May 2006

05.30.06, Tuesday:

[07:50pm] Spent the weekend in Vegas...! ^_^ Lots of pictures from all of us to tell the story...

Drove on up on two separate cars. While Shelton and I snacked on take-out dim sum (har gow and siu mai!), Calvin, Simon and Gilbert stopped at Del Taco on their long way up (they hit traffic; we didn't. What a difference and hour makes, eh?).

When they finally got there, we drove around town like the hard core Vegas patrons that we are, and ate together at Thai BBQ for some yummy beef sate...

The rest of the weekend can be summed up in pictures. Though I didn't get as many as I wanted to, it's a combination of Gilbert's, Shelton's, and mine. Simon has some too. =) Some of these are...interesting...you can come up with your own captions, hee hee...

Red Rock Casino (fancy shmancy, and I liked it. ^_^)

Shopping at the Premium Outlets... (uh, I didn't know how um...controversial...that pictures of Calvin could be until I uploaded it...I took it because he looked like he was having so much fun playing on there, ha ha...)

Rested a bit at home...

Ate at Sushimon

• One of the many and real reason why I even go back to Vegas once in a while, ha ha ha...it's worth the 3 hour drive...!
• Khoi-Ahn joined us too! =)
• Afterwards, we watched Over The Hedge till the wee hours of the morning. Totally recommend it! 

Visited LWCC in the morning.

• Saw my fellow Ohana *POP* homeboy, Kurt (he's grown so much!) and Becky, but missed the rest of the gang, as they were actually down in Cali for the SWC concert!!!
• The church dog! So sweet! So sad...I'd want to take it home...

Visited the Strip. =)

• Ate at the Stratosphere tower. I don't think I've actually ever been on this side of the strip, so it was interesting, to say the least. =) We were THIIIIS close to riding the rides...Next time. =) Potato Pancakes with Smoked Salmon though, was mmm-mmm-good...and the tiramisu was certainly tasty...though not heavenly...I think I'm still biased with Cheesecake Factory's. Old allegiances and loyalty don't die easily. =)
• NASCAR Cafe at the Sahara.
• Parked at Wild J's Adult Toy Store, ha ha, and ran across the street to play at Circus-Circus with our wad of 2-for-1 tickets. ^_^ Shelton won the big ball for Hugo, and the rest of us played and mostly squandered our money away at games and air hockey. By the way...Calvin is a worthy opponent...!
• Auntie cooked a wonderful dinner for us, heh heh...props to her...=)

Of course...grading could not be avoided...

...but overall, another great adventure with little sleep in the city of light that never sleeps...=)

05.22.06, Monday:

[06:47pm] After church and GB meeting, we went to eat lunch at Market Broiler, to celebrate the graduates for this year! From HS, we had Thomas H., Josh and Vanessa...from college was my bro and Melody...and from grad school was Andrew! Yay! Congrats to all! =)

Some pics from Gilbert's camera: (1) Shelton and I, and (2) I'm taking a bite out of Anna's arm, because she grabbed me so unexpectedly, ha ha ha...

Uh-oh - my mom rang the bell. Time for dinner! Heh heh...^_^

05.21.06, Sunday:

[07:24am] This week? =)

After work on Tuesday, Tamara and I went to get sushi at Ooka's! Turned out they were closed...so we went to Vons, grabbed some sushi and drinks and ate dinner at the cafe in Vons, ha ha ha...it was yummy and fun to just do non-school work after school. =)

Hip Hop was rockin' - old school slicin' that I hadn't seen since high school, and neato shoulder shakes! ^_^ Anna and I also ate at the Dumpling Master's, where the food was good (but not GREAT) and the waitress was angry at every customer. She practically threw the food on our tables and never smiled - and even told one customer something along the lines of "Don't sue me." We gave her no tip. =P

