Greetings and Salutations

It was inevitable, I suppose. It's come to my attention that my darling, darling students have found my blog. This explains the huge surge of traffic the site has had from the area around Podunk. I guess it's just the price I pay for having briefly flirted with MySpace.

Welcome. Enjoy. I told you I write for fun. I never said I write WELL for fun....

Open House

Last night was our annual Open House. That of course means that I did not actually leave school until 8:30 last night. I was at school for about 14 hours.

The meeting went well. I got to see a lot of parents and just touch base with them. It never ceases to please me when parents come. I wish all my kids' parents would come to see me. It would solve so many problems.

Well, today, I'm wiped out. I came home as soon as I could, and I have plans to go to bed before 9. I want to stay up and see the enticing Mr. D'Onofrio, but my eyelids have been slamming shut all day and tomorrow is another long, long day since we have the AP Orientation tomorrow night at 7. At least I'm getting some school work done in the intervals, I suppose....

Teacher Lady and Me

I'm slowly being devoured. The teacher is taking me over. I am at school until 5:00 or 5:30 every day, and everything I do seems to revolve around teaching. I'm always preparing to teach, teaching, or recovering from teaching.

I am uncomfortable with this, but I don't know how to stop it. I don't know if I even can stop it. I like to be passionate about my teaching, but there has to be something else. I am risking burn out if there's nothing else.

I wish I had something that could help me refill and refresh, something artish. I would love to take a pottery class, or one in photography, something that would force me to leave school totally behind. I always say I'm going to do something here at home, but what really happens is that I crash on the couch and do nothing.

It's a question of balance, I guess, and I've yet to find mine. I hope I find it before the Teacher Lady subsumes all else.

How to Eat Literature Like a Pit Bull

I had ordered a copy of How to Read Literature Like a Professor from amazon.com the other day. I came home yesterday evening to find it and the cd that was also a part of the order in pieces strewn across my yard. The cover had been ripped off neatly, and the corners had been chewed away. The case of the cd was chewed right down to the edge of the disc, but miraculously, no dog teeth had penetrated it.

Needless to say, I wasn't happy. I had been looking forward to reading the book since this summer's AP conference. Several people there really recommended it as a resource for students, and I finally had enough money in my budget to get it.

Missy, who usually mugs me as soon as I get home, was very tentative. I just unloaded my school stuff and told her to stay away from me. I was so mad.

When I came in, I looked out the screen door and saw her standing, wilted and droopy, on the porch. I came back to my senses. Who gives a crap about a book? She loves me faithfully every single day. Every day, no matter how bad my day has been, she comes to the car and tries to get all sixty pounds of herself into my lap for a hug. That kind of unconditional love is worth all the books and cds in the world.

I went out, sat in the chair on my porch, and gathered her into my lap. She wrapped her paws around me in that way she has and just about shook herself apart with happy wiggles. It's amazing how trivial are the things we get mad at the ones we love, be it dog or human, for sometimes, isn't it?

Random and Sleepy

I haven't been posting much lately for several reasons. First, I've been trying to go through and tag/label my older posts. I haven't gotten very far, but I really like that aspect of the new Blogger. I went through and looked at all the posts in a category the other day, and I liked the continuity of it.

Second, I am just tired, tired, tired. I have huge piles o' grading to do this weekend, and I've been at school until at least 4:30 every day this week. Home is starting to feel like a hotel again, but fortunately, next weekend is a three-day weekend, so maybe I can catch up here at that time.

There are other things, specifically some stuff at school, but I'm really too tired to go into it with any sort of clarity. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to get to hang out with one of my friends.

It will be nice to go somewhere and be something other than a teacher. The teacher part of me is slowly eclipsing all else, and, when I stop to think about it, it really bothers me. More about that later, probably...

The New Look

As you may have noticed, I've I have changed over to the new Blogger Beta. It may all blow up at any moment, but I like being able to add labels, etc. What do you think? Comments, por favor? Or do I hear the clicking of crickets a la my juniors?

Gracias a Dios

Today was a good day in so many ways. I got a lot of stuff done at work, started a new phase of my job, and got my reimbursement checks from the Central Office and the IRS.

I have been teetering on the verge of financial ruin for awhile now, and getting those checks really made me feel better about life in general. I paid off two accounts and can make some payments on others now. I feel like a huge stone has been rolled off me.

