Ages and Ages

Obviously, I haven't been faithful to my resolution to keep writing daily. I've come to accept the fact that, at least for this school year, my blogging is going to be sporadic at best. The AP curriculum consumes almost every moment I spend online, and I've been sick a lot lately, so there hasn't actually been that much online time at home. It's been more of a come home and fall down time.

A couple of interesting things are going on right now, though. A friend of mine from work gave me a copy of a book full of places to get my poetry published. Apparently, the book is published every year, is reliable, and is well known. I had a duh moment. Why the heck didn't it occur to me that there would be a resource like that? I haven't had a chance to do much more than browse through it, but I'm excited. During the upcoming holiday breaks, I'm going to try to start sending poems out. If nothing else, maybe I can get some quality feedback to help me refine.

The second thing is really BIG. I am about to start major repairs on my house. Katrina did a number on my roof, and it has to be replaced. It was old to start with, and having 100 mph winds didn't help. The financial implications of this are staggering. I'll be okay, and it's a workable situation, but never before has the mantle of "adulthood" weighed so heavily on my shoulders.

In fact, lately, I've felt that leaden cape dragging me down further and further. I can't help but feel, however irrationally, that signing the requisite paperwork in the next few days is going to be like Faustus signing the Devil's contract in his own blood. (Since I just got through teaching Marlowe's play, I see Mephistopheles around every corner these days...)

Once I sign and once I begin this work, I will be clipping my own wings. It will be a commitment to stay in this job, to stay in this town. Never again will I be able to pick up and go abroad for a year or two. Never again will I be free. I am trying to look at it in terms of obligations, in terms of blessings, in any terms but the terms of a cage door swinging shut, and most of the time I can focus on these other worthy things, but sometimes, especially right before I go to bed, I can hear the squeaking hinges, and I ache between my shoulderblades where those feathers used to be. It's not the money; it's the limiting of choice.

It's foolish to wish for everything. As my father is so fond of saying, "Wish in one hand and spit in the other. See which one fills up fastest." I just wish I didn't sometimes have this terrible, panicky sense of entrapment.

There's a song by David Wilcox called "A Young Man Dies." It deals with him looking through old photographs and finding one of himself at a much younger age. The chorus says, "In the years it takes to make one man wise, a young man dies." I feel like this is the death of the "young" me. That seems highly melodramatic, even to me, but in some ways, I think it's also very true.

So what comes next? Heck if I know. I'll make some changes, fix some things, go on teaching...all those little things that won't matter at all to anyone else but me. I'm committing to this path. Hopefully I can look back later and be satisfied.

Henry the VIII

A mnemonic to remember the wives of Henry the VIII: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived

Even though he was a lecherous old goat, I get a kick out of Henry the VIII. I have to respect somebody who said, "You won't let me divorce? Fine. I'll go start my own flippin' church then." Of all the events of the Renaissance, none other was so influential, yet so driven by personal greed. There was no religious fervor, only the desire of a man in hot pursuit of the next young thing and a son to secure his kingdom.

I love the Tudor dynasty in general. They fascinate me. Elizabeth's delicate juggling of foreign invaders-cum-suitors; poor, twisted, demented Mary trying to avenge her mother and her overwhelming desire for a baby that would never come; Edward, the fading child-king...has there ever been such a collection of personalities in one family?

I enjoy most of the British monarchy, at least the ones long gone. History of England was one of my favorite classes in undergraduate. That was probably due to the teacher. I think most history classes probably sink or swim based on the teacher.

Back to Henry...
I like the fact that he was interested in a lot of things. I wonder what he was like before he got old and sick. I wonder if he really wrote Greensleeves. I bet he was one of the most arrogant creatures ever to walk the earth. Who wouldn't be when taught from birth that your will is an extension of the will of God?

One thing always makes me feel badly for him: Catherine Howard. I know she was probably forced into marriage with him, but all the records say he was truly in love with her. I wonder if he'd ever been in love before in all his life. Then to have her abandon him for a younger lover must have been beyond heartbreaking. I'm sure he knew he wasn't physically attractive anymore. I'm sure he never really expected marriage to anything other than a means of procreation. Somehow, though, he truly came to love her and was betrayed. Maybe it's this one moment of genuine emotion that makes him real to me.

I stood in the hallway at Hampstead Court that Catherine Howard supposedly raced down to plead with him at prayers. I could almost see him kneeling at the rail, head in hands, heart torn, pride wounded, making the decision to cloak himself in royal anger and wreak destruction on the sources of his pain. I wonder if he ever turned to the door where she was screaming for her life.

