Wormwood and wolves

LAX en la manana

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:22:14 GMT

-we leave for la/anaheim tomorrow. will hopefully get into and out've LAX and checked into our hotel and can catch a taxi 3miles up the road to see the texas/anaheim baseball game. I'm a huge rangers fan so i'm stoked to be able to see them. too bad my favorite player of all time, juan gonzalez, isn't around anymore, playing with them.
-go to Disneyland saturday and sunday.
-get up really early, prob. 3:30am Monday to be at the park around 4 or so and then run the 1/2 marathon at 6am. then get on a plane around 3ish and get back to bham around midnight-ish, monday night. whew. long day it'll be.

dang, it's been forever ago since last update

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:00:31 GMT

-summer was great to me. ran. played lotsa Ultimate; was on a good team (murph, kyle and jodi findlay, law and rainer, joe dentici, nate slabaugh, and goodness it's only been 2 weeks since our end-of-summer tournament and i can't remember everyone else). did a lot of reading.

-went to Denver with becky t, jeff c, and marilyn n, for an AP Economics conference. very nice. school paid for it. great food. good times. decent classes.

-school's back in full swing. i've got 5 World History classes. it's going much better than last year. mainly because i'm not having to stay up until midnight reading and planning and grading. now, it's mainly just grading, since i've already got a majority of the content/lessons from last year. so far, kids are great. i'm truly enjoying it!

-liz and i are going to redeem the 2-night Ross Bridge trip that i won at the AL Economics Challenge (back in March) this upcoming weekend. stoked about that. should be very nice and relaxing.

-our training for the 1/2 marathon in 2 weeks is coming along pretty well. we did 10 miles yesterday (saturday) morning at 6:30. thank goodness it wasn't roastin' like it usually is during the daytime (11 straight days at 100+ degrees, schneikes!)
speaking of, we're so looking forward to getting out to Anaheim for the Disneyland 1/2 Marathon on Labor Day. I'm thankful for the opportunity to run for/support/raise awareness (and money) for the A-T organization.

-back in early july, we got a new puppy from the humane society. name is Payton. we think she's perhaps a.....hmmmm.....well, whatever mix we thought she was, the name escaped my mind. and liz isn't here to tell me.

-hope your week is stellar.

training commences

Sat, 05 May 2007 17:53:03 GMT

-time to buckle down. training for the DisneyLand 1/2 marathon (labor day weekend in Anaheim, CA) begins today. i've run a very few times over the past several weeks. soccer's been keeping me busy, though we lost our 1st round of state playoffs tuesday night 0-3 vs. Huntsville. now that's over and i have my afternoons free. it's a wonderful thing to be able to leave school right after 3:00 and come home and do whatever (sleep, do dishes, clean, get an early start on work, run).
so i've got a 2.75-3 mile route planned for this afternoon around Highland Ave area.

-Liz turned down 2 babysitting jobs (hooray) so that we could have a date night last night. so i took her to Rojo. she loved it. sat on the patio. perfect weather. enjoyed some good food and drinks. great times of just hanging out. she wasn't too familiar w/ the Highland area so we drove around sightseeing and then drove by the Garage, which we shall have to visit sometime. rented 2 videos, "Night at the Museum" and "The Illusionist." put in "Night at the Museum" but we both conked out not even an hour into it, and got in bed around 10:45. a most pleasant evening 'twas.

-i had all 3 of my World History classes turn in their papers thursday and friday. so i've got about 60something 4-5 page papers to grade. hopefully i'll be finished with all over the next week, but i plan on spending about 20-30minutes per paper. ouch. hopefully some will keep me rather entertained and not bore me to tears.

the day is finally, almost here

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:51:31 GMT

tomorrow. that is.

gonna be a huckuva long day.

tomorrow afternoon, right after school, i'm gonna head down to the BJCC and see some cool guys, i hope. i'll have to admit, call me a dork or whatever, but i'm still into wrestling. always have been since elementary school, back in the days of Hulk Hogan, Lex Lugar, Sting, oldschool Undertaker, Vader, etc and some friends and i would pretend we were a certain character and have ourselves a good ol' wrastlin' match in david and derek's yard. anywho, WWE's Smackdown and ECW are gonna be in town tomorrow night. too bad i won't get to go to the show but i at least hope to see some guys as they arrive at the BJCC. i'm too childish when it comes to this junk, but i'm still in awe and fascinated by these larger than life characters. seeing them in street clothes and the "bad" guys being as friendly as can be and signing autographs and posing for pictures with kids; now that's just cool to me.

then, tomorrow night @ 7:00pm, we host Huntsville in the 1st round of state soccer playoffs. finally, this day is gonna be here in less than 24hrs. i've done so much paperwork and made so many phone calls and written so many emails, in order for this soccer match to take place. hopefully, it'll all be worth the effort with a big fat W.

only 3 more weeks left in school. end of the year craziness has already begun.

so i was reading an article in the Jan/Feb 2007 RELEVANT magazine titled "7 big questions: 7 leaders on where the church is headed, what needs to be fixed and the challenges that lie ahead," in which mark driscoll, rob bell, rick warren, erwin mcmanus, and others respond to such questions. and i loved mark driscoll's reply to the question: "What do you see as the greatest challenge for young Christians in the next 10yrs?"