At work, I got two sets of ID tests done and tidied up a bunch of loose ends. Tomorrow is Poetry Day (not a national holiday, but rather a weekly thing in my classes), and just knowing it's Poetry Day makes me feel happier about going to work tomorrow. We're doing a poem by Emerson in the 11th grade classes and the wonderful "Queen of the Blues" by Gwendolyn Brooks in AP. I am going to play Bessie Smith and introduce them to the real life Empress of the Blues while we're at it. It should be a good day.

I also got my 11th graders to actually talk today. This was a huge personal victory for me. I had reached the point where the cricket noises and the blank stares were about to kill me. We were going over a portion of "Self-Reliance" by Emerson, and they responded as I had always hoped they would. I had a feeling that good old Emerson would get them, but I wasn't sure until I saw them look up from the texts with that light in their eyes. I remember the first time I read "Self-Reliance". I think I underlined almost every other sentence. It still moves me. I'm a closet Transcendentalist, after all. (Can you be a closet Transcendentalist? Is that a paradox? It's late and I'm tired...cut me slack.)

The last good thing is that I am finally doing ESL again. I am our school's new ELL (English Language Learner, for those of you unfamiliar with the jargon) tutor, and I get to work with our small ELL population after school as much as I want AND get paid about $25/hour for it. How great is that? The one thing that I was missing in my current job was ESL. I have missed it so very much. Now, at least two days a week, and maybe more, I get to go back to my first love in education. It's not Japan, granted, but then again, I'm not an 18 hr. flight away anymore, either.

It was a good day, thank God. I needed one after the sorts of tiresome days I've had lately.

Full Plate

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

I have too much going on, and it's only the third week of school. Today, I was at school until 5:30, and as I drove home, I realized that I'd been there almost twelve hours. Why can't I get anything done faster? Other teachers go home at 3:30 or so. Why am I always there so long?

Today, I finished up a packet of material for a parent-teacher night upcoming, photocopied masters to send to print shop, pulled and formatted poems for assignments on Wednesday, corresponded with parents of absent students, was an impromptu website consultant, cleaned my room, and oh yeah, taught some. Once these classes I'm taking at night really get rolling, I don't know what I'm going to do.

How far along are they with that cloning thing?

Anyway, I got home in time to see Law and Order and watch the toothsome (oh, how I love words and that big, wonderful man) Vincent D'Onofrio. I took a long shower and am currently being mugged by Dillon, so life is pretty good. Soon it will be bedtime to enable me get up tomorrow and do it all again.

Heritage

Tonight our church had a time of testimony instead of a regular service. We don't do that very often, and when we do, sometimes few people want to speak. Tonight, though, many people stood and spoke about what God has done or is doing in their lives. As I listened, I reflected on the people God has put in my life who have helped me to become the person I am. My grandmothers, my music teacher, and the women of the church whom I've known all my life have all left their marks on the woman I've become.

My grandmothers were very different women, but both of them were women who taught me many things. I learned to cook chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, and cornbread, to make things for my house with my hands, to love my family, and to love God from them. They taught me that marriage is a life-long commitment that comes with sweet and sour, that giving up is not an option no matter what the odds are, and that it is possible to have grace and peace even in the face of a horrible illness like cancer. I have physical things that I inherited, a cookie jar, some jewelry, my house, but the most valuable things they gave me are the things I carry within me everyday.

My music teacher was almost another grandmother to me. She taught me to love music, and even though she could never get me to practice as much I should, that love has stayed with me long after she passed away. She taught me the value of doing things the right way, and even though I often play for Sunday night church wearing jeans, I still feel guilty about not wearing a dress and heels. She taught me that music and the playing of music is service to the Lord, and even though I'll never be as good a musician as she, I always feel her with me when I play.

The women of my church have taught me many different lessons. I've learned how to be a gracious hostess, even with little to share, how to take care of my neighbors in their times of need, and how to follow God, even through the darkest times. These are the women who hold our small community together. They are always ready to pitch in during the inevitable times when life falls apart.

I've been so lucky to have these women in my life. Their examples helped me learn who I need to be. I don't know that I will ever be able to be that kind of example to another person, but I hope I always live in such a way that does honor to the heritage I have received.

Wake Up

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and lets start trying
To make it a place worth living in.
-- "Land of Confusion" Genesis

What is going on with people today? Why are so many people caught up in things that don't matter at all? I am frustrated beyond belief today, and this is a soapbox message, so you might want to run away right now.