One of my favorite doodads from my recent trip to the UK is a tiny sterling silver charm of Henry. I got it at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. It's a fairly detailed and heavy piece. I smile every time I put on. I don't know how he would have felt about being reduced from divine-right sovereign to kitschy silver souvenir, but I like to think maybe, just maybe, he'd have been amused.

A Miracle

To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace. ~Milan Kundera

Sheppa is going to live. The vet said she has a fractured pelvis, but that it should heal. She is also going to lose her beautiful plumy tail, but she will live.

I got the news at school. I had called at lunch, but there was no news. After the end of day bell, Dad called to tell me the news. I cried. All day long, I had been waiting for something and fearing the worst. I felt the huge weight fall away and I burst into tears.

She's got a long way to go for recovery, but at least we still have her. I can't wait until she's up and around again.

Losing an Old Friend

I got a call just before I started to write this. My dad called to say that one of the two dogs we've had for the last 10 years or more had an accident today. I raced up to their house to see her.

She's not in any pain, but she can't stand up. She's just laying in what used to be my bathroom on some blankets. I went in and sat with her for a little while.

Memories flooded my mind. I remembered the day she came to live with us. Someone had thrown her out on us. She came into the yard, lean as a rail and hungry, but looking for attention. Mom tried to run her off twice, but then she started barking and lunging at the tall grass nearby and killed a large snake. She had a home with us from that day forward.

I remembered other times. I remembered taking a nap on the back deck with her. It was a cool fall day, and when I woke up, she was curled into me. I remembered the way she'd always fling herself off the front deck and through the air, landing and racing around the front yard in big circles of joy. I remembered how she'd charge the cows and then run when they weren't intimidated. I remembered the way she'd grab the leg of blue jeans or overalls and shake them like a chew toy.

I've known for some time now that her health was failing. She's had heartworms for a couple of years. The medicines she takes keeps that under control. Her arthritis has been getting more pronounced. She can only see light and shadow and she can only hear high tones.

For all that, she's still been happy. She has roamed around the hills and woods where my parents live and chased squirrels with our other dog. She's followed my mother around the yard in endless circles while Mom does yardwork.

Now, tomorrow, the vet will probably have to put her to sleep. I am keeping a crazy, foolish hope alive that she'll get up again tonight and be okay tomorrow, but I know in my heart that tonight was probably the last time I'll get to sit beside her and pat her head. Tonight was the last time I'll get to tell her what a good dog she is. I would do anything if there was some way to help her. The hardest thing is when there's nothing else to do, no path to pursue, no hope of reclamation.

I'm going to try to focus on my bouncing young friend right now. I'm going to try to see the fearless flyer instead of the broken and grounded dog I left behind. I don't know of anything else to do except remember, hope, and cry.

Recent Stuff

No quote. I'm doing well to be posting.

Life has just piled up on my lately, and I haven't felt much like posting. Mostly, I've just been grading papers and planning classes. This is the bad time of the year for me. The beginning of the school year and the end are okay. It's the mid-semester time when grades have to be in and everything is in process instead of wrapping up that things get tense.

I am going to be shedding some extra things that I've taken on. I hate to do it, but I had a crying panic attack the other night, and I think it's about time to accept the fact that I can't do everything. I did not come into this world swathed in a red cape with an "S" on it, and it takes far less exotic things than Kryptonite to bring me down.

I am also going to force time back into my life for some things that I love, but have abandoned. I am going to the gym Monday afternoon. I am going to go out and shoot pictures again. I am going to find a way to take a pottery class.

Basically, it's about balance. Mine is way off and I have to fix it.

I did have one complement, of sorts, yesterday. One of my AP students told me that my class was his favorite and that I was one of the only teachers he had whom he didn't hate. :) Left handed, but still pretty high praise from him. At least somebody appreciates what I do.

Well, this is short, but the point is that I did it. I really do enjoy my blog. I love to write and this has been such a good medium for me. This is another one of those elements that I am trying to find space for. I suppose only time will tell how successful I am.

Faulkner

I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.
William Faulkner

I am starting the process of teaching Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying to my AP kids. It's been years since I read it myself, so the re-reading has been a pleasure.

Faulkner's world is such a thoroughly messed-up, yet somehow familiar place. Those characters he crafted are slices of Southern culture. They still exist. I see fragments and shades of them in neighbors and family members. I don't know what that says about me. Is it a bad thing when you recognize Faulkner characters?

