March 21-March 25 A Wild Week

March 21
Episode watched: U2 Concert
We had one of those lacrosse games where we just kind of rolled over and played dead. No energy, no enthusiasm and seemingly no desire. Our locker room meeting afterwards was a little bit of a reality check and come to Jesus conversation. I'm thinking I need to get a Mr. Belding in there giving the pre-game speech as long as he doesn't hurt anyone's knee on the way to the field. When you've only got 12 kids on your team, you need everyone to remain as healthy as humanly possible.

March 22
Episode watched: Party in Malibu
I watched "Waiting for Superman" tonight, still not entirely sure how I feel about the movie and the message. Not sure if I agree with what needs to be done with teacher unions or if the public school system really is failing American kids. Definitely a must watch movie for all teachers, parents and people who care about education.  I think Bayside had it right: small class sizes, numerous course offerings, student enrichment projects and a local gathering place for students. Maybe Geoffrey Canada could consult with Aaron Spelling and Mr. Belding about educational visions.

March 23
Episode watched: Palm Springs Wedding Part 1

Jessie (Elizabeth Berkely) was on the radio today being interviewed about her relationship with the other cast members and if they still kept in touch. Her response was that they still very much keep in contact like good high school friends. They call and text and keep up with each others' lives.

March 24
Episode watched: Lisa's Fashion Show

It's been a rather wild week at work and I can't necessarily elaborate on my personal feelings towards the issue in a public forum (would be happy to in a private forum) but I have put the link below so you can fill yourself in on what's going on in my office.  The students are trying to fight for their rights and what is important to them. Jessie did they very same thing on senior ditch day and the gang fought against the oil company when it was destroying the pond behind their school.
Link: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17704242


March 25
Episode watched: College Years: Mike's DateI got called out by one of my students today about not keeping up with my blog, so here you go JRod, I'm keeping up with as best I can. I'm glad I've got my students to keep me in check. He also told me it's okay if I even just write a sentence, but I better keep it going.  This sort of bullying will only last as long as you're my student (so like May 27th right?) Cool.

 Lesson learned: My school has been in the news 4 times this school year, how about yours?

March 20

Episode watched: none

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we've all had one of those Tom Cruise + Risky Business moments at some time in our life right? Singing and dancing across the hard wood floor in sunglasses and a business shirt...or at least we've thought about it.  Even Screech, Zack and Slater have one of these moments when Screech's mom is out of town. I'm going to let you all in on a little secret, I have honestly never done this. But I'm thinking about it, on a lazy Sunday like this, it's a possibility in the near future (like within the year) I might find myself "singing" and "dancing" across my hardwood floor. Yet I must put "singing" and "dancing" in quotation marks as my interpretation of singing and dancing is much like Rebecca Black's interpretation of singing.

Lesson learned: After Friday, comes Saturday and Sunday.

*If you don't understand the reference, look it up on Youtube.

March 19

Episode watched: None

Our friends have one of the most awesome babies/toddlers/kids ever. We spent the evening at his 2nd birthday party and he's a totally cool kid (besides the fact that he's going to grow up a staunch Florida Gator supporter), but ever since they had him I think I've put him on the top of my list of coolest kids ever. I just have to make sure he grows up playing lacrosse, not baseball. The funny part of the party is that Annie and I were severely outnumbered by married couples and little kids. We're used to it, but it reminds me of the parenting experiment that the gang has when they are "married" to each other and have kids. The thing I don't understand about that episode is how is Mr. Belding a teacher? That man wears far too many hats, I'm thinking he needs an assistant principal or two.

Lesson learned: Cookie cakes are delicious...always.

March 14-18

I'm thinking that during this busy time of year that these weekly blogs will be the norm or else this blog won't happen at all. Feeling the pressure for sure and hoping this makes it a whole year.

March 14
Episode watched: Zack Attack
The situation in Japan is very serious and very scary, but whenever they mention the 9.0 earthquake I am reminded of the earthquake episode in SBtB and that's when Zack and Tori deliver Mr. Belding's baby. It's amazing how many secret hallways and back parts of Bayside that we so rarely saw.

March 15
Episode watched: Jessie's stepbrother
During the episode when engineers strike oil at Bayside, they are in the process of building a new football field. These days a lot of high school are receiving new turf fields and some of them even have lights so games can be played later. It would have been nice to have one of those new fields at my school this evening when my lacrosse team decided that they wanted to take our game into quadruple overtime and nearly run out of daylight...in case you care, we lost.

March 16
Episode watched: The Love Machine
Have you ever noticed how much gambling, betting and wagering occurs throughout the years in SBtB? Whether it was Mr. Carosi offering a discount on his car to Zack if they won the volleyball tournament or Zack and Slater betting on girls, a heck of a lot of it happens for high school students. I say this as I sit with my 4 different brackets open trying to figure out how I will be successful for once during March Madness.