"There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types want to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy that I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.

to the same questions, Rob Bell responds: "The unbelievable amassing of wealth and consumer goods that we have at our fingertips in American culture. Our greatest challenge will be to learn how to move this into blessings for others, or we will continue to be more selfish and indifferent to the cries of the world. These insane amounts of goods that are at our service are not doing good things to our souls."

amen, brothers.

awesome friday

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:26:54 GMT

-a great day 'tis.
-my 1st and 2nd blocks went very well. i'm teaching World War I, which is easier to discuss and kids i believe are somewhat more interested in it than other topics such as the Renaissance or Enlightenment.
-it's a beautiful day. not too hot outside.
-i'm about to go play Ultimate w/ BUDA open play at Shades Cahaba Elem. 5:30. sweet luvin'. wonderful day for some Ulty.
-going to Shades Valley's prom tonight. dang excited about that actually. chaperoning, of course, and helping take down decorations/clean up. hoping to not see any of my soccer girls, or any students for that matter, being stupid and drinking. but i have my doubts about one.
-speaking of our girls' soccer team; we did win our section 7 (over Mtn. Brook, Clay-Chalkville, Trussville, Gadsden, and several other bottom-feeders) and will host Huntsville High School next Tuesday, May 1 (@ Shades Valley) @ 7pm. HUGE game.
however, the road to state finals doesn't get any easier after that. if we win, we'll more than likely face Oak Mountain, who's daaaang good. we shall see.
do come out next Tuesday to Shades Valley if you can.
have a swell weekend!

spring break

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:17:33 GMT

hooray, spring break.
-saturday- played in a mini-Mudbowl (ultimate) tournament. we beat Church of the Highlands by 1 or 2 but lost to First Financial Group by 1 and BE&K by 1.
joe made a very profound but very true statement about Ultimate by saying the the community and fellowship amongst Ultimate players and BUDA puts that of the church to shame. sad but true; he couldn't be any more right. everyone comes together on the Ultimate field from all walks of life, job-wise, age-wise, religion-wise and we all get along and enjoy each other's company. but even in the church, there are divisions and cliques and in-fighting over doctrine and secondary issues and this and that.
-sunday thru yesterday, rented a cabin on top of the mtn. in mentone, al. very nice. cold and windy, but a great getaway, indeed.
-today- heading to Ross Bridge to see about redeeming that free weekend getaway that i won at the AL Economics Challenge. ideally, we could go there for our one-year anniversary on the weekend of may 20, but that's the same weekend that the Regions Charity Classic is going on at Ross Bridge. tons of celebrities and Masters' golfers means that it's probably already booked for that weekend. oh well.
and i'm cooking for liz tonight.
planning on reading several days' worth of newspapers and getting started on making a World History test covering the American Revolution, French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and Congress of Vienna. i realize i'm a dork, but i really enjoyed teaching this last unit, esp. on the Fr. Rev. interesting stuff.
-tomorrow- scott and i are hanging out tomorrow night. looking forward to that. and will hopefully finish up my World HY test and get started on making an AP Economics test.

ye

running, b'days, soccer

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:49:02 GMT

-liz's birthday was last friday. i think she had a marvelous one. one of her co-workers took her to Sumo for lunch, our fav. Japanese restaurant over at Patton Creek. i was off that day too, thanks to a weather day, so we were able to sleep in some. very nice. then i met her at Shades Cahaba Elementary for some Ultimate open-play. great times. then went to meet some of her co-workers/friends at Bahama Breeze for a tasty dinner and dessert.

-i've got a killer sore throat. :( we had Honor's Day assembly during 2nd block today. good thing, it saved what little was left of my voice since i didn't have class but for about 5min.

-we beat Hewitt-Trussville last night, on the road, 4-0. so we're now 13-2, 8-1 in our region. you could say that our team is "raw" (word high schoolers are using for 'totally rad' these days, crazy, i know). according to the coaches poll in today's paper, we're #8 in the state. sweet luvin. should definitely make state playoffs later on this month up in Huntsville.

-it's official. liz signed us up for a 1/2 marathon out in Anaheim, CA around mid-August. we each need to raise $500 to go towards research on a pretty debilitating disease/disorder called Ataxia Telangictasia that a friend of our's daughter has. glad that we get the opportunity to raise awareness of this illness and run for her. so in the next few weeks, think we'll get serious about getting into a training regimen. heck, moreso me, than liz though. she did a marathon back in January, so i think she'll be good to go. the trip, our 1st, to CA should be pretty darn exciting. the 1/2 marathon even takes us right through the outfield of the Anaheim Angels' stadium and throughout Disney Land. gnarly.

-i cannot wait for Spring Break to get here next weekend. 7 more days of class until. liz and i are renting a cabin up in Mentone, near the Little River Canyon for a few days, and taking our dog, CC. fun times.

-can't remember if i posted this or not. but i took my AP Economics class to the AL Economics Challenge last Thursday @ UAB. we didn't place but it was a great experience for the kids and yours truly. i won the grand doorprize for teachers, a weekend getaway to Ross Bridge resort. heck yes. that'll very much so come in handy come time for our 1yr anniversary in may.

-that's about it. must go do some dishes. and get started on some school work.

-uber pumped about heading to Atlanta this weekend. liz is coaching in a hu-freakin'-mongous volleyball tourney at the Georgia World Congress Center (115 courts in there, that's nuts, so that's like, at least 230 teams, heck, most of her tournaments are like maybe 20 or so teams, i think, whew). we're staying at her friend's house in Buckhead and are so hitting up my old workplace, Bridgetown Grill. can't wait! hopefully some fun times on the MARTA are in store. gosh, sometimes i really miss Atlanta.

soccer, again

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:07:02 GMT

-so we finally played our 1st away game of the season tonight, at Huffman. i've heard about 10-0ing teams before halftime but we haven't been able to do it, until tonight. thank goodness we scored our 10th just about a minute and a half before halftime so the game was called. good stuff.

-and our guys won their 1st game of the year. hooray shades valley soccer.

-if only there was Young Life or some other avenue at school (besides 1st priority) that i could use to share the gospel with these players. i've gotten to know some of the soccer guys pretty well so it'd be totally awesome if God could use me to reach out to these guys. they've got a solid coach in neal morgan who i know would love the chance to do the same. PTL.

