They say that humor is universal, but I struggle. It was a windy day, and I told a bunch of students that if they weren’t careful, they would take flight just like the Flying Nun. As they gave me puzzled blank looks, I made an urgent note to myself to UPDATE CULTURAL REFERENCES. As they stared at me, one of them said, “Nuns can fly?”
We had over thirty colleges visit in the past ten days, which is both thrilling and...
This just in from the Chuck Baker School of Management. Kids who get out of line can earn a detention on Saturday mornings. The biggest punishment is having to get up at 8am on a Saturday, although I famously led one that involved picking up trash on campus and singing Neil Diamond songs. For some mysterious reason, I have never been asked to lead detention again.
When Pinewood Derby occurs, Chuck counts on those students in detention to do chores and...
After my family, the short list of my favorite people to spend time with would have to include Chuck Baker, the shop teacher at RVA. Long time readers might remember that I’ve written about him several times before (see the post titled “21 Years and Four Months“). Chuck came to RVA after the death of his wife when he was in his 60’s and became our head shop teacher. He is a man full of the love of the Lord...
Continue ReadingI am now a member of the Blender Community.
Perhaps I should explain. Perhaps the most important development to happen in my life in the last year was hearing from the Lord that I should make breakfast in the morning. Nancy has a first-period class; I didn’t have to get out until second period. It would take pressure off of her and allow me to develop gifts previously undeveloped.
To add to this, Nancy has been diagnosed as a diabetic. It was...
Continue ReadingWhen it comes to cold, I am pretty darn stoic.
When it gets down in the 40s and we don’t have heaters here, I am widely admired for how I handle the temperature. I’ve found that yelling “I’m dying of the cold, and no one CARES” a dozen or so times a day does WONDERS for office morale. I’ve discovered that wearing a hoodie with the hood up under a winter coat is a wonderfully inviting image for impressionable young people...
Recently Korean missionaries were targeted in a country north of here, and several were killed. All of them were known by our students whose parents work in that country. None of our students’ parents were killed, but the game you can play with yourself that it is all ok and you aren’t in danger being here, came unglued. The next day you could tell every kid that was from that country; the fear was all over them. Their parents were...
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I hear lots of interesting things as a guidance counselor, but perhaps the greatest thing I’ve heard all year was from a parent who had come in to express her rather extreme displeasure with me about the advice I was giving her daughter:
VERY Displeased Mother: Why on EARTH are you recommending Cal Tech to my daughter?
Me: Your daughter is bright enough to get in and I think Cal Tech is one of the premier colleges in the United States. When...
RVA has interims, and we were asked to lead a group to Tanzania. We met with our group, and we asked them, “Why did you pick this group?” When every member admitted that it was there second choice, I thought that it was an auspicious beginning, but the honesty was a great start to an astonishing week.
We were going to be living among the Datooga tribe, a group that still lives in mud huts. They live in a national park,...