"Scruffy" is becoming a regular at church, heh heh...he's the stray dog that's been visiting for several months now. He can stand on his hind legs - and when playing with him and running around, at one point, he was running on his hind legs after me! ^_^ Hee hee...we feed him and such, but I'd love to take him home, give him a nice bath (his fur would look really nice!) and keep the fella. =) But my mom would probably have a fit, heh heh, so for now, it's fish and tortoises. =)

And maybe a leopard gecko...a kid at school (not even my student, but one my student's friends) has a pregnant momma leopard gecko, and he's supposedly going to give me one. =)

Yesterday, Shelton and I went to JPL's Open House. WOW! It's amazingly cool all the stuff that they had to show at this NASA lab - we got to see the inside of a few labs, robotics, and listen to scientists give answers to all your questions about outer space. I hope some of my students went, though I kinda doubt it - it's so far away. But it was well worth it. And free! ^_^ I got a bunch of cool posters that I'm going to hang up everywhere. Yes, way too much nerdy fun, surrounded by other nerds - and I did love it! =)

We also finished Veronica Mars: Season One last night. Aghhh! It's so good! I wouldn't say it's as good as Buffy, nor Wonderfalls, but it comes close. I think it's a lot darker though...lots of dark and depressing themes - murder, rape, twisted conspiracies and all that. NOT recommended for younger viewers, because my goodness...!!! Buffy was happier and wittier - VM is dark and almost as witty. But I did like it! And will probably want to see the second season. =)

05.15.06, Monday:

[09:10pm] I left for Vegas shortly after my last blog. Why did we go to Vegas, for a day and a few hours? To see Kevin Ku graduate from UNLV, that's why! ^_^

And on the way, we encountered many great adventures: The Taliban, Jay Leno, and a WOOF, to say the least...

We got there around midnight, and after unpacking and showering, everyone had their lights out by about 1 in the morning. Before I went to sleep though, I heard about four horrifying screams from outside - and I mean HORRIFYING! It was blood curling...like someone was being chased by an insane murderer who had a chainsaw in his hands type of scream. >_< The scream scared me so much that I even said a short prayer, oy! O_o

After falling asleep, I kept waking up, hearing loud yelling and noise from the outside...something along the lines of alalawaganachkararararararararaouoiuulululluuuuuliloooo...it was totally nonsensical, but it was yelling nonetheless, and crazy loud...by the time I decided that I couldn't sleep anymore, it was already 3am...and the neighbors were still at it. Either they were arguing, or just talking insanely loud and yelling across the street at 3 in the morning! I was scared to look outside, because it was so loud and sounded so angry, but I did peek through the blinds, and once, I saw a man going from his car (parked across the street) towards the house next door. I looked outside the hallway of my bedroom to see if Shelton or his parents were awake, but it seemed peaceful inside the house, with only the bubbling of the aquarium downstairs, ha ha ha...

So I decided to go downstairs and grade papers. I went to the dining table first - a most obvious choice, wouldn't you think? But the dining table was actually closest to the next door neighbors...and not only did I hear yelling still, I heard LOUD and constant, fast, nonstop banging...it almost sounded like someone was shooting a machine gun into a wall, continuously! I was hecka scared, thinking I might get shot or something, and took my papers and went somewhere else to grade, as far as I could...until around 4:30ish, when I could grade no more (and was nearly done too!) and started dozing off...so I went back to bed, hearing no more scary noises, and knocked out for 2 hours before getting up for Ku's graduation.

Maybe their new neighbors are part of the Taliban? Heh heh...Auntie and Uncle say that it happens once in a while, these late night screaming and yelling from these Middle Easterners, so that it's not COMMON, but happens enough so that it's expected. Eeee. And I thought the 3am car alarm going off for the old brown car down the street was bad here...or that the two streetcats that had the uuuugliest meows and fights in the wee midnight hours were bad...Compared to this, I live in a GREAT neighborhood!

