trip'n

A large part of my childhood memories are etched with the roadtrips we took as family to California - the early morning departures, the sleeping in the backseat, the dull roar of the freeway, the glare of hot sun as I would bend my head over to read a comic or a book. It was tough to find ways to occupy the time that seemed to stretch as far as I-5's windy asphalt streak from Sea-town to the BA.

Time passes by a lot faster when you're older, I suppose. With some good chunes in the deck, and the absence of traffic, driving is actually enjoyable... even if it's for about 14 hours or so.





We left Seattle around 6am-ish, and finally rolled into San Jose about 9pm.

Now it's off to Babylon...

.:.

What's that? You want more music besides the mixtape I just put up?

How 'bout some Kero One...

Kero One - Welcome to the Bay

AngryAsianMan links up Kero One too.

 

weekend re-cap, part 1

So before all the roadtrip craziness, I actually had a pretty fun weekend. Saturday, I finally got to sample the food at MARINATION, a Korean-Hawaiian taco truck. You mean you haven't heard of about it?

I suppose taco trucks are a very West Coast-ish eating pecularity.

Some photos:

Big sizes of these pics are up in my FOOD set on Flickr.


I ordered some spicy Korean pork tacos; the wifey got a kimchi quesadilla stuffed with kahlua pork. It seems like it'd be an odd combination (Korean + Mexican + Hawaiian), but the overall taste was actually quite good. It reminded us of another Seattle restaurant that attempted something similar (Marazul, with its Latin/Asian fusion cuisine) - hopefully MARINATION sticks around.

Honestly, at just $2 per a taco, I was pretty satisfied with the set I ordered. Too bad we had drive out to West Seattle to taste it! Supposedly, the owner is in talks with trying to get better access to some spots in Seattle. I can't wait to go back and try some more stuff off their menu...

...

After lunch, we headed over to Chinatown / International District for the Summer Festival. It was nice to walk around, eat a little bit more, and even run into a few folks we knew.

Some quick snaps:





It was a hot summer day, so didn't stay too long. Had to get back home anyways to wrap up some things.

 

going going back back to...

...you know the rest.

Going on a short roadtrip the next couple of days to visit family. In case anything happens to me...

...a fun picture.

See some of ya very soon!

 

i thought i'd left these behind

Haven't had a late night like this one inawhile. Hrm.

One of the many random things that caught my attention during my insomnia:

Kendo in High Speed Camera (Slow Motion)

Helps if you know some things about kendo, but it's still impressive.

 

new 8tracks.com mixtape

So I've been playing some more with the site I mentioned previously right here.

I've uploaded some more music for a brand new mixtape which I have creatively titled "July 2009 Summer Tunes" (ha!). It's a mix of some feel good reggae, hip-hop, and J-Pop. The complete track list:

• Kanye West - Knock You Down f. Keri Hilson & Ne-Yo (clean)
  
• Alaine - Sacrifice
  
• Tessanne Chin - Hide Away
  
• m-flo loves YOSHIKA - Let Go (Reggae Disco Rockers Remix)
  
• m-flo love Emi Hinouchi & Ryohei - Summer Time Love
  
• Miliyah Kato - For So Long Part 2
  
• Vo Vo Tau - Beautiful Days
  
• Blue Scholars - Freewheelin
  
• Athletic Mic League - Vibin
  
• Gym Class Heroes - A Beautiful Day
  
• A Lighter Shade of Brown - On A Sunday Afternoon
  
• DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Summertime
  
• NUJABES - Summer Gypsy

Enjoy!

 

Kent School District joins trend of minority students outnumbering whites

The Seattle Times ran an article about a trend that most educators in the Seattle area have already known - student demographics in schools in our area are rapidly changing.

The full text of the article, with my emphasis in bold:

Kent School District joins trend of minority students outnumbering whites
By Linda Shaw
Seattle Times education reporter

Not long after Edward Lee Vargas was named superintendent of the Kent School District, he stood on a playground where most of the students playing soccer, swinging from the jungle gym or batting tetherballs were Asian, Hispanic or black.

Eight years ago, the students at this school, Scenic Hill Elementary, as well as at many other Kent schools, were largely white.

But this past school year the Kent School District became the seventh Seattle-area district in which the majority of students are minorities, joining Seattle, Tukwila, Highline, Renton, Federal Way and Tacoma.

The change is part of a demographic shift that's happening in districts across Washington and the nation.

It's fueled in part by immigration and, in Washington, by the fact that the minority population is younger and growing faster than the white population, whose birth rate is declining, according to a draft report by Washington State University professor Annabel Kirschner.

Washington's white population continues to rise, but minority groups — especially those of Hispanic and Asian descent — are growing faster, especially among residents under age 18, the report said.

In Kent, where students speak more than 100 different languages, district administrators require mandatory diversity training for staff; opened a refugee center to support immigrant students and their families; and beefed up the district's English-language programs.

The growing diversity in Washington schools "has huge implications for how we teach," said Marge Plecki, associate professor of education at the University of Washington.

New and veteran teachers alike, she said, say they need more help in meeting the needs of all their students.

This year, Kent hired Vargas as its new superintendent and the Bellevue School District hired Amalia Cudeiro — thought to be the first two Hispanics to lead school districts in Western Washington.

Cudeiro migrated to the U.S. from Cuba as a child. Vargas' family has roots in New Mexico back to the 1700s, when Spain controlled the area.

While their ethnic background was not a big factor in why they were hired, it will be a bonus, say school-board members in both districts.

"That was probably what tipped the scale," said Kent School Board member Bill Boyce. Some parents and teachers welcome their presence as well, hoping they will be role models for students and build better relationships with parents.

"It helps break down barriers," said Wally Clausen, Scenic Hill's principal.