-speaking of PTL, i ran into spike last night at Publix. haven't seen him in months. it was so amazing and refreshing to talk to him again and hear about his experience with seminary, at Beeson.

-liz is outta town, up in louisville, ky, this weekend watching a family friend play softball for Northwestern Univ. she and her mom and mom's friend went up yesterday. i rented "thank you for smoking," and look forward to watching that tomorrow. as well as get an oil change and hopefully run and get some work done and catch a little bit of Elite Eight action and most definitely sleep in and not set an alarm clock, something i haven't gotten to do in forever. oh yeah, and take an hour or so and read the Saturday paper.

-hope your weekend is very swell and blessed.

vacation and march madness

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:24:28 GMT

-how rad is our 1st vacation together gonna be?! she got a call from one of her college roomies, leslie, today, who said she's gonna be doing her residency out at Univ. of Mizzou in Columbia (where former UAB basketball coach Mike Anderson is). so, we're gonna make a trip out've it, driving out west, perhaps through Memphis, Little Rock, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, and perhaps as far as to Colorado Springs, but not likely. i'm loving the thought of driving out midwest together and seeing some awesome cities and parks and all that good junk and perhaps going to a St. Louis Cardinals game at their new stadium. totally gnarly.

-speaking of gnarly, our girls' soccer team is 7-2 and are going on the road for the 1st time tomorrow, @ Oxford. should be a good one.

-so far, 1st day of March Madness has been pretty good for me. i picked correctly: Boston College over Texas Tech, Georgetown over Belmont, Louisville over Stanford, Texas A&M over Penn, Maryland over Davidson, and Washington State over Oral Roberts, however I incorrectly picked an upset of Old Dominion over Butler.
-i've got my team, Joja Tech #10 over #7 UNLV tomorrow and then over #2 Wisconsin on Sunday, but losing to #3 Oregon next week in the Sweet 16.
-Final Four-wise, i've got Texas A&M over UNC and Florida over UCLA w/ Florida winning it all, again, in a score of 88-81 (had to pick a score on the ESPN.com Tourney Challenge bracket in case of tie-breaker)

-concerning school, i've asked my classes to write down some things they like/dislike about my class and what i could do to be a more effective teacher. gotten some good feedback as well as a few that totally took me off-guard. i like to think that i'm pretty good at making history interesting, yet 2 people flat-out said that my class is boring and that my enthusiasm for teaching comes across as fake. ouch. but that's ok. i appreciate their honesty and will work on that.

-i'm excited about this weekend. Saturday morning, i'm going to the downtown YMCA to show/teach kids about disc sports (ultimate and disc golf) and get them interested in the game, with some other BUDA (B'ham Ultimate Disc Association) players. should be a lotta fun.
-Saturday night, i'm going bowling w/ my small group. haven't bowled in forever but should be awesome hanging out with churchfolk. honey's gonna be outta town, down in Mobile and Pensacola for a volleyball tourney.
-mom may take me shopping, perhaps to get some new cleats. don't really need anything else. dad offered to take me hunting, but when i found out he's leaving saturday morning at 4, i promptly said "no thanks." need to cut grass, badly.

-that's about it. have a swell and blessed and totally rad friday and weekend.
ha, "totally rad." i've said that sometimes in my class and so now, 1st thing in the morning, my 1st block class will ask me, "are we doing a totally rad activity today?" and more often than not, they're totally disappointed.

girls' soccer

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:20:12 GMT

-well, back from the Island Cup soccer tourney in Gulf Shores. that was the absolute worst drive ever, on the way down. wind like crazy. rain like all get out. nasty.
-on Friday, we beat Cullman 3-0 and Austin (Decatur) 2-1 and then stuck around to watch Union (Tulsa, OK) whoop up on Spanish Fort 6-0 w/in the 1st 10 minutes.
-sucks for us, our semi-final draw on Saturday was none other than Union. now mind you, we've got a good team. but we knew we were gonna get it. lost 0-8. whew. but at least we played them the best of any team there. in the finals, Union beat Fairhope 9-1.
-good team dinner on the school @ Lulu's saturday night. great eats. then went to watch the boys' finals as the Union guys beat Grisson 2-1.
-our accomodations were outstanding. swanky room on 15th (top) floor at Phoenix III. king size bed. woulda been nicer if liz was there. relaxing nonetheless.

-today, we played Mtn. Brook @ home. and got our 1st loss for the season (not counting tourney play of course). lost 0-3. 1st half looked good as we went into half tied 0-0, except for the 2 blown breakaways on our behalf.
-we've got another home game Friday vs. Trussville. must win that one as it is the 1st in our area.

-i'd like to get to bed soon, but honey's bringing home Krispy Kreme tonight after volleyball practice. heck yes.

-later. try to come out to a Shades Valley girls' soccer home game sometime this season. you've got a little less than 2 more months.

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:07:57 GMT

-man, i'm still alive. haven't updated in forever, but doing swell.
-about to head down to Gulf Shores, AL. i'm the assistant girls' soccer coach at Shades Valley and we're playing in a huge tourney, Island Cup, tomorrow and saturday. however, weather's not permitting me to leave right now. thank goodness we got to eat lunch today at school, therefore it'll count as a full day and we don't have to make it up.
-our girls' team's rockin' faces off. we're 3-0 right now after shutting out Homewood, Pell City, and Pelham.
-school's paying for ken, the head coach, and i to go. got a 15th floor room at the Phoenix III. wish my honey could make the trip with me though.
-that's about it for now. 'bout to go catch the weather a little bit and see if i can leave in the near future before the bottom breaks loose.

