The Song Fight Bulletin Board

There's a backhoe in my front yard. Its operator (Butch Burhoe) got here around 6:15am. He's pulling up the stump of the tree that feel on our house this spring. We also have an old, unused, and potentially dangerous stone well over on the hill. He's going to cave the thing in for us, and drop the stump in there while he's at it. Kind of a shame, 'cause the well is actually quite pretty. But it's gotta go.

QotD*: Who is/was your favorite teacher? I'm raising my coffee cup to John Whitney, music teacher at Plymouth Area High School. I was a difficult youth, and he managed to find the right quantities of 1) sparking my interest and 2) giving me opportunity to explore. Thanks John!


*Has this one been done before? I don't think so, but if I'm mistaken, someone post a new one.

We saw more riot police here in MX City than I've seen since standing outside the Republican convention in 2003. All seems calm, maybe just practicing freaking out the gringos.

QotD: Walter Schneider of Northport High School provided three years of theory, world music study, electronic composition (Moog and 4 tracks) and endless entertainment while emphasizing that music exists and has existed in every culture through the ages and we should look for it and listen to it where ever we go. He certainly understood that learning can and should be fun, and took fun learning very seriously.

Good morning everyone! Today is my big “second interview” for the supervisor position in my office. I have to be interviewed by my arch nemesis, Kimberly. We wrote So Kind Stacey about Kimberly. It’s going to be difficult to set my personal feelings aside to have a good interview and get the job. If I don’t get the job, I know that it will be because of her. We have a mutual dislike for each other… big time!

Last night I was stressing about what I was going to wear, while still not putting any laundry in. I was forced, out of necessity, to wear a skirt today. I’m not much of a skirt person in my post baby years. But, ya gotta do what you gotta do. I went to bed too late and didn’t sleep much. I was supposed to take the bus today (my Life Coach said so), but I wasn’t able to get up the extra hour early.

After my interview at 9:00, the rest of my day should be ok. I have one meeting and a lot of time to kill.

As for the QotD, I think my favorite teacher in high school was either Mr. Mc Quistion who I had for both Psychology and AP Government, or (even though I hate to say this) Bruce Kanegai, my AP Art teacher. My all time favorite college professor was Dr. Victor Fontaine.

Mr. Mc Quistion was pretty awesome. He would let us do “Music Interpretation” on Fridays for extra credit in Psychology. We would get to play a song for the class and then give a run down of what it means to us. It was really an excuse for me to play the Smiths, the Cure and the Replacements in class. Of course, no one ever got it, but it was still fun! AP Government was not nearly as fun as Psych. Mc Quistion did throw a swim party at his house after the AP test, but my asshole boyfriend at the time wouldn’t let me go for some reason.

Bruce Kanegai was a little Japanese karate instructor/art teacher. He used to tell the same stories every year (I had him all three years of high school). He was an Eagle Scout, sprained his ankle on the John Muir trail but managed to finish his hike, his parents were in a Japanese interment camp in California, etc. He was charismatic and full of spirit, but he also gave me false hope. He was very encouraging (to everyone), but I think he made me turn away from art. While working on my AP portfolio, he used to tell me that I’d be able to get into Cal Arts or the Art Institute or whatever, that I could be the best artist in California… I believed him, but became very disillusioned my Senior year. I lost confidence and didn’t finish my portfolio, well, I finished it, but it was terrible. I got a 3. I guess the problem I had was that he filled me up with confidence, but then never followed through. And, I found out he said the same shit to everyone… But, I did babysit his kids, so at least I made some money outta the whole thing. He was on Survivor (Exile Island) last year. He was the one who had to leave the island because his colon was completely backed up.

Dr. Victor Fontaine was my professor for Ethics, Philosophy 1 and 2 and also Eastern Religions. He was the best. He had a fantastic Latin accent and used to say the word Chaos pronounced as Cows. He loved to shout “that is a fallacy!” and was a genuinely nice guy. He wrote a letter of recommendation for me to transfer to UCSC. He told me that if I ever needed anything, he would gladly help out. I bet if I went to his office today, a good 12ish years after my last class with him, he’d remember me and actually be interested in my life.

Today is my first official day of Summer vacation. I got a little sunburn(despite putting on lots of sun lotion) at a pool party yesterday, but it's not too bad luckily. Today I'll be going to see Dazed and Confused(hey, last day of Junior year? Very apropos) and then going to an open mic near Philly.