It was brought back to my attention the other day while I was talking with some educators from various places that there are teachers in various places who are just sort of drawing their checks and telling their kids to read or watch a video. There are teachers who pick favorites, pass them, and ignore or actively persecute the others.

I am an idealist. I proudly accept that title. I know that reality is often so far from my ideals as to not even be visible from the distance that separates them. I know my idealism often makes me naive.

All that being said, I cannot understand how anybody anywhere would get up as early as we have to, come to school, and do this incredibly taxing job with no passion. As far as I'm concerned, if the paycheck is your primary driving force, no matter what your job is, you need to get the heck out. Life is too short to chain yourself to the grindstone just for the money.

Why do people spend the biggest part of their lives doing things that don't fulfill them? Who told them that that's what life is for? Not every day is wine and roses, nor should it be, but if the majority of your life is spent hating what you do, then one day you will wake up, bitter and wasted, wishing you'd followed a different path.

The students under those burnt-out teachers are learning the same dangerous lesson: there's no joy to be had in the working world. That all that awaits them after high school is boredom beyond comprehension and perpetual unhappiness. The pattern of drudgery is being ingrained before they even choose a future for themselves.

Worse to me, the privilege of learning, of coming to a place and spending your time taking in new ideas and knowledge, of expanding your world's boundaries, becomes an onerous burden when those teachers simply snarl, snap, and ignore. Everyday, I get the joy of watching some of my students start to unfold like flowers opening in the sun. This has nothing to do with my skill as a teacher. I am a mediocre teacher at best, but I get to see those tiny victories because I care desperately about what I'm doing and I try to make sure they know it.

Can you imagine the force and the power for change if people would simply raise their heads from the rutted paths they've worn, and look for the jobs, the hobbies, the lives that would make them feeling humans instead of lifeless automatons? Life is too short to do what you hate every single day. It's tantamount to grabbing a sharp or hot object again and again because you make the mistake of grabbing it the first time and you don't know how to stop. We have to find a new way for our world to go forward.

The Little Things

I had a confrontation with a student today who is usually a good student. He chose today to be difficult for some reason, and it has totally soured my mood. In an effort to reclaim what had been a peaceful day prior to this, I am going to focus on some of the little things I love.

1) The little cream-colored McCoy planter on my desk -- It holds the blank 3X5 index cards I use as memo pads, notes to class, to do lists, etc. It has two tiny gnomes, one on each end, and is roughly shaped like a log with ivy twining around it. I don't know why it should make me so happy, but it does. Maybe it's the gnomes.

2) Dillon playing with her toy mouse -- Has there ever been anything as heart-cheering as a kitten with a toy? She chases it, pounces it, and brings it to me as proudly as anything weighing less than three pounds is capable of doing.

3) PEZ -- Walking in and seeing all my kitschy little dispensers lining my office walls makes me smile. I wish I could have more of them here at school, but they're small, portable, and tempting in a way that means they'd disappear pretty quickly.

4) Writing with my fountain pen -- Mom and Dad gave me a nice one for Christmas last year. It's not a Mont Blanc (I'd be too nervous to use one, anyway), but it's got good balance, a responsive nib, and I feel loved when I write with it.

5) My maneki neko collection -- Whenever I look at one of my maneki neko, or lucky cats, I can remember Japan and where I was when I bought it. I can remember Tokoname and the color of the tiles in the rain or the wall made from old sake jugs. I can remember the excitement and fun of traveling with my friends and going to pottery festivals where we always bought more than we should have and then struggled like beasts of burden to get our treasures home on the trains.

6) A new (or new-to-me) Law and Order: CI -- When I get to sit and watch the alluring Vincent D'Onofrio take apart some crime from the inside out, it makes me happy. Of course, I would probably also be happy watching Mr. D'Onofrio read from the telephone directory.... I wonder what he'd do with his elegant hands for something as silly as that?

I'll stop with six. I feel better. Now it's time to grade some essays. I have one of my night classes for the first time tonight, and I am determined to get some of this unfinished work done before it.

Bad Behavior

I am not good at meetings. Today after school we had another staff development meeting, and I just couldn't have cared less. All I wanted to do was be in my room and get some work done. Yesterday, I had to go home right after school because my jaws were hurting so much from the dentistry on Monday. Today, I needed to catch up.

