Day Twelve: I Yell at a Small Child

6/25/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Yet another late entry. My bad, I get preoccupied with other things sometimes.

Hmm... what to write about today... OH YEAH. Work. Work... *mutters angrily*

Let me tell you about this one kid in fourth period. For the sake of protecting his identity, I won't write his name here, but let's call him... Wustin.

Wustin is what you get when you expose a kid to a combination of bad parenting, sugar-injected breakfast cereals, and a 16-hour long Freakazoid! marathon on Cartoon Network. If Superman were the personification of order, then Wustin would be his Kryptonite. There are nice, obedient kids, there are kids that are loose cannons, and then there's the unguided, unbalanced, Kerbal-Space-Program-esque nuclear warhead that is Wustin.

The first result for "Wustin" on Google. It's not him,
I just needed a picture for today.
(via schott-music.com)

I hope it doesn't sound like I hate this kid, because I really don't. He just caused me SO MUCH STRESS today. So in the middle of fourth period, I had to take a group of nine kids to a bathroom break, Wustin being included in that group. I follow standard work protocol, I guide the kids to the bathroom, facing them and walking backwards so I can see all of them. Every time we turn a corner, I count the number of kids to make sure I didn't lose any and for the first few corners before the bathrooms, everyone's here.

But the last corner? I'm short one. And guess who it happens to be?

Wustin...
(via memegenerator.net)

So I tell the kids to stay put while I head back to see where Wustin could possibly be. I turn the corner where he went missing, I look to my left...

And he's all the way on the other side of the hallway. And he's still running.

I chase after him. And after a good two-minute run, I finally catch him. But only after he tripped on the ground.

Basically how it went down.
(via beautifulafricanwildanimalspets.blogspot.com)

I bring him back to the bathroom area (where some of the other kids already went while waiting for me, apparently) and I tell him and whoever else didn't go yet to hurry up and go to the bathroom. Wustin walks in, washes his hands, and exits.

I mean it's not like there was a sink in the classroom or anythin-OH WAIT, THERE TOTALLY IS.

When the rest of the kids are done with their business, I guide them all back to the room. Wustin immediately breaks from my group and TAKES OFF. The other kids, feeling inspired by Wustin's sprinting tendencies, ALSO RUN. It doesn't take long before my nice and orderly line becomes a disorganized mess of sprinting and yelling. I'm trying desperately to run after all the kids (who decided to scatter in different directions) and I manage to catch all of them.

All of them... except Wustin. He's EASILY in Oregon by now and by the time I actually catch up to him, he's standing in front of an open classroom (the engineering class), screaming at the poor innocent kids trying to do their work. I pluck him out of the class, apologize for bothering the students...

AND I LAY DOWN THE GODDAMN LAW. I told him if I ever caught him running around again, I would not only send him to the office, but I would personally make sure to call his parents and tell them about how he's been misbehaving. I let him know that I was very unhappy with his behavior, that I graduated in the top of my class in the Navy Seals, and that if he wanted to keep attending the school, then this will not happen ever again.

I think he got the message because he looked down in shame after I mentioned the Navy Seals part. But damn, that was the first time I've ever had to discipline a kid.

Hopefully, it'll also be the last.





RFotD: The fastest speed ever recorded for a cheetah was 70 miles per hour. The fastest speed ever recorded for a Wustin was 2,239 miles per hour.

SGAT: Worked a bit on a poem that Samantha and I are making.

Day Eleven: Chasing After the Bus

6/24/14, 11:59 PM PDT

A little tired again, my bad guys.

Anyway, another day at Gateways. Getting into the swing of things now, so today was INFINITELY better than yesterday. Strange thing though, remember how I said that fifth period was a class full of angels and sixth period sucked because of the goddamn Sharks and the Jets? Well, today, that COMPLETELY reversed. Today we had the kids interview each other, each group switching between being director, cameraman, interviewer on camera, and interviewee on camera. Part of that activity involved the director calling "quiet on the set" so that the other kids would shut up when they needed to.

And for fifth period? The kids would NOT QUIET DOWN. We ended up getting half the class done, which isn't too bad, but we probably could've finished if the kids had stayed quiet.

As for sixth period, I don't know WHAT happened with the Jets and the Sharks today, but they COMPLETELY settled down and both of their groups were AWESOME at doing the activity. I was so happy, they were such a great class today.

