if you’ve been a teacher, you just know

Before Laura and I headed up to New Jersey for grad school, we worked for a year in Sugar Land, Texas. The family that took us under their wings (we were young, newly married and poor as dirt) shared us with their other friends. It just so happens that one of those friends once lived the life of a teacher. Therefore, she was once a first year teacher like I am now.

Thankfully, she’s kept up with us via the blog and when she read that I was making a professional transition into teaching, she perked up a bit. She immediately reached out to me and has been relentless in her pursuit of outfitting me with what I need.

I had already branded my class the SuperStars but my friend took it to a whole new level. She had her son create a graphic to go along with the brand (a star dressed as a superhero – LOVE IT). And then she went to work. Sticky notes, notepads, note cards and a large poster with a picture of our class made its way to my home. She talked with one of her teaching friends and the next thing I knew, I had boxes and boxes of books on the front porch. She’s talked to others about my class and solicited from them gift cards to Office Depot or OfficeMax. She nominated me to win a $100 gift card from OfficeMax and I won due to her work!

I sent her a thank you note but that hardly seemed adequate. I feel like I should do hard manual labor for her over my summer break. (But, wait, Houston in the summer is as close to Hell as anything you’ll ever experience. Seriously, my Houston friends, how do you do it?) So maybe hard manual labor this coming summer is out of the question. Hopefully a blog post will do?

Lone Star Lifer, thank you so much for your generosity and graciousness. My class is so much better because of your efforts.

 

Filed under: friends, teaching

any tricks?

Here in St. Louis we abide by the old rules: kids have to tell a joke (trick) to get their candy. Laura was amazed when she moved to other parts of the country and learned that kids do not, in fact, have to say anything at all to get candy. (She was even more shocked to find that we Hayses usually found a good movie at the theater on Halloween so as to avoid the trick-0r-treaters altogether.)

So Sophia and Ira need some good jokes. Do you have any cheesy jokes you want to share? …appropriate for a six and a four year old. Geez, it’s bad when I have to reprimand my blogging audience to keep it clean.

On a similar note, we’re really homesick for Brooklyn right now. We loved this time of year in Brooklyn. It was on Halloween that we met and got to know Jodi, Anson and Roan. We’ve spend every Halloween since with them hanging out on our stoop on Hoyt St. The neighborhood kids would come and hang with us as well. We would order pizza, drink soda and hand out candy to any and every one. (Oh, and Jodi would get hit on by pre-teens.) We’re gonna make new memories and start new traditions here in The Lou (get ready Pribish clan!) and we’re excited about that. But to all our Halloween compadres back in bklyn: BOO!

Filed under: Brooklyn, family, friends, holidays

love me some office max…and lone star lifer!

A friend of mine is a blogger who calls herself “Lone Star Lifer.” Not long ago, she wrote a post about what I’m up to and went on to nominate me as the teacher who should win a $100 Office Max gift certificate. My friend must be pretty convincing. I won. She called me with the news today. I was totally excited. She asked, “What will you use the money for?”

COPY PAPER! Woo-hoo!

She went on to say that she’s sending me more stuff like books and such. Lone Star Lifer is going above and beyond and I’m so incredibly grateful. She then went on to say that there is yet another Office Max giveaway but that she was ineligible to nominate me again.

So what do you say you go over to Lone Star Lifer’s blog and find out where you need to go and what you need to do to score me some more change to spend at Office Max? Pretty please?

———-

This is a conversation I had with a student today.

Student – Mr. Hays, I told my mom I want to go to Yale University.

Me – Yeah?

Student – Yeah, so then we looked it up and Mom says that it’s in Connecticut. She said that’s a long way from here but that if I really want to go there, she would help me get there.

Me – So do you really want to go there?

Student – Well, didn’t you say it’s one of the best colleges there is?

Me – Yes.

My student looks at me like I’m crazy and says – I want to go to the best school there is, Mr. Hays.

Point taken. Reach for the stars, my dear students, reach for the stars.

Filed under: friends, teaching

4th grade news and friends/food

So no video to post. We started on the video this past week but didn’t finish it. It’s going to be an on-going deal in which each kid – hopefully – gets a chance to work on it. They are so fired up about it.

In other 4th grade news, I’m now officially the teacher of just 23 kids. Whew. For the past two weeks, I’ve had 36 on my roster and in my class. It was exhausting work. I kept telling people, “I feel like I’m managing about 70% of the time and teaching about 30% of the time.” Oh, and there was the small matter of me getting burned out really quickly. But thankfully, another 4th grade teacher was hired and we’re all at about 23 per class. Yessss! Watch out Herzog 4th Graders, we’re about to take off and trust me, there’s no looking back.

