CEA

Short week of school this week...or a long weekend, however you want to put it. We had our CEA convention this Thursday and Friday in South Bend. It's a pretty cool place, a ton of Notre Dame stuff all over and the College Football Hall of Fame is there. We drove down Thursday morning, leaving here at about 6:00 and getting there around 9ish. The main speaker was...alright. I guess he's a well known writer. Walter....something, I think it starts with a W. Anyways, after that we had a few sectionals, I went to one on collaboration in the Science classroom that was alright, and then one about using everyday materials to teach Science lessons. That one was a little better because it appealed to the cheap me who never wants to order anything out of the overpriced Science supply catalog.

Friday morning I went to a pretty interesting one...Fantasy Sports and Mathematics. It was really good...used alot more math than I use in my class, so I think I'll use a bunch of his ideas.

Not a ton going on today either, so I'm sorry for the boring post. I've spent the afternoon so far watching a combination of the Wisconsin/Illinois, and Northwestern/Indiana games, following the Minnesota/Purdue game online, watching the Dordt/Doane game on webcast, and listening to the Northwestern/Briar Cliff game at times.

And people say guys can't multitask...

During down time, halftime, or anytime the games were all slow, I've been working on basketball practice for next week, fantasy basketball (which starts next week with the new quarter), and figuring out what experiments to use to show Boyle's & Charles's law this week in Science.

All from my laptop with "borrowed" internet and my flatscreen tv with "borrowed" cable.

Good thing my neighbors are such nice sharing people, otherwise I wouldn't get anything done!

Artistic Side

Linds wanted to take some pictures of the fall colors around our neighborhood, so I thought I would try my hand at being a little artistic. I think I did pretty good...these are all my pieces of work...and I even managed to keep baseball out of the picture.

enjoy...

This one...I think I got funny looks from the neighbors for looking straight up at the sky trying to get the camera to focus on the right leaf.

I call this one Barak Obama...it wants change and it looks like its headed for it, but no one knows quite how or when it's going to happen.

This is my John McCain, the true red maverick among a sea of green.


This is one of the stupid Canadians that wake us up every morning before sunrise. It'll be nice when they leave and I can sleep in peace, eh?

Actually, my first picture taken on the adventure before I started looking for stories to go with my pictures.


This is my favorite of all of them, its the background on the computer right now and I think I'm going to get it enlarged over at Wal-Mart or something, it would look good hanging on a wall somewhere.

Call it what you like...Republicans vs. Democrats, U.S. vs. Canada, Summer vs. Winter, American League vs. National League..........


so much for leaving baseball out of it (you really didn't think I could, could you?)

I'll admit it, I had to somewhat crack the stem of this leaf to get it to lay like this, but I think it looks pretty cool. Plus by now it would've been dead anyway, and my picture lasts alot longer.

I snuck up on this leaf, it was just looking the other way, minding its own business when I crept up in full camoflauge and took a shot at it....then the neighbor came out of the garage and I stopped humming the "Mission Impossible" theme song and moved on.

Post-baseball??

Well, its over...the 2008 season is history for the Minnesota Twins, who finished 10-12 wins higher than I personally thought they were going to reach. They also finished 2 places higher in the standings than I thought they were going to. They have two potential (though unlikely now) MVP winners in Mauer and Morneau. Next year's rotation looks like it should be solid, along with quite the battles in the 3B and RF positions for the '09 season.

Well...enough about the Twins, because I'm sure you've all already scrolled down to see the pictures I've posted.


This is the entrance to my classroom. Despite the way it looks, the doorway isn't pink, its more of a dark red.

This is a shot from the doorway to the front of the room. My desk and computer are right in the middle of the picture. you can see my SMARTboard on the wall to the left.

...and here is me with my latest edition...my Twins Territory blanket that I feel really "brings the room together". Notice the strategically placed broom there as well...this is what Sox fans had to look forward to last Monday when they came back to school after the Twins sweep.

Well, I think pictures justify it as a successful blog post, even if I didn't say much. We had Chicago baseball day today at school, so everyone was supposed to wear either Cubs or Sox apparel, so I went to Jewel and bought a $3 Cubs "W" shirt that I sported for the day. I could've worn a Twins shirt...I got it OK'ed, but after the loss, I couldn't bring myself to endure the ridicule.

After school today, I was suprised to find my school mailbox stuffed with a manila envelope. I opened it up to find 75+ sympathy cards written to me to offer their condolences on my team losing the night before. Apparently one of the 6th grade teachers (who I know is a HUGE Sox fan) decided to have his class do a writing activity. Most of them are the typical...

"Dear Mr. Van Schepen, I'm very sorry your team lost. But not really. I'm a Sox fan. Maybe next year. but probably not. I slept really good last night." (signed) A 6th grader.

But a few of them were actually pretty creative...

"...you should teach the Twins more chemistry, because they didn't really have it last night."

"...being a science teacher, you can see the Twins lost because they aren't evolved as the Sox."

