Mrvaudrey

Category: Smart-assery

  • I should probably explain…

    In my job, I banter with students quite a bit. I record a lot of their chatter on my computer–it makes for good writing later.

    Avery: None of the solutions work!
    Vaudrey: You have to show your work on paper. Paper is smarter than your brain.
    Daniel: Nuh-uh! Paper is made out of trees and trees arenbt smart.
    Vaudrey: I know that, I mean your brain is smarter on paper.
    Victor: Your brain canbt get out of your body or you die.

    Mark: Mr. Vaudrey, I heard about this guy on the History channel who ran, um, from San something all the way to LA without stopping. It was like three marathons in a row.
    Nymnh: Duh, itbs called Forrest Gump.
    Vaudrey: Forrest Gump is a fictional story.
    Nymnh: No! Then why is there Bubba Gump Shrimp Company?

    This particular short post isn’t about those, however. On Wednesday (before Nancy’s Christmas gift on Friday), Jasmine came into my class and said, “I brought the shirt!”

    Now before you write angry comments about what a terrible person I am, there is a backstory:

    In my class of Honors students, I permit a little more time for non-math chatter because the actual math doesn’t take them as long as the other classes. I permit some chatter in all my classes because I want students on my side. One day in the Honors class went like this:

    Vaudrey: Good morning, first period. This is as loud as I can talk, so go easy on me today.
    Student 1: What’s wrong?
    Vaudrey: Eh, I’m just a little sick.
    Student 2: You should stay home!
    Vaudrey: I could, but it’s easier just to come in. Besides, who would teach the class?
    Student 3: I would!
    Student 2: When we’re sick, we stay home.
    Vaudrey: Well… I’m more important than you.

    This, of course, was met with rolling in the aisles and several rounds of “Aw, naw!” We all had a little chuckle and Jasmine’s shrill voice rang out.

    Jasmine: I’m gonna put that on a T-shirt!

    Several more guffaws and rounds of “I’ll buy that shirt!” and the class went on to discuss the addition of polynomials.

    Well, a few weeks later, I got a homemade Christmas present that I wore proudly all day.

    Here’s the front of it.

    Obviously, I explained the shirt to every teacher, student, and staffer that saw it. As a stand-alone article, I probably won’t wear it to the mall or anything, but as a student gift, it’s fabulous.

    And if she thought I meant what i said, she wouldn’t have made the shirt.

  • Jeopardy

    There are a few things that I do pretty well in class. One of them is getting quickly and easily thrown off-track when students make me laugh. The other is review games.

    Earlier this week, a teammate sent me a Jeopardy game for Equations.

    So we played Jeopardy.

    Students volunteered to be Alex Trebek and select the category on the projector. “Combining Like Terms for 200: Three ex plus… uh… you can just read it.”

    The students caught on to Jeopardy very quickly.

    Vaudrey: b&and in Final Jeopardy, each player wagers part of their score on the right answer.
    Student: Oh, man! I donbt know anything! Can I wager negative?
    Vaudrey: Then you would lose points if you got it right.
    Student: But Ibd gain points when I get it wrong.

    Clearly, Randy understands the unit on negative numbers from last week.

    I want the whole class to get a shot, so I had to rotate them out every three questions or so.

    Vaudrey: James, make room for the newcomers.
    Stef: Ibm a newcomer.
    Daniel: Ibm a cucumber.

    After Jeopardy, we played a game I made up called Drag Race. Using this projection on the wall.

    Each team decides on their icon and the icon advances as their team advances.

    White Students: We’ll be Team Cracker!
    Vaudrey: That’s an Apple Pie.
    White Students: Oh… well, that’s cool, too.

    And after a few minutes of play:

    Daniel: Justin Bieber is beating Mexico! Aw, hell, no!

  • Why the Recession is Good for our Kids

    I love my job.

    Don’t get me wrong, some blue-collar jobs are great. I was a janitor for 4 and a half years and I loved probably four of them. It’s incredibly gratifying to work with your hands and immediately see results.  I left that job due to a sense of typical entitlement: I’m about to get a college degree; I can do better than this.