I am afraid I was very rude. I had my laptop and I was using it in the notebook setting to draw and doodle on. Originally, I had it out to take notes, but there were no notes to take. I drew and drew.

I swear I was listening, but I am aware that I probably didn't appear to be. I can't seem to help this bad meeting behavior. I have to draw or do something with my hands or I just go crazy. Sometimes, I fold origami cranes. I think that it would be nicer to doodle than to fill the table with tiny paper birds.

I don't know why I hate meetings so much. I think I always resent the lost time. To me, talking about stuff usually doesn't actually result in getting anything done. Most meetings could be taken care of in 15 minutes or with a well-written memo.

Regardless, I think I need to reevaluate the way I act in those meetings. They're a part of my professional life now, and I guess I need to stop the bad behavior. I can't promise there won't be more paper birds, though.

Exhaustion

I am only writing this as a way to unwind before I crawl to my bed and pull the covers over my head. I am so tired that I physically ache. Actually, I'm not sure the ache is from tiredness. I suspect it has more to do with standing on concrete floors all day.

After a long day at school, I went to have two cavities filled. I swear, at one point, he was actually using a Dremmel on me. I jumped when he first started drilling, so stopped and hit me with two more shots in each cheek. After that, I didn't feel anything except the friction.

When that joy was over, I had to go to the local college branch to get registered for classes. That was when Marlowe's quote from his Mephistopheles came to mind, "This is hell, nor am I out of it." I wound up sitting in a hall for three hours waiting to see a counselor for 10 minutes. I HATE things like that.

While I was there, this twit on a cellphone stepped perilously close to the edge of destruction. She talked the WHOLE time I was there. Non-stop. I now know about her husband and his new four-wheeler, their dog, the diesel pickup she wants to buy from Texas for him, and all other facts about her life. She was having painfully personal conversations in a room full of people who had to try to pretend we were deaf. Why do people do that?


When there were only four or five of us left doggedly waiting on our turns, she stopped talking and started playing a game. Now I was also playing a game on my phone and had been for an hour, but I respectfully CUT MY SOUNDS OFF, including the ringer. She just let hers beep on, so every dadgummed time she moved her thumbs, it beeped and hooted. Visions of dead cellphones danced gleefully in my head. I wanted to jump up and down on it, to do a rumba across the tattered remains on the floor. I wanted to say something witty and apropos, but all I could come up with in my Novacaine deadened state was, " Hey, *&%$*, cut down the volume on that *&##(* phone." How urbane. How cutting. How eloquent.

After it was all over, I finally made it out to my aunt and uncle's house for my uncle's birthday party. It revived me to sit with my family and relax. I am still hurting, jaw and legs, but I feel a little less like somebody beat me up and left me for dead. Hopefully, a night of rest will complete the restoration. Tomorrow has GOT to be better....

Gruesome Profiteering

I just saw a commercial for a commemorative coin proof for 9/11. It has a segment that can be removed and will stand in a groove on the body of the coin to make a three-dimensional sculpture of sorts of the World Trade Center complex. The removable segment is supposedly cast from silver removed from vaults under the Trade Center wreckage.

I am appalled. What sort of person buys that kind of thing? It's horrific to take actual debris (if that part is true) from a crime against life and turn it into a gleaming collector's item. How could a person sleep at night knowing that something taken from that place of death and grief was recast, marketed, and sitting in their living room for the low, low cost of $19.95? How far will we descend with this sort of thing?

It's almost like the medieval practice of buying pieces of the true cross or the bones of the saints, but without any religious hope of salvation or healing. I know any person has the right to make and market any sort of thing, but I fervently hope sometime in the future people will stop trying to turn a quick buck off other people's tragedies.

Overwhelming Piles of Crap

My house is a wreck. There are cast-off tote bags and work bags strewn from the door to the livingroom. Clean laundry overflows the baskets in the laundry area. The dishwasher is full of dishes that need to be put away. My floors need sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping. My birdfeeders need seed and sugar water, and my grass is getting out of hand.

This is my least favorite part of the school year and the teaching life. Things pile up so quickly, and I have such a hard time taking care of more than running a load of laundry or the dishwasher during the week. I'm at school so much more than I'm at home, so home becomes a place where I dump, dine, and fall down.