I’ve got some ideas for what I want to ask for on Donors Choose. I might be asking for a projection unit of some sort that I can plug my computer into. I would love to start teaching using Mac’s equivalent to PowerPoint and would love to show kids websites, videos and play music. Hmm… But I’m also considering asking for just regular ol’ printing paper. That’s right, printing paper. We have to supply our own. Sigh. And do you know how much paper a teacher goes through each day? Yikes! I’m just two weeks in and I’ve spent way too much on printing paper. Still thinking how I can best use the incredible resource that is donorschoose.org.

And finally in school news, I really want to get a classroom pet of some sort. I’ve asked my Facebook friends what I should get and got all sorts of randomness. And while I welcome your smarta$$ comments here too, I would really like some practical wisdom here. This pet has to be low maintenance. I won’t be taking it home every weekend and neither will my students. Any ideas out there?

—–

A short list of what I’m missing about NYC:

1. Friends. I miss them dearly. I miss my CCFB family. I miss my neighborhood friends. I miss my friends from MCC. I miss my Y basketball buddies and my league teammates.

2. Food. I miss having great food around the corner; food that can be delivered to your front door at any hour of the day. I miss the Goat Cheese Pizza from Zaytoon’s, the burger from Bar Tabac and the Cheesesteak Sandwich from Cafe Luluc.

A short list of what I’m loving about The Lou:

1. Friends. There are some great people here that have welcomed us into their homes and showered us with their love. They’ve made this crazy transition seem not so crazy. I’m thankful for these folks and their hospitality.

2. Food. Okay, so I’m a sucker for a soft drink at Sonic, a sandwich at Chick Fil A and the crispers at Chili’s. Yeah, city friends, go ahead and roll your snobbish eyes. I can take it.

Filed under: Brooklyn, food, friends, teaching

bball + joe = luv 4eva

I woke last night at 2 a.m. My mind immediately took off. Do we have enough boxes? Why are we not all packed yet? The chaos is driving me crazy! Okay, what should be the game plan tomorrow? I should first… I was awake for ninety minutes. Wide awake. Argh.

People keep asking me, “Do you guys have movers that are doing the move for you?” No, we don’t. We’re doing it all ourselves. Hence waking up at 2 in the morning making list after list in my head about what needs to get done before Friday morning.

I should give a shout out to the guys who will help me load up the truck on Friday. I lured those guys in by making bold promises of donuts, coffee and an apartment already packed. Don’t you hate it when you’re asked to help someone move and you show up at their place and they aren’t even packed yet? That’s right up there with tardiness in my Naughty Naughty Book. (What? You don’t have a Naughty Naughty Book?) So I’m excited about these guys coming over at 9 a.m. on Friday morning at 116 Hoyt Street.

—–

This morning I played my last basketball game at the Dodge YMCA. I’ve been playing ball there for the past four years. Three days a week. With the same guys. Sure, a lot of our talk centers around All Things Basketball but we also know more intimate details about each other.

We’ve celebrated marriages, births, professional exams passed. We’ve lived through job cuts and new jobs received. We’ve waited anxiously for test results to come back on undiagnosed lumps. We’ve mourned the cancer that invades. We’ve checked in on each other as injuries plague us. We’ve shared the ups and downs of marriage and raising kids.

I don’t want to make it sound like we spend a majority of our time sharing our deepest thoughts and feelings but spending three mornings a week for four years running with each other affords us the opportunities to go a bit deeper than congratulating each other on a play well made.

It also means that we know each other so well that we can talk a bit of trash when the game is on the line. This morning, the guys were out to get me. “Let’s send Joe home packing!” was a common refrain. I begged for mercy being that it was my last day but found none. It’s a relentless crew. And now here I sit getting ready to spend my day packing but I’m happy to announce that I had the last laugh: my team ran the court this morning.

Filed under: basketball, friends, moving

unexpected friends

I vividly remember leaving Tahoka for college wondering if I would ever find a group of guy friends like I had in high school. We were a close knit group that understood each other on a deep level.  (Okay, as deep as one can get when Vanilla Ice is your hero.) To this day, I can reunite with these guys and feel as if we’ve never parted.

And then I got to A&M and met some guys that blew my mind. While I didn’t know it at the time, these guys would someday stand by my side as I offered up lofty promises to Laura during our wedding. (While I didn’t know it at the time, these friends of mine would concoct farting games that would be unequaled in any other part of the world.) While I didn’t know it at the time, these guys would hear some of my darkest secrets and learn about my most glaring failures. And they would still love me. I was pretty sure I would never have that again in a friend or a group of friends.

And then Steve came along. I blogged about Steve here. It was an unexpected friendship that has blessed my life.

