Something of Everything

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Today's post has a little bit of everything for anyone! Unless you're a dog. Can't do much for the canines.

Something Sweet
Today was my last day of work YAY! SWEET, RIGHT?! Okay that wasn't the "sweet" part of this story. The sweet part is... coming up!


There's this one 5th grade girl in my class (I teach at Quest if you didn't know), and she's one of my better students, always does her work even though she doesn't really enjoy drawing. Her name is Tiffany. She's not the typical quiet little girls, and she's not incredibly friendly or easy going, but she's a nice kid. She always says "I'm boorred", and I would reply "You always say that!", and she would laugh, and I would laugh.

Last week was her last week at Quest. When I was in the room with all the kids running around, Tiffany quickly scurried up to me. Without giving eye contact in a almost bashful manner, she said "Today's my last day, I'll miss you", and then she ran away. It took me a while to realize what just happened and how sweet that was. What makes it so special was that she was totally shy about it! She's not an overenthusiastic girl that says she loves everything. She's a simple, softly spoken kid.

That's why I teach! To have moments of the kind.

Also, because there were no other jobs available.

Something Exciting
A few days ago I was driving. Yup, in my car. I was going West on South street (is that ironic?) when I found myself behind this car with its left turn signal blinking away. Inside the car was this black dude, and he certainly had no intentions of turning left. "Oh here's a smarty..."

About a block later, Phillip (I named the black guy Phillip) switched his left turn signal to the right and merged into the right lane. He waited at the intersection for the red light until the perpendicular traffic(?) was clear. Meanwhile, I look in my left mirror and see two cops in a cop car.

Yes, this story has cops and a black guy.

Phillip finally made his right turn and sped north up Norwalk (NORTHWALK!!!). I looked at the two cops again in my mirror. The passenger seated cop was looking aggressively through some papers while the driver was keeping his eye on something to the right of me. "Wait a minute... 2 cops? Looking for something..? It couldn't be [Phillip], could it..?"

Just then the cops took off, turning right from the left turn lane with the car lights-a-flashin. They were totally chasing Phillip! DUH NUH NUH NUH!



I followed the police. I was curious. When I caught up, Phillip was pulled over and the two cops were stepping out of their car. I parked in a nearby parking lot to observe. Suddenly, the black man bolted out of the car and started running! He had a big rifle in his hands! Both cops started after him and one radio'd something in his radio. Phillip was flailing his arms like he had some sorta quirk while the two others huffed and puffed to stay close behind. They disappeared behind some building. "WHAT da eff was that?!" A few seconds later the chase emerged from an alley literally 10 meters in front of me. I saw Phillip, as scared as a fox in a shooting gallery, run straight across my windshield, followed by two policemen, as determined as three Jehovah's witnesses trying to sell me some God. That's right, they're worth three people. Anyway, one cop sprang forward and latched onto Phillip! They fell to the ground while the other came up from behind and sat on the apparent violator's face. "YA LIKE THAT, SCUM?!" he said as he farted in his face. "I will not steal cotton balls again I won't!" the guilty man cried. Once again, the day was saved, thanks to... the COPS!

Just kidding yay!

That actually never happened. Well, that whole long paragraph part never happened, everything before was true... but it would've been lame if I stopped at the "duh nuh nuh" part, right?! That's probably what happened anyway. His name was probably Phillip too.

Something Tragic
I helped my dad build my new desk/shelf! My delf shesk! That's not the tragic part.

Once built, I was carrying my lava lamp when... FLIP OUT! DROP! CATCH! SMAAAASH! I sandwiched the tip of my index finger between the edge of the new desk and the 5+pound lava lamp. "owowowowowoowow..." I quickly placed the lamp down and ran to the bathroom to run my finger under some cold water.



And let me tell you guys, I have not felt such EXCRUCIATING pain such a long time. It was bad. Really bad. After the water I put some ice on my finger. The pain never went away that day. Yknow how they say physical pain is better than emotional pain because you can heal from it? Well I was starting to reconsider.