Oh, and one of the Jets has this weird little fleshy growth near his ear. I never noticed it until he did his interview, but ever since I noticed it, I can't stop staring at it. It sort of looks like one of Shrek's ears, I kinda wanna flick it to see what'll happen. Will it flap around like a uvula, will it break off and fly away, will it be sturdy like a pole? I don't know.

Parent pick up was waaaaaaaaaaay smoother too. The kids were all gone at around 3:45, which was great.

During parent pick up, I overheard an Asian lady asking some of my fellow TAs if they knew where a student named "Stacey Shi" or something like that was. Of course, none of them knew, myself included when the old lady asked me. She explained that Stacey was part of the after-school program and needed to meet with her immediately. A nearby student overhears us saying this and claims that she saw Stacey enter a bus. A bus that she wasn't supposed to. A but that was currently driving away.

"Yeah, she's on that one, the bus locked at a speed of 50 miles an hour."
(via sfgate.com)

Since I happened to be the TA she was talking to, she talks to me saying that she'll probably arrange something with the bus owners to drive Stacey back.

Just kidding. She told me to run after it. So I did. I effing sprinted after it. And even though that car was already driving away, I MADE IT.

How my conversation with the bus driver went down.
(via Cyanide and Happiness)

He didn't have a Stacey Shi on board though, so I walked back to the old lady. After receiving high fives from the other TAs and questions on whether I was in track or not (no kidding, they seriously asked me that question), I talked to the old lady. She ask me:

"So Stephen Siu wasn't on that bus?"

Stephen Siu. I (and the other TAs) heard Stacey. I asked for Stacey from the bus driver. He said no Stacey on board.

...Shit.

OH, and I finally got the name of my friend from yesterday. She's Emily. No idea what the last name is, but that's fine. Met a few other people too. Robert (a white dude that's kinda awkward but good at his job since he keeps the rowdy kids in line), Whitney (not the Pokémon gym leader), Young Woo (a super cool guy that knows everyone on campus), and Erin (a quiet Asian TA).

Wow, I might actually make a few friends here, huh?

Oh, and senior photos happened today, but nothing super interesting popped up. Saw Austin and Danielle there, that's about it. Shoutouts to them.

RFotD: Michael is too tired to research right now.

SGAT: Became a little less socially awkward.

Day Ten: The First Day of Work

6/23/14, 4:53 PM PDT

Today was my first day of working as a TA at Gateways Summer School, located in the Jewish Academy.

As soon as I stepped on campus, I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. I figured out that I was supposed to head to the main office to clock in and pick up an apron, a name tag, a roll sheet, and a sign that had my class' name on it. But the guy that manages us was pretty stressed out and kinda intimidating (even though he looks exactly like Grant Imahara from Mythbusters), so I didn't wanna ask him anything after he told me what I was supposed to do.

My supervisor.
(via smartplanet.com)

Clueless, armed with an NES bag, a sign that says "Movies," and a campus map, I decided to head out, with absolutely no idea what to do.

Thankfully, I ran into a girl who, although was just as clueless as I was, ended up being helpful because she was friends with a few TAs that actually knew what they were doing. So I decided to stick with her and her group so that I won't get fired on the first day. We made some light conversation, so I guess I made a friend here? I never caught her name, but I'll probably ask her tomorrow.

Anyway, I figured out that the first part of my job was supervision at the playground during lunch. And BOY, was that playground PACKED. Seriously, the density was probably 10 kids per square meter, it was CRAZY. At one point, I saw the janitorial golf cart trying to make it through these kids and holy CRAP, I have never seen something so nerve-wracking in all my life. There were kids sitting on the ground eating and I shit you not, his wheels were INCHES away from these kids' fingers and toes. It was incredible how accurate this guy's driving was. He didn't even honk once, he just navigated through this massive mosh pit of kids as if his car was the tweezer in the most complicated game of Operation ever.

"Whoops, crushed another six year old's hand. Minus 20 points."
(via craziestgadgets.com)

(Samantha, if you're reading this, you might wanna stop reading now since this part is probably gonna be funnier to tell in person)

When lunch ended, the real work began. Went to the room of the teacher I'd be helping out for the next three weeks (who, coincidentally, was Mrs. Bartels, imagine that). The way the summer school works is that the day is divided into six periods. Since I'm working the PM shift, I only have to take care of the last three periods, but since I'm a primary aide (I'm working with 1st and 2nd graders), those periods involve me walking them all to their next class during their 10-minute passing period. More on that later.