dance dance dance

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:37:55 GMT

-so tonight, i went to the Shades Valley High School Black & White affair/Winter Dance Party @ Pine Tree Country Club. chaperone, of course. at first, it sucked. then more of my kids started showing up (it was just for seniors). some came over and shot the breeze with me, others, who can't stand me, stayed quite a distance away from me most of the night. it was quite humorous, watching these kids interact, outside of school, and dance. some of these dances, esp. "walk it out," were pretty crazy, i must say. the DJ was ok (if you like top 40 kinda stuff, mainly rap, which i'm not a huge fan of). overall, a great time. it's nice that i can joke around w/ some of my students, like this one guy, who i went up to on the dance floor behind his date, and kinda made fun of the way he was slow dancing. this guy had his arms stretched out, hands on the girl's waist, her arms stretched out, hands around his neck. come on, that's how we danced in junior high, when we thought girls had cooties. hope he knew i was playing.
-"chicken noodle soup" & "chain hang low" might be 2 of the most rediculously stupid songs, ever, in the history of music.
-i love my job and the influence/impact that i can have on these kids' lives. and i'm glad that most of my students know/feel like they can come up and talk to me outside of school and shoot the breeze and forget that i'm mr. terrell, who they're supposed to respect, and fear (nah, not really), and all the other roles and expectations that come along with being a teacher. guess it's just the Young Life leader in me.
-i also got to meet some of my co-workers' husbands, fiancees. so it was nice to have other guys there to talk to. take for instance, robert, devon's husband, a B'ham firefighter. we talked soccer. huffman football. our honeymoons (they went to Antigua, close to St. Lucia, where Liz and i went). traveling. high school. great times. what a swell guy.

a quick overview of the happenings of my life since last update

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:47:21 GMT

-wow. mercy. got back from Orlando this afternoon. went down friday. liz and one of her co-workers, lori, ran the Disneyworld Marathon (that's 26.2 miles folks!) yesterday. got up at 2:30am Sunday and they had to be at the start line at 4am. whew. both did very well. liz says she doesn't think another one's in her future. i'm so dang proud of her. she dun good.

-it was good hanging out w/ her family and lori's mom down in Disneyworld over the long weekend. had some good eats. rode some really stellar rides.

-the bowl season has been pretty darn good. nothing beats the Boise State overtime win vs. Oklahoma though. speaking of bowls, i'm hoping for a Florida upset of Ohio State tonight but i'm not thinking it's gonna happen.

-thanks to liz's inspiring dedication to her running regimen and her discipline, she (unknowingly) has inspired me to get back into it. so i bought some new running shoes from my 8th grade history teacher, tracy pool, from Trak Shak last wednesday and went running that day and today, once we got back and i tell you, i am highly highly thoroughly enjoying it. too bad i'm just now getting re-excited about running, and it's in the midst of cold winter. and especially after watching the half-marathon on Saturday and the marathon on Sunday morning, i'm thinking (emphasize, thinking) about perhaps running either the full or half marathon next year. ideally, i'd absolutley love to run one, but training-wise and the discipline required to do it, i dunno. hopefully in the near future, maybe a month and a half or so, i'd like to do a 5k, and see what kinda baseline time i can do.

-i haven't bought a CD in forever. just too many other more important and necessary things to use my money on. until i went to Virgin last night at Downtown Disney and got the Mat Kearney CD "Nothing Left To Lose" for $10. i'd heard chuck hooten and tammy and jamie talk about him. man alive, great stuff. a little Coldplay-ish. i'm digging it.
too bad he's on tour w/ John Mayer, who i refuse to go see, and not coming anywhere close to the southeast.

-HOWEVER, i did read on pollstar.com that the one and only DISPATCH is re-uniting for one show only. a benefit show at Madison Square Garden in mid July. o m goodness. how i would love to be at that one since i missed their farewell show at the Fleet Center in Boston about 2yrs ago.

-another thing i'm digging is the movie "Blood Diamond." i very highly recommend it to anyone. anyone that doesn't mind crying and feeling disappointed and pissed off and overjoyed all in the course of 2.5hrs. no kidding, one of my top 3 movies of all time! seriously.
-back to school, tomorrow. hoping for a stellar week. now that i've graduated (speaking of, i got my degree in the mail today! sweet luvin'!) and am no longer taking night courses, i'm thinking that it'll be somewhat of an easier semester for me. hoping that i'll have more time to dedicate to my lesson planning, especially since i'll have 2 unanounced observations by my assistant principals and principal anytime this semester.

-a most excellent lesson plan on teaching opportunity costs for my AP Economics class that i could get to in a couple of weeks, fell right into my lap today. at the Orlando airport, it was announced over the PA that our Southwest flight to B'ham had been overbooked, so, they were looking for a few people on that flight to volunteer to fly to Baltimore, MD, immediately, and from Baltimore, catch a flight back to B'ham and land in B'ham at 8:50. anyone else woulda thought, heck no, i'm not flying to Baltimore, i just wanna get home. but wait, there was one incentive. a dang good one, in my opinion. whoever volunteered would get a "fly anywhere you want that Southwest serves" ticket for free. heck yes. so i weighed my options, quickly. do i go to Baltimore and thus get back to B'ham at 8:50pm instead of 3:40pm and not fly with my wife and i miss the BCS National Championship game OR do i fly to Baltimore and get that free plane ticket. i had nowhere i had to be this afternoon or tonight, so after consulting with liz, she says "go for it." but, by the time i had reached the next gate to the Baltimore flight, they'd already gotten enough volunteers to leave the Orlando-B'ham flight. doh. oh well.
sounds like one heckuva good deal to me. some may say otherwise. depends on what it's worth to you. just like how every choice you make involves opportunity costs. what are you willing to give up/forego, so that you can do/pursue something else? geezums, i'm a dork. but i can't wait to get to this lesson on opportunity costs in a few weeks w/ my AP Economics class though.