    I am currently a Geometry teacher at an arts school and I have found a medium where I’m able to interact with students, enlighten supple minds, and quip fun facts about Latin words and Religion. No job is perfect, but while I may voice my concerns to my wife and close friends, I am still bursting with gratitude that I have a job that doesn’t suck. It’s also in a field that I actually like. I’ve seen dozens of aging Baby Boomers working the Returns counter at Wal-Mart and none of them are too happy to be doing it.

    To back up my claim that the recession is good for our kids: here are a few direct quotes from the internet:

    Play unnoticeably on your browser at work!

    Today, my co-workers decided to play a round of “Who can piss off the boss the most?”. I didn’t play, but I still won. FML

    Check out this video! NSFW!

    There are 37 million Google results for “kill time at work”, including this article on ehow.com, which gives “productive” ways to piddle away the weekday. I had to look up NSFW a few weeks ago, while I was reading an article online (It was during my break period; don’t judge me).

    In the movie Office Space, Jennifer Aniston laments “Everybody hates their job”. Unfortunately, this sentiment is a poor sampling of Humanity and an even poorer sampling of the United States. An individual can make $9 an hour testing video games; our country is awesome.

    Enter the recession.

    Suddenly, those who hated their jobs are wishing they had it back. Suddenly, $40,000 a year isn’t a right, it’s a privilege, and you may have to actually… *sigh*… apply yourself and earn the paycheck.  Suddenly, if you hate your job, you aren’t “everybody”, you’re an ungrateful douche, and probably a little arrogant also.

    Hence, the growing “Get a College Degree or Live with your Parents Forever” movement gains more steam as even Wal-Mart employees have 12 years experience in retail and a law degree.

    Now, the entitled American teenager who plans to work as a receptionist with his/her high school degree must get some experience, get a degree in Administration, and most likely have a skill set.

    You know, other than texting and hiding gin in an Arrowhead bottle.

    Like, can I help you?

    Further, college students who have accepted allowances from their parents during college in the past must now compete for Starbucks and Albertson’s jobs and… go to work often. I recall sleeping through at least two shifts at Subway when I was in college, in addition to arriving late and leaving early. If I were to do that now, there would be a dozen other collegiates looking to earn $7.50 an hour to sling pressed turkey. How else will we afford EasyMac?

    Yup. It appears that the United States will be joining the rest of the world in budgeting, saving money, reducing debt, raising productivity, and planning ahead.

    Except that 67% of us are obese while we do it. Happy Hanukkah.

  • Why work hard if you can’t keep your job?

    It is not a good time to be a beginning teacher.

    Historically, the first people to get laid off are the part-time, substitute, and intern teachers. The term “intern” essentially means “contracted while we feel like it”. At any point the intern teacher can be served with a March 15 letter with the phrase “services no longer needed” buried into a lot of legal fluff.

    The term “March 15 letter” refers to the deadline given by California Education Code; it’s the last possible date to let a teacher now that they must begin looking for a job. Every year, around April, dozens of recently polished resumes and recommendations flood recruiting websites like edjoin.org in an effort for new teachers to find the next “intern” position. Eventually, the intern earns enough clout to earn “tenure” which guarantees them a spot for the next year.

    At least… that’s how it usually is.

    A school that doesn’t have a union is a rarity in Southern California. Here, the powerhouse Union negotiators have lawyers and press agents on speed dial, ready to pounce on administrators the moment they start to show shady behavior.

    Many charter schools are union-free, largely because of the odd curriculum and regular teacher turnover. It is not uncommon for some charter schools to see 30% turnover every year. The teachers at one such union-free school, unfortunately, have no advocate.

    So when several teachers are laid off in late July, they are, as the French say, le screwed.

    The reason the March 15 deadline exists is to allow veteran teachers a fighting chance to get the most desirable positions. Several veteran teachers (in a school without tenure) were recently canned largely, it is believed, due to the high cost of their salary.

    Why keep a $70,000 English teacher when you can get a fresh one for $45,000?

    With a never-ending supply of fresh, inexperienced teachers, this pattern can be continued indefinitely, constantly removing teachers from the posts when they begin to be excellent and raise student test scores.

    The school is saved from the budget crunch.

    Hurrah.

  • On-the-Clock-Amusement

    I find that I need to entertain myself (and occasionally others) while at work, and the most appropriate avenue for said distractions is email. These are some of the emails that I’ve sent to my coworkers.