I wish I knew how to reach a better balance with this. I know not all teachers live this way, so there has to be a way to do it. Of course, I also know a lot of teachers who have someone in to clean once or twice a week. That must be nice. Those people are married to men with good jobs, though, because I can't even pay all my bills with what I make, much less afford the luxury of somebody to help me with all this crap.

I guess the best I can do right now is turn Saturday into the day of decrapificaiton. Maybe if I can restore order once a week, it won't get so bad.

Prometheus and the Plane

Today, my bellringer activity concerned the myth of Prometheus. Even now that I’m teaching Seniors, they still sit wide-eyed for these tales out of the distant past. I like to think that maybe they’ll remember the stories even if they don’t remember the grammar.

I told them about how Prometheus believed in humanity’s potential, petitioned Zeus to share the gods’ gifts with them, and was denied. I told them how Prometheus, the forward thinker, stole the sacred fire from the hearth of Olympus and brought it to man. I told them how he was bound to the rock and daily suffers unspeakable agony for his actions.

Yesterday, my AP kids and I went through Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”. We looked at the timeline of the last century, and talked about what the major events were. I am not surprised, but somewhat ashamed to be a part of the society that allowed it, but my kids have very dim knowledge of those earth shattering times. World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, these are barely realities. They’re more like impositions, a mosquito buzzing in the ear, nothing that truly has to be considered but merely waved away to maintain a pleasant atmosphere.

This evening, I read my email and my CNN alerts and became aware of the full scope of the British plane plot. Men have sunk to the level that they have devised ways to kill masses of other men with sports drinks. Is this what Prometheus stole the holy fire from Olympus to create?

When I look down at my hands and I see their miraculous design, when I think of the almost unimaginable complexity of how our brains work and create reality from imagination, I am sickened right down to my soul by the uses to which we put these tools. If we can engineer ways to kill one another with household cleaners and fruit-flavored beverages, why can’t we devote the same fervor and unwavering perseverance to something worth a tinker’s damn?

It seems sometimes as if all we get better at is killing one another. When I was going through the Twentieth Century timeline with my kids, it struck me afresh how horribly fast we advanced from close combat to weapons of mass destruction. Will we ever grow beyond this, or are we doomed to selfish self-destruction? How can we fight this? How can we ever reclaim those wonderful gifts stolen from Olympus for good?

Tonight, my optimism is mostly done out. The eagles of hatred and extremism have torn the flesh, and I don’t know when Hercules is going to free the poor, shredded body of innovation, but I pray it happens soon.

SNAAAAAKE!

The thing about snakes is that how do you defend yourself against a snake if you don't have a weapon. You can't strangle it.
Morris Chestnut

I came home from dinner with Mom and Dad tonight and casually threw my bag on the parson's bench beside the door. My cat Pearl was staring fixedly at the space above the windows next to the door. I glanced up expecting to see a bug or, at the wildest, a mouse or lizard.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the head and first coils of a snake elegantly draped over the curtain rod. I could barely pull the cell from my pocket and remember how to work it. All I could think was that my cats were all staring at that same general area of the house LAST NIGHT. It was in the house all night.

I called Dad, gibbered something mostly incoherent to the tune of, "Mumble gibber SNAKE. Mumble, stutter, stutter, KITCHEN, SNAKE." Dad came with a pair of odd red metal tongs, grabbed the snake by the head, and pulled it off the curtain rod. It just kept coming. It was about four feet long. He took it outside and disposed of it.

Dad did some research when he got home, and he and Mom called to tell me that it was a kind of rat snake. It probably came in after the field mice and to escape the incredible heat. I'm sorry now that we killed it since it was a harmless rat snake, but it really, really, really shouldn't have done the whole "surprise!" thing hanging off the curtain rod. That was a bit more than I could take cheerfully.

Reckon I'll check the covers before I get in bed tonight?

Grading Zombie

Today, while my classes were writing reading tests and diagnostic essays, I graded. My eyes feel a bit blurry. I completed two sets of AP ID tests, two sets of bookcards, and half a class of Honors ID tests. Now, I just have six sets of essays left. How on earth did I get this many papers so fast? Oh well. Such is teacher life, I suppose.

Technology Problems

"Well, it was working just fine yesterday..."

