Let's Get Ready to RUMBLE!

So I couldn't decide what to call this one, so I finally chose to do them in an order that counteracts one another. We had another fight at school today. I say another because it's the third or fourth one we've had in about three weeks. I think it's just getting to the time of the year when kids are getting a little cabin fever and strike out at one another. Anyway, this one happened right as I was taking my assigned kids out the door from lunch. Fortunately, most of my kids had already left the lunchroom, but I still had to deal with a few stragglers who wanted to stay and watch the spectacle. That's really the part that I find unsettling about all the fighting that happens at our school: when we've had these fights break out, we haven't had any kids try to step in and break it up. Mostly we get kids that crowd around with their cell phones in hand trying to catch something to put onto YouTube. It's pretty frightening that they won't even stop to help their fellow peers or the teachers try to break them up. It's like they've spent too much time watching the talk shows and think that's how life is supposed to be. What a world we're living in. The more that I'm here, the more I think we're in the cycle of civilization where we're getting ready to fall flat on our faces so that God can humble our country. Speaking of God...


My classes were watching Finding Nemo today and answering questions about the music (it was the day after marching contest, I didn't feel like teaching too much, okay?). It's very interesting to me the things you notice as you watch a movie in the same section six times in a row. You tend to pick up on a few things you didn't really notice were there. I wanted to call this part: The Bible According to Nemo. For anyone who's seen the movie, you probably remember when Marlin and Dory (left) are at the trench that the moonfish just told Dory to swim through, not over. Marlin describes the trench as having "death written all over it," so he decides to swim over it. When Dory objects, but doesn't remember why, Marlin distracts her by telling her he saw something shiny and it just went over the trench and they should follow it to see what it was. If you remember the movie, what happens next is they get caught in a forest of jellyfish and Dory ends up hurt to the point that she is scarred from the encounter. Does anyone see where I'm going with this? How many times do we as Christians have God tell us something that is for our own good (either through His voice or someone He sends to us), but doesn't necessarily explain why it's for our own good, we get to what He's warned us about and either we get distracted by someone else or we let somebody talk us into thinking we know better than what God's told us and decide to go our own way because it looks easier? Then often times we end up paying a high price for our disobedience, when we would have been better for having listened to God in the first place. Just a thought. Go back and watch that part of the movie and see if you think I'm right. Like I said, when you watch a movie six times in a row, you pick up on some things you might not have seen before. And finally, the reason I watched a cartoon six times in a row...


Marching contest went okay. It was pretty hot when we went onto the field at 2:15 to play, and we had gotten to the school we were playing at about two hours earlier, so we had some time to not only get set for what was about to happen, but I think some of our kids had two hours to let nerves settle in on them really good so they didn't perform as well as they have in the past. Their nerves came through in their performance and we ended up with a III rating. For those not of the band world (or those who've forgotten because it's been a while since their kids were in band), a I rating is the best, a V rating means you should've stayed at home, so we were right around average. I think, however, if the judges had been at our game on Friday, we would have received either a I or a II for that performance, so it's all about how you perform when you need to, and we didn't do as well as we could have. Anyway, thanks to everyone who was concerned for my kids and how they did and thanks for all the prayers.

One final thing, homecoming went okay, as I said before, the halftime show went really well. The next two weeks get a little busy for the Jones family here, as I have a junior high football game, two high school games; one of which will showcase our entire band program from 6th-12th grades (all 150 students), Kayla has a quilting show she's going to in Houston with her mom, I'm leading music at our church for the first time on the first Sunday in November, and that evening Kayla and I along with some others from the church are starting the youth group back at the church that hasn't had anything of significance at the church in several years. We're going to try and take it in a Compass-type direction, so we're pretty excited to show the kids there are different styles of worship than just standing and singing hymns and listening to a speaker, so I'll try and keep everyone posted here about our goings on, but it's going to be a little crazy. I'll type again soon!