I will have to sum up April at a later date. We just finished getting our Costco run out of the Pilot and are heading to bed. I started the day by first giving myself a buzz cut and then collecting our collection of unused or broken electronics and taking it to the recycling event today at the landfill. I’ve been on the move pretty much from then until now.

Although busy, I had a great day, especially since I got to play Catan with Robert and Shawna … even if Janelle and Shawna conspired to keep Rob and I from winning any of the games.

I've been sitting here, staring at the screen for too long. I really need to get to bed, but I'm not coming up with original topics at the moment. The main things on my mind include the D&D game that I'm currently running, the upcoming meeting on my Rome and Athens trip (still a week and a half away), the quickly approaching end of the school year, and our upcoming mad dash (and back) to Anchorage. However, I don't really want to write about any of them. Nor do I want to write about anything that's been in the news lately.

​Thus, I think that I will say farewell for now so I can say hello to my pillows.

Here are five disparate items from my life these past two days.

Tonight, I watched the SoHi production of Arsenic and Old Lace. It's a fantastic play and the students did an excellent job putting it on. It put me in the mind of when we put on the same play in Colon about two decades ago. I have since been troubled that I cannot remember the names of many of the students who took part in it. There are some scenes that I can picture clearly, but others that are wholly gone. I do, however, still have the bottle that held our "elderberry wine" on display in our dining room.

I have discovered a new fascination: watching the number of people register for my informational meeting about the Rome and Athens trip. The first QR codes went out yesterday and I learned how to access the invitation count on my phone. I have been checking it obsessively since then. I'm really hoping for a good-sized group for the meeting, and thus hopefully for the trip. Already, I'm glad that I booked the school library rather than holding it in my classroom. 

I still have not been able to get ahold of a repair person to fix our dishwasher. I have left multiple messages and received a few voicemails in return, but no actual progress has been made. The dishwasher is still under warrantee by Home Depot and they have not been able to find a service technician either. I'm giving it another week before we just look at replacing the dishwasher entirely ... again.

One of Connor's friends gave Connor a close buzz cut during school the other day. Supposedly, several of his friends said that they would pay him a total of $40 (and 11 cents) to have it buzzed. I had advised him when he first mentioned this idea (back when it was just $10) that he had better see the money first. So far, he has only received 11 cents. His friend did a good job with the clippers, though.

Tomorrow, I sit in the Dungeon Master (DM) spot again. While I ran a short family game during winter break, I haven't run a game outside of the family for over five years, let alone with Fifth Edition. I'm really excited, and I hope that we will be able to make good progress on this adventure during the summer. 

Well, it has been, and is going to be, a busy few days, so I'm heading off to bed.

I knew that I wasn't as young as I used to be when I started injuring myself in my sleep. Just this past Sunday, I woke up about half  an hour before my alarm was set to go off. I almost felt like I should just get up, but instead I rolled over and fell asleep. I woke up with a pain in my neck. Thankfully, it subsided as the day went on.

However, the same pain popped up in the middle of the day on Tuesday. It continued to bother me throughout the evening, but I was certain that a solid night of sleep would help it to disappear. I was wrong. Instead, I slept fitfully and finally woke up unable to turn my head.

Ibuprofen with breakfast helped the pain almost entirely disappear. Unfortunately, it turned into a sort of ghost pain, haunting me through the day. It even produced a couple of jump scares as pain shot from from my shoulder to my skull when I would least expect it. 

I'm going to take some more Ibuprofen before going to bed tonight. Hopefully that will help me rest. That way I can face the day normally instead of like Micheal Keaton in his Batman suit.

I plan on taking a group of SoHi students on a trip to Rome and Athens next spring break. I have convinced a group of my fellow teachers to help with the planning, recruitment, and chaperone duties as I would like to bring at least a bus load of students on this trip. I find the prospect exhilarating and terrifying as this goes well beyond my comfort zone. Aside from my treks through Canada to get to Alaska, I have never been outside of the U.S.A. before, let alone across an ocean. 

However, I have long wanted to see the sights of Rome and Athens for myself. I especially want to share this experience with students so that they get to physically be a part of the greater world. Hopefully, having an experience like this will allow them to grow up with less fear of such a trip as I currently have, as well as a greater appreciation for the Italian and Greek peoples and cultures.