March 17
Episode watched: The Chess Match
As the most wonderful weekend of the year begins, March Madness, I am nostalgic of Zack Morris's very short, but very important basketball career. It's amazing that in that group of 6 high school students they had the basketball star, track star, football star, wrestling star, chess star and the leaders of the girl's swim team and cheerleaders. Now that's what I call involvement. I also call that a clique.

March 18
Episode watched: Greek Life
During one of my classes, one of my students referred to herself as "Vally" and she told me that she calls her best friend "Socks", but what I heard was "Sucks". So I told her that's funny "Vally Sucks" just like like in Saved By the Bell the rival school is known as Valley. She gave me the usual high school WTF face.

Lesson learned: Work productivity is severely impaired during March Madness.

March 9-March 13

Episodes watched: Running Zack and Glee Club

*Things have been too crazy to post everyday some I'm just going to summarize each day as briefly as possible.

March 9
An email I received today: "Zack reminds me of you...in that everything he owns in his damn closet in one color...GREEN. He was imagining Kelly today and she was standing in his closet saying 'wear this one Zack. I love how this color looks on you.' But she really doesn't have a choice because it's the only color he wears. This is also the episode where Belding tries to hangout with the guys b/c they are all fighting with their girls."

March 10
Heard on Mike and Mike this morning:
"Dwayne Wayde refuses to watch TV anymore because he is sick of hearing the media talk about how he cried. (cue in SBtB theme song) Why doesn't he just watch Saved By the Bell? Your older brother is on it Mike."

March 11
A couple wonderful friends of mine sent me a "Bayside Pride" shirt and I rocked the hell out of it today. It's awesome and ads to a nice rotation with the other Bayside shirt.

March 12
We notched our first victory today for the season, kind of feels like Screech when Lisa kisses him on the cheek during the Valentine's day episode. We're playing that underdog role for the season, we're skinny and quirky, but persistence is key and eventually we'll get what we want.

March 13
Remember when the gang worked at the Teen Line and people could call in for help? I'm thinking that a lot of Colorado Buffs basketball fans will be looking for a similar outlet for their emotions, being that the Buffs got completely dissed by the NCAA Tournament and left out of the 68 team bracket...that's a rough Sunday.

Lesson learned: Less time equals fewer words.

March 8- Getting Caught Red-Handed

Episode watched: Fake Belding, Fake Dad

This was classic: today as we were touring the new building on our campus with our principal, we walked past part of the building that looks at the back side of our theater.  Sitting there as if it were the 60's, two students who we all knew were taking a quick cigarette break...on school grounds, with the whole English department watching and the principal. Our principal surprised them to say the least and said some things to them that we couldn't hear but I would assume they won't be smoking on school grounds anytime soon. Saved By the Bell you ask? Did none of you hear "Hey! Hey! Hey! What is going on here?" in your head? Because I don't think that's exactly what our principal said when he addressed it but it certainly would have been one of those moments.  A classic moment when you understand you're caught and no matter what you say, you're dead wrong.


Lesson learned: Leather jacket with collar flipped up + leaning against a wall + cigarette = cool (If you're Danny Zuko)

March 7 - That Good Ol' Country

Episode watched: Zack gets the hots for the school nurse

Nothing like getting the random text at 6:30 in the morning that says "Bayside radio...KKTY, awesome." That pretty much made my day incredibly easy with the challenge, but it really got me thinking...why was their radio station KKTY? I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't call it something more creative or more closely tied with Bayside and the Tigers. I found out that a radio station in Wyoming is KKTY.

Lesson learned: More than 50% of all radio stations in Wyoming are country oriented.

March 6 - Root Down

Episode watched: None

Remember when Jessie and her geeky eco-friendly friend Graham decided to protest the use of polystyrene cups at the school? No? It's okay, I do and I'm going to make a stretch on this post mostly because it's Sunday and partially because no one really cares. We went to a delicious breakfast restaurant this morning that Jessie and Graham certainly would have appreciated. Organic is all the new rage these days and I most certainly am guilty of feeding into this trend, but it's okay to be trendy when it's something like this. It's almost like anti-trendy.  The restaurant is called Root Down and it is based on a use of organic foods. Hit it up, seriously. If this were a food blog I would devote an entire post to the deliciousness of this place...and that's only brunch. Do it, protest bad restaurants.

Lesson learned: Refilling your water out of a container that's not a traditional water pitcher is cool and makes the water taste better.

March 5 - Fat Tuesday

Episode watched: None

As the world celebrates Carnival and the drunks and unruly line the streets of New Orleans, I think it's only fitting to make note that SBtB had their own "Masquerade Ball" and attempted to make it as mixed up and crazy as some of the world's finest celebrations. Granted in that episode it was all about miscommunication of love and deception, that Aaron Spelling sure tried his darndest to make one of the most wholesome shows into something wild and crazy. Could you imagine SBtB on a primetime spot today? I'm thinking Mardi Gras + 4th of July + wild frat parties.