My nail (and the area around it) is blackish purple now.

Yeah because like, like, what if you got a physical injury, like your nose got chopped off? That would hurt. AND, when the doctors find out they can't put your honker back on, you'll be noseless! Do you realize how many people will make fun of you? They'd be calling you Voldamort left and right, especially if your name is Valerie or Mort. They'd cleverly call you "Val"damort, or UNcleverly call you Volda"mort"! Do you KNOW how much emotional pain you'll get from that physical pain??? Oh I nose. A lot.

anybody 'EYY OOHHHHH?!?!?

To this day my finger still hurts once in a while. I can't bend my index finger much, nonetheless use it, and it gets annoying when doing mundane things like PICKING UP MY CAMERA... The good part is that I use my left arm/hand a lot more. Ambidextrous here I come! I just hopes it heals soon so I can get back to drawing regularly.

Something Inspirational
After 2 months of work... hours of late nights(?)... thousands of frames... dozens of drawings... I finally finished... MY FUHFUHFUHLAAAAAASH MOOOOOVAY (translation: Flash Movie)!!!


I made a movie called "Spacefood" for a Fresh Brain contest. My bad index finger may have given me hand cramps all night and made it difficult to use the mouse, BUT I PREVAILED! I finished my movie just in time for the contest. Because Kevin succeeds.

You can see the BAD quality version here: (https://freshbrain.org/activity/submission/spacefood). If you wanna see the awesome quality version, I can email you the swf file.

But guys! This is gooood news! I consider this my first official animated short film!! It has colors and backgrounds and EVERYTHING! When I become John Lasseter famous, I'll be like "Yeah, my first animated film was called Spacefood. Oh man I don't like the title I gave it though. If I could rename it, it would be called 'Space-F'. That is so much awesomer." Then they'd hand me my award.

YAY!

I'm just glad I'm done with my summer project because now I can write this post!!

Something Conclusive
Sometimes I spend too much time on these posts.

Lookin' Jolly

Ycows... I never thought I'd be so self-conscious about my cheeks.

Yeah, wisdom teeth surgery made my cheeks bigger than if I taped two ribbeting bullfrogs to my face. But that shouldn't bother me! I'm Kevin after all! KEVIN LAM! KEVIO LAMIO! I'm rarely aware of what I'm wearing on a day-to-day basis, so why should I worry about my cheeks being bigger than a hot air balloon over a nuclear explosion? (That's large, right?)

Well it did bother me. Throughout the whole day I felt like I was subconciously screaming "LOOK AT MY FATTY FAT FAT CHEEKS, EVERYONE! FAAAAAT CHEEKS".

Although it bothered me more than Harry and Ron, I was luckily not bothered by others. I know everyone from here to Malaysia noticed my cheeks were chubbier than a babboon's butt injected with 12 gallons of helium, but only a few people actually pointed it out. Sometimes I'd just be waiting for someone to say "heyyy... you, cheeks, heyo!", or something meaner like "Hi hi hi. Hehe, I was just saying hi to you and your two new friends there. YO CHEEKS ARE HUGE!". But I only got a FEW "oh... oh your... wisdom teeth HEY... hehe".

This just in! Cheeks is a cute word. HAHA.

If it's any consolation, every time I see myself in the mirror, I start laughing. I just look so silly. It's like I'm holding two tennis balls in my mouth. Hey yknow what! The bottom of my face makes a perfect semi-circle!


I don't know how I can use this fact to my advantage. I was thinking maybe I could now use a bowl as a mask... but I'm not sure why I'd want a bowl as a mask.

So school went okay, especially cuz it was only half a day. BUT THEN! Monday means I had to go to work! AT QUEST!! Oh no!

I oversee a room full of little children! Could you imagine how they would make fun of my "9th planet"-sized cheeks?! I could certainly imagine. When I walk into that classroom of 10+ crazy kids, here's how I imagined what would happen.