For years I wouldn't read Faulkner. My first experience with him was The Sound and the Fury. I hated, hated, HATED that book, a reaction that is rare for me. I wouldn't read anything else by him and considered him to be highly overrated. Sometime in graduate school, I came back to him. I suppose it was more out of curiosity than anything else. I don't even remember what book it was that I read. It might have been AILD. I enjoyed it. That lead me to read more of his work. With each one, I found a rich world waiting that was fictional, yet familiar.

Faulkner distills the South into tiny, shimmering, jewel-like drops. Even though lots of things have changed since his South dissolved into mine, so many of his observations hold true. I don't know if that's because things change so slowly here, or if it's because the characters he wrote share traits that will be a part of human makeup one hundred years from now. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

I am by no means a Faulkner scholar, but I have learned to enjoy him. There are many more of his books that I need to read. I even have plans to revisit TSTF to see if it's really as bad as I remember. (Probably.)

Teaching Poetry

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
Emily Dickinson

I love teaching poetry. It makes this job worth doing. Every time I open a textbook or anthology, I feel a sense of wonder. I feel like a mage opening a tome of wisdom. And when I spin out the words, say them and hear them, I feel the magic of them unfold like a sparkling woven mantle wrapping me snugly.

Meanwhile, the kids are rolling eyes, printing misspelled slogans on their notebooks, and praying for the bell to set them free. I can't understand them. They are Other. Yet, not all of them have built those walls. Even some who are firmly entrenched may find that the power of the words slips through a chink, a bolt hole they forgot to secure, and touches them.

I will spend money on books, especially good poetry anthologies, faster than any other item. I bought one yesterday, and I bought another today. (If you're looking for a good anthology, I recommend the Garrison Keeler collection Good Poems for Bad Times. ) I love the feel of the covers in my hands. Paperback, hardback, clothbound, or rare, rare leather, it doesn't matter. There is luxury in the weight of it, the heaviness of ideas contained within. Every new poem and every old, familiar one demand and deserve my attention.

I sit in my new chair in my 70's paneled living room, and I open the pages. The words tumble out like a treasure chest of jewels spilling across the crocheted afghan in my lap. This is true luxury. I may never own the best or most modern of things, but as long as I have these words, these shards of their writers' souls, then what more could I ask?

Tomorrow, I will go back into the classroom full of enthusiasm. I will fight the gnawing void I find there and stand guardian over my poor, broken-winged student-doves once again. Maybe a few of them will see the vast wealth that beckons. If I can share even the tiniest glimmer of the magic, then I suppose it will have been a good day.

Monkey with a Tape Recorder

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire

For those of you wondering where I've been the past 5 days, have I got a story for you.

The week just started out badly. I was tired and cross, and the following days did nothing to improve things. Monday was forgettable. Tuesday saw my beloved cat Yoda at the vet's because she'd somehow hurt herself. She's taking antibiotics and pain medicines, and will hopefully be better soon. Wednesday, though, came and took the prize for worst day EVER at school, eclipsing all that had gone before.

As those of you who read me often know, I'm a high school English teacher and our professional lives here in MS are subject to the gravitational pull of State Testing. Our school is seeking to improve scores and had invited an educational consulting firm in.

I was expecting a lecture of dubious value on teaching methods, blah, blah, blah. I was expecting to have a headache and possibly, depending on where they decided to seat us, a literal pain in the posterior by day's end. What I was not expecting was that they would bring an entire curriculum in and tell us to teach it and only it....or else.

Every word was scripted. Every activity was prepackaged right down to little captions saying, "Say this now...." Every novel, every short story, every poem had been chosen for us with no input allowed. We were to become glorified monkeys with tape recorders, and we were to be grateful for the chance to become such wonderful teachers with so little effort on our own parts. If we chose not to use the material, we needed to be aware that they (the consulting firm) would be doing surprise drop-in visits just to make sure everything was "on track". Should they find us not using their materials in the approved way (naughty, naughty), they will write a nasty little evaluation that bypasses our principal and goes directly to the system superintendant.

The three other 10th grade English teachers and I were stunned. I could not have been more shocked if the tidy little blond in the navy blue suit had gotten up on the conference table and started breakdancing. My eyes actually teared up, and I thought I was going to have to flee the meeting to recompose myself. Was this what they thought of my teaching? If so, if I was so incompetent, shouldn't they replace me?