In Bellevue, Cudeiro recently attended a meeting of Latino parents and was able to communicate more fully with them by answering questions in Spanish, said Gustavo Tejada, a parent who volunteers with a group that helps Latino parents and students navigate the school system.

"People from our community are going to feel more comfortable with the things that the school district is doing," he said.

Growth in most districts

With the exception of Seattle and a few small districts, all the school districts in King and Snohomish counties have a higher percentage of minority students than they did five years ago.

Tukwila, which had the highest percentage of minority students in the 2003-04 school year, has even more now — a nearly equal mix of whites, Asians, Hispanics and blacks. Earlier this year, The New York Times called it the most diverse school district in the nation.

Kent — the state's fourth-largest district — has undergone the most rapid change among Puget Sound districts, from about one-third minorities five years ago to about 51 percent this past school year.

No one tracks exactly why that's occurred, but district officials mention the efforts of area churches and businesses to bring immigrants to the area, the availability of low-cost apartments and Kent's reputation as having good schools.

After English, Spanish is the most commonly used language in the Kent School District.

The increase in Spanish-speaking families is apparent in the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in town and in the churches, says Roger Barron, a Kent resident who worked in the state's bilingual-education department for years. The Spanish-language Masses at his Catholic church are standing-room only, he said.

And the growing diversity is expected to continue. By 2030, according to state projections, nearly one in three Washington residents will be a minority. For residents under age 18, minorities will make up almost 40 percent.

Raising achievement

Kent's changing population is one reason Vargas felt the school district would be a good fit for him.

He's known for raising student achievement in very diverse school districts in California, New Mexico and Texas, and he's committed to doing the same in Kent.

In 2006, he was named California superintendent of the year, in part because of the gains in academic achievement when he led the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in the Los Angeles area.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, he was director of student-support services in the Seattle School District. Most recently, he worked for a foundation where he assisted school districts across the country.

He said he's impressed with what he's seen and heard in Kent, including discussions among teachers about how to reach every child.

"It's so important for us to embrace the diversity," he said.

Neither of his parents graduated from high school. His mother is a hair stylist and his father joined the Navy at 16, then worked in San Francisco's shipyards and the construction business.

But they wanted their children to go to college — so much so that Vargas recalls his mother once telling him he was going even if she had "to eat rats to do it."

And as he has done at his past districts, Vargas plans to send every Kent kindergartner on a field trip to a college campus, just to get them thinking about higher education early on.

"It's important," he said, "to put that belief in their head and drive in their heart."

...

Numbers from OSPI and the Seattle Times infographic (percentage minority in 2008-09, versus the percentage in 2003-04):

1. Tukwila 75%, up from 66%
   
2. Highline 67%, up from 56%
   
3. Renton 64%, up from 52%
   
4. Federal Way 57%, up from 43%
   
5. Seattle 57%, up from 59%
   
6. Tacoma 52%, up from 47%
   
7. Kent 51%, up from 35%
   
8. Mukilteo 47%, up from 31%
   
9. Bellevue 47%, up from 35%

...


Ah, Kent... how you've changed since I was a kid growing up there. There's a lot things in that article worth talking about, but a few I thought I'd mention:

• Immigrants in the Kent School District - The article doesn't mention many of the other specific groups, but growing up there, there were large numbers of Asian and East European there.
  
  
• Racial Categories - Categories like "White" or "Asian" or "Black" sometimes hide the needs and diversity of the students - while you might think that "White" students don't need ESL or family services, what about the Latvian, Russian, or Ukrainian students? Or the category "Black" - students could be from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, etc. Or yes, the category near and dear to my heart - "Asian". Growing up, the population of kids were mostly Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Japanese. Now in Kent, there's a significant South Asian population and a thriving Sikh community, as well as large amounts of South East Asians (Vietnamese, Cambodian, etc.), and Pacific Islanders (Samoan, Hawaiian, etc.).
  
  
• "Mandatory diversity training for staff" - While I appreciate that Kent and other school districts do this, the elephant in the room is that the overwhelming majority of teachers, especially at the elementary school level, are white and female. I'm not hating on my Caucasian sisters in the profession, but I think it's important that qualified people from all backgrounds work in our schools. Male teachers are particularly in low supply at elementary schools, and in a society where fatherlessness is epidemic (either through divorce, widowing, family situation, etc.), our boys (especially the "problem kids") are hurting.
  

 

July 4th weekend, part 2

More photos from my July 4th weekend - this time from Saturday, the day I hosted a small BBQ at my house. It was a good time of playing volleyball, video games, party games (Taboo, 4 word game) and of course... eating food! The hang out time was fun and we managed to all survive the heat. Our little party even got a shout out from the Ko-bots on their blog.

Anyways, enough jibber jabber... more pics:

G-Sak giving me a funny look, and Chong being... Chong.



Friends / volleyball homies Heidi, Kym, Yosh.



Matt takes his eating seriously.



Abe the Grillmaster, was nice enough to bring over his prized possession (gas grill) and operate it for the good of us hungry folks.


.:.


My friend Yosh also took a huge amount of photos during our volleyball game. You can check them out here...

 

July 4th weekend, part 1

I've been meaning to blog all weekend, but with all the stuff happening this past weekend, I just haven't had the time. It's true that I've been on vacation since school got out, but it's definitely been more fun having friends that are free to hang out thanks to the weekend.

On Friday, the Mrs. and I attended Jeremy and Ophelia's wedding. The ceremony was outdoors at a nice farm-esque estate in Auburn, actually close to the usual route we take to commute to school. The weather was sunny (and hot), but all in all, it was a great celebration.

A few pics:

Congrats to the new Mr. and Mrs. Wu!