Situation A:

(Kevin walks into classroom secretly)

Eddie: Hey Mr. K, I need help with my homework!

K: Okay.

Eddie: (sees cheeks) whooaaa what's wrong with your face?

K: My face? I just got my wisdom teeth pulled out.

Eddie: You look like a chipmunk.

Meet: Mr. K? Lemme see!

K: Meet do your work!..

Meet: Hahahaha, you're like a hamster.

Class: HAHAHAHHAHA MR. K LOOKS SOOOO RIDICULOUS!!

K: I'm ssooOOOooo embaaRRRrrraasseedd!

And that's what I imagined would happen. (I dunno why it's Eddie and Meet who did the talking.) Those kids and their pointing-stuff-out-ness! So either THAT would happen, ORRR, my boss Mr. Johnny would stop me before I even entered the classroom.

Situation B:

Johnny: "Uh... Kevin, if you go in that room with those bigass cheeks of yours, those kids are gonna make fun of you till dawn. Hey, even I had to stop myself from comparing your face to a humpback whale. So yknow what, why don't you just stay and work in the office, I'll give you some pencils to sharpen there."

I probably would've preferred situation B.

"But" again, but none of that happened! I entered the classroom and those lil munchkins didn't say a thing. I don't think a single child even really noticed my extra face blubber. Those kids and their lack-of-observent-ness!

In all in, my day was alright. Less cheeky than I had expected, and that's fine with me.

This just in! I shaved just now. It took me twice as long. HAHA just kidding.

First they're sour. Then they're sweet.

I've reached a three pronged fork in my Kanga writing. Do I talk about Warped? Do I babble on about my last day of work? Or do I sidenote the party-esque-ness at Tammy’s a few days ago? OR, do I add a prong and not talk about any of that?! FIRST TIME KUBU FOR NEW KANGA.

And in the end I decide to talk about my last day of work. I’d bore you with reasons on how I came to that decision, but I’ll just say I won’t in this one sentence.

Here we go!

Oh wait a minute, there isn’t much to talk about. My last day of teaching was actually my easiest! Usually I have to manage around twenty little kids in a large classroom through various yells and chokeholds, but on my last day (Thursday, August 21st, for all you stalkers), I managed around SIX little kids with no need for any wrestling move application! Half of the class was in homework room, I think, while others were crocheting. Then a portion of them were at Who-Knows-Where... which subtracts down to six!

Alright actually, half way into the hour, four of them went to go crochet (also pronounced “crotch-it”) too... so I only had to watch two kids. One of the kids was that Kevin guy I mentioned in an earlier post, he thought crocheting was girly. BOYZ REPRESENT! But I let the others leave my class because all we did was play Pictionary which very quickly ran out of interest. If you didn’t know already, the classes at Quest Learning center are set up VERY loosely (See: Class of 20 to class of 6 example).

Later on, Kathleen came to my room. She’s the girl I also mentioned earlier who I called Sharon/Booger. She apologized (again) for acting like a rapidly deflating balloon on steroids two weeks earlier (not a direct quote), and then she handed me a nice drawing of a superhero that she drew (pictured above). AAAWWWW! Twas so nice!

More often than not, I find little things in my life that symbolize whatever just happened to me. Doing this can make moments feel mucho mas awesome, but when I think about it, I feel like school has brainwashed me and forced me to analyze everything in my world right down to the shape of my boogers. I HAVEN’T THOUGH! I usually get ambiguous spheres anyway. Pretty insignificant. But this superhero drawing that Kathleen handed me meant a lot. I felt like it represented my whole experience at Quest into one nice compact piece of paper: Most of the time it was a nightmare trying to staple down the kids to their seats (like Kathleen), but once in a while, something nice and sweet happened that seemed to counterbalance all the bad.

It's sorta like taking care of the Sour Patch Kids.