Already, I find that I've been making mistakes in advertising and trying to recruit for this trip. It seems like right after I do or say something, I get a reminder from the trip advisor not to say or do that very thing. As I really want to set up an ongoing program of foreign travel for our students with a historical focus, I'm terrified that I'm going to screw this up. 

Still my excitement often overrides my caution, and my naive optimism insists that everything is going to turn out wonderfully as my students and I will have the chance to stand in awe of the skill and scale of ancient artists and architects. 

It's getting to be that time of year again. The sun is shining, the snow is melting, and the piles left by the dogs throughout the winter are starting to materialize. It's so much nicer when it just keeps getting covered by one fresh layer of snow after another, but the consequence of that pleasure has arrived once more. 

This year, I thought that I would get a start on things a bit earlier. I figured that it would be easier to clean up those piles that are still on top of or within the snow by using a shovel now rather than bending down and picking it up with cold, gloved hands later. My plan was to just shovel the loads onto an old sled and then trek the sled to our dumping location.

The first big obstacle was that the rear gate to the dog yard is frozen solid into a patch of ice. I had hoped that it was just wedged in the deep snow, but I guess that the metal fence has heated up in the warmth of the sun, melting the snow around it which then refreezes at the ground. This means that I need to pull the sled across our driveway--which is clear of snow.

I also underestimated how much weight heavy, wet snow adds to the total. It was especially difficult to pull the laden sled across our driveway, let alone maneuvering it around in the dog yard (since I couldn't just go straight through to the back gate). Also, the old sled was not quite up to the task and required a makeshift repair to its "rope" by the time I was on the second (and final, for now) run. 

What I really didn't expect was how deep the snow still was in the yard. It still went well over the tops of my boots, soaking my jeans as I trudged across the yard and back. Apparently, my Fitbit was impressed with my heart rate through the experience and awarded me an exercising badge as I huffed and puffed my way back to the house.

I only made the two trips as nature decided that I had more than enough and decided to drop a tiny cloudburst on me just as I finished dumping the second load. I wasn't completely soaked by the time that I got back to the house, but I could take the hint. I only cleared about a sixth of the yard (if that), but I'm still glad that I made the attempt.

Some people do not seem to realize that the Old Testament has a sequel. Like the best of sequels, the New Testament not only continues the original story in unique and powerful ways, but it forces the reader to look at the original in a surprisingly new ways. Without changing the original story, the sequel to the Old Testament puts all of its events and characters into a completely different light, improving upon them in every aspect.

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. As was mentioned in today's homily, today we should remember that God's mercy is beyond human understanding. Many people are still stuck in the Old Testament, desiring the wrath of God to take vengeance upon everyone who dared to defy Him. However, the New Testament demonstrates that God's anger and wrath were not actually directed at sinners, but at sin itself, and the Devil who tempts us with it. 

God calls us to be witnesses to His mercy, not just to glorify Him, but to make the world a better place. Our role is not point out the sins of others in the hopes that ours will be ignored, but to demonstrate the mercy God shows for us by showing mercy to those whom we feel do not deserve it. To be clear, this does not mean letting everyone do whatever they want whenever they want to, nor that people should not have face the consequences of their actions, but rather to recognize that people are going to mess up and will need mercy to help them move forward.

​The Lord knows that I do.

Today, I finally finished putting a ceiling fan in every room where I wanted one when we originally bought this house over six years ago. By putting one in the room Connor has claimed for himself--which had been and continues to be our pantry and storage room, I now have one in all three downstairs bedrooms, the boys' bedroom upstairs, the living room, and above my head as I type this in my office. 

The original plan had been to install the one in Connor's bedroom/pantry last summer when I also installed one in the corner guest bedroom. I had to replace the fixture in the guest bedroom because I had installed one of those LED fixtures ("will last the life of your house" ... right) to replace the fluorescent light fixture back when we moved in. Like all of the LED fixtures ("never need to change a bulb again" ... right) I installed, it had begun to flicker and was failing. Thankfully, it was the last one that I had to replace. 