The information got even more grim when we were told that the company was behind in development and publication of this magic tool. Only the first nine weeks of curriculum was ready. The second nine weeks was to be shipped in early October, and the following semester hasn't even been written yet. No full course progression exists, nor could anyone tell us exactly when our major works would fall, or even what those major works might be. We broke for lunch and staggered out of the meeting into the sun of the parking lot.

The English department as a whole is known for being...er...opinionated. We are the hallway most commonly avoided by the administration because of our propensity for grabbing the hapless principal and dragging them into our rooms with a muttered, "Come here...I have to tell you something..." I'd say those of us who teach 10th grade are probably at the loud, frayed, leading edge of this.

That being said, you can imagine the conversation when the four of us went to Sonic for lunch. We were all varying shades of mad, hurt, and/or hopeless. Rebellion was fomenting. Ultimatums were flung along with wild french-fry enhanced gestures. Solidarity was forged. Chocolate was sought and consumed on our way back for the second half of the day-long meeting.

I went up to my room during sixth period to collect a couple of text books for discussion at the tail end of the meeting, and found an additional problem awaiting me there. The kids, as kids will do with a sub, were talking and laughing instead of taking care of their assignment. The sub was sitting at my desk playing with her cellphone and the radio was blasting boom-boom music. I almost blew a blood vessel. They were supposed to be writing an essay, and she hadn't even given them the paper for the assignment. They were supposed to be WRITING an ESSAY and she had boom-boom music going.

I displayed heroic restraint, passed out the papers to the kids, ignored the sub, went back downstairs, found the principal in charge of substitutes and gave him an earful. He went to deal with it. I wanted to smite her. It was just too much to deal with when I was already so distressed because of the meeting.

By the end of the day, I felt as though I had been beaten head to toe. I was heart and soul sick. I wanted to pack my Shakespeare bobblehead and walk away for good. I picked up the tattered remnants of the assignments I'd left for my classes and went home. I ate something and crawled into my bed.

The next day, I was still sick. I woke up with my stomach churning. I dragged myself to school and went through the motions. I could not shake the thought of the monkey with the tape recorder. It would save the system so much money, after all.

One of the other teachers went and had a talk with our head principal. He said that he wasn't aware that the consulting firm expected us to use their materials to the exclusion of all else, and that he would not support that. He told us not to worry, and yesterday morning, he came by my room to talk with me personally about it. I felt so much better.

This week has been a total crap-fest, but I am hopeful that next week will be better. Even though I will lose two days to testing, I think I can stand anything as long as my principal doesn't throw us to the testing wolves.

This is where I've been over the past week. Hopefully, this particular "long, dark night of the soul" has passed.

All Things to All People

To weep is to make less the depth of grief. ~William Shakespeare, King Henry the Sixth

I haven't been keeping up with this very well this week. Just another stone of guilt and obligation around my neck, and I'm already so weighed down that I can barely stand it. I am almost at my break-and-run stage. I am so burned out from trying to be all things to all people.

I'm tired of trying to get all the stupid limbs out of my yard. I'm tired of constantly dragging them only to find that I haven't really made any progress at all. I'm tired of seeing the tops of the pines lying in the middle of my circle drive and knowing that I have neither the tools nor the strength needed to get them moved.

I'm tired of trying to keep my house immaculate. My floors need the vacuum, my tub needs to be scrubbed, and I need to sweep my porches. I need to dust, polish, and mop. I can't keep up with all of it.

I'm tired of trying to be a perfect teacher. I'm tired of the weight of fourteen sets of papers dragging at my shoulder every day when I leave school. I'm tired of putting together my best efforts and it not mattering at all.

I'm tired of coming home to a dark and empty house. I'm tired of having to do everything all by myself, including picking myself up when I feel like this, and I'm mortally tired of pasting the socially-acceptable smile on my face and pretending that everything is okay so nobody has to worry about me. I'm tired of being the shoulder that's cried on and never having anyone to turn to myself. I'm tired of all the circle closing and me being on the outside everytime.

I guess this is going to be my form of venting, and tomorrow, I'll probably have all this back under control, but right now, I just can't juggle these balls any more. If there's no entry for a few days, it's because this is one thing I can drop from my daily routine without huge effects. I'm just sick and tired and in need of an extended holiday.

Power Returns

Fallen-tree video is absolutely essential to hurricane broadcasts. The most sought-after footage is, in order of ratings: 1. Big tree on strip mall. 2. Big tree on house. 3. Big tree on car. 4. Small tree on car. 5. Assorted shrubbery on car.
Carl Hiaasen

Today, eight days after the hurricane, I have electricity again. I hardly know how to live. I have been walking around in the humid darkness for so long, that turning on a lamp seems almost foreign. All the windows in my house are now closed, my air conditioner is functional, although set very high because I've become so used to HEAT, and there is a pitcher of Red Diamond Sweet Tea chilling in my refridgerator. In a few moments, I will partake of the almost unheard-of luxury of a hot shower.