Quick sumsum of students!:

5th 6th: Jeff likes to talk, Nathan is emotional? and draws at the piano, Kameron is loud, David never finished his story, Jesse isn’t there a lot, Charlie is scary, Grace is funny (and has a boyfwend?!), Benjamin looks like Joey, Jaime is weird, Kamran has a lot of attitude, Katherine is very crazy, Sidney is sweet, Swati follows her friends a lot, Jonathan is well-behaved, Jessica is also sweet and one time whiny, Priscilla is also well-behaved, Ashley is constantly hyper but draws awesome comics... anyone else?

3rd 4th: Cade is bizarre, John is cool, Kevin is confident(?), Alex is bored, Matthew is touchy, Rachel is diligent, Allison is quirky, Shannon smiles a lot but never draws, Melanie is fun and really cool, Tiffany has a cousin that looks like me, Haylee is considerate, Kathleen is (see above), Eddy looks tough, Meet looks scrawny, Brandon hates authority, Andy is mysterious... anyone else?

I’m sure my mom or my sister will fill me in if I missed any kids.


AND NOW

THE MOMENT YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR EVER SINCE I SAID “AND NOW”...


My favorite comic from Comic Class. Comic Topic: Sam and the Rabbit:

Click pic to enlarge
It’s just so wonderfully done! Every time I read it I laugh. I swear, if I loved it anymore, I’d frame it up on my wall. It’s that good.

But enough about that! YAY NO MORE WORK! After those two months of steam rolling kids into submission, I’d be hard pressed to find any group more challenging to manage.

...Dear Life, PLEASE don't take me up on that challenge.

Busy Off The Hizzy (sadly that rhymes)

HELL WEEK!

WELL FOR me anyway. It's the last week of my Comic Class at Quest Learning Center and I have to use the kids' comics to make TWO comic books! That's a lot of work. In the wise words of that one robot guy from Might Morphin (I forgot his name), AY AY AY AY AY AY!

But in other news, if I didn't throw this in your face already,

PLEASE

VOTE

FOR

ME!



It's for a scholarship at www.whyideserverascholarship.com, here's the actual link:
http://www.whyideserveascholarship.com/video/show/9010

If you vote for me, you will get $1000. Probably. And PLEASE vote everyday so we can beat the Latina girl who's first. Most votes wins $2,500, and I need the money!

THANKS!


I'll walk about Warped Tour later (maybe I'll let Craig and Alex do some of the report).

But in more other news,

15

I hope parenting's not like this.

That. Was very scary.

STORY TIME!

Like I've said a bajillion times before, I've been working at this one teaching center called "Quest Learning Center". I teach how to make comics to grades ranging from 3rd to 6th, and today I had SOME KIND OF EXPERIENCE...

Today I had 3rd and 4th graders. My lesson plan had the students working in groups on separate comic stories, but one of the guys did not have a group. His name is Cade. Cade is a very interesting character in that... I feel like not all of his brain is there. He's missing that "respect authority" and the "don't misbehave" lobes in his cranium, plus he's just a very weird child, so Cade is definitely a handful. Yesterday I distracted his insanity by having him draw ninja cats and ninja dogs, but today I had a tiny bit more trouble. I sat him in the front, but he just kept on walking to the back to try to work with another group of boys. Time after time I would yell across the room to tell him to sit back down, and he would listen half the time.

It got to the point where I was writing his name on the board as a second warning, but by this time it was too late. Cade was in the back of the room and for whatever reason, he started yelling at this one boy named Kevin (haha) in that group! My head was all "OH NO YOU DON'T!", and my voice was all "CADE!", but as soon as I finished yelling his name, Cade had pushed Kevin, Kevin swung his arm back in attempt to hit Cade, but he looked up and saw me and resisted his attack. I walked over there (or ran very slowly and efficiently) as Cade was just SCREAMING at the top of his lungs at these boys (mainly Kevin). Ysee, Cade and Kevin have this thing where they just REALLY don't get along. Almost every class they're bickering about something. I am so lucky there was a table between the two boys. I think.