no mas escuela para me

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 15:02:46 GMT

hooray. yesterday was my last day of my 1st semester of teaching. i've enjoyed it. not to say that it hasn't been a pretty rough one.
last saturday i graduated w/ my Master of Arts in Education. PTL!
monday i found out that i passed my portfolio. that's a huge relief. i was quite worried about it.
tuesday, UAB grades were posted online. found out that i made "A"s in both of my classes bringing my graduate GPA up to 3.73. too bad they don't do all that summa/magna cum laude for graduate school. i never got that close in undergrad at BSC. shibby on that!
today, shopping is on the agenda. possibly 3 more things for liz and a gift card to my parents' favorite restaurant, which will take me all down 280 and back to the galleria. craziness, all in nasty weather. oh well, it should be a grand day. i got to sleep in today. until 8:15. it was bury nice
a teacher across the hall from me heard me talking about the Birmingham Papajohns.com Bowl (South Florida v. East Carolina) and about how i was wanting to go but didn't wanna pay $30/ticket. so he had 2 tickets and had family coming into town tomorrow so he more than likely wasn't gonna make it. so he gave them to me. sweet luvin'. weather's looking nice for tomorrow, so i think Legion Field around noon is where we'll be.
Reggie Ball's an idiot and screwed Ga. Tech over in the Gator Bowl (v. West Virginia) by not passing his exams and thus becoming academically ineligible. Tech's gonna lose big time. oh well.
wish i could go see Maylene and the Sons of Disaster tomorrow at Homewood Armory. but that's $12 and i'm just not a huge fan of that place. too many people in a not so large room, all musty and hot up in there. not my idea of fun.
the Young Life leader in me struggles in the classroom with the teacher that i am. as a Young Life leader, i wanna be all buddy-buddy with these kids but throughout my education classes and training, we're told not to get to be friends with the students. we're they're to teach, not to make friends. because i was reflecting over the course of my first semester in the high school, and some of the kids that gave me the most problems, while they may have gotten on my last nerve in the classroom setting, i would absolutely love to hang out with and get to know and share and live out the gospel with, outside of the classroom. take for example, tuesday. one of my kids walked in to ask if i had his exam graded, told him that i didn't, but i had taken the Furnace Fest 2002 dvd to listen to as i did some end-of-the-semester work and knowing this guy's a huge HASTE fan, we watched the HASTE show on the Furnace Fest dvd. and on monday, after this guy and the 4 others in his class who took the exam (most were exempt) were finished, i played hacky sack with them in the room and we cranked up some HASTE and just chilled. it was a great time.

Clearly, it's a ______

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:38:24 GMT

race against time, as far as my portfolio is concerned. i'm back up at BSC in Olin. when i came up here around 9am, the internet was down on every computer on campus, so i made my way over to UAB, stayed there for awhile, then came back to the library here at BSC to do some research, went home to eat some dinner, and now i'm back, settled in for the night. except that i'm stopping, whether i'm finished or not, at 5:30am, to go back to the house, take a shower, eat some breakfast, and head to school. mercy. craziness. i, for one, will be glad when tomorrow afternoon gets here and the 3:00pm bell rings, signaling the time when i can go see my mom and then head home and hit the sack (well, hopefully i'll be awake by the time liz gets off of work at 6pm). aight, nite, folks.

portfolio, all day long

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:05:43 GMT

sucks that i had to take a day off at school so that i could finish my 5th Year portfolio (the very last hoop i've gotta jump through before i graduate next saturday). so i went to BSC this morning around 9, went to Olin, Norton, and the library, and none, not a single one, of the computers would let me get on the internet other than the bsc.edu homepage. sucks assmar.
so, i'm here at UAB's school of education computer lab. stupid me forgot to get some very important papers that i need to include in my portfolio from my assistant principal, so i'm about to head over to Shades Valley to pick those up, then back here until about 6pm. home to eat dinner and then probably pull an all-nighter, at BSC if the computers are back up, home if they are not.
man, tomorrow, once i turn this in, i'm gonna be a free man. then all i'll have left for the semester is making 2 final exams (1 for world history and 1 for AP Govt/Econ) and grading those. quite ready for the break.
quite ready for heading down to Orlando to cheer on my love as she runs her 1st marathon at Disney World, Jan. 7th.
and i hope i get to play some paintball with my brother-in-law and some of his friends when we go down to Mobile to visit liz's family after Christmas.
and i hope to catch up on some reading over the Christmas break. perhaps re-read "blue like jazz" and a history book "devastation of the west indies."

this week is going to be loco

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 07:16:52 GMT

oh mercy, grace. God i need your spirit. restore my soul. be made known.

this upcoming week's gonna rival any of the worst/crazy busiest weeks, ever.
Monday, i've got my final student teaching evaluation. i've got a pretty good lesson planned, but i need to type it up and tie it all together so that it flows superbly well, so that i'll get a good grade. and then my last Monday night class, of the semester. really, my last class ever at UAB. i'll be done as of graduation date, Dec. 16. major PTL on that one. but until then, it's, it's, i don't even know how to describe how majorly busy it'll be.

Monday, i'm also giving a rather large vocab test that i've got to make tomorrow (sunday) afternoon
Wednesday, i've got to turn in my study guides for the finals i'm giving in my classes to the school secretary.

as i was informed of last thursday by one of my soccer girls, we've got conditioning every afternoon this week. great.

and then, the monster of all monsters, my portfolio's due this friday. and there's so much junk to do for it. i'm seriously considering taking a day off from school this week to work on it. perhaps thursday. there'd be no way i could get a sub for tuesday in so short of a time period. but maybe thursday. i'd feel so much better about it if i had a whole day to do nothing but that, rather than spend a couple hours on it each night once i get home from school/soccer practice/monday night class, all tired and junk.

ok, enough of this. it's almost 1:20am, and i need to get at least 1 decent night's sleep in this week. don't think i'll be getting any of those for the whole week. once i turn this portfolio in friday afternoon, i'm gonna feel like, um, i dunno what i'm gonna feel like. i'm sure i'll be pooped and dead to the world. so i'm sure looking forward to sleeping in saturday morning. later amigos. have an excellently blessed and amazing sunday.

