Jarhead

The book I read was “Jarhead” by Anthony Swofford. It is a memoir of his life, and experiences as a marine sniper in the first Persian Gulf War. “Jarhead” shows the events of this conflict not from the perspective of a civilian, war correspondent, or diplomat, but from that of a jarhead (jargon for marine) who was supposed to be on the front line of the ground conflict, except there was no front line. The air attack so devastated the Iraqi army that no one was left to wage an effective battle. So when the marines went in, they were left with mop-up duty. Many of these men, despite being trained as killing machines, left without firing a shot.
I honestly very rarely read, I guess because I’ve put myself to sleep many nights over the years reading various textbooks. However, I had little trouble keeping interest in this book. It is refreshing to read accounts of these conflicts which are unmolested by our media.

want science enthusiasm? catch snakes!!!!!

From the time I was 4 years old I was immersed in various biology and wildlife media, from National Geographic to wildnerness TV programming. If asked what I was going to do some day, I replied "I'm gonna be a snake man!" Well, I guess I am. I'm constantly chasing snakes through the grass and brush, a bit slower these days, but still give chase none the less. Often times someone will see me running like a drunk man through the woods and ask what's he doin, and someone will always point out that "oh, thats Smith after another snake." Venomous or harmless, I'll chase them all, however, I'll scream like a little girl if any spider approaches me. It seems my interest in snakes has passed to my son as you can see in the pic of 2 large western rat snakes that we caught in the peacock pen. In 5th period PreAP Biology Friday I took the class on an outing to catch insects for a Rough Earth Snake that I caught last weekend. Suddenly I here, Mr. Smith...Mr. Smith a snake!! Then I hear I "I can catch it" We are at a creek behind the school mind you. I yell "No, don't touch it" a rather courageous voice responded "but, it's just a baby!" The young men indeed want to impress their snake man biology teacher. Now, I've told these youth about the potential dangers of juvenile venomous snakes. Thank goodness they lost it in the grass. I arrived at their location and located the snake. I snagged it up, identifying it as a harmless Western Ribbon Snake. The class is very proud of the speciman and named him Proximus, for his scientific name of Thamnophis proximus. I intend to cohabitate proximus and the rough earth snake in a terrarium in our class now. The more stuff I can pack in my room the quicker folks will want to get to class and check it out, so maybe I can minimize tardies ;)

On a different note, the Life Science Pedagogy test wasn't bad this morning. It stunk to take it at 7:30AM, and after writing 7 pages of response in one hour, my right hand is still in pretty bad shape.

So I kissed a Pig.....................

Seems that last week's homecoming festivities claimed a victim.........................ME! Students donated money to all the teachers jars, and the teacher who had the most money at the weeks end had to kiss a pig. Apparently, it's also a way of breaking in the new folks;) I was more than happy to participate with enthusiasm!

Another part of homecoming week was nerd day! Students were to see who could dress the nerdiest! I helped the young man who won with his outfit. I also provided the props for his photo. Credit to Tony Foster for taking these great shots!