    From: Mxxxxx Vxxxxxx
    Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 1:17 PM
    To: Grade Level Team
    Subject: Daniel

    Team,

    Poor little Daniel was busy this entire weekend moving houses. Somewhere in the process, his madre emptied his backpack into a box and filled it with bmakeup and shitb. B He is still looking for the missing box that holds the key to his futureb& but his mom sorted different subjects into different boxes, so his academic life is in shambles. He has asked for grace in this trying time of need, and in return he has committed to coming in early and giving up lunch where needed to make up the assignments that are lost.

    CLICK HERE to send Daniel $5. You will also receive a picture of Daniel and letters from him describing his progress. Let God use you to make a difference in the life of a child.

    ~Matt Vaudrey


    (more…)

  • Best Job Ever: My Star Trek experience

    The wife and I were all set to go on a pre-screening movie date and see the new chick flick with Jennifer Garner today. We made it to the theatre, got parked and in line with about 7 minutes to spare. We signed the non-disclosure deal stating that I will not camera-phone the entire thing and put it on YouTube, when I realized that … uh oh. I quickly flagged down a Communications major in a suit jacket and jeans with a name tag. “Excuse me, Damien; can I bring my phone into the movie? Really?”

    Piss. So I jog back to the car and… sabes que? Let’s cut this short. Despite rushing to the car to displace the contraband, our spots in line are lost and the movie is full when we get back. So we get free tickets to the movie of our choice; great, huh?

    We were between Angels & Demons and Star Trek. The wife unwittingly made my subterfuge easier by saying, “Are we really in the mood to see priests get cut up and burned?”

    The answer is no.

    So, for the next two hours and 27 minutes, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I explained my limited Star Trek knowledge to Andrea before the movie began. Despite being an enormous Star Wars fan, most of the knowledge is non-transferrable. To aid in the differential, here’s a Venn Diagram:

    GeekChart

    Got it?

    Now you have a snapshot of me and wifey in the theatre. I’m trying frantically to explain to her the workings of a B Black Hole while she asks where Chewbacca is.

    So the film ends and I, the selfish movie-goer, and waiting to see if there’s some cool cameo of William Shatner at the end or something. To keep my self amused, I read the credits, which brings me to this post.

    I have found the best job ever.

    About 2/3 of the way down the list, I see in the credits the listing for Science Consultant.

    There is no greater pinnacle of Nerd-dom than to explain to Gene Roddenberry’s son why a black-hole-causing goop must be dropped into the planet’s core to create an anomaly sufficient to destroy the planet itself. I’m sweating a bit just writing about it. Can you imagine? Picture for a second jumping up and down, whispering over the director’s chair, “Oo! Oo! If they fired photon torpedoes behind the ship and detonated them, the resulting sonic boom could be sufficient to break the Enterprise from the gravitational pull of the spatial anomaly, even though they are already in warp speed. Did you know that not even light can escape from a black hole? I’ve got the full specs here on my flash drive keychain.”

    Cue the inhaler.

    Granted, the Science Consultant couldn’t be an actual Trekkie, or he’d be spotting all sorts of possible plot holes and asking weird questions.

    “Excuse me, but why do Spock and Uhura get together when we know she ends up with Kirk? Spock and Uhura can’t procreate… can they? What kind of procreative organs do Vulcans have? Does Spock’s penis come to a point like his ears do?”

    “Shh… don’t speak. This is what shipmates do on my planet.”

    ~V

  • My Breakup with Staples

    What proceeds is the email that I sent to Staples customer service after 5 or 6 computer-generated responses regarding my “Staples Rewards”.

    Dear Staples,

    I’m extremely disappointed and frustrated at our recent interactions. I understand that the person reading this email didn’t start the company and probably wasn’t the one who wrote the fine print on your bullshit Rewards program, so I’m writing as if the big red building herself can hear me.

    Staples, our relationship started off great. I got a job as a teacher and started coming to see you once or twice a week to make teacher-ly purchases for my classroom or my Master’s classes. You have a great selection with a variety of items going on sale, plus a modestly decent-quality selection of Staples-brand generic materials.

    You were great; always friendly and helpful with a great return policy. I’m on my 5th laser pointer from you! Try calling up Nintendo and asking for a new Gamecube after you drop it; you will be disappointed.