"Whoop di doo, too bad for you. The Sox have won and the Twins have lost. I bet your face is really cross. Mr. E. made me write this sympathy letter, even though it won't make you feel better."

and my personal favorite...

"The Sox can't exist without the Twins because every sock needs a twin."

...how many times have I heard a similar phrase from my mother???

So long everybody...

More comments about comments...

“I said it last night, and I’ll say it again…that umpire should not be here. Not in this series. You put your best players in the All-Star game and you put your best umpires in the All-Star game. It’s the same thing with the World Series. You have meaningless games being played right now with very capable umpires and here we get stuck with this guy. It’s ridiculous…and that’s a fact.” (Ken Harrelson, White Sox announcer) Which puts the question in my mind….why can’t we have the best announcers for such a critical series? Maybe Vin Scully or Bob Uecker could make an appearance.

We had a teacher inservice Friday, so there was no school. Which was…good and bad. Good because I wore a Twins shirt to the inservice and I don’t know if I would’ve met a “professional” dress code wearing that to teach. I think that’s where that Twins polo comes into play. It was bad because I really would’ve loved to see the response of the little Sox fans who continually think they have something on me. I know, I shouldn’t be saying anything…but in my defense, I don’t begin the conversations…its them telling me how bad MY team is…I think they’ll get a lesson on Monday on how it feels to be in 2nd place. I’ll take pictures and post them on here…unless the Twins are on such a high that they refuse to take advantage of the divisional lead.

Twins Tidbits

Interesting comments that the White Sox announcers made during the game vs. the Twins on Wednesday:

-“You’ve got to be kidding me. The Twins will be happy tonight with the umpire on their side the whole game.” (First batter of the game…4^th pitch of the game)

-“That’s one thing that MLB needs to change. They need to realize that this is a big series and they need to send the best umpires to make sure the game is called fairly.” (In the bottom of the 2^nd inning)

-“You’ve got to have some sort of a rating system, because this is absurd.” (Still ranting about the umpires in the top of the 3^rd)

-“I don’t care if we play them at Midway Airport, the Grand Canyon, or Grant Park, as long as we don’t have to play them in the Metrodome” (Top of the 4^th)

-“You know what’s amazing..is that we’re playing that bad and we’re going to leave here tonight with a 2 ½ game lead” (In the bottom of the 4^th with the Sox down 3-2)

-“I’ve seen the Twins go up to the plate with hairline cracks in their bats because they’re going for those cheap broken-bat singles” (Bottom of the 6^th)

-1: the number of half innings that the attempted Gomez pickoff WASN’T shown as some sort of “Freeze Play”, “Game changing play”, “Story of the Game”, “Game Summary” or any other excuse that Ken and D.J. could think of to explain why the Sox weren’t winning. (I think it had something to do with your 3-4-5 hitters going a combined 1-11 with no RBI, but I’m no professional announcer)

-Final Score: 3-2 Twins

-To put it in those infamous words…THEY GONE!!!

Put that on the board…

Weekly News

Since I've been on the cycle of writing once a week, I figured I would give you what's happened this week, complete with the title of "Weekly News", which Linds told me not to put because its...boring.

• Well, whether I believe it or not, this past week was the first full 5-day week of school. It somewhat amazes me when I think about the attitude of some of these kids here. Don't get me wrong, there are these kids all around the world, but I say here because well...I'm here. I thought the slow start may have been because it was summer, and they didn't have to do anything for a couple months. Well, to end the babbling, I had 10 kids not turn in the Lab sheet Friday...and it was something we did in class. I just wonder what was going through their mind when I said "It's due at the end of the period" and "Pass the papers to the right". Maybe I was the weird kid, but I couldn't hand anything in late, blank, or not hand it in at all after I went through all that work.

• Continuing with the "boring theme from Linds", she told me I was boring this week Monday-Thursday because again, for some reason, allergies hit me. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm young enough to feel invincible at times, but these allergies really kick my butt. Its especially tough to teach all day when the Puffs with Lotion tissues kept calling my name (I keep a special stash, the kids get the sandpaper) So...it was a week of going to bed at 9, multiple trips to Walgreens, and choking down Airborne (which I don't know if it worked or not, but it tasted bad enough that it had to do some good)

• Friday night I went with Linds and some of the varsity v-ball team to watch the DePaul v-ball team take on Univ. Texas-San Antonio. The head coach of DePaul is married to the varsity assistant at Timothy, so he got us all in for free. So I guess now officially...we made it downtown! We took a minibus with the 12 of us from school and drove to DePaul (which is north of downtown, fairly close to Wrigley) They lost in 4 games, but it was pretty fun to watch, and alot of fun to see where the DePaul men play their basketball games. We also saw the George Miken banners for being All-American and Player of the Year back in the 40's. Afterwards we stopped downtown and got ice cream at Cold Stone before heading back to school.