Again, I was pretty sure I would have to rely upon these old friends once I moved to New York City because surely, surely, I wouldn’t come across friends who would love me so unconditionally and unabashedly.

But it happened. It happened right here in the middle of NYC. Seven guys have come together to ask each other hard questions. We hoped that by facing the hard questions and by answering those questions honestly, we would become better people.

There’s Daniel, fresh out of law school and in his first job. And Michael, freshly married and working hard in the business sector. Brandon has made his mark working for the NYSE. Bill, our resident smart guy, continues to pursue more degrees via grad school. Kenny, the artist of the group, lives the suburb life. And Jason, a minister who is not as formally trained as I am but whose ministerial skills far surpass my own.

In the time that we’ve come together and unloaded our life stories on each other, we have learned so much about each other and about life. We have been through plenty of ups and downs. We have shared heartache and joy. We have helped each other through crisis and we have celebrated with each other through triumphs.

I can’t express how grateful I am for each of these guys. They, their wives and their kids have seen me through some of the hardest times of my life. I will leave here wondering if I’ll be so lucky as to find another group of friends like them.

Filed under: New York, friends

what's gonna become of this blog anyway?

That’s the question that I’ve been asked by two of my three readers. And the answer is, “I’m not sure.” My buddy, Kenny, is working on getting the scenary changed around here and it might (or might not) require me getting a new url but the question remains, Am I going to keep blogging after the move?

And that’s hard to answer because I haven’t really felt like blogging over the past couple of months. What blogs I have written are pretty sporadic and, if I’m honest with myself, uninteresting. And so we’ll have to wait and see if the move energizes me and gives me new material to write about. Another factor will be time.

This new Teach For America gig is pretty intense. The summer schedule alone is gonna knock my socks off so I’m guessing that with what free time I do have, I better give to Laura and the kids. I think they would appreciate that. That’s not to say that I won’t sneak in a blog or two late at night but it might get quiet around here for a while.

—–

I said a while back that I would blog about all the things I’m gonna miss about Brooklyn. That never really happened, did it? (See, I told you I wasn’t in the mood to blog.) But it’s happening now. And with pictures! Woo-hoo!

I’m gonna miss Broadway shows. Laura and I love musicals. We sing pretty much all the time around our house. For Ira’s fourth birthday, we used money that Glo/Gram gave us for Christmas and saw The Lion King. Thanks, Mom.

I’m gonna miss the Brooklyn Bridge. We drove over the bridge every day of our lives when Ira was in the hospital. And we’ve walked it countless times as well. I could dig pretty deep here and extrapolate some metaphors but I’ll refrain. (You’re welcome.) We walked the bridge a couple of weeks ago. Just a few tears were shed as we did.

I’m gonna miss going to games at Yankee Stadium. There’s nothing like it. Even in the new stadium, one can feel the ghosts of Mantle, Ruth, and others. This past weekend, Brian O’s dad treated us all to a game. We sat in some really sweet seats and ate all the free food we could get our hands on. The game was amazing as the Yanks rallied in the ninth and won the game. Yep, a few tears were shed as we all jumped up and down in hysterics over what we had witnessed. Brian and Tara, you guys will be missed. Mr. O, thanks for the game.

I’m gonna miss being at the center of it all. Whatever it is, it happens in NYC first. For example, Laura and I had the privilege of attending the premier of Loot, a documentary. Our friend, Anson, was the cinematographer for the film. HBO picked up the documentary and opened it at their headquarters this past weekend. Laura and I put on our NYC best (all black clothes) and headed to the HBO offices. It was a blast. And let me just say, the movie was incredible. Set your DVRs and record LOOT premiering on HBO2 on May 20 at 8 PM (ET).

And of course, there’s the people. There is our CCFB family who we will dearly miss. There are our literal, physical neighbors here on Hoyt St. that we will miss. There are our friends that we’ve made through Sophia and her peers who we will miss. There are my basketball buddies that I see and spend hours with several times a week who I will miss. There are the friends we’ve made through Ira and the hospital that we will miss. Of course, I don’t have a picture of all these people but you get the picture. More than places, things, or events, we will miss our friends.

—–

One last story to share with you. Tonight, I heard Ira tossing and turning in his bed. I went and laid by him. I never do this so he was taken by surprise. I put my arm around him and he suddenly became still. After a few seconds he laid his hand on my hand and whispered, “you my best friend.” I melted. He has my heart.

Filed under: Blogging, Brooklyn, CCfB, Ira, Laura, Sophia, Yankees, basketball, family, film, food, friends, moving, photos, relationships, sports

what's on your mind?

The photo above isn’t set-up. In other words, it’s not like I said, “Hey Sophia, go sit on that log by the East River and rest your head in your hands while looking contemplative at the Manhattan skyline.” It’s a very real moment. And it seems to sum up a lot of what’s going on with us here in Brooklyn. We’re thinking. And this thinking that we’re doing takes on various forms: remembering, planning, dreaming.