QOTD: I don't think I have any teachers that I really liked. Probably Mr Joseph, who I never had for a real class, but he did direct all of the shows. We hung out on Saturday mornings building/painting sets and gossiping about people. He also took the theater class to NYC every winter, and was able to get meet'n'greet kinda things with some super big Broadway shows. Very cool. Unfortunately he left at the end of this school year, so we'll have some new guy in the fall :/

Heather. Redmon. wrote:He was very encouraging (to everyone), but I think he made me turn away from art. While working on my AP portfolio, he used to tell me that I’d be able to get into Cal Arts or the Art Institute or whatever, that I could be the best artist in California… I believed him, but became very disillusioned my Senior year. I lost confidence and didn’t finish my portfolio, well, I finished it, but it was terrible. I got a 3. I guess the problem I had was that he filled me up with confidence, but then never followed through. And, I found out he said the same shit to everyone…

Ouch, I really don't like art teachers like that. My art teachers are all pretty... well, blunt about what they do and don't like. They also all have different opinions on what the 'best' way to do something is. So you can go to Dr Kerschener and he'll yell at you for having black matting but loving the line contour, and then go to Mrs Burns who'll love the black matting but detest the lines you've done. If you take a little of both's advice you end up with some awesome art pieces. They're probably also my favorite teachers, but only together, never separate

Regular Tuesday.

QotD: Mrs. Williams... then becoming Mrs. Chastain....which is a hard transition for students who had become used to calling her Mrs. Williams for 3+ years. Anyways, she was the orchestra director for both the Middle School & the Highschool in Powder Springs, Georgia. So I had her from 6th grade to 12th grade. I was always last position. (Bass)

Back from fighting computer cooties. I don't know what I did, but after several days of fighting the coots, my computer is running like a charm. (wood knocking as I type) I listened to Nur Ein on Saturday, and that was it for online activity 'til today. Already listened to yesterdays Spy vs. Pie though!

Looks like I missed some good QOTDs the past few days, but for today I would say that my fave teacher from high school was Mr. Gilman, pyschology teacher. He addressed the students as people, not underlings, and was open to any discussion. Plus he took us on a field trip to Danvers State Hospital, in Danvers, Mass.,to have coffee and doughnuts with real live schizophrenics in a huge ward. Fascinating trip. Danvers is long closed and part of it recently burned to the ground, but it was featured in the less than great movie Session Nine. Best part of the movie were the creepy interior shots and genuinely spooky vibe. Incredibly stirring history, that place.

I had a teacher named Leslie Schultis in college that I loved. She taught music theory (I'm at kindergarten level at best) and music appreciation which I found very helpful. I may forget the terms, but I've listened to all music differently from that point on. Enthusiastic and encouraging, she made you very eager to attend class.

EDIT - Oh yeah! Good luck, Heather - just be professional and try and leave your dis-likes at the interview room door.

Update: The interview was weird. As I mentioned, it was with Kimberly of song fame, and Brian, another supervisor who I have no problem with, and Scott, who is currently being trained and I’m in charge of setting up all of his training.

I was able to get past the whole Kimberly hatred thing and was chit chatty with her before the interview. I feel like I answered the questions well-ish, but I kind of rambled and trailed off a bit. There was plenty more I wanted to say, but didn’t, probably should have. Maybe I just didn’t sell it enough. I think it was subconsciously bothering me that Kimberly holds my fate in her hands. Ick!

It was different during my interview with HR, I felt more professional. But today I interviewed with people I work with every day. I was maybe a bit too casual. I was nervous and it showed, whereas in my interview with HR I was cool as a cucumber. We’ll see how it goes…

Now I have a very long day ahead of me. I just want to go home.

In college my favorite teacher was Mr. Arora (Univ at Buffalo), who taught computer graphics, and convinced me to go to grad school. Unfortunately he didn't have a PhD and I think he didn't get much respect from the department... at the same time I graduated he left the school to join industry, which was a real shame. He was a great teacher, and I owe my grad school experience to his mentoring.

In grad school my favorite teacher was Dr. Bynum (William & Mary). He taught robotics, and is one of the awesomely oddest characters I've ever met. At some point I found a webpage that had some of the stranger things he said in class.... he had this really strange way of looking at and talking about the world, but it usually made sense. How cool!
-bill

Today I'm finishing the guitar parts for a collab I'm doing with my friend in Calgary. She's an amazing pianist and I'm decent at guitar so I suggested we write an acoustic song together. It's starting to sound really good so I'm excited.

My favourite teacher would have to be Mr. McLean, my history teacher. He actually makes history fun, which is odd

Bill Kouri, awesomest science teacher EVER.

