - and I was a changed person when I left.
(Dave's TFA Chronicles are eight short stories about Dave's job as a Language Arts teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools from 2002 to 2003. Read the other chapters: one two three four five six seven eight)
Monday, March 31 at 1:02 PM
dun dun, dun duh-duh-duh-duh dun! zelda shipped.
Not that many people will use a "contact" section of a website; I'm pretty sure that I've only done it once or twice. I guess my students are the exception. In this past month one of my ex-students wrote that "the web sight is nice." Jovanna said "When are you going to get some more boards for the classroom cause Kennard is very distracting. Put Kennard in a corner on Monday. My lil brother is still drawing that crazy kung fu cat you taught him how to draw." And Chris wrote a simple "whatup teach this is Christopher Roary from class 607." I'll probably give all my students the website at the end of the school year; right now it's a secret that only the after-school crowd knows. Oh, and I somehow managed to justify playing Super Smash Bros. with some students after school last Friday: Vocabulary Video Games. Before each match, we open a dictionary and pick out a random word. Then you have to use that word as you trash-talk your opponent during the fight. Mr. Werner is currently undefeated in Vocabulary Video Games.
Zelda rocks. There's a huge focus on exploration since you have to travel through most of the world in a talking boat, sailing from island to island. A lot of people have complained about the cartoonish cel-shaded graphics, but I think it's incredibly creative and well-done. The artwork in the game is simply amazing, just helping fuel this recent rejuvenated interest in drawing. Yeah yeah, Zelda games are always making everybody go crazy. Over 600,000 games were pre-ordered and sales should pass the million mark soon. It's deserved.
I added a site map and some more stuff in the illustration portfolio. Have a good weekend!
Saturday, March 29 at 4:49 AM
new treehouse sketch
When Andrew and I were kids, the coolest books in the world were Ed Emberley drawing books, especially the epic Make A World. Out of all the artwork I've ever done, I think that I'll always be most proud of our gigantic Ed Emberley mural on Ikea butcher paper. We literally spent months drawing a detailed city that had everything from pirate ships to alien spacecrafts, all based on the step-by-step instructions of Emberley's books. We would always go to the drawing section of the library first to see if the elusive "big green" or "big red" books were available. Once we got back home, we would immediately add new characters and places to our world. I remember bringing in the mural for show-and-tell once and rolling out the paper to fill the full width of the classroom (sure beat Ryan Mishkin's rock collection).
So, like the Ed Emberley mural, this treehouse sketch that I finished tonight took a long time to complete too. It started as a light pencil sketch drawn during Johns Hopkins classes, which was then inked, scanned and colored in photoshop following some techniques from those sites I mentioned in the last post. Find all three birds...
I saw my family, Jinsoo and Jen when I went home this weekend, and hung out in D.C. at the Mad Hatter. Spring break plans are also shaping up; I'll probably be heading down to Atlanta from April 13-15. Should have some exciting news when I return...
Monday, March 24 at 6:44 PM
back to the drawing board - no, seriously
I'm starting to really get interested in a lot of different forms of drawing, especially something called concept art. While searching for techniques I came across an article about some artists working on creating the worlds and creatures for the third Star Wars prequel. One of the artists, Feng Zhu, has some jaw-dropping artwork on his website that includes a "How I Work" section that I found helpful. This site led me to a whole slew of others similar to it, like Warren Fu and Doug Chiang. I've spent a couple of hours cycling through the work at these sites and am inspired enough to become excited about drawing on a more regular basis. Last night I started a treehouse sketch that I'm now coloring in Photoshop. Speaking of which, Team Photoshop is a pretty talented forum to display your digital artwork and get comments, while Penciljack seems geared more towards traditional mediums. I know most people don't get as excited as I do about using a 30% "cool grey" Prismacolor marker, but whatever, I'm getting tired of video games.
UVA's Dance Marathon is this weekend, and a lot of alumni are going down. I'll be going home to Burke and visiting Jen this weekend, but I asked the dancers to eat a donated bagel for me when they play some Timberlake. Good luck to everybody doing the full 24 hours.
"The Statue Got Me High" (They Might Be Giants), "The News" (Jack Johnson), "Class Clown" (Owsley), "Joyride" (Roxette)
Wednesday, March 19 at 8:16 PM
shaolin soccer! pow!
First thing's first: Check out the Shaolin Soccer trailer (Quicktime, 4.2 MB) and then try to tell me that it's not the greatest movie idea ever.