• Today...wow today. It has been raining since Friday morning. We saw this morning that O'Hare had about 6.5 inches already, and they have to be well above 7 by now. But, we decided that we were going to make a trip to....where else? Target! This was no special trip, however, because it ended with me running through the rain with a 32" big-screen tv in my hands. Dinner was put on hold while the setup procedures proceeded. I let the channel search do its thing to find stations, thinking it would take about a minute with our 12 channels to find. So we sat down for a sandwich, and watched the numbers keep going up................and up......................and up................and (you get the picture). Well, the sandwich was finished long before the channel search was complete at a number well into the triple digits. So we flip through the stations and it wasn't long before each time we were yelling with our new-found entertainment. Out came TBS, TNT, FX, Spike, Discovery, History, TLC (Linds favorite), and.....oh yes, ESPN and ESPN2, plus the Big 10 network. Well, pathetically, this afternoon has been spent watching full HD college football and MLB games, but I really don't feel bad about it at all...

• Well, that may be about the extent of the excitement for one blog. For those of you interested in Twins material, AG posted this link the other day which proves my theory from this past Winter/Spring about Bill Smith, its a pretty interesting read with WAY too many numbers, but the conclusion at the bottom is worth checking out. On the other hand, hindsight is always 20/20...unless you're a Twins nut.

• Big doubleheader today, looking good so far for the Twins...up 5-1 in the 7th. Obviously with all the rain we've had, the Sox aren't playing again, so it will be interesting to see when they make up their games with the Tiggers.

So long everybody...

So much has happened...

Really? Two weeks since my last post, can't imagine many people missed hearing my thoughts about the Twins, especially because there hasn't been much to talk about in the last two weeks. If not for Justin Morneau (you're welcome Tyler) racking up a .370/3/14 with a 1.101 OPS coming into today, the Twins may be rivaling the '99 Cleveland Spiders for most consecutive losses at 24. (That's the 1899 Spiders, and I know it hasn't been that bad, but it feels like it because I hear it about 25 different times a day living in Sox territory)

Since the last post, here's a little bit of what's happened...

• First day of school...it went really well, I gave some puzzle questions, told about myself, talked about expectations. Basically I wanted the kids to know me a little bit and not be totally freaked out by everything. Plus, we had a retreat coming up, so I didn't go too in depth with anything the first couple days.

• 8th grade retreat...we (the four 8th grade teachers) took 91 8th graders to Phantom Ranch, a camp in Wisconsin, for 2 days for a time of community building among the students to start the year. They had the chance to do activities like horseback riding, canoeing, and archery, among others. I was in charge of Team Building games, which went over relatively well, except for the food relay. Don't get me wrong, it was a big hit, it was just that some kids weren't able to, uh....hold it all in when they were done. It made for our cabin to be labeled the "sick bay" and lets just say that no one was sleeping alone.

• Labor Day weekend...Linds and I left early Friday morning (we didn't have school, I guess many of the families at Timothy have beach houses in Michigan that they go to for the weekend, so the school complies with that) for Linds' parents house and met up with them to head up to NW Iowa to catch Brent's cross country race and a couple volleyball games. It was a good weekend, it gave us both a chance to see family again and get out of the city for awhile. On the way back we took in the PC football game Saturday night before we came home Sunday night.

• Last Tuesday Linds had her first volleyball match, which you can feel free to read about on her blog. My interesting fact for the night was that I was roped into help line judge for the varsity match. The other official didn't show up, so I took a corner and the varsity coach's husband took the other. Even if we were biased, it didn't help a whole lot, they lost in straight sets.

• The next night was another late one...I had a fantasy football draft with some of the other teachers at TCS. We set up in the computer lab with our snacks and cheat sheets and went at it. I honestly had a blast, I could've done it for hours...or at least until the Dew ran out.

• Then the next night...Back to School night for K-8. Parents could come in if they wished and listen to the teachers talk about expectations and highlights for the year. It was a good time for the most part, a few questions caught me off guard, but oh well...

• For some unknown reason to me, I agreed to play basketball the next morning with some of the HS teachers. I know why I said yes...because I missed doing anything even remotely competitive, but as I was driving to school at 6 a.m., my competitive spirit wasn't exactly on fire. But it was a good time for the first half hour, which was when I slightly sprained my ankle. I say slightly because I wanted to keep playing, but still sprained because now as I look at it, its a little big and a little discolored. The worst part was that the average age of the rest of the guys had to be upper 30's to 40, and here's me by far the youngest guy out there and I get hurt. I just told them it was because I was the only one with my feet leaving the floor.

• I spent Saturday correcting homework and quizzes, which the class did fairly well in. The last bunch may have a few more questions marked wrong because I was in a worse mood as it was around the 8th inning of the Twins game where Reyes and Guerrier gave up 2-run bombs each to erase a 4-2 lead for Baker. It was the FOX game of the week, so its the first game I've seen since...July 31...I think. Wow, that's been a long time.

Well, that's probably the highlights of the past two weeks. For anyone who checks this as much as I check the blogs that are in my daily check, sorry I haven't updated. Hopefully I'll get a chance if things slow down a little now and then...

So long everybody...