When picking up the ceiling fan for the guest room, I decided to pick up one for the pantry (as it was solely a pantry at the time) as well--there may have been a deal. I had already replaced the LED fixture in the pantry a year or two earlier, so I didn't have a reason to rush installing it. It also turned out that I only had one electrical box rated for holding a ceiling fan. Thus, I installed the one, but not the other. It's been sitting on the floor in that room since then ... until today.

This week, Connor was more insistent that I finish the job. As we were in Kenai for his track meet anyway, we stopped by Home Depot to pick up a study electrical box, and I promised that I would install the light today. Which I did. He even helped, which made the process MUCH easier.

 It looks good and works perfectly. It's nice to have that task complete. It's even nicer to have finally completed one of my goals from when we bought the house.

In another episode of Dr. Marks Ruins Everything, I began each class today by singing/rapping "Go, shorty. It's your Earth Day. We gonna party like it's your Earth Day." Apparently, this greatly disturbed a number of my students at least based on the number of them groaning "No" and shaking their heads. Meanwhile others asked if they could record me singing/rapping for their ringtones--I did not oblige them. 

Earth Days in Alaska do not work well for planting trees. However, as I pointed out to my students, it is the perfect time to start picking up the trash that the retreating snow piles are leaving behind. Cleaning up the trash around us, even if we aren't the ones who left it there, helps make the entire community better. If people see trash lying around, they are more likely to leave more behind themselves. It's better to pick up the smaller pieces before the trash accumulates into more noticeable piles. 

For that matter, the same principle applies to our thoughts, our responsibilities, and even our lives.

Let me be clear, teachers are not turning children gay, confusing them about which bathroom to use, or telling white students to be ashamed of who they are (well, not the vast majority--there are outliers in every group of people). If you are under any of the aforementioned misconceptions, it is because you are listening to over-exaggerations or outright lies from people who are desperate to destroy public education, and those people are extremely close to achieving their goal. Public education is at a breaking point greater than the crisis caused by COVID.

Why these sudden attacks these past two years? Well, a few things happened that nearly woke the citizens of our great nation to systemic problems that people would rather pretend do not exist. Now, I'm more than happy to discuss the new awareness of (and thus attacks on) the LGBTQ and BLM movements, but you will need to message me directly at the moment as the focus of this post is on the attacks on teachers themselves, not the cudgels that have been used to do it.

You see, COVID struck a little over two years ago and turned the world upside down. In the space of a week or two, people with school aged children went from their normal lives to a sudden shift to at-home learning. Almost immediately, people began to realize how much they depended on our public school systems and how many roles those systems provided for their entire communities. Teachers and support staff made colossal adjustments at astonishing speeds, but there was not nearly the time, funding, or training necessary to keep up with everything. Sadly, many people were so focused on their day-to-day survival that they bit at the hands that were trying to feed them instead of recognizing how the long-time abuses poured onto our public educators were what was truly at fault for there not being a robust-enough of a system to respond properly to such an emergency.

However, some people did begin to notice, and for a while teachers were lauded as heroes. Parents and communities were desperate to get the school systems back and serving in the many ways that they were before. As we have begun to return to that "normal" setting, the relief has been palpable. Surely, gratitude should follow. After all, when heroic efforts are taken to save a ship in the midst of a storm, one should expect at least some warm feelings for the exhausted crew who brought the passengers to safety.

Instead, those who want to dismantle public education did not want their voters grateful towards teachers and support staff. Thus, they have hijacked societal issues (which also threaten their tyrannical power) and ridiculously placed the blame for such issues on those who are already so close to their breaking points ... and it's working. Fatigued, demoralized, and now demonized, many educators are leaving--in numbers never seen before. To be clear, there was already a teaching shortage, schools of education have been in massive decline in their enrollments for over a decade, and many schools are relying on retired faculty and staff to return from their well-earned retirement or underqualified and entirely unprepared people with emergency certificates to fill the gaps.

A democratic republic, to truly function, must have a robust public education system. Those tyrants who prefer an undereducated--and thus easily duped--population would like to see it gone. Question the motives of those who work at breaking down teachers, for they are truly after your rights.