thanksgiving

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:45:49 GMT

-mercy. 1st update in about 10 weeks. anywho, our first Thanksgiving as a married couple has been outstanding. we came down to Mobile wednesday morning. liz graded all of the multiple choice and short answer from my 3 world history classes' tests that i gave on monday and tuesday, on the way down. that helped me out tremendously. then i spent about 4hrs at the library near liz's mom's house, grading essays for 2 of those classes. man, my kids performed pathetically on these. it's rather frustrating for me because i thought i'd taught this unit the best of anything i've done yet. i think i'll devise some way that they can get some points back. in one class of 16, i had 3 Bs, 3 Cs, 5 Ds, & 5 Fs. ouch.
-liz's mom had some of her friends from church over and we had an excellent meal yesterday, then drove down to see her dad last night and had some scrumdiddlyumptious ribs at his house.
-today, freddy (my brother-in-law) is taking me to play paintball with some of his friends. i'm a virgin to this paintball stuff. hope i don't come back half-killed. i'm pretty darn excited about hanging out w/ freddy.
-my BUDA winter league ultimate team is 4-2 as of now. a rad team, we do have. kyle and jodi findlay, mike murphy, law and rainer lamar, will gester, karl, richard kinsaul, dave tyson, james and heidi drake.
-it's been forever since i've been to a show. i wanted to go see Shai Hulud last friday at Cave9 but we had some friends over for dinner that night.
-speaking of music, i was playing some bob marley in class one day while kids were working on a poster, thought they would enjoy some background music. so one kid asks me if i like reggae and then brings me a CD of a band called Steel Pulse that i'm really digging.
-man o man o man, i've got a bumload of work to do. my portfolio to get outta grad school is due Dec. 8, and have i started on it? negative. ahhhhhhh. grad school work, on top of my own preparation and paper-grading for my own classroom, on top of reading a book that our principal (granted it's a good one, on understanding poverty) wants us to have read and discuss the 2nd week in December, all of it's stressing me out uber-bigtime. needless to say, i'm more than ready for Christmas break to get here.
my 2nd semester should be quite a bit easier. i'll be finished with my 4th block class and will take on girls' soccer during that block.
aight, need to go get ready for some paintball action.
hope all are having really rad thanksgivings.

Ulty tourney y mas

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 22:23:05 GMT

-this past weekend was maybe the best weekend i've had in like forever. liz and i drove up to chattanooga, tn saturday morning and played in the Shawn Adams Ultimate Tournament. we went 1-3 saturday and 1-2 sunday, for a combined, do the math, 2-5 record. we played Rival, an atlanta team known for being dang good, really well. we lost to IP, another atlanta team, pretty dang bad. we got hammered by charleston and then put a whoopin on louiseville to finish the day. saturday night, the bham team went downtown to eat at Big River Grill. great times. lotsa football watchin. good eats.
sunday, we opened with a huge win over columbus, ohio (mainly an ohio state team), then got mauled by deliverance, a team made up from people all over chatty/nashville/knoxville, and then were down big-time to a fayetteville, arkansas team 7-4 at half, then came back and tied it at 12-12, but lost 13-12. what a stellar comeback 'twas.
-i think it was the team that made it so fun. we didn't have any BUDA hot-heads and we all had a blast playing together. jay pigford, beth sheets, gwen, kate landry gaston, claire ray, megan roth, marc bell, andy (from san antonio), david hilgeman, spencer davis (from bsc), cory (sigma nu bsc). needless to say, i got plenty of playing time considering we only had 2-3 guy subs.
-now i'm paying for it. i haven't run so much like that in forever. feels like i pulled something in my right knee. i still feel popping whenever i put pressure on it. no good.

-so, as a result, so far this week i've been teaching sitting down at a student desk in front of the room, telling my kids i wasn't gonna write much on the board so i wouldn't have to get up and down as much.
-gave my first test today. AP Govt. i didn't think it was too hard a test. heck, i went over the test with them yesterday, telling them pretty much question by question what to expect and gave them the very-detailed outline from the teacher's edition, and gave them 1hr+ yesterday to ask me questions/study in groups. and how many studied during that time? maybe 4. so i really have no sympathy if they didn't do well. you say, bad teacher, mr. terrell. i say, i was so very generous in telling them pretty much what to study, moved the test from tuesday to wednesday, and they still complain. whatever.

-so i'm really wanting to sell my 1999 Cannondale Multi-sport 800 (triathlon) bike and get a newer more comfy road bike. i'm thinking i can get about $300-400 for mine and wanna get something that's around the $1000-1200 range. been shopping around at Bob's Bikes, Cahaba Cycles, Homewood Cycles. looking at a Giant OCR 1 (nice looking bike, questionable reliability on the wheels though), 2006 Cannondale Synapse (awesome bike, very excellent wheels, on sale b/c 2007 Cannondales are in, $1,079), and a Trek 1500.
-while here i am talking about wanting to get a different road bike, liz and i are going to a class tonight at Mtn. Brook Community Church that'll be on Wednesday nights, Crown Financial Ministry. obviously, about a Godly perspective on money and budgeting. i've heard nothing but great stuff about this class. it'll be a good thing.

