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Bored, so I figured I'd take a moment to write about one of my HS teachers, who for various not so typical reasons has left a lasting impression on me.

I had Mr. Chandler as a teacher for freshman and senior year, he saw me at the very best and worst of my maturity. He had the potential to be one of my favorite teachers. He was funny, successful, smart, a great guy to be around and look up to. He was also a technology teacher, so take all his awesome and multiply it by 1.5 (Makes me wonder how the hell Mr. Hewett could manage 2nd place). Really awesome guy, but regardless of everything he had going for him there was just something missing that made him seem highly impersonal. Regardless how how much I could talk with him endlessly, there was always something that made me feel a little uncomfortable.

I can't quite pinpoint what it was that made him not perfect to me. For one, he saw me during a terrible period of my life and I felt like I couldn't live down what he saw. That might have had something to do with it. But there was more, something that prevented him from being the coolest teacher ever.
He was strict. Terribly strict. And the more I think about it the more I piece together why, and it wasn't until the last 2 months of my senior year that I came across information that would be the keystone of why he was so strict. He also had a lot of other kind of mysterious quirks. Everyone knew that he got into his room early in the morning, but he would never open the door until 8:30. He would also stay in his room after class ended, closing the door (which always locked when closed). Me and the other students would always wonder what he was doing there in "Chandler's cave", I just said he was below the depths of the school slaying Balrogs with a macbook. He rarely came up and spoke with the other tech teachers, as if he was trying to avoid them. He was extremely stingy about the extra computers for use next to his classroom, and you could only use them if you signed in. Mr. Chandler also refused to let other students not in his class use tools in the workshop while he was there, while Mr. Cramer would just sit in his office while students would work alone on the table saw. He also once mentioned how he'd give little "demonstration" items to higher members of administration, calling them favors, but they obviously sounded like bribes. Chandler also is apparently a millionaire and had held several great jobs in his past, so why the hell would he come teach freshman at a high school? All of these things made him seem kind of sketchy.

First I've gotta cover some surrounding information before I get to the keystone.
Now Mr. Chandler was a brilliant guy, very good at handling money. He also had a lot of computers, which he liked to talk about. I remember freshman year he was talking about the mac in his office, he was a huge Mac fan (the one silly thing about him), and he mentioned about how he fished all over the internet to get the school the best price on that computer. So why was the school paying for that computer? Not a question you ask him, or even think to ask at that dumb age. But anyways, for whatever reason the school payed for this really expensive Mac (at its cheapest) for Mr. Chandlers use in his office. Why he needed it, how he justified it, hell if I know.

Well, let's get to the keystone now. Came across the information in DE well Scott and I sat around screwing around with the computers as usual, and why wouldn't we, DE was the last class of the day. Anyways, Scott was talking about his job with the school IT, and somehow Mr. Chandler got mixed into the conversation. Of course I wasn't part of the conversation I zoned out most of it the way I usually do, but of course I'm always listening to everything around me. But for whatever reason they were talking about Mr. Chandler and how he was Stage Manager, and why he quit, etc. Mr. Maroney brought up something about Mr. Chandler which I was probably better off not hearing, and how he was mentioned as a "technology teacher" who misplaced some funds in a school audit. Scott and I pulled up this document, and sure enough it was there. Now we all trust Mr. Maroney, and he was around when the incident occurred and he said that the unnamed teacher was Chandler, something he shouldn't have said. And that's when all the dots were connected.

It became apparent that Chandler's Mac was most likely the subject of the "misplaced funds". Obviously, he could have been fired for it, but for some reason he was still teaching. He quit being Stage Manager around that time which is a very hazardous job, being held responsible for dozens of teens using power tools unprotected and handling very expensive and potentially dangerous stage equipment. He was always very strict about the rules because he was on thin ice. That's also probably the reason he didn't want to get very personal with students, because lord knows how fast he could be pinned for doing something wrong there. It all made sense. Chandler regardless of how awesome he seemed to be, was essentially doing absolutely everything he could to avoid becoming associated with a problem because of those misplaced funds from years back.

So I still don't know what I think about him. As I said, he could have been the most awesome teacher in the school (Hell he'd still be Stage Manager, x2 points for that) but he did something stupid with public money and had to be extremely cautious.
Whatever. Glad I got that thought down.