My day has been full of events at my kids' school, loads of work, stomach aches (damn, I've been ill often), making a co-worker into an XTRG fan (she likes Anti-M's voice), planning for my trip to Chicago and writing my novel-type thingy.

My favorite teacher? That's a tough one. But I have to give props to my old high school drama teacher Didi Shapiro. Not only did she help get me involved with the Classic Stage Company repertoire which was a cool little job (No pay but a very fun place to be at back in the day) but she also allowed me to take my girlfriend along on trips. She thought that girlfriend and I were a good couple. I wonder what happened to that girlfriend. Oh, that's right. I married her. Good call, Ms. Shapiro.

<a href="http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/people/faculty/krieger">Alex Kreiger</a>. Taught me to GO FOR IT.

SPUD

Bruce Rasmussen, or "R".

He was my art teacher for 4 years.

He claimed to be a vampire.

He would bang a hammer on a filing cabinet to shut us up.

He called me "Red-bone" and "Red-whacker."

He was my teacher for his last 4 years of teaching. He had given up on the populace at large. He was filled with resentment for the kids who took his class as an easy pass. "QUIT DORKIN'" he'd shout at kids who wasn't painting.

He had a loud, almost explosive voice. He was bossy and rude to the entire class.

But he also had 1 on 1 time with each student, where he'd calmly express you were doing wrong, and how you could do it better.

My Senior year, I had 6 art classes and a criminal studies class. It was agreed by all that I wasn't going to graduate, so my counselor decided to placate me, perhaps to cut down on my rampant fighting, prankery & vandalism.

So for 6 out of 7 hours, I had art. There was an unused art room, connected to R's, joined by a storage room. R let me have that room as my own personal studio, and it was the most I ever painted. At the end of the year, I had 85 pieces in the art show, and I sold about half.

It was his last year, as I mentioned, so he gave me the supply room key and looked the other way as I loaded up for my future artage, post-shoolularly. Eleven years later and I'm still sitting on a fair pile of oil pastels and charcoal.

He taught me how to build canvasses, mix colors, punch, pop, proportions and so on. He saw what I was going for, and instead of pushing me toward the curriculum's ideal, he gave me tips on how to achieve my cartoony goals and weirdo destruction.

I had a corner installation next to the library for 3 months. Silk screened skulls, molten styrofoam, cobwebs, bent serrated metal shards covered in red paint. A terrifying corner of red & black & teenage mania. NOT in October.

My last week, he recommended me to the administration as someone to paint a mural in the cafeteria. Along with some other kids, I painted life size skeletons in clothing on all of the columns. Totally ridiculous. It lasted a couple years, too!

A few years after he retired, he had a heart attack shoveling show.

He was the #1 best part of kid jail.

My nightmare is over, for a couple of weeks at least. AFT is off to the printers, so I can get back to doing the mass of things that have piled up over the last week. For some reason, this AFT was just really difficult, it just didn't want to go away. I blame everyone but myself!

QOTD
High School, my favourite teacher would have to be John Lonnergan, teacher of drama. He was a slightly rotund, short, bearded Scottish man who had an absurdist streak. I mean, he showed us Marx Brothers movies in class! That rates highly to me. He taught me a lot, and I would always leave a class so enthused and positive. He died of a heart attack a couple of years after I graducated (2001ish).

qotd: In high school it was Mr. Bill Kinley. He was my creative writing teacher and really got me started in writing, ever more than I had. Plus he had an awesome mustache.

In college, it's Fred Johnson. He's incredibly smart, scarily smart and got me more interested in the study of Literature and everything that applies to it. Plus he has an awesome beard.

Tee hee, after looking at the link that Spud posted of his favorite teacher, I found this link of my high school art teacher Mr. Kanegai. I couldn't find anything for my other two favorites.

I'm working on my album!

I think it's gonna turn out alllllllllright!

QOTD:
Mr. Bonnelly
High School
First person to recognize my writing style as interesting and wanted more
Helped me to WIN a writing contest in 10th grade because he believed in me.
No one here will ever hear it
It sucked
Imps and hemp was a rhyme, blah!
I was a stoner for God sake
I hardly knew where the f**k I was
They clapped
I smiled
I knew then that I wanted to be a ROCK STAR!

Niveous wrote:making a co-worker into an XTRG fan (she likes Anti-M's voice), planning for my trip to Chicago and writing my novel-type thingy.

Oh! Cool! Tell your co-worker thanks!