-i had my 2nd parent-teacher conference this afternoon. a student's mother was worried about the amount of work her child was bringing home every night. no problems here. all of this student's teachers were there and we just talked about what all was going on and how to help this student.

so i settle in for the night

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 23:19:30 GMT

TODAY:
-mandatory student teacher orientation meeting at UAB 9am-noon. got a sub. took the whole day off. it was nice. the meeting wasn't. a whooooole lotta paperwork. blah.
-afterwards, went to liz's work, got her car and took it to get its oil changed. she left work around 3 on her way to Destin to hang out with some girls from work.
-went to the usual Starbucks on 31 in Vestavia and read the friday B'ham News.
-tried to get in touch w/ josh vasa for some racquetball at BSC but that fell through. tried to get in touch w/ jimbo or scott for some disc golf but that fell through. so i went to George Ward and played a round of 18 disc golf solo. great times indeed. very excellent to just be outside and not think about a thing and enjoy God's creation. threw a +5. alright. on #15, i hit the chain from the pad!
-picked up a CPK Jerk Chicken pizza from Publix. will enjoy my pizza while watching some Jeopardy @ 6:30 and Smackdown/Braves game from 7-9:30, then hit the sack.

SATURDAY:
-working detention at Shades Valley. all by myself. hope i don't get all run over or pushed around by some kids.
-going to pick up my mom and then we're going to visit both grandmoms and take them out for lunch.
-go to my parents' casa, pick up my big ol' stereo and speakers and other junk from the basement.
-perhaps go to the usual Starbucks and grade my 8 or so stacks of papers collected from this week. quizzes, worksheets, outlines, and more. whew.
-prob. come home and do some more work.

SUNDAY:
-small group and church.
-come home and do some more work for the majority of the afternoon and night. :(
-Liz comes home!!!! and perhaps i'll get her to buzz my hair.

NEXT WEEKEND:
-Liz and i go to Chattanooga (sp?) for the Shawn Adams' Ultimate tournament. rock on. fun times.

Bane and Strike Anywhere on tour, together! too bad it's not coming to B'ham. ATL's the closest and being the grown-up dork that i am, no more road trips for shows for yours truly anymore. at least not until next year, assuming i get to keep my teaching job and have some experience under my belt and all.

school and barons

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 22:42:22 GMT

-long time, no update.
-well, last thursday was my first day as a teacher.
things're going well, so far. i believe. b/c i happened to run across one of my student's livejournals, don't think i'll be writing anything too personal or school-related on here. ya know, don't need anything to come back and haunt me on down the road. so, 'nuff said about school. i'm enjoying it. and mrs. baker (principal) told me today that they do have someone to coach women's soccer, so i'm not the head coach anymore. PTL. still assistant, which is more than fine with me. not being a soccer player myself, i'da felt purty wierd telling these girls what to do and teaching them my (lack of) skills.
-tonight, i'm darn looking forward to. our BUDA summer league Ultimate team (Bluesers/Blue Live Crew) is going to the Barons game. 1st Barons game i'll have gone to in at least a year. eric bob's gonna be there as well as barry moss and whoever else, i haven't the foggiest. free tickets thanks to barry. a good time will be had by all.
-what does stink about teaching is that i get up at 5am or 5:09am (gotta have that one last snooze, i actually start snoozing at 4:42, so that gives me 3 times to hit ye good ol' snooze button), leave the house by 6:25am at the latest, usually the 1st IB teacher there around 6:45-6:50, teach and all that fun stuff, then come home, relax for a couple of hours, get to my schoolwork (grading papers, preparing for the next day, etc.) around 7:30 and then work until about 11:00-11:30pm-ish. crazy. i know, i'm a dork, and for now, have no life outside of school. but that'll change, after i get into this thing after a little while.
-this weekend, i'm thinking we may go to a kickball game that BUDAs having on saturday. that'll be dang rad.
-i had one of those moments today that all teachers i think will know about. we had a really good intense debate today in my AP Govt class. they like to debate, and i like pushing buttons and playing devils advocate (who'da thunk, me?! i'm finding it easier to ask the right questions and get students really fired up). 2 days ago, we debated liberal vs. conservative viewpoints. today, well, i shall not say the subject on here, but we had a good one. and afterwards, a usually quiet girl and a quiet but well-spoken young man came up to me and thanked me for letting them speak their opinions despite the majority of the class was opinionatedly against those views, saying that they felt really good about being able to freely speak their mind w/o worry of getting attacked/make fun of. so that made my day. it was really the first psuedo compliment i'd gotten from a student about my teaching so far. glad i could foster somewhat of a safe environment in the classroom. hooray.
it was also the first day that i had assigned seating for one class. they didn't take it too well and tried their darndest to get me to switch some around, but i stayed my course. and of course i got the, "but Mr. Terrell, that's not fair...it's only a few that are giving you problems...no one else gives us assigned seating." oh well.
-i'm getting more back into road biking and am in desperate need of some gear. my stuff's old and nasty. my shoes for my pedals are tight and rubbing holes around the heel-cup. my gloves are about to detach at the seam of the palm. my road tires are kinda sorta dry-rotting, which so isn't cool. and i really want a new helmet and a jersey. anyone wanna donate some junk?

firsts

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 03:01:45 GMT

-my first day as a high school teacher begins thursday, august 10. that's 5 days from now, folks. crazy.
-i've got a 12 pager and a 12-15 page paper due monday and tuesday, respectively. i've finished writing out my monday paper and will devote all day tomorrow, sob sob, working on the 12-15 pager. it's gonna be a darn hard one to write, at that.

-today we slept in, until like 8:30. woa. big stuff there. last day i'll get to do that for awhile. starting monday, i'll start a routine of getting up every morning at 5:30 so i can be at the school by 7. and probably get in bed by no later than 11pm every night. i know, i know. i'm no fun.
-we picked up scott wade and drove down to Sylacauga for josh and carrie's wedding. great company, great time, great wedding.
-flew back to bham to pick up my car (we left mine and scott's at the Summit) and headed to jamie and XtammyX's place to change from wedding clothes to casual clothes. my principal @ JCIB invited me to go to a new student get together/picnic out in Helena. so i made it out there. again, great times. met a few of my students and parents and mainly talked to my principal, mrs. jones (who was my AP U.S. History teacher Jr. year as well as my principal Jr & Sr years)

-so i finally got keys to my room on thursday. a rather large room 'tis. and a bare one too. what in the world am i gonna do with it to liven it up for the students so that it's "pleasing to the eye and visually stimulating?!"
-it was a crazy busy week, going to my last two classes monday and tuesday night, working registration up at Shades Valley HS tuesday and wednesday afternoon, and new teacher orientation at Gardendale HS wednesday and thursday mornings.