Back to the story... Cade screamin, Kevin almost hitting... so I run back there and I'm like "CADE! Calm down!", which I guess sounded kinda ironic. "CADE, calm down calm DOWN... CADE stop it... calm dow- CADE calm down..." But whatever I said to this kid, he just kept on screaming his head off! Now I ask you, lovely oddience, what would YOU do in such a situation? Because at that point, I honestly had no clue. I was panicking so much on the inside, but outside I was just "Cad- CADE. CALM down... calm down..". I got him to stop for a few seconds, but then he just went back to "NOOOO! NOOOO!!!". (I think that's all he was yelling, just "no". Man, it was the pitch of a freakin' Pterodactyl.) I guess I could've picked him up and moved him elsewhere, but I was afriad he would explode or something. He could've been a bomb with alarms in the form of screams!


If I tried this, Cade would've eaten this chair.
Now the group of guys receiving the ambush of anger decided to start moving. They began to walk towards the other end of the table near the corner of the room to get away from crazy Cade. Cade, of course, began to follow them. I, of course, began to follow Cade. My incessant commands to Cade, of course, began to follow my steps. Suddenly all of us had walked to a point where there was no table between the boys and Cade! If I was thinking of something more than "calm down", I would've probably thought "OH SNAP YOU BETTER NOT JUMP ON THEM!". And, well, he didn't.

The boys began to walk back to their original spot, but Cade was stuck in the corner. Then he made a run for them. THAT was my chance. THERE was my reason to submissify this fool to no end. I grabbed his arms, stopping him in his tracks, and just nailed him with "Cade Calm-Downs". He began to struggle and I was all "OH NO DON'T STRUGGLE", but then I thought about for a sec and remembered... I'm way stronger than this guy. So I held my grip until Cade just stood there. After a few more yells at the boys, he just stopped and stood there. (Just to let you know, Kevin was being super annoying because he basically kept on provoking Cade with stuff like "Cade you're dumb I hate you" or something to that extent.)

So there was Cade. There was I. Right in the middle of nothingness to the side of the room, I was holding his crossed arms as we just stood. "I'm not gonna let go until you calm down." I looked up and most of the other kids were watching. I looked at the doorway and my boss was standing there (HAHA). I looked back down at Cade. I was in a VERY horrible position, not because of the whole boss-at-door thing, but because Cade could SO have easily kneed me in the crotch in front of a class of 3rd and 4th graders. I could've sworn he was tempted to. THANK GOD HE DIDN'T.

"I'm gonna let go and I want you sit in your seat, okay?" He nodded ever so slightly, I let go, he sat in his seat, put his head down, and I sighed the biggest sigh of relief I've ever relieved myself to sigh. I could tell I was blushing red too. But my journey was not done! Oh no! I walked over to the door to talk to Mr. Johnny, my boss. He actually was not there for Cade!

Next to him was a little girl, a girl that came to my class that misbehaved like some kind of chicken on steroids (I heard that steroidical chicken is pretty hard to manage). Mr. Johnny said she, Sharon (I called her booger last week), wanted to apologize. "Oh," I was astonished. I looked at her, and avoiding eye contact, she said something like "I'm sorry, Mr. K". Again, I had no idea what to do. "I forgive you" would be too... short and concise... for such a dramatic scene! And it was not that easy to forgive her. She ran in and out of the room, plus she hit me (but yknow, girly hits). I asked her "You're sorry for last week?.." and she replied with a quiet "Yeah..". I paused with nothing else to say. I caved in, "Oh it's okay, I forgive you then..". I was pretty pressured though! Not only was Mr. Johnny watching, but so was this random white woman from behind Sharon, I think that was her mother or something. I REALLY wished I had something better to say, like "I'll only forgive you if you show me a smile!" (cuz she looked pretty depressed), or "I forgive you... and if you don't behave like that again, HERE'S CANDY!". Dangit. I have to think faster.