The past week has been strange and beyond strange. I started to title this entry "A Country Girl Can Survive", but I opted for the more prosaic title above. I am trying to make the transition from manual labor and tree clearing to secondary education again. I learned to live by the light of kerosene lanterns. I became adept at the mind games of "it's not really cold water...it's just cool and pleasant." I tied a bandana around my mouth and cleaned out nasty things with odors that almost gagged me from my freezer and refridgerator. I ate vegetables cold from the cans.

Right now, everyone is very tense about fuel, and another storm is brewing. Everywhere you look, there are still massive trees lying in forlorn chunks and people sort of wandering around their yards staring at things. Crazy people are shooting at rescue personnel in New Orleans, and every moment seems to be writing historically momentous events. I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, but for tonight at least, I have power again, and all the often-taken-for-granted pleasures that it bestows.

Alive

No quote. I'm on my parents' aged computer and I don't want to take up a lot of their computer dial-up time.

I am alive. The city where I live is slowly recovering. I still don't have power, but my parents do, so that's where I am at the present time.

Sometime later, sometime when I have power at my own house (whenever that is), I'm sure I'll write something terribly clever about the whole thing, but right now, all I wanted to say is that I'm alive, my house stands tree-free, I have no power, I'm sick to death of soup from cans, and that I am very thankful to be here, even in these conditions.

For all of you who have been praying, thank you. Only God could have gotten us through this. Please keep praying for all the people not so far from here who have lost it all.

More later....

Waiting for Katrina

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.
Carl Hiaasen

I went to Wal-Mart today after Sunday School to pick up a couple of tiny radios in case we lose power in the next few days. For those of you who don't know because you live in another country or because you haven't turned on a TV or seen a newspaper lately, a big whopping hurricane called Katrina is approaching the Gulf Coast. The city I live nearest to is a major interstate hub, and from the time I went to church this morning to the time I came home from town this afternoon, the traffic coming from the Coast and New Orleans had quadrupled. They've one-wayed the south-bound interstates and now, everybody is rushing north to escape.

Every car that passed was loaded to capacity with people, pets, and possessions. I saw a big white and brown hound riding in the back of a pickup truck. In true dog form, he had his long ears flapping in the breeze. He was the only comical element in what was really a deadly serious flight.

Some of the cars were curiously empty; others were taxing the springs with the weight of their cargo. Almost all of them bore Louisiana plates. New Orleans, always on the brink of being under water, is being evacuated because if Katrina walks into town, the great pumps under the streets won't be enough to keep it dry. In the cars, I'd see odds and ends pressed up against the windows, and I kept trying to figure out how you'd even chose what to take in a situation where everything you love might be under water in 48 hours.

People in Wal-Mart were frothing at the mouth and ready to cut each other for bottled water and batteries. I hate it when emergencies bring out the crap in people. It seems like everyone would try to be kinder and more helpful, but instead, it was a snatch and grab environment. I only had three items in hand having bought supplies a few days ago, but cartloads of the oddest stuff were being pushed to the registers. I've never seen so much sliced ham and so many cases of coke being bought at one time.

Katrina is one of the biggest hurricanes ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Of course, comparisons are being made to that mother of all storms, Camille. My father was in the Coast Guard in N.O. when Camille came in, and he tells stories that will turn your hair white. This was when my mother and father were still dating, and Dad had to drive from where she lived down the state back to New Orleans through the storm. Just another one of those cases of God protecting, or there's no way he would have made it back in one piece.

I can almost visualize the hurricane as an entity. I have this picture in my head of a female wraith-like creature dancing on the water. The face is horrible. I don't know why this keeps coming to me, but since I first imagined it this way, I can't get rid of it.

Right now, of course, the sun is shining. Yellow swallowtail butterflies are feeding on my abelias. Only the increasing wind and the ominous, distant, gray curtain of cloud tells that something terrible is coming.

My windchimes are ringing with growing urgency, and in a couple of hours, I'll go outside and take all the birdfeeders and windchimes down. I'll also find safe places for all the potted plants and rocking chairs on my porch, unhook the chains on my porch swing, and put away all the decorative doodads that accumulate. I'll park my car under the car shed, and call my parents to put Mom's van in, too. I'll run a work cooler full of water, make sure my hurricane lamps have oil, and arrange lighters and flashlights in places where they can be found. I'll generally batten down the hatches and hope for the best. When faced with one of nature's Furies, what else can you do?