Andrew came down this weekend to visit me along with three of his friends, and Blair joined us on Saturday too. After french toast at Zeus' Cafe and pre-partying with Kurt Scheib, we went to a great TFA St. Patrick's Day party with great green beer and jello shots. Andrew was introduced to such TFA personalities as Tall Paul and Trey Poore III and tried to get a game of freeze tag started. But our house after the party was even crazier. Andrew had me, my roommates, and everybody else laughing over stories about "gestapos on snowmobiles" and "no pants o'clock." We watched two hours of Nickelodeon cartoons this morning before the JMU spring break came to a close and everyone drove home, ending a great weekend.
I was the best man and godfather in an interesting wedding/baptism ceremony this afternoon. Matt, my Northeast co-worker and recently married neighbor, has a friend who is becoming a Deacon in the Catholic church. This afternoon, as part of his path to becoming ordained, the Deacon-to-be had to go though an abridged mock wedding and mock baptism with Matt and his wife, while his colleagues and teachers observed and took notes. So it was more like a test, while Matt and Carrie got to renew their vows (after a whopping 8 months of marriage) and hold a baby doll while going through the motions of baptism.
And finally, here's a picture of Cardboard Tube Samurai that I drew up from the popular online comic Penny Arcade. Just more practice with Photoshop-enhanced drawings.
Sunday, March 16 at 4:41 PM
one: We were snowed out of school for a week, but even as teachers we still went sledding at Patterson Park for a good two hours. A kid we met there asked me to take a picture when he went off the snow ramp backwards. Turned out pretty well.
two: Three happy teachers drinking beer on the roof, taking a break from throwing snowballs into the windows of the vacant cigar factory next door. Such is our life.
three: Mike, Mel and Tammer at the summit of the official Patterson Park sledding hill. We sledded down on stolen cardboard campaign banners.
four: Granted, we all have our bad days at work. Mike decided to combat a particularly bad day with alcohol. This picture was taken before he fell down the stairs with his soup, mind you.
five: Dave playing at The Brass Monkey after practicing with Mike and Andrew for three hours. Both February Brass Monkey shows went great; we were paid well for the first one and won the battle of the bands for the second one.
Wednesday, March 12 at 2:01 PM
zelda + a box of thin mints + procrastination = this
I spent a good part of the weekend playing (and just now finishing) Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which I got free from pre-ordering the new Gamecube Zelda game. It's quite possibly the best video game that I've ever played, even though it came out about five years ago. Mike and Tammer were by my side as I fought through the half-hour ending battle sequence, shouting out ideas on how to defeat the last boss. I think I need to take a long, long break now...for the past two nights I've had the strangest dreams. They start out normal, you know, me getting chased by a dinosaur or something, and then out of nowhere these yellow lock-on triangles circle around a friend and next thing you know I'm shooting fire arrows at them. Yeah, it's definitely time for a break - at least until The Wind Waker comes out on March 25.
I was thinking about how video games are only growing in popularity and will probably be right up there with movies one day. I remember reading last year that the video game industry makes a heckuva lot more than the movie industry now. With a movie, you're immersed in an escapist world for two or three hours, talk about it with your friends as you leave the theater, and life goes on (well, except for The Ring...television static still scares me. It's out on DVD now; you should check it out). But once you add interaction, movies essentially become video games: a story that you control. I've thought for a while that music should go through this interactivity too. You've heard your favorite song the same way 100 times...who says that it can't change? I'd almost guarantee that future music will take advantage of user control. Sure, okay, there would be one main commercial version of a song. But then the possibilities are endless. Leave out or add certain instruments. Change the arrangement of the verses and choruses, or somehow unlock hidden lyrics or sounds. Listen to what happens when a hardcore goth-rock anthem switches into a bluegrass jamboree. I'm envisioning some digital format beyond a CD that could contain hundreds or even thousands of variations of a single song. And it wouldn't have to be nerdy-technical, although I'm sure that it would appeal to the computer programmer types. You're driving in your car listening to Okay Samurai's "Mosquito", an extended 15 minute version. Your phone rings and your friend tells you to check out preset #354964, so you type in the numbers on your car's audio device. This numerical code selects a certain arrangement with certain instruments in a certain order. Now you're listening to the musical themes of Mosquito developed through orchestral music while a commentary plays about the importance of the fire extinguisher. Artists might spend as much time on one song as an entire album. I mean, even my favorite songs have lost something after a hundred listens, after learning them on guitar and throwing in some variations on my own. You lose that sense of newness and surprise. I think that's why jazz appeals to so many people: the complexity of the arrangements and harmonies (aka not distorted power chords) leads to a unique listening experience. Unless you memorize where every Coltrane note is going to be played, you'll hear something new or familiar each time.