We’ve said some goodbyes recently to folks we know we won’t see again before we leave Brooklyn. Saying goodbye is never easy but it does force one to remember what it was in the first place that made the relationship happen. And if one is worth their salt, it also allows for one to speak words of encouragement and blessing as the farewell is bid. We’ve also made concious efforts to visit some of our favorite city hangouts. We’re eating our favorite food. Taking our favorite walks. Seeing our favorite sights. We’re remembering.

Our apartment’s been invaded by boxes. Loads and loads of boxes. And we’re starting to fill them up. The plans are made as to the actual moving date (May 29). And plans are made for this summer. And still there are more plans that need to be made. Like this one little example, Where are we going to have this baby?!?! In our heads, we’re doing lots of planning.

And we’re dreaming. What new things will we discover in St. Louis? What new lifestyle changes will we undergo that will be exciting and adventurous? And we know lots of people already. How will those relationships grow and evolve? And what new friends will we make there? And I’m sure my kids are dreaming about what it will be like to live with their grandparents and wondering how spoiled they’ll become. (Harvey and Kay, I expect both of you to find those stern voices you once had when your own kids were under you roof!) The dreaming part is pretty exciting. We’ve had fun at the dinner table over the past few weeks dreaming with each about life in St. Louis.

All this thinking – the remembering, planning and dreaming – keeps things moving here on Hoyt St. It keeps us on our toes. And even though it can be exhausting it’s been good for our family. We do well in the midst of crisis, change, transition. I would say that we’re well-versed in these arenas. And because our family has lived a life that has required us to to know crisis, change and transition intimately, we can with utmost assurance testify that God will see us through. God has done so before and God will do so again. In all this thinking that we’re doing, never far from our thoughts is the truth that God is faithful.

Filed under: God, family, friends, moving

i wanna go back in time

A day ago I sat under a sun drenched Mexico sky in 80 degree weather reveling in the beauty of well manicured landscaping and a turquoise ocean that seemed to go on forever. Today I’m in Paterson, NJ enduring rainy, 45 degree weather. This is one of those moments in which I wish I was living like the characters in LOST – I’m waiting for the flash of light that takes me back in time. No, not to 1970-something but just a couple of days ago when Javier brought me a Rum Runner while I finished reading King Dork and gently swayed back and forth in a hammock that hovered above the picturesque pool.

(Speaking of LOST, I considered for a moment this past weekend what it would be like to board a plane with one of the actual actors from LOST. You know, like, what if Evangeline Lilly just happened to be on the same flight as you? Wouldn’t you be a little weirded out? Like your plane was gonna crash into a mysterious island? Wouldn’t you demand that she change planes? Yep, there was plenty of time to think about random things this past weekend while in Mexico. But I digress.)

So, yeah, I kinda want to be back in Mexico today.

Four years ago, my family sent Laura and me to Isla Mujeres hoping we would fill our tanks with peace and quite so as to ready ourselves for Ira’s birth. I viewed this trip to Playa Mujeres the same way – a chance to fill our tanks with peace and quiet so as to ready ourselves for the upcoming transition. We were successful four years ago and I’m confident we were successful on this trip.

I would list for you all the fun and exciting things we did in Mexico but I’m pretty sure you would find the list neither fun nor exciting. What we did do was eat and drink all day long. (Who knew I liked fruity alcoholic drinks so much? Bring on the Miami Vice, Rum Runner, and other girlie drinks. Hey, I’m just secure enough in my manhood that I don’t mind being seen with pink drinks in hand. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.) We read books and took naps. We made friends with another couple and talked about everything and nothing. Did I mention the eating and drinking part? It was amazing. We will seriously start saving up for another trip like this. We’re shooting for 2011. Wanna join us?

(pictures to come)

Filed under: family, friends, travel

time to eat

It was this time last year that we headed off to New Jersey to enroll Ira in, what we called, Eating School. (Laura blogged about our anticipation of the feeding clinic a year ago. You can find it here. I blogged about it here.) After four intensive weeks last May, Ira was able to eat pureed foods. We were overjoyed with Ira’s progress but that progress plateaued. Over the past year, Ira’s not moved beyond pureed foods. He still doesn’t know how to chew.

And so on Monday, we’ll head back over to lovely (please note that lovely is typed with sarcasm in mind) Paterson, New Jersey for another four intense weeks. My hope is that Ira can start to learn how to chew. However, our friend Jodi told Ira that if he started eating then I would take him to Disney World. Ira doesn’t easily forget promises made. Dang that Jodi!

Filed under: Ira, food, friends