We met up with the Derrick and his parents, as well as Victor, at KK's place. The five of us drove off to the Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV...for his graduation, where we met up with Khoi-Ahn. ^_^ Pictures from the graduation...

(1) Too Ku. ^_^ (2) Pho Ku. ^_^ (3) Where's Ku?

(4) Where's Ku, Part Two? (5) Me! ^_^ (6) Jay Leno was there! He was doing his JayWalk segment. Can you see him? He's the blurry-fuzzy man dressed in a denim shirt and jeans at the center right. ^_^

(7) Kevin celebratin' at E-Bar for lunch. (8) Momma shot! (Thank you Auntie for the good lunch!!! ^_^) (9) Sunshine Buddy Derrick and Victor. ^_^

(10) Shelton's future spouse... (11) Gail's future spouse... (12) ...and Melissa Kwok-Lau's future spouse...^_^

(13) Ducky's artistic tea shot, ha ha... (14) Assault (a salt) with knife! =Þ (15) Chug Chug Chug! ^_^

There are more pictures, with more actual people and not food people in it, but they're on the other cameras. ^_^

We visited the condo afterwards (of which it is NOT 98% done, Mr. Richard P!), and after meandering here and there, we went home to visit Akitoki, the lionhead goldfish we got Auntie for her birthday in March. It's still alive, swimming strong, and growing well! We took entirely too many pictures of this awesome little guy after I napped for not getting enough sleep the night before, heh heh...

We ate dinner for Auntie (Mother's Day!) at Buffet@Asia, after I finally found calligraphy pens (I'm starting a calligraphy class in my zero period, for once or twice a week. I'm so excited! But they don't sell these pens much nowadays, which is sad.) and after Auntie found a cool shirt for only $3! ^_^ I guess I was wrong about this place...it's actually a pretty good buffet! It wasn't at all like the one time I went...I guess the trick is that the weekday lunches suck, but the dinners are entirely too delicious. =) We ate with Auntie and Uncle, Kai-Gou and Hugo! Hugo is such a smart lil' lad. Much too cute and much too intelligent, but traveling overseas soon...sigh...bye bye Hugo...=(

I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to sleep Saturday night either. Plus, I was really full. So Shelton and I took a walk around the neighborhood and park...I tried peeking into the neighbor's place, but couldn't see much. =P And when we were at the park, it was dark...and out of nowhere, came one very deep and loud WOOF! A giant stray Rottweiler dog started running towards us and I freaked out, ha ha...fortunately for us, it was behind the baseball cages...and while pulling Shelton away from the field and him saying I should just walk away instead of running (because it makes it worse, right?), and responding that I was positively REEKING of fear anyways...I looked back and noticed that there WAS an owner there, sitting near the pitcher's mound, so technically, we were safe...and after that short rush of adrenaline, we went back to walking around the park, running into a smaller dog that scared me not at all, and a cool guy practicing soccer in the tennis court by kicking the ball into the fences while running around and jumping over the net. Very cool!

There was no scary screaming that night, and I slept well. Yay! We took off the next morning back to Riverside, stopped at RCAC for a lovely Youth Fundraiser Luncheon and Mother's Day Sharing, got to hang out with homies there, before going back to Corona to rest, rest, rest with a shower, tortilla chips and salsa, Veronica Mars, another walk around the park, and getting some Airborne type stuff (only it was the equaline brand...equivalent to Target brand stuff, ha ha) at Albertson's. Over the weekend, we had both ended up getting a scratchy type throat. Maybe it was the a/c down in Vegas. Either way, my throat feels way better now!

My eye still twitches though. Grrr.

05.12.06, Friday:

[08:25pm] Today, we did a lab where kids got to find out their weight on another planet, how far they could jump, and how old they'd be on other planets of the solar system. An interesting conversation came out from the start of the lab, during 6th period today:

Dillon: I'm black, so I can jump far!

Me: Are you being racist? *sarcastic smile with eyes raised*

Dillon: Huh?

Me: Because you're black!