So fourth period, the kids were all great except for this one REALLY talkative Asian kid that kept interrupting Mrs. Bartels whenever she talked. And even though it was pretty obvious that Mrs. Bartels got a little annoyed at him, it was pretty clear that the kid knew his stuff because all of his responses to her questions were correct (albeit blurted out, but a correct answer is a correct answer).

Fifth period? My god, fifth period is my FAVORITE. They're all quiet, adorable little angels and those kids freaking LOVE me for some reason. When I had to walk them to their next class, a bunch of them just suddenly hugged me (or at least, hugged my knees because that's the tallest part of me that their tiny arms could reach) for no reason. While walking backwards to watch all of the kids, I accidentally ran into a sign that I didn't see behind me and they all laughed and it was SO CUTE. After I hit that sign, one of them told me in their tiny, high pitched voice, "You're funny, mister," and dear god, my heart just melted right then and there.

Sixth period. Wait, more like six six sixth period, because that period has some of Satan's spawn in there. There's not one, but two groups of friends that would rather talk and swordfight with markers than pay attention to the lesson. One of the groups (henceforth named "The Jets") made a goddamn TEN-MARKER-LONG SWORD and thought it was a good idea to whack the kid next to him with it. I broke that shit up, but apparently that inspired the other rowdy group (henceforth named "The Sharks") to make their own marker swords. So I break that shit up, but as I was disciplining them, The Jets changed their focus from weapon development to civil engineering because they start making the fucking Golden Gate of all marker bridges to connect their table with the one in the very corner of the class. So I Pacific Rim'd that bridge right in half and guess what happens?

The fucking Sharks decide to run around the classroom, drawing shit each other's arms whenever they pass each other.

The Sharks, rocking their battle scars.
(via jonandlaura.blogspot.com)

In the end, Mrs. Bartels steps in and puts and end to their crap. I take away the Sharks' markers since they were waaaay rowdier than the Jets. Unfortunately, a little girl that came in late got stuck in the same table as the other three Sharks, so when that table lost marker privileges, the girl complained that it wasn't fair because she didn't do anything. I felt bad for her, so I snuck her three markers so she could at least prettify her notebook a little.

It doesn't end there. Ten minutes before class ends, some punk kid raises his hand and asks if he could go to the bathroom. So of course, I walk him to the bathroom (which, apparently, is effing THIRTY LIGHT YEARS AWAY SINCE IT TOOK US A DECADE TO WALK THERE) and what's he decide to do?

He takes a 15 minute shit. FIFTEEN MINUTES. I TIMED IT. He made me late for the last, most stressful part of my day: parent pick up.

So since I was five minutes late for returning to my class, I didn't get to catch the parents that picked up their kids right outside of the classroom, which means my final count for kids got all skewed, but that's not that big of a problem. Oh no, you know what the biggest problem is? The fact that I have to watch 15 kids that I've literally just met and make sure that each and every one of them gets picked up by their parents.

Not so bad, right? Except there's only ONE pick up area. And there's EASILY over 14.5 billion kids all crammed in this area.

"I found the wizard, but WHERE THE HELL ARE MY 15 KIDS?"
(via survivinggrady.com)

And it didn't help that every 5 minutes, someone would ask me a question. Swear to god, my kids are NINJAS. Seriously, I could resolve a question in thirty seconds tops, but in those thirty seconds that I'm not paying 100% attention to my kids, HALF OF THEM DISAPPEAR.

Eventually, all of the kids got picked up. But not after an hour of waiting and a light scolding from Grant Imahara to all of the TAs.

That was super stressful.

RFotD: "Where's Waldo" is called "Where's Wally" in every other country except for the US and Canada. And also I'm really tired.

SGAT: Was too tired to write anything.

Day Nine: That Goddamn World Cup Game

6/22/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Suuuuuuuuuuuper late entry, my bad. Alright, let's see, what happened today...

OH. I'll tell you what happened today. THAT EFFING WORLD CUP GAME, US VS PORTUGAL. Specifically, I'm talking about this moment right here.

