Vacations

Today is my first day back to work from school vacation and I'm quite annoyed. Most people love vacations but I honestly hate vacations. Coming back to work is very difficult today because I have been away so long I'm really out of rhythm. My day-to-day routine was broken for 9 days and I've gotten used to waking up whenever I wanted and spending all day relaxing/doing whatever I please.

I personally prefer extended (3 or 4 day) weekends rather than an entire week of vacation off. After 3 or 4 days my batteries are recharged and I'm ready for the week but after 7-9 days I'm sinking into the bum mentality. Once I get yanked out of that mentality I tend to need a few days to get used to the routine again.

So, right now I'm feeling quite uncomfortable with my normal routine. I am happy though that I at least don't have to deal with another prolonged vacation until the school year ends.

Favorite Songs of All Time

Following my impactful songs list I thought I'd make a list of my favorite songs of all time. I had to seperate these into genres as comparing different genres is like comparing apples and oranges.

Top 10 Rap Songs
1. Public Enemy- Bring the Noise
2. Styles of Beyond- Subculture
3. Nelly- Air Force Ones
4. Wale- Breakdown
5. Drake- Find Your Love
6. T.I.- Swing Ya Rag
7. Sir Mix-A-Lot- Baby Got Back
8. T-Pain- Freeze
9. Drake- Miss Me
10. T-Pain- It Ain't Me

Top 20 Rock Songs
1. Breaking Benjamin- Breath
2. The Forecast- West Coast
3. Anberlin- Glass To The Arson
4. Breaking Benjamin- Wish I May
5. Letzte Instanz- Eisherz
6. The Offspring- You're Gonna Go Far, Kid
7. Letzte Instanz- Fur Dich
8. Scary Kids Scaring Kids- Empty Glasses
9. A Perfect Circle- Blue
10. A Perfect Circle- Rose
11. Goo Goo Dolls- Big Machine
12. Nickelback- How You Remind Me
13. Oomph!- Revolution
14. Pearl Jam- Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town
15. Evanescence- Bring Me To Life
16. Breaking Benjamin- Unknown Soldier
17. Default- All Is Forgiven
18. Scary Kids Scaring Kids- Pistol to My Temple
19. Epidemic- Individual
20. A Perfect Circle- 3 Libras

Top 5 "Other" Songs
1. Lady Gaga- Bad Romance
2. Panic! At the Disco- I Write Sins, Not Tragedies
3. Rise Against- Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
4. Ke$ha- We R Who We R
5. Fall Out Boy- Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet

Songs That Have Impacted My Life

It's been a while since I last posted but with the stress of my job and with little going on besides school, there has been nothing to talk about until now. There are many songs that I like; my tastes are quite varied. However there are a few songs that have really impacted or touched my life in such a way that if I did not know about them, I would be a greatly different person today. There are five songs/tracks on my list that have really been impactful in my life.

1. Snow: Informer- Now, if you listen to the song, there's nothing really impactful about it. It's just about Snow and his run-in with the law over a stabbing (at least I think so, he raps extremely fast). However, when I played the song for one class at Erskine Academy it impacted two of my students enough that when they made a goodbye video for me, they used the song. Now every time I hear Informer I think of my two students. :)

2. Taylor Mali: What Teachers Make- Anybody who is as passionate about teaching or the profession of teaching will understand why Taylor Mali would rank so high on my list. His poem is so powerful that it makes me proud to be a teacher and nothing has more affirmed my decision that this poem.

3. Bad Religion: No Control (album)- This entire album was very moving in my opinion. At this point I had not found music that really explained what I was thinking about and put life into perspective. I own all but one or two of their 15+ CDs now.

4. Tool: Die Eier Von Satan- This is the first song I ever heard in German and started my fascination with the German language. German Rock is one of my favorite genres and two of my five favorite bands are German.

5. Rise Against: Hero of War- This song is moving to anybody that has lost somebody to a war or to anyone who is a pacifist. The song talks about a young man's journey from being recruited to join the army to coming back home after his tour.

Procrastination

Procrastination. It is the thing that teachers try to teach against but is something that they personally can not escape as well. As a group, teachers tend to be the masters of procratination. When I was in practicum at UMF, my entire block (about 15 of us) were constantly drawing the ire of the professors because we were terrible procrastinators. I remember that one day Professor Overall was extremely mad at my block because she assigned homework and NONE of us did the work. None! It's amazing to think that out of 15 students (and now certified teachers) there wasn't one of us that thought it was prudent to do the work instead of putting it off for later. I am definitely not an exception to this rule. Right now, I should be creating quizzes for my classes tomorrow. However, I just can't help but to keep putting it off. I know that they will be done for tomorrow morning but the will do it is just not there right now. There are a bunch of other things that I need to in the next few days and I think I'm gonna work on them next. Or maybe I'll do it later.