I cannot pinpoint the precise time, but sometime within the past few year, I lost my fear of death. It was strange to me when I recognized this because, for as long as I can remember, I had been terrified of death--of what might (or might not) come next. In particular, the thought of losing my consciousness brought dread to my very soul and occupied a great deal of my thoughts. Then, one day, I realized that my fear was gone, and had been for a while. The realization was extraordinarily freeing. 

I came to this realization that my dread of death had vanished (although I don't know when it actually disappeared) about two and half years ago when reading Plato's "Apology" in preparation for a literary discussion. In it, Socrates tells the men of Athens that he would prefer death over imprisonment as he knows imprisonment would be arduous, but believes that death will either bring happiness or nothing. I found that I had already come to agree with most of that idea before I read it. 

If my faith holds to be true, an everlasting paradise beyond my comprehension lies beyond the gateway of death. Certainly, I do not believe I am worthy of such a reward and that my soul may face a crucible before being allowed entrance, but I similarly do not believe that I have done anything deserving of eternal torment (nor has nearly anyone). If I am wrong in my belief, than the nothingness that follows is no more daunting than a blissfully deep sleep.

To be clear, I do not wish to hasten my departure for that other realm. Even if it is full of the greatest possible joys, heaven exists outside of time and so there is no reason to rush towards it. Meanwhile, there is still a great deal in this life that I still enjoy, and like a child in the middle of playing, I will likely still plead for "five more minutes" when my time comes to an end.

I've have a few post ideas that have fallen by the wayside as of late as I did not have the time to give them full justice, I did not want to spoil a movie that people still not might have seen, or because other events took place at the same time. While I might come back to them in the future, I don't see myself writing about them any time soon. As I could not decide what to write about today, I thought that I would just mention some of those missed ideas. Many of these are just working titles and some are just hints of ideas:

• I really love the newest Spider-Man movie.
• Stupid Stubbornness 
• My Wooden AT-AT Walker
• A Russian Patsy
• Looking into My Grandfather's Eyes
• We Are the Government
• Breaking the Prime Directive
• My dogs have a better understanding of me than I could ever hope to have of God.
• Diffusing Rhetoric
• Fearing Racist Blowback
• Abominable, but It Should Remain Legal

I was thinking that it was a bigger list, but that's still more than I will probably get around to writing. Perhaps some of them will see an actual posting in the future.

It's amazing how different last week was in comparison to what is planned for this week. Holy Week includes some wonderful celebrations and traditions, but it is quite a ride. When I added in a school board visit, a choir rehearsal, and Connor's track meet, I had a week full of evening events that did not leave much time for more frivolous activities.

This week is considerably calmer. At present, my only weekend plans are to play guitar at the two masses. Meanwhile, the only weekday evening event is the football meeting for the parents of players--they have quite a schedule throughout the summer--and Connor's track meet at Kenai--which will hopefully be warmer, if windier. This is probably a good thing as I have a pile of papers and projects coming in from my AP class this week.

While part of my extra time will need to be spent planning and practicing music for this weekend's masses and some of my time will certainly be spent exploring the Forbidden West with Aloy, I also plan on using some of my time to plan for a world history trip for next year's spring break. I think that there is enough interest, and I currently have the motivation to work on it. I fear that if I wait, that my energy towards this idea will dissipate and allow me to regress to my more comfortable tendency to not try anything like this.

​I might try to get some more sleep too. 

Jesus has risen! As stated in today's homily, what impresses me so much about that statement is that it is a fact, as much and even more so than any historical fact that has been recorded. Many of the historical facts that we hold to have little in the way of corroboration. Jesus' resurrection not only has the multiple witnesses whose testaments are written in the works of Bible (and some that are not included), but is recorded in the writings of non-believers from the time who posit alternate theories for His return from the dead. As pointed in out in today's homily, these other sources do not doubt that Jesus was somehow alive after his execution--for them, it was a fact whose given explanation they doubted.

For myself, I have occasionally slipped into the thoughts of wondering whether the story of His resurrection was made up by disciples of His who were seeking attention and power for themselves. The evidence does not support that theory. Leaving the textual evidence aside, these disciples brought forth this message knowing that it would lead to their deaths, but because they knew the resurrection was real, their deaths brought them no fear. More so, this fact brought about world-wide change in a way that no mere story has been able to accomplish before or since.

Jesus has risen! It's a fact!