    Staples, we had a great relationship for a little over a year until things started to get rocky. I mean, when we first met, you told me about the Staples Rewards program where I would get 10% back on my qualifying purchases and I was stoked. I made more purchases, thinking that I’d be getting 10% back on them.

    After about 18 months. I was beginning to feel our relationship a bit one-sided. I hadn’t seen any rewards, and they were supposed to come every 3 months. Don’t get me wrong; I stillB like you and everything, but I’m starting to think that I’m giving more to this than you are.

    Finally, I couldn’t live in denial anymore, so I contacted Customer Service and asked for you to reciprocate. I was shocked and betrayed when you said that I didn’t qualify for Rewards! And even more surprised when I heard about how only my paper and ink purchases count towards money back! You harlot! You lied to me! You never said anything about “qualifying purchases” or “minimum monthly quota”!

    We’re through. I’m taking this wallet and getting involved with your hot cousin, Officemax. At least she’s up front with me about the Rewards program and I don’t have to go through weeks of computer-generated emails to get a straight answer.

    Go to hell.

    Saucy in San Gabriel,

    xxxxx Vxxxxxx
    Staples Reward #5947960141

  • Halloween comes a little earlier every year

    Creed Bratton once said, “I’m a pretty normal guy, I do one weird thing.”

    My birthday is the same as Carrie Fisher‘s, sometime in mid-October. Growing up, I never got to do the fun, aquatic-themed birthdays like my friends who had Raging Waters parties in June, because it was always too damn cold in Eastern Washington in autumn, during my birthday.

    You may get to drive before me, but you dont have inner tubes
    You may get to drive before me, but you don’t have inner tubes, so who has the better birth month?

    Naturally, when I went to college in L.A., we went to the beach at San Diego for my birthday and got lip rings. In order to be a California college student, you must have a lip ring, long hair, a longboard, and a popped collar, and in the autumn of 2005, I was at the apex of my douchebaggery.

    As I turned 21, then 22, then left college, then had less and less friends nearby to celebrate the day when I burst forth from the womb, I found that birthdays are not quite the party that they were in college. Instead, my wife gives me a poster reading “Everything I learned in life I learned from Star Wars” to accompany my Obi-Wan bobble head. While these gifts would have been appropriate in college, they feel more substantial now. In college, everything feels temperate; like I don’t expect the gifts to last past graduation. I can’t recall a single birthday gift that I received in college, save for the electric razor that my parents gave to me in 2003.

    With each passing year, I feel that my birthday becomes less and less a big deal. As my age increases, my birthday becomes less and less important, as you can see here in Figure A:

    Figure A

    By the time I’m 3, birthdays are rapidly beginning to lose their appeal. By 50, it’s just another Tuesday between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

    Naturally, I have to find ways to make my birthdays more exciting. In the latter half of college, I began to use October 21st as the marker to begin the most sacred of seasons: Christmas music.

    Whoa! Don’t be so harsh now, dear reader! Baby Jesus can never have enough lauding, so what’s the harm in starting the season off with a few old school renditions of “Here We Go A-wassailing” before mid-terms come out?

    This year, my plan to welcome a high [Yule]tide was kicked up a notch with the onset of a record player birthday gift from my parents. You better believe I hooked that baby up and the first wax I spun was this guy:

    Whatever cares I had before the delightful crackling of LP reached my ears melted away with the first lines of “Slumber Song of the Infant Jesus”. Look at him; how can you not be put into a better mood? Aside from the obvious satisfaction I get from a guy who sings bass who can make it in the music biz, he was also signed to Capitol Records! The folks at Capitol got something right, before they went downhill in the next 30 years and started to give record deals to guys like Varsity Fanclub and Dem Franchize Boyz.

    If I’m to be honest for a moment, Christmas music for takes me back to home. It makes me think of our house in Valleyford with vaulted ceilings and huge windows, of a wood-burning fireplace and a 20-foot Douglas Fir making the whole top floor smell like the forest. Whenever I hear the voice of Karen Carpenter, I can close my eyes and see myself, 11 years old and laying on the thick carpet at dusk, reading Calvin and Hobbes and somehow knowing that I have nothing — absolutely nothing — to worry me. When I think of peace, I think of Christmas.

    Sing out, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sing We Now of Christmas.

    ~V