You can tell that some of my students have found cheesepockets.com, cuz I was looking at the stats site, and way more people have been looking at all the pictures lately than that have been reading the articles. Heh.

I had a dream that a bunch of my students and I were driving a car on top of the water at the good old Culver City Municipal Plunge. How weird is that? How excited was Bert to hear that story?

One of the best compliments I have received from any of my students:
Student: Mr. Ross, do you write these study guide (reading homework) questions yourself?
Mr. Ross: Yeah. They're dope, right?
Student: Yeah. They're cool. They make me think. They're hard though. And they’re Sparknotes proof.

If you didn’t know, Sparknotes is the online version of Cliffs Notes. A very accessible "tool" for students who don’t do the reading or who are tempted by plagiarism.

I said holy pooper. Oi, get it? I even titled the voice memo "2" of course.

All of my voice memos used to be from drunken epiphanies and random realizations, but now I feel like half of my voice memos are like ideas for teaching and stuff. It is kind of weird. If the columns have been suffering, it is because I have to aim my creative juices elsewhere...

It would be cool if my initials were RPG.

Do you ever just wish that all of your kids were named Timmy or Doug? Then, when you call on them, you could always say either, "Give it to me Timmy" or "Do it Doug." I sometimes say that to them anyway, even though their names aren't Timmy or Doug.

Every once in a while, when I call on a kid, I also say, "SHOW ME THE JUICE!" which is also what I say when I am playing Fantastic 5s.

I've also been working on getting my kids to say "together" together. For instance, we will be talking about some project or something that we are going to do, and I will say, "How are we going to do it?" And they (are supposed to) say "TOGETHER." It is a work in progress.

How the fuck do shaving cream companies make money? I feel like in my whole life I have actually finished like 3 cans of shaving cream. I have owned plenty more, I admit, but they just almost never run out. I just don’t see how that can be lucrative. Pens are a lesser but similar example, but pens are tiny and portable, and often get lost. Know what I mean?

"I pictured her out with the Lunts and all somewhere, and that Andover jerk. All of them swimming around in a goddam pot of tea and saying sophisticated stuff to each other and being charming and phony."
--Holden

Drunk Voice Memo Alert: "I wanna glue a quarter on the floor in my room. It would be hella funny to see kids stopping and trying to pick it up and stuff." Not quite the same thing as pooh-dollar, but still good times...

How do you know when blue cheese goes bad? Thank you.

Seriously.

Bert told me that he was hanging out with an old friend from college who I didn’t know very well, and he'd asked her if she remembered me, and she said, "Was he the really tall, really nice one?" Heh.
PS Yeah, she actually was referring to me.

I gave one of my brilliantly ordered Cheesepockets receipts to one of my students and I signed it:
To _____,
Follow the meat and cheese rainbow.
*Messy Signature*

Meat and cheese rainbow=Stupid imagery, son.

My seniors had to do icon papers and one student did theirs on Che Guevara. When she presented it to the class, I jokingly said, "Ah, the t-shirt guy." Kids laughed. I said, "The sad thing is that I bet more people recognize his face from the t-shirt and don’t even know his name, let alone know who he actually is than people who do know his name and what he has done. The next day I asked 2 of my freshmen if they knew Che Guevara, and one of them actually said, "Does he go to school here?" Good times...

I took one of my classes to the library, where we were doing rotating writing-coaching work (students not being coached were supposed to be reading their outside reading book), and I caught one student doing her math homework. I told her she was supposed to be reading a novel, and she said that she didn’t have a book to read. HELLO, WE ARE IN THE LIBRARY RIGHT NOW.

I have realized that I think I am a way bigger dickhead when I am around multiple people than when I am in a 1-on-1 hangout session. I don’t really know what's up with that. Maybe I have the urge to show off. Or maybe there is this combination of A) more people around to make fun of and B) someone that I can crack the jokes about the other person to. Myriad possibilities, really... But it is totally true. If you guys don't mind, I don't.

At my high school, the one kid bathroom that I have used like twice has that old school pink granulated soap. That shit is hella weird. And creepy. And stuff. Remember what I am talking about?

For the second time this school year, some of my students brought me cheesepockets. How fucking sweet is that? I even had to reorder the agenda on the board, flipping the freewrite with something that was supposed to come before it, because those damn cheesepockets just smelled so...sexy.

There were a bunch of dogs bothering Reese, so he said, "Get out of here. You're just dogs; I'm a human being. I'm smarter than you. I'm probably even smarter than the smartest dog of all time."

BTW, I have totally stopped the text message wars with my classes. I annihilated 1st and 2nd period freshmen, won a couple of tight races with my 5th period, then ran into a human buzzsaw in my 6th period. I lost over and over and over again to this one girl. I was so fucking pissed off, but I felt that I played it really cool. IS THAT NET REGULATION OR WHAT?

You know what sucks balls? That my cell phone's alarm only makes the audible wake up noise if the ringer is on. If I am taking a nap and want to set my alarm to wake me up, I always wanna turn the ringer off; why should I risk getting woken up by a phone call when I just want the alarm to wake me up at a certain time? Does your cell phone work that way too? Stupid.

Speaking of, who doesn’t turn their ringer off when they go to sleep? That is just dumb. Unless you want to be potentially woken up. I should be able to call whomever I want at whatever hour. If they are asleep, their ringer should be off. No harm, no foul.

Jenn's Mom: Never bought a pack of napkins or a bottle of ketchup in her whole childhood. When the family would go to a fast food place, she would actually ask for an extra, empty bag. She would fill the bag with napkins (hey, I do that at El Farolito from time to time--but I just stuff a wad of them in my pocket) and ketchups. She would take the leftover breakfast cereal boxes from the school she worked at (low income urban school=all the kids on government meals) and bring them home. She would also steal the little milks and empty them out into a regular sized jug. When there wasn't government milk, she would actually make powdered milk and pour it into the regular milk jugs from around the house. The only time there was ever regular milk in the house was when the old jug was too gross and they needed a new one (she would rinse them out and reuse them as much as possible). Even when there was actual real store-bought milk in the house (only in the event of needing a new jug), she would pour half of it out into another container, and cut each half with water.

Reminds me of how once on a vacation with my grandparents, I carried an incredibly light duffle bag up to the hotel room for my grandma. I asked her if there was even anything in it. She said no. When the vacation was over and I carried the same duffle bag down to the car, it was heavy. I asked her what was in it. She shushed me. When we got in the car, she showed me that it was full of hotel soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and towels. Good times.

by Justin
If you want to be added to the mailing list for future columns or if you wanna give me a piece of your mind, hit the link above or email me at justin@cheesepockets.com