Bianca (to Dillon and class): Ohhh! Because you're saying that white people can't jump! Ha ha ha...and that black people CAN!

Hector: Nooooo! YOU guys can jump HIGH, but we, we're beaners - we can jump further!

Bianca: That's right! Because we have to hop across the border!

Hector: Yeah, we're beaners! We're better than you in jumping!

- - -

Later on, Cynthia raises her hand: What if I don't jump that far for the lab?

Me: Cynthia, I wouldn't worry about that. According to Dillon, because you're black, you can jump far!

*the rest of the class laughs and Ooooo's Dillon*

My 6th period is silly. Heh heh - sometimes they can get out of hand, but at the same time, we have much too many inside jokes going on - the two Asian kids in there are my son and daughter, and now, racist jumping jokes...all meant without harm, of which all, I hope, understands that it's not with any cruel intention...muah ha...

Bianca had this thing with "Gay Pride" all over her folder, and I had to ask her why she had it all over her folder, even though she was not gay. She said she wanted to support them. I asked her well...what about the Chinese? So now...it's "Chinese Pride!". ^_^

My other classes have their own quirks too. 3rd period always makes me happy (I've an adopted group of children in there, apparently), and even when I have to discipline them, which is rare, I just say it in the nicest tone, and I don't get the least stressed out, and they all say Okay Ms. Lau, and they are absolute angels and truly repentant. I love them too. =)

05.11.06, Thursday:

[07:14pm] <vent>

Second Period.

At the start of the year, they were the rowdiest class. There was RL, who was plain spiteful, and then there were those that all followed him and contributed to the overall problem, particularly LK, DW, RM, MC, and TT. It's the class that made me cry at the start of the year, and the one that I had my principal and vice-principal come in to lecture them while I cleaned my eyes up in the bathroom. It's the class where I issued THE MOST referrals ever in the process of getting them to finally be respectful and quiet. And after a while, they're the quietest class - in fact, too quiet for my taste, but I kept it there, because with the potential for trouble, if I loosened the reins, they just might take off. With TT moved to another class period, things got better. MC, I hear, is an angel in my class compared to everywhere else, and she's not spiteful either - both these girls are just really...well, loud...and they don't always think of other people. =P RL and LK ended up moving out to another class, and RL, the one that really had this black, black heart (okay, I'm dramatizing, hee hee), was eventually expelled for problems elsewhere. RM improved and was no longer an issue, and with DW being the only real problem - he's given up, which is sad; I've tried not giving up on him, but he purposefully is giving up, and I can't do much else about it - the class got to a better level, behavior-wise.

There are still small insurrectionists and followers - JC, who doesn't do much, and will find every opportunity to do the least amount of work and talk to DW. KL, who moved from 3rd period and whom I think has a major attention issue that nobody at home seems to want to address - though he means well, his brain and mouth are just all over the place. NF, who means well and really does want to do well - only he gets distracted easily enough...at least he stops with a single warning. He knows better. RMg doesn't know better though. RG, who is low in skills, whom I'd love to help one-on-one with more intensely only he doesn't come after school, who strives to do better even though he doesn't get it all, and who is not the least bit spiteful, but is DW's friend. RM, who has some major issue with coming in tardy, of which phone calls and detentions and Saturday schools and vice-principals don't have much of an effect on, and who is decently intelligent, yet will find whomever she is sitting by to talk to. And the new girl, SW, who has joined MCs circle of black friends (nothing racists, I like these girls, only they are all loud, heh heh!) and is beginning to lose her new-girl-shine and start with the talking across the room thing to CB and MC. (Hmm...Reminder: Parent contact tomorrow for her.) And then there's ADM, who does nothing all period, who comes in and always says he's sleepy or doesn't have paper or pencils, and yet is awake enough to talk to his neighbors, make clay animals and draw pictures instead. I lose a lot of patience with some of these...I don't WANT to, and yet, it happens when I feel like I'm spending 20 minutes on disciplining several different ones of them at the same time. Except for DW, they're not the loud kind of problems - it's a build up of little things that is characteristic of just this one class for some wacko reason...