We've got our projectors and we've got our laptops, and today we didn't even have basic, hardwired connection to the big server. It was just Monday all over the place. Technology came by the room twice, and the second time, I think the worst of the problems were resolved. I would NOT want to be Technology right now. They're darting all over campus looking frazzled. These wireless projectors are kind of tricky, apparently.

There's not much to tell about the day. Everything is still moving right along, but it was only day two. I did notice that the new copier is already on the fritz. I hope someone gave it whatever the machine version of last rights is before they shipped it to us. We kill copiers pretty fast. It's a real shame, too, because this one kicked butt.

Well, I was awakened at 4 a.m. with Missy barking at distant coyotes, had to take a dead mouse Pearl had caught out at 5 a.m. while I was still in my p.j.s, and had an 80 degree classroom most of the day due to a/c weirdness, so I'm pretty tired. Tomorrow will be Tuesday, and maybe it won't be as full of mechanical failures. If it doesn't, I think we're going to have to have some religious person come and lift the Machine Curse.

The Joys of T-Shirts

Short post, totally non-philosophical. Tonight's set of Bravo Law and Order: CI episodes has D'Onofrio in his usual suits, but it also has him undercover in a t-shirt and jeans and several variations thereof. Mmm, mmmm, mmm. Such a big, handsome man with such big, strong arms and shoulders....

Of course, I'm supposed to be doing schoolwork for tomorrow. However, I just can't look away. This probably means I'll be up really late. It's worth it.

V for Vendetta

"Remember, remember the fifth of November..."

I finally saw V for Vendetta tonight. I have the graphic novel, and I loved it. The movie, while different, was also really good.

I am really impressed with the performances by Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman. Weaving managed to convey emotion without his face ever being seen. His whole body emoted. It was like what I think watching ancient Greek or Japanese Noh theater might have been like. He was graceful and powerful, but always human. Even though the face of the mask was fixed, by his body language, it almost seemed that it changed. It's amazing how much of what we know about the actions and feelings of other comes to us through their bodies.

Portman was as good as I've seen her. I like her in general, but she was strong and real in this movie. In the graphic novel, Evie was portrayed as more of a victim. Portman's Evie had a little more spine, and I liked that. This role couldn't have been an easy one to play.

The movie, as did the graphic novel, makes you think. They fit into the same category as 1984 and Brave New World. The scary part of all of them is that they are not impossibilities. They are worlds that we stand inches, thoughtless inches, away from. I'm not advocating the destruction of anything, but it scares me how little we think about what our governments do. One day, if we don't start thinking, if we don't start questioning, if we don't quit believing the old axiom that the ends justify the means, we might all wake up with V's world or John Savage's or Winston Smith's.

The older I get, the more I see Orwellian shades in the corners. I see Norsefire and Big Brother hiding behind the drapes, just waiting for a crisis, an opportunity to step in and give people a choice: security for their freedom. What are we going to choose? Are we already making those choices by inches? Are the things we've given away, especially our privacy, worth what we've received, or is it all just a big lie? How far have we gone toward our own personal dystopia without the majority of the people knowing it?

I know I'll use clips from V this year when I do my unit on dystopian literature. My students last year recognized our possible future in the novels. We had a lot of discussion about it, and that's the point of those books and of V as well. Maybe if we continue to talk about it, maybe if we can recognize the symptoms of the sickness, we can prevent the disease before it becomes terminal for our liberty.

The First Day

I woke up extra early this morning and was ready to go in record time. When I went out to drive to work, the check engine light came on. So much for leaving really early. I wound up driving my mother's minivan to work, and she took my Cruiser to the dealership later in her day to see what was going on.

When I finally got to school, I was oddly calm. I didn't have any of the first-of-school butterflies that I usually have. I don't know why. I was ready to go, not because I have everything ready or all my lesson plans done, but because of some other inexplicable reason.

The kids were in uniforms this year. They looked great. They looked unified, and although I know that surface is illusory, I hope it will help to unify them in some way. While I don't believe those uniforms are a panacea, I do know that the students carried themselves differently in the halls. I can't explain it.

The day passed with unbelievable speed. I hope they all go that fast. I think my AP classes are going to be pretty lively, and my regulars are going to be a lot of fun, a handful, but a lot of fun. We're going to need to have a "Come to Jesus" moment, but once we get all of that out of the way, we should have a good year.