-i'm really excited, and nervous, about these first few weeks. i don't wanna be too soft so that kids know they can run all over me, but i don't quite imagine myself as the hard-nosed teacher who doesn't let anything fly by in his classroom, either. it'll be somewhat of a transition from getting out of the cool Young Life leader mindset and into the one of a "hey, i'm a teacher now, and i need to act be as professional as i can."
-alright, needs to get back to the tuesday night paper. i've gotta be at the school every day, all day, this week, so essentially i have GOT to finish this 2nd paper tomorrow. no pressure or anything. ha. i'm so not motivated to actually sit down and write this one. come on, brian.

-i cannot even begin to imagine what thursday will be like. God knows. time will tell.

last day

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:15:15 GMT

-yep, today's lunch shift was my last day at CPK. rather sad, 'twas. believe it or not, walking out, i teared up quite a bit. i know. i'm a pansy. and it wasn't really even that great of a lunch staff today. wish chris or quinn or some others who i'm better friends with woulda been there on my last day. oh well.
-it rained big time this afternoon for like 20min. rain on thursdays is no good. that means that our Ultimate games will be cancelled. sure enough, they are. so we're now going down to Mobile tonight instead of tomorrow, to spend some time w/ her mom and bro and grandmom. hip hip hooray. listening to the DaVinci Code on CD on the way down, hoping it won't put us to sleep. i've heard the movie ain't that stellar and neither of us have read the book.
-then sunday, the day i've been waiting for for months. GUSTER @ the Alabama Theater. w/ Ray Lamontagne opening. man, this is good stuff. one of my 3 favorite bands of all time, playing in B'ham. granted they've gotten a lot more exposure in the past couple of years (after playing with blah, Dave Matthews and John Mayer, yuck), now their ticket prices are out the yazoo. crazy expensive. i miss the days back during Freshman year @ BSC when i could see them at 5 Pts Music Hall w/ Jump Little Children for $8. or that same year, going to Nashville for Dancin' in the District and seeing them at Riverfront Park for free, w/ Angie Aparo opening. schneikes. or heck, 2 years ago, perfect timing, when i was at Emory, they came to Emory and did a free show. rock on. anywho, thanks to liz for the 2 tickets for my birthday. hooray Guster.
-must go pack. see you kids later. have swell weekends.

a tainted one, but a W nonetheless

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:12:32 GMT

-Finally, our ultimate team got its first win of the season. after starting 0-14, we now chalked up the W, beating Remington Steel (a team whose record's 9-7, mind you), 11-2! nice. however, it must be noted that Steel was missing their 4 best players, professor, tk, jorge, and jeff mccormick. either way, a win's a win.
-but before that second game win, we got hammered by Mulalu Muzungu (who's 7-7) with a final score of 9-3. we just played like we've never even seen the disc before. frustrating but good times.
-working lunch today. 2 more shifts after today at ye good ol CPK. kinda sad about that. i'll miss it, but then again, i'm so ready to not have to depend on table-waiting for my meager income. Sunday night and next Thursday lunch. you should come see me one of those 2 nights and sit in my section.
-ugh, i've gotta read the whole 9/11 Commission Report by Tuesday night. all 440+ish pages. ouch. i'm on 43 right now.
liz's going to the AVP Birmingham-Hoover Open (pro beach volleyball) tonight and all weekend, so i may either work a double today, or try to close lunch, or just work lunch and go somewhere afterwards and read for multiple hours and try to knock out some of this book.
-TOMORROW = the marriage of both XtammyX and Jamie Harper @ 2 and then Leslie and JC Batts (one of my BSC roomies) @ 6. i'm so dang stoked about both of these couples and tomorrow's gonna be a darn good day.
-have a swell weekend folks.

you expect good service when...?

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 04:47:56 GMT

-you come in at 8:58pm, knowing we close at 9pm?
-your kids no lie, run circles around the inside of the restaurant screaming, thinking it's funny? it's not, it's annoying as poo especially to the people who're about to get off work (cooks, bussers, closing servers, yours truly), but nope, now we've gotta stay an extra hour or so
-your server knows you're not gonna tip him?
-your talk down to your server as if he's rather inferior to you?
-you tell your server he's wrong about his menu knowledge?
-you cuss out your server in some foreign language (ok, maybe they weren't cussing me out, but still, they had their voices raised at me when i came up and then switched to some language i might understand)
-you ask for 50% off your food? forget that. no way, jose.
-you finally order your junk at 9:27, 27minutes after our kitchen has already shut down and started cleaning
-you chew me out for something else wrong every time i come to the table, then you sure ain't gonna see me at your table at your beck and call

ok, so in the history of bad tables, this one tonight was way up there, most definitely top 3 worst. i don't think in my almost 2yrs @ CPK that i've ever intentionally given someone bad service, but when i do my job and it's usually a darn good one, and i get torn into for every single thing at the table, i know i'm not getting a penny from you, so what's the point? so i did my job, but with the darndest worst attitude, ever.

ok, enough of that. what a great opportunity it'd've been to share the gospel and try to sympathize with these people and understand their religion a little bit better about why they can't eat meat. i'm a poor sinner and tonight a poor representation of Christ-likeness.
the restaurant business gets the worst of you. hence, i'm ready to be out've it, come 2 weeks.

gots to read. by tuesday, i've gotta read 2.5 books. rediculous.