They're expecting Katrina to walk right over where I live, so it's likely that you won't hear from me for a few days. Hopefully, I will be writing to you tomorrow evening, but if we're without power, then I'll be back when the electricity is. I hope all of you are battened down and ready as well. Take care.

Not Really What I Had In Mind

Procrastination gives you something to look forward to.
Joan Konner


I got up this morning with every intention of grading. I had it all planned out. Then, around 11:30, Mom called saying she and Dad were on their way back from the landfill with an empty trailer. They were planning to stop off here and pick up more stuff to take in another load.

That's how it started. We loaded the two ancient, broken-down recliners from the guest bedroom, then the microwave that practically glowed every time it ran. Once we'd loaded the worst of the junk, we started to shuffle things from the house to the storage van out in the yard. The small bed I replaced earlier this year was moved out of the guest room from where it had been standing against the wall for months. Several pieces of bed linen were folded and put away. Curtains were discussed.
By the time I realized it, most of the day had crept away.

Intending to do work, I took a minute to eat some lunch. While I ate, I picked up a book, Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, and read. That turned into a several-hour long reading spree in which I finished off the book and lost the rest of my day. Oh well....

Tomorrow, after church, I will HAVE to grade. I hope nothing else shiny comes along to catch my attention.

Blues in the Soul

Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.
Jimi Hendrix

I drove home from a rich meal of fried shrimp and a dessert called Death By Chocolate to the sounds of one of my favorite radio shows, "Highway 61". Our local public radio station has made Friday into a blues night. They play three blues shows back to back, and it makes for a very nice way to relax after a long, hectic week of crap.

The sun was setting, and as I flew down the highway, Howlin' Wolf's big wonderful voice filled up my car. It's said he was a giant of a man, more than six feet tall and weighing in at 300 plus pounds. Nobody else has a voice like his. It's raw and powerful, yet capable of presenting every subtle nuance of the lyrics.

I have always wished that I could have seen him perform. The biographies and reports that I've read say he swayed like a man possessed. He got his nickname from the way he howls when he sings. I think I would have enjoyed seeing him live. When he howls in the recordings, it's like an electrical current runs right up my spine.

The blues move me. I don't know if I absorbed it gradually through the water and the red clay of Mississippi, but there is something in those simple patterns that feels elementally right. Even though I don't know the harsh life of Delta farming, I, too, have baked in the sweltering heat of Mississippi summers. I've played in cow pastures and waded in creeks. I've eaten real barbecue and gotten the sauce from ear to ear. I've read Faulkner and Welty, and I recognize family and community members in their stories. I've seen incredible prejudice and incredible unity in the face of hatred. I've known people who are fulfill every Southern stereotype and others who completely destroy them. It hasn't been necessarily the same experience of a Delta Blues artist, but it has been a Mississippi life, barring a few extended trips elsewhere.

I love the Delta Blues most of all. Simple guitars and bared emotions, tales of love, loss, and revenge, the human heart exposed with all its gold and dross before refining, these are what I hear in those oldest and purest blues. When I feel my worst, I turn to Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and the magic master of them all, Robert Johnson. I dance and sing, feeling the slide guitar pulling the weariness away.

All in all, it was a great way to end a cruddy week. As the sun hung on the edge of the horizon, and the rolling ultra-green Mississippi pine hills unfolded on either side of the highway, I felt the emotional catharsis of the blues, and I felt at peace with world.

Sisyphus Days

No quote. Too tired/lazy to look it up. Also too tired for complete sentences. Grammatical nightmare.

Okay, enough of that. I was having a really crappy day today. I won't go into huge details, but I didn't feel well. I was having one of my disconnected days. I hate that.

The kids were also whiny today. Some of them are about to drive me crazy about grading. I do at least a double set of papers/cards every day, and by the time I get that done, I am completely burned out. Tomorrow, I have to get them off my back. It's time they figured some things out, such as, they'll get the stinking essays when they get the stinking essays.

I got this really nice email in the afternoon, though, from a friend. It had a short funny story in it, and that moment of connection to another adult, to a friend who knows the real me and not the me I have to be in front of the kids, made all the difference.

That difference between who I really am and who I have to be in the classroom weighs on me. I can be more of my real self with the AP kids, but there won't ever be a time that I can take down all the masks and illusions. It's nice to touch base with my friends and feel like I am an entity outside of the classroom.