Woah, I really went off on a tangent there. I think I started with video games and somehow ended up with interactive jazz. That's it, no more Zelda."Oh No The Radio" (Owsley), "Hurt" (Johnny Cash), "Sing For The Moment" (Eminem), "Conjugate the Verbs" (Enon), "On Our Own" (Bobby Brown), "Invisible Touch" (Phil Collins)
Sunday, March 9 at 2:51 PM
jamaica me crazy. we be irie mon!
well... its thursday 8:55am and i officially can't do any work today because i am daydreaming and thinking about the fact that in two days i will be laying on the beach in negril, jamaica, baking in the hot sunshine... thousands of beautiful girls everywhere... a plethora of alcohol and anything else one would desire... cliff diving at rick's cafe... eating caribbean jerk chicken, fresh pineapple, and drinking rum & cokes... throwing the frisbee and nerf turbo screamer in the water... we're staying at legends hotel , which is also one of the really popular bars (along with risky business and margaritaville) that everyone goes to at night. we should be getting to the beach around 1pm on saturday and leaving thursday evening. so when everyone is at work next week, think of me..."Kokomo" (Beach Boys), "Ain't Life Grand" (Widespread Panic), "Changes In Lattitudes" (Jimmy Buffett), "Jammin" (Bob Marley)
Thursday, March 6 at 6:26 AM
that's craplousy!
Thanks to Andrew for getting me the greatest birthday gift ever - a VHS tape of Battlefield Earth...the "version en espanol subtitulada". Maybe the cavemen in F-14s will seem more realistic in Spanish. This continues our tradition of giving each other cheap, stupid gifts like an orange jumpsuit or the often-overlooked (and for good reason) cinematic gem All About The Benjamins. Hey, turns out that the switch to all 6th grade classes wasn't that bad. Two of my three new classes have no more than 21 students. My last class was full of freakin' angels, so at least I'll be able to end the day on a high note. Duct-taping my hallway dividers together helped too.
Jefferino4 is right...Couronne is highly addicting. After I lost the first game I was unstoppable (or my opponents, "bananamonkey9" and "poofish", were remarkably bad). Stupid Videos are addictive too. If a penguin tripping another penguin to fall face-first in the ice isn't funny, what is?
Monday, March 3 at 2:20 PM
cinco cervezas
The Okay Samurai show at the Brass Monkey was two nights ago, and we ended up winning the battle of the bands! We played with Break For Safety and Stimulus, and both bands gave entertaining shows. Because we had not sold many tickets and it was snowing, I was definitely a little nervous about our turnout. But Nick redeemed his managerial status by standing out in the snow to sell our prepaid tickets and make phone calls. The show was just Mike and I, doing our best Local H impression as a two-person band. The show started with us pretending to not know how to play our instruments; I played a horrible bar chord and Mike lost his drumsticks while playing off-tempo. Then I mumbled something about "maybe I should add distortion" and we immediately began rocking out to Pour Some Sugar On Me. Grassblade Smoke was played as a throwback to the old Second Nature days, as well as an updated Nematoad Haven (with the Axel F riff thrown into the middle)! When I mentioned the song's title, a few audience members yelled out "DOUG!", voicing their knowledge about the fantastic nematoad episode from the Nickelodeon/Disney cartoon Doug. Akshay was in attendance for Akshay151, so I was able to tell the infamous story while I played the song intro. I had a lot of fun with Cinco Cervezas, a song about how Nick sold us out for five beers at the last concert. Supposedly sung in Spanish, I threw in a "de nada" and "no tengo pantalones puestos" here and there, but most of the song was complete jibberish that sounded like Spanish. Apparently we move on to some semifinals now or something; as usual, I don't know what the heck is going on. We turned down an offer for a Mardi Gras show because, well, we have to teach the next day.
Yesterday at Northeast Middle School I daydreamed through two and a half hours of "professional development", or as I like to call it, "blame everybody else for why our school is crappy". The only thing that got me by was drawing a treehouse in red pen on the back of the handouts. I got a shweet home-made card signed by all the teachers, though, so that was nice (although most teachers guessed I was turning like 14 or something, not 23). If you remember the "cake incident" from a few weeks ago, you might like to know that Carolyn delivered a chocolate cake to me yesterday. So thanks to everybody who sent me birthday wishes, presents, and cake; these past few days have been great.
Saturday, March 1 at 8:19 AM
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