James McBride and his band

I don't know about y'all, but I throughly enjoyed James McBride.



I really didn't know what this presentation would be like. I thought that it would be an encouragement for students to go to college. It was that and a whole lot more. I do love jazz. I particularly love the Sax. Live jazz is just that much better than listening to it recorded. I just found myself smiling a lot during the performance. The young female was just out of sight. She has a for real career ahead for her. I hope she gets the right opportunities.

My two classes were perfect ladies and gentlemen. This means that I have to see about some other field trip opportunities. The problem is always paying for the stinking bus. I would like to go to some sort of dramatic performance. I will just have to see what might be available. Maybe Mrs. Cunningham will know of something that might be fun.

Chapter 8 of Lord of the Flies

I think the process of Jack's take over of the position of chief in chapter 8 is fascinating and chilling at the same time. The boys still want Ralph to be in charge, but Ralph does not step up to the plate. Oh! sorry about the bad cliche'. Ralph does not realize how his power is waning. He needs to find a new plan. Ralph still thinks there is power in the conch. He and Piggy are surprised that Jack doesn't go for the conch when he and his henchboys go for the fire.

The conch no long has power because Jack doesn't want order and democracy. Jack is a dictator. He takes what he wants by force.

Jack finally gives the boys a choice. Go with him and have meat and excitement and protection from the beast or stay with Ralph and work hard building shelters and keeping stupid signal fires going.

The boys do not openly show their support for Jack because they are not totally ready to show their mutinous hearts in front of the assembly- the assembly that represents reason, respect of the individual, democracy, and decency. Ralph just turns around and one by one they desert him. Ralph, for all his good intentions, is not a strong leader. He does not fight to keep the group in tact. Maybe if he was as smart as Piggy, he might have a chance. Piggy is smart, but he is so vulnerable physically. Jack has no fear of Piggy.

As was the case in World War II, strong leadership is what stopped Hitler. Jack is much like Hitler. Strong measures and personal sacrifice were necessary to stop Hitler. Ralph does not see this until it is too late. Jack is a barbarian. Ralph is still trying to appease Jack as the power swings to Jacks side. Bullies must be dealt with seriously, or the consequences can be devastating.

Ready For the New School Year

I am excited about the new school year. One of the great things about being a public school teacher is starting fresh with a whole new group of students every August. Over the summer I always get a bunch of new ideas I am anxious to try out. One idea is to have my students create a blog and post to it each week. We can develop our own little community of writers. I also want to use a wiki to post student writing and guides to help with the process of writing.

My New Blog

I have been working to bring this new blog to a reality. Yeah, it is now alive. I spent the majority of my time picking out a theme. I hope you like this theme. I found the Wordpress website with the theme viewer. I had just made up my mind which theme to use and the website bugged out on me. I couldn't find the page. The website switched back to an older version with older templates.

I then went out to find other templates even though I really liked the ones I found. I then picked a new theme. I went through the process to load the Wordpress 2.2 software. The process was actually pretty easy because I have done it before. When I loaded the new theme and selected it, I realized that it was missing a blogroll and other cool components. I decided to go back to the Wordpress site and was happy to see that the new themes site was back online.