(via thebiglead.com)

(via thebiglead.com)

DID YOU SEE THAT? Literally the last few seconds of the game, US is in the lead 2-1 and what happens? Effing THAT. AAAAAAAAGH, we could've made it to the top 16. Dad practically SCREAMED and mom's jaw didn't just drop on the floor, it detached from her mouth and plunged to its death.

Freaking World Cup, stressing me out.

Oh, and Mango won MLG, that's pretty cool too.

God, I'm really tired. Sorry if today's entry kinda sucks, but other than this World Cup game and writing, nothing really happened.





RFotD: The most goals ever scored in a single World Cup match by one team was 10. Hungary scored 10 goals to El Salvador's 1 during the 1982 World Cup.

SGAT: Got a big ol' chunk of my story done.

Day Eight: I Actually Make Friends

6/21/14, 1:44 PM PDT

Eric showed up at my house at 7 AM to pick up some reimbursements forms for Red Cross. Problem is, I don't normally wake up until 10 AM, so when he showed up, I was SUPER cranky. I don't remember exactly what I said to him when I handed him the Ziploc bag of important Red Cross documents since I immediately went back to sleep after, but Eric, if you're reading this right now and I ended up saying something horrible about your mother, I'm sorry. I'm not me when I just woke up.



6/22/14, 1:26 AM PDT

Wow, another really late entry. My bad, guys.

So a bulk of today was spent at my cousin's graduation party in Orange County. Or at least, I think it's Orange County, I really don't know where they live since every time we go up to their house, I pass out for pretty much the entire car ride.

Let me just throw this out there. I am NOT a social person. Throw me into a party full of the nicest, most accepting people in the world and unless someone talks to me first, I will happily ignore every single person there in favor of writing on my phone. The day I start a conversation with a total stranger will probably be the day that World War III starts and RoboHitler is unleashed into the world.

So based on how this party was looking in the beginning, I didn't think anything would change. The older adults probably weren't looking to make conversation with me that didn't start with the words "What grade are you in now?" and the younger people either already had friends to talk to or had their eyes glued onto their electronics. The latter was especially prevalent in the party's piano room, occupied entirely by kids still in elementary school and middle schoolers addicted to social media.

But hell, there was a piano, so I decided to play. And surprisingly, playing the piano acts as a pretty good ice breaker, because suddenly I'm getting all these requests from the kids around me who were previously just staring at their iPhones. And even though I couldn't play all of their crazy requests ("Play something from Frozen! Play a Snoop Dogg song! Play the Keyboard Cat song!"), I managed to have some pretty decent conversations with these people, so I guess they're my friends now? I added one guy on Facebook who had a VGHS shirt, so yeah, I think we're friends now?

Yep. Definitely a VGHS shirt.

Is- is that enough to bring upon WWIII or what?





RFotD: There exists a "friendship paradox," which states that your friends tend to have more friends than you do. Several mathematical explanations exist to support this paradox.

SGAT: Became a little less socially awkward.

Day Seven: Library Day with Samantha

6/20/14, 5:56 PM PDT

Went to the library again with Samantha. Had a nice little conversation, where she called me fat several times. How rude right?

At one point, while we were talking, a strange homeless-looking guy approaches us with a sticker sheet in his hand. I saw him walking towards us in the corner of my eye and I thought he was going to tell us to be quiet since we were laughing pretty hard. But you know what he does?

"Want a sticker?" He asks us.

We were kinda confused. But hell, he just pitched me an offer that I can't refuse, so I just said yes to the free sticker. He peels a happy face sticker off (doesn't even let me choose, I wanted a blue one) and forcefully slaps it on my shoulder. He asks Samantha the same thing and after she says yes, she gets a purple one.

Then he just walks away.

The aforementioned sticker.

Maybe we just met the most interesting man in the world. Maybe his sticker-giving had some sort of insightful, symbolic meaning, a meaning that neither of us will understand until years, perhaps decades into the future. Maybe someday, this sticker will save my life.

Or maybe he was just mentally disabled.

Anyway, after that, we went to Carl's Jr. where she insisted that she buy me a milkshake even though I said several times that I didn't want one because I'm following a strict, sugar-free diet. But stubborn her bought me one anyway, rrrrrrgh. So I drank me an Oreo milkshake, diet ruined, now I'll never lose my extra 16 chins.

After that milkshake run, we headed back to the library. I brought the same umbrella from Wednesday and she really wanted to see what I look like walking around with it open, so I opened it up. She said I owned a really feminine umbrella and she called me a girl because of it, which I guess I'm okay with since it's definitely an improvement from "old Asian lady."