The wonderful lady who ran our AP seminar this summer talked about that. I didn't realize how MUCH I would feel this way, though. I've taught challenging courses before, but this one feels like a giant stone pressing down on me. I feel like all I do is grade papers. I am at school long after everyone else has gone home to family and relaxation, and I am still always behind. I feel like Sisyphus and that damn rock.

More and more this year, I long for somebody to lean on. There's a U2 song that I increasingly identify with, "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own". I am in that place right now. I need somebody who will help hold me up, make me eat real food, and be sure that I come home before all the weirdos start hanging around our school. Until that time, I'll have to keep pushing the rock up the hill and focusing on the tiny sweet bits that come my way.

The Screen

You learn something every day if you pay attention. ~Ray LeBlond

Today, I won a huge victory. I got an overhead projector screen for my room. I wanted to dance with glee. Now that I've achieved this unreachable goal, I don't know what I'll set my eyes on next. I can take down the square of white paper that's been what I've used for so long.

Yes, this is hyperbole, but not by much. I have been waiting for so long for something that most people probably wouldn't even spend money on. Such is teaching in America.

I heard a piece on NPR this morning talking about the lawsuit Connecticut is filing against the government for No Child Left Behind. I don't know all the particulars, but from what I heard, I am saying GO CONN!!! The Federal government and their ivory tower bastion of edu-experts (and I use the term loosely) can't possibly have any idea of how much pain their mandates create.

I'm a teacher in a state that doesn't really make much of a priority of education. In fact, I'm a citizen in a nation that spends vast amounts of money on everything except education. The only time politicians seem to worry about those of us in the trenches is when they need numbers to throw at each other to get this pet project pushed through or that candidate smeared. I'm sick of it.

I wish that TPTB could see that we are fighting a war with no equipment other than raw courage. I wish that TPTB could spend one full week substituting in one of our classrooms and understand some of the realities of dealing with teenagers.

I am not criticizing our kids. For the most part, they are doing the best they can. I am saying that if our governments (national, state, and local) don't quit padding their own pockets and pointing accusatory fingers, the war will officially be lost, and worse still, there won't be any replacement troops coming up to try to turn the tides. After all, none but the truly dedicated would be excited over the prospect of getting a bright, shiny, new overhead screen.

When You Really Should Be In Bed

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." -- Ben Franklin

I don't know why I'm doing this instead of sleeping, but here you have it.

Today was a crapfest of epic proportions. We were giving the retest for our state mandated NCLB stuff and the master computer at the state department of education from which every tester's computer in the state gets its data went down. I spent 15 minutes frantically running from computer to computer with my "magic password" trying to right the situation, but it didn't work. The students were bemused, then bored, and I finally let them play solitaire or surf the web.

It wasn't until lunchtime that I was told the test had been called off by the state dept. Apparently, they couldn't get the system back up. Lucky us, we get to do the whole crappin' thing over again next Tuesday. That means another day of my classtime for THIS year's testers has been stolen. Oh how I hate it....

Well, there's more to tell, but I guess I better finish my copying and go to bed. I'm late enough as it is.

Spam on the Blog

I had my first blog spam today. Some stupid wretched advertiser actually had the nerve to post their crappy ads as a response to my blog. I just want to go on record as saying that they SUCK and I wish them ill.

It wasn't a little ad, either. It went on for pages and pages. It was some absurd crap about speculating in forestry. Since I have relatives in that business, I was doubly offended.

There are so many places to advertise in this world. Heck, it seems like you can't even sit in your own living room without being attacked by some form of advertising, even if you're not watching TV, using the computer, or listening to the radio. It's all-pervasive.

Don't advertising companies realize how much it hacks people off when they keep shoving stuff down our throats? My advice to them is: make a good product, tell people about it in a reasonable fashion, and then leave them the heck alone. My top don'ts? Simple: DON'T SPAM MY BLOG, don't call me and try to sell me crap at home (I'm on the No-Call, but sometimes they're adventurous), and don't make commercials that an amoeba would find intellectually inferior.

Once you take a look at all the subliminal/psychological stuff going on in ads, it's really quite insulting. Actually, it might be more frightening than insulting since they are apparently based on solid research about the things that motivate humanity. Maybe if we elevate ourselves, advertisers will follow suit.

Oh well, that's probably enough for a Sunday night. Again, all manner of Egyptian curses and voodoo evil to you blog spammers out there. For all the normal readers and those of you just out cruising cyberspace, a good night and a better day tomorrow.