Once classes were over, I was exhausted. My voice is strained, and I'm physically wiped out. I'm not in "fighting shape" yet. In about a week, my throat will be used to projecting again, and walking around the room all day and standing for lecture won't be such a big deal. Today, I was really happy when lunch came so I could sit down. I don't think I sat down more than a moment between 7:40 and 11:20, and then not again until 1:20.

After school I went to the dealership to swap vehicles with Mom, and to find out what the verdict was with my car. It was another one of those ghost phenomenon, and I got to take it home with no major repairs made. I cooked the previously mentioned steak, ate half of it (it was REALLY big) and am currently vegging out in front of the TV watching Dog Whisperer. It's a nice way to wind down after the long week of hectic preparation, endless and depressing meetings, and today's manic pace.

My optimism about the year persists. I hope the promise of today is fulfilled by the remainder of the year. Monday, the new will have worn off, and we'll see how we go.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

I have a new phone, and I may regret it, but right now, I'm loving the process of customizing it, or in geekspeak, tweaking it. I changed my wireless service from Company A to Company B because I can drive to my parents' house, less than a mile away, and have service with Company B. Company A's service doesn't extend much past my driveway. It was endlessly frustrating.

Company A doesn't cover most of the state, in fact. When I was driving two hours on two-lane roads during a period where I was teaching for a local community college, I often just sort of crossed my fingers that no deer or drunken loggers would cross my path because there'd be no phone service to call for help. I feel safer now.

I jumped on the bandwagon and got a Motorola Razr. I know everybody and his brother has one, but I have craved one since I first saw the original commercial where it sliced through the words. Mine is hot pink. I'm not usually a fan of hot pink, but it seemed to fit. Last night, after hours of trying to connect and finally replacing the data cable that connects the phone to my computer, I uploaded the original theme song from Wonder Woman to be my ringtone. I've been waiting on somebody to call me just so I can have the pleasant surprise of hearing that explosion and then the dramatic choir of "Wonder Womaaann....dum de dum dum....". It's the little things that get you through the day, you know.

Since I was up so late working on getting that crucial task accomplished, I am wiped out right now. There are a couple of reasons why. First, our test scores for the whole school have come back, and they were less than we'd hoped. Much less. I don't want to say much more about that except for the fact that for three straight days, I've been trying to figure out what I could have done differently or more. It's painful and wearying. Also, I've been going full tilt all day trying to ready my self, my room, and all the various and sundry paraphernalia of education for tomorrow's onslaught of students. You can tell I have a positive outlook, no?

Actually, I think I'll be fine. Tonight, I plan to cook a big steak I foolishly splurged on, sit on my couch, and (hopefully) overdose myself on the splendid (one day, I might actually run out of adjectives with which to preface his name) Vincent D'Onofrio. Tomorrow, I'll get up, come in, and do my best. God willing, that will be enough.

When You Probably Shouldn't Write At All

Alternately titled: Why didn't I have a Mountain Dew first?

I went back over that last entry and was appalled at the simple errors I let slide. I thought I'd proofread it, but apparently, I skimmed it, spell checked it, and published it with heinous grammatical problems. Oops.

I should have had a Diet Mountain Dew this morning. I'd have been a lot more alert. Some mornings, I crave hot tea, Earl Grey or straight Japanese green. Some days, though, hot liquids and Mississippi's 100+ degree hot and muggy climate don't mix well. Those mornings, those terrible mornings where my alarm clock seems to shriek moments after I closed my eyes, I have a Mountain Dew.

I know it's not the standard choice for caffeine intake. Somehow, though, I managed to get all the way through graduate school and seven years of teaching without developing a taste for coffee. I love the smell of it, but coffee hurts me if I drink it. Besides, Mountain Dew is all fizzy and green. How can you beat that?

Well, before this becomes a hymn in praise of carbonated caffeine, I suppose I had better take myself off to bed. Tomorrow will be another long day of meetings, and if I get some rest, I might just be able to endure them without running down the halls screaming.

Whew!

I just finished leading a Technology Seminar for teacher workshop days, and I feel a great sense of relief. Who am I to be telling people how to do things on the computer?

I'm not an expert. Everything I know, I know because I played around with the shiny objects until I got them in a pattern that pleases me. I would much rather sit down with a small group of people and one-on-one show them what I've done. If they like it, I'll tell them how. If not, that's fine; maybe they know a better way.

There will be more of a post later, but I'm still humming from having to get up in front of adult colleagues (always so different), so I wanted to write this now.