ALL NEW: Links

I've filled in the links section on the right. I'll use it to post cool stuff that people send me.

Today was the last day of MCAS. When I asked most of my students how they did they said, "It was easy." In my third period class, I showed episodes of Family Guy. In one, Peter knocks on this woman's door. She opens and says, "You don't look anything like the ad. You'd better be HUGE." Rachelle goes, "What does that mean?" I had been burying my face in my hands, so I snapped up and went "Nothing!"

Tamara and Nick have been coming in to hang out with me at lunch. I love those kids! Tamara says she wants to go to Harvard, but I'm trying to convince her that's a bad idea. I've been selling her on Stanford--I think she'd like it, for the cultural opportunities and the social life (and the weather). She wants me to bring in pics of the campus. Nick says he wants to get "TRINIRICAN" tattooed across his back. Like this:


(That's Nick's email signature)

I decided last week to say fuck it and loosen up with my students. For the first month or so of my student teaching I was very businesslike & strict--I thought this would help students pass my class. It didn't work, and I felt fake. In this situation--where I didn't have the class since the beginning of the year and so much is out of my control--there's no point in fighting the tidal wave of poor behavior every day. It was stressing me out. I plan on getting more sleep and being a more laid back Mr. Borrelli.

My Mom's in Paris! She writes:

I'm staying at the Villages Hotel in Lisses, a suburb about 30 minutes southeast of Paris while my students are staying with their host families here. In the morning, they go to French school from 8:45 - 11:45 and then I take the bus to meet them and we all take the RER (commuter train) into Paris for afternoon adventures, using the Metro to get around. Yesterday we went shopping at Galeries Lafayette, and I found a Virgin records and bought you the CD "TUBES 2006" (Hits of 2006). Last night I had dinner (and drank some really good French wine) with the Huart family (Kelly and Heather's host family) and after dinner I taught them how to play 3 - 13. Got back to the hotel just after midnight for bed. Later today we're going to the Musée D'Orsay, which is featuring Pissarro, so I'll buy you a nice print.

On Mon. we went to Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur Basilica and the Place du Tertre, where the street artists gather to paint and sell their wares; afterwards we went to the Moulin Rouge and Place Pigalle area, which is like the Tenderloin in San Francisco;
Sex Shop, Museum of Erotica, Porno Shop...Japanese Restaurant(?), SEXDROME, Peep Show, etc.

I asked her to buy me a CD of French pop/electronica music, hence TUBES 2006. I still have the present she bought me the first time she went to France with her students, about ten years ago. It's this eight-inch, curved, bejewelled dagger.

I need to go to sleep. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to this guitar clinic at Berklee (with Kaki King!) so I can't come back and sleep after school like I have been.

Hahahaha, check this out.

"They have called it Colymbosathon ecplecticos, which means 'amazing swimmer with a large penis.'"