Lesson learned: Elizabeth Berkley is a bead hog at Mardi Gras.

March 4 - An Assist

Episode watched: Zack Proposes

This one was easy and I didn't really have to do anything, it just fell into my lap...er, my email inbox. I appreciate that everyone is helping me out through this endeavor. My email read: "by being selfish and throwing a party to impress Leslie, Zack gets in trouble for having beer, further gets in trouble by being selfish trying to get out of the punishment, and (the this never happens in real life part) gets out of trouble and everyone loves him in the end. Lesson learned: don't take the easy way out because only your boyfriend will probably love you in the end."

Lesson learned: It's spreading, this "Saved By the Bell...itis?" The swelling or inflammation of the Bell??? I need to think of a new name for that.

March 3 - Brown-Nosing

Episode watched: Can't Remember!

This one was perfect today because I saw it on yesterday's episode.  Zack is trying to kiss up to Mr. Belding and Belding throws out the line "I'm not a straw, stop sucking up." I used that very same line today during one of my classes when one of my kiddos was trying to get/stay in good standing. (She is once again very proud that she helped me fill my blog quota for the day.)

Lesson learned: Telling your teacher "You're the worst teacher ever," will not work in your favor...ever.

March 2 - No Pity Parties

Episode watched: Valentine's Day

As I have commented on before, the number of students and the size of Bayside throws me off and question what's going on over there. Rarely if ever have we seen a full classroom or complete sport's roster. How could the football team only have 5 members? I finally know what they feel like.  When we separated our varsity squad from our JV squad today, we only put 9 kids on the varsity team (and 2 were absent).  The funny thing is that you have 10 players on the lacrosse field at a time...could be an interesting season. This is why we bill our kids as some of the hardest working and most fit kids in the state. Check in for updates on what I'm hoping the state will accept as a new 8-man lacrosse game.

Lesson learned: Start feeder programs to help build numbers in area.

March 1 - Ponytails and Pinchitters

Episode watched: The Family Project

I learned something new today at school: males and females can play sports on different gendered teams not only if the sport doesn't exist at the school, but also if a similar sport is called something different. Boys can try out for the softball team and girls can try out for the baseball team. I have zero problems with this, I just found it interesting. I've always known that a girl could join the football or wrestling team like Kristy did at Bayside when she joined the wrestling team, but didn't know about the similar sport different name rules.  Some of my female students are trying out for the baseball team, good for them and I hope it goes well. I'm glad I learned something new for the day. Heck, I'd probably take a couple girls on my lacrosse team this year as long as they could hit and stand the smell of sweaty lacrosse boys (somewhere between sour milk and wearing shoes without socks), with declining numbers I'm sure they'd be a good addition.

Lesson learned: I had a boy with a ponytail on team a couple years ago, kid could hit.

February 28 - When the moon hits your eye...

Episode watched: Student Council Elections

Sometimes when we make dinner at home it's like an assembly line of things going on. We've got vegetable chopping, things on the stove top, prep stations and this is just for two people. (Gordon Ramsey would be so proud) Tonight we dove into our pizza making much like when the gang helps Screech with his "new" spaghetti sauce and they all have their specific roles. They've got the label area, handling the jars, screwing on the lids, the packaging and it all goes flawlessly when they work together, but the second they get frustrated and speed things up it all fails. We're learning that the most difficult thing when it comes to cooking is timing things out, making sure each piece gets done without the others getting cold or overcooked. Luckily we're getting this whole home cooking thing down to a science and luckily we're just cooking for two. But if anyone's looking for a place to invest, we make one hell of a homemade pizza.

Lesson learned: Pull your dough out of the fridge for about 10 minutes before you knead it. (pun intended)

P.S. I hate Dancing With the Stars, but tonight they announced that The Karate Kid was going to be one of the contestants. Let's go Ralph!

February 27 - And the award goes to...

Episode watched: None

The Academy Awards were on tonight. As a general rule I hate all award shows, partly because there are far too many and partly because I think they're slow, boring and especially hate any musical portion of the show. I think what would give me motivation to watch an award show is if they would stretch what they gave awards for. Best Movie, Best Actor, Best Sitcom or Best Album don't do much...what about a classic award show. On a yearly basis or I'm even willing to budge on maybe every 5 years, (to make it more special) bring back washed up, drugged out television stars that we all love. Needless to say this would include the stars of SBtB, but what about other Saturday morning classics like Hangtime and City Guys? TGIF shows like Family Matters and Step by Step and dare we even delve into Nickelodeon classics like Pete & Pete, Clarissa Explains It All and The Secret Life of Alex Mack?  Now that's an award show I would watch. 

Lesson learned: Fantasy will never become reality