In short, I had a pretty fun time, lol.



6/21/14, 1:21 AM PDT

Aaaaaagh, I'm tired. Spent a big chunk of my afternoon/evening watching MLG's Melee stream and the West Coast vs. East Coast crew battle took effing THREE HOURS to finish. Started at 10:30, went until now. But it was a REALLY good contest, glad that West Coast won because East Coast's team was STACKED.

Uhh... let's see, what else happened today... White Austin finally got a Facebook, so to celebrate, Samantha and I had an argument on his wall over which person he loved more. The answer is obviously me, but because I'm a courteous gentleman who is a firm believer in chivalry, I let Samantha win. After framing her through the magic of Google Chrome in a last-ditch effort to win Austin's approval, of course.

Wow, pretty short entry today, huh? Ah well, not every day can have 1,000+ words.





RFotD: The word "umbrella" derives from the Latin word "umbra," meaning shaded or shadow. The French suffix "-elle" means "little," so literally, "umbrella" means "little shadow." Which completely justifies why I bring one along when I walk to the library.

SGAT: Was supposed to work on my story, but I didn't really feeeeeeeel like it.

Day Six: My Sister's Friend Annoys My Mom

6/19/14, 9:18 AM PDT

Hey, I'm actually writing my anniversary story now! Wooooooooooooo! Here's my choice of writing music, gonna listen to that on repeat for a few hours.



Same day, 1:54 PM PDT

Picked up my sister from school again. Had to bring her friend, Laura, along because my mom and Laura's mom have a deal going on where they alternate days on who picks up both kids so that they can get more sleep. But I'm pretty sure my mom is 100 percent done with Laura because she DOES NOT STOP TALKING EVER. We had to bring her with us to my job orientation in Carmel Mountain because her mom wasn't gonna be able to pick her up before 3 PM and the entire car ride, she was practically screaming. I mean I didn't care, I thought it was hilarious, but my mom likes quiet car rides, so even though she didn't say anything out of politeness, I could tell she was this close to bursting a blood vessel.

The tipping point? When my mom stopped at McDonalds and asked us (as in my sister and I) what we wanted to eat.

"I want an Oreo McFlurry!" Laura says. No please. No hesitation. No waiting for my mom to ask her directly.

It was around then that mom gave out the most exhausted sigh I've ever heard.



Same day, 9:56 PM PDT

Job orientation at the summer school that I'm working at sucked. Everyone was either from Scripps or Westview, so they all had their own little social groups EXCEPT ME. I arrived 30 minutes early, so awkward, friendless me just sat alone, playing Tetris on my iPhone until the actual orientation started. Then, awkward, friendless me just walked unnoticed in the crowd, following the head of the summer program until training ended.

The campus is really pretty though. It's on a sort of hillside terrace and one building is half on the main terrace, half on a lower story all by itself, so the entire campus sort of looks like a sideways L. It's really hard to explain and I thought it would be rude if I took pictures, so you're just gonna have to take my word that the place was really nice.

After I got home, I napped for a bit, then got on a Google+ call with Angela and Christina. They have this new feature where you can draw things on people's faces and the drawings follow their face as they move around. Basically, think of those really crappy webcam effects where it makes it look like you're wearing a hat or a crown or glitter or whatever. Except it's actually pretty decent. Look at some of the stuff we made.

Angela tracked a drawing of Mario's hat on herself.

Mario

Wants a lick

OF YOUR SOUL.

She also drew a few other things.

Duckface Goldilocks. Thankfully extinct in the wild.

She's either a strawberry or a Cabbage Patch Kid that's high.

Ironically, Drag Queen Angela looks more like a girl than
normal Angela does.

These two are probably my favorite.

Angela doesn't like space camp.

No really, Angela really doesn't like space camp.

We didn't limit our facial vandalism to Angela though.

"It wants to crawl inside my mouth."

Oh, and here's a picture of Angela trying to strangle her dog.

Look at how happy she is to crush that poor dog's trachea.

RFotD: Someone divided Star Wars Episode 4 into 15 second chunks and asked people around the world to select one of those chunks to reshoot in however style they want. Star Wars Uncut is the final product of this project.

SGAT: Wrote a decent chunk of my anniversary story.