The personality of period 2, besides that? It's pretty quiet. They don't respond as enthusiastically like Periods 3,4,5,6, though individually, I see smiles and a desire to play with me when I try to get them to do cool stuff. I see MQ's eyes light up, KS's smile when she gets my jokes, EB's wry turn of the mouth when she understands, MR being brave and raising his hand when he knows it, ML's constant participation, MC's eagerness to take part when she is paying attention, MM's desire to help and try her best, IM's cheerful attitude, EN and AC's recent improvements and confidence building, BP's self-motivation to do well, PR and LS quietly always wanting to please me with their work, and a million other little personalities that have yet to shine through. There's are lots of good things about this class period that I need to focus on before school lets out, and I need to remember that before I let it get the better of me. Plus, it's my smallest class - you'd think it'd be easier, eh? =)

But today? Today wasn't great. Today had me impatient and pissed off. It's not just my second period. Angela's too. And apparently, Diane's too. And there were 100 minute class periods today. Aghhhh!

The testing has really spoiled our kids rotten. For the whole week and some, after they've tested, many act like they have the right to goof off in all their other classes because they're done with STAR testing, and whine when we actually do something in class. I think it's more of the attitude that is driving me and everyone else nuts. I liked last year's testing schedule - test, and go home early. Everyone was happy - the kids of course, and teachers not having to deal with 25 minute class periods trying to get kids to do something worthwhile after a heavy test.

Actually, I do have to admit, my classes were fine. They started out on the first day, DARING to whine, and I said no, ha ha, and they listened. And they were all pretty good - Period 3 even WANTED to do more reviews prior to their STAR testing and asked for more graphs, more problems. =) I staggered my planning for it (reviews, Roller Coaster video, reading Sky Maps on another day for the Star Party, and starting our Solar System Flipbooks on another), and by God's grace, had no real problems. ^_^  But I had felt the trouble on the first day, and many teachers still had problems with the super short class periods.

Okay. Done. =)

</vent>

And we just found out yesterday: second period is the class we read off for promotions!

Hip Hop last night was GREAT, as always! Anna and I actually went swimming earlier and had dinner at Greenland Market before going back to hip hop. ^_^

I was grading papers after work, and I actually fell asleep at work. Good thing the doors were locked, ha ha...I woke up about an hour later, my arms and legs numb. I think it was the weather...and grading, heh heh...which reminds me...I need to get back to grading, changing the seating charts, and packing up for tomorrow! I hear it's going to be about 100 degrees out in Vegas. Oy. *sweat*

05.10.06, Wednesday:

[06:28am]

RIP Picasso

March 25, 2006 - May 9, 2006

Poor Picasso...I think he died of starvation...I had watched him if he was eating, and to be sure the bubble eyes weren't taking his share, but I guess it wasn't enough. A bunch of websites say these guys just are slow eaters and you'd have to blast them with food to make him eat. I noticed on Monday that he was skinny looking, so I set Paul and Barnabas apart and kept trying to feed Picasso - blasting him with food, putting in tons of pellets...I woke up Tuesday morning, and he was dead...=( Aghhh! Fish! Sigh.

It's been a while since I last blogged! Though I'm not as busy after work lately (It's been STAR Testing the past week and some), I end up doing other things instead of blogging, like cleaning and organizing, reading, and other stuff around the house, which was kinda nice. =) Ahhh...to think that the internet became available to me only after I started college, and before that...what did I do with all that extra time??? At times, I can't even remember, ha ha...j/k j/k...the internet...can be evil...the white box...but at the same time, it can be used for good, right?

After all, you can learn how to peel a potato...how to fold a tshirt...another way to folding a tshirt...and how to make coffee art. ^_^