ALRIGHT! Now just imagine, ALL THAT happened within 5-10 minutes. Boy was that absurd.

If you're yearning for an epilogue: I told the boys in da back to not acknowledge that Cade was in the room, ignore him completely, don't say his name, don't provoke him whatsoever. "If you so much as say Cade's name, you get your name on the board." (Kevin, of course, kept on insisting Cade was totally stopping them from making their group comic. I told Kevin to shove it. HAHA just kidding. Could you imagine though.) As for Cade, he remained in his seat... until the last 10 minutes of class when he started to go to the group of boys in the back again. LUCKILY he didn't scream like a dying rooster, but I had to keep on bringing him back to the front still. The beast was tamed, I had control again, and everything... ended fine.

Oh, and P.S., then this dude named Alex said he "hated Comic Class". How do I respond to that? I guess I should've felt really sad or whatever, but I just felt REALLY BAD that I couldn't entertain him with comic production. So yeah, that's just a side note.


IN HAPPIER NEWS, these two girls actually finished their comic! Correctly. YES that's one.


In any case, I am so glad I get paid for this. Hehe.

The Desks Have Turned

Remember how I said I got that job? At that (Johnny) Quest Learning Center? The one where I had to teach kids how to draw comics? Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth graders? Four hours a week? Each day is an hour? Scared to death? Do you remember? Ah you probably don't. But if you do, I'm here to tell you... TODAY WAS MY FIRST DAY!

HOORAY! Little kids' minds are now mine for the molding.

Today I had lil' 5th and 6th graders to deal with. I started my class with standard teacher stuff such as a summary of the class along with a review of my classroom rules. Yes, I made up my own classroom rules. Yknow, I think I've always liked the idea teaching... not only do I get to spread my knowledge to eager scouts (hah), but I also get to say to my past teachers, "THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!". I also get to appear knowledgeably superior.

I realized that the whole hour I was in the room with the slightly routy bunch was very... analogous to actual Comiclub meetings that I have at Whitney. There were only a few minor differences.

Comiclub -VS- Comic Class

No word combos: Yeah, big ol' high school students can understand what Comiclub means (despite people asking it as "Commi" Class), but small youn' element kids? Would they GET "Comiclass"? What if they read it as "Com Iclass"? Or "Comicle Ass"? OR WHAT IF they just didn't get it all?! Actually they'd probably get it, but for professional purposes, I seperated the words. Because I'm OH SO professional.

HYPER ACTIVITY: Quest is sorta set up like a jail: the kids can travel throughout the building, but THEY CANNOT LEAVE. They also have their meals there, presumably eating gruel... sandwiches, gruel omelette's. Nothing but gruel. Plus, they can eat their own hair. These kids are at Quest all day, so they can get pretty restless... and hyper. At Whitney, we're usually just really tired... and dead, almost zombie-like.

I have to write on the white board: I suck at writing at the white board.

Powah: For Comiclub, it's difficult to order people around dictatorally (dictatidly? dictatationally? dictatorly? dictatadorkalelly.) because I don't have much authority. At Quest? Easy peasy. In the beginning of class, a kid picked up a chair for whatever reason and I was all "HEY... put that down..." and SHAZAM HE DID! Okay, I could probably do that at Whitney too, but still; these kids, to some extent, fear me. HAHA okay, not really FEAR me, but I have the power to threaten them with time outs and calls home. If the classroom were a boat, it would be a dictatorship - I am the captain.

Sos yeahs! First day of being a teacher was really not that bad. My favorite part of the hour was when I asked "Who likes drawing?", and almost everyone raised their hand. That made everything A LOT easier because the kids will be more willing to work. Although I dunno what I'll do with those who don't like drawing. JUST REMEMBER KEVIN, they're more afraid of you than you are of them.

The best part of this whole thing is my teacher name: I have them call me "Mr. K". MUAHAHA, IS THAT MYSTERIOUS OR WHAT?! Very super hero-esque if I do say so myself.