James Bond

No quote.

What is it about James Bond that makes people like to watch him? Right now, I'm typing and watching AMC's month-long Complete Bond movie festival. It's The Man with the Golden Gun, not one of my favorites, but here I am watching it all the same.

I think part of it is the travel aspects. He's always in some exotic location. In the past two I've watched, I've had the odd experience of actually having been in some of the same places he's in. It's kind of neat to be able to say, "Hey, I saw that."

Another draw has to be the gadgets. Especially starting with the Roger Moore movies, Bond just had cool stuff. I think it satisfies that little kid with the overactive imagination in all of us. Who didn't want a car that could turn into a submarine or suddenly sprout wings or skis? Heck, I still want that.

As I've gotten older, one thing that sometimes amuses and sometimes annoys is the cheesy double-entendre. Sometimes I wonder how the actors ever delivered those lines with even the slightest straight face. For that matter, I wonder how the actresses who were playing the evil women with the sexual names ever managed to get through that inevitable scene where they introduce themselves. I think the all-time worst character names were Pussy Galore and Plenty O'Toole. I mean, COME ON. Those actresses were underestimated if they could deliver those lines without even a bit of irony.

That, of course, is the whole basis of the Mike Myers Austin Powers series. That's another post, of course. Well, I guess I'd better go. I have laundry to dry and no Bond magic toy to do it for me.

Grading

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. -- Douglas Adams

I've been grading too long. I have a feeling in my head that's like the high-voltage buzz of an electrical transformer. I also have another set of papers in my work bag that are awaiting grades. I don't know if I can do this tonight.

The grading is killing me. I still like the teaching, but I need a vacation from the constant grading. I don't guess that's going to happen, though.

This is one of those teacher things. It's just one of those things that you have to do. I just hope it slacks off some before I go outside and howl at the moon. I know this isn't one of my deeper or better entries, but this is really all the energy I have tonight. Maybe I'll be profound tomorrow.

Run Away! Run Away!

No quote tonight. Look out...

I'm sad and tired tonight. It may be hormonal, or it may be because I was up WAY too late last night grading essays. I don't know.

I found out today that I may have to start taking allergy shots. Apparently, I'm allergic to most of the great outdoors and a good bit of the inside, too. Ugh. I hate needles. There is no good shot. Something about the thought of that sliver of metal sliding into my skin makes me shiver. Even the thought of it just now raised the hairs on the back of my neck. You'd think a "big girl" like me could grow up about that, but although I've come a long way from screaming and crying over it, I still have to fight it every time I get a shot.

The allergy shot thing wasn't the biggest deal today. It just kind of topped off a long, odd day. We were without air conditioning for the most part today. My classroom hovered around 80 degrees all day. The brilliant head of maintenance sent an email telling us the heat was "all in our minds" and to leave him the heck alone, basically. Of course, he was safely off campus. Otherwise, I might have had to have tracked him down and smacked him around.

All day, whether because of the heat or the massive paper stack weighing me down like a millstone round the neck, I've been in full-fledged run away mode. I have postcards and pictures from places I've been on my speakers' stand on my desk, and I sometimes daydream between trying to wrangle my students through the subtleties of subject-verb agreement.

Today, I was wishing I was in Ireland. It was even more pronounced because I've set my computer desktop at school to a picture of a place we went on our trip. I'd like to just have time to take a book, sit on a hill, and get all this crap off my back. I would like to be safely anonymous and go back through some of the places I went on the trip without a big group to be responsible for. I'd like to see a couple of the people I met on the trip and just sit and talk with them some.

I guess I'll have to settle for a stuffed baked potato, some cheesecake (none of which I had to cook), and a Fred Astaire movie. It's not hardly Ireland in any degree, but maybe I can rest a little in the world of overly-happy vintage Hollywood.

Cancer

We have common enemies today. It's called childhood poverty. It's called cancer. It's called AIDS. It's called Parkinson's. It's called Muscular Dystrophy.
Jerry Doyle

First of all, for those of you who know me and read this, this isn't a revelation that I have it. And for those of you who read this often, this is a theme I've visited before.

Cancer has been the red specter floating through my life for years now. When I was a sophomore in high school, my father's mother died from lung cancer. She was the first person that I'd ever lost. She was also the person who took care of me when I was a baby. I stayed with her until I went to kindergarten. She taught me to do needlework, to woodburn, to love books, and so many other things. I'll never forget seeing her gasping for breath. She'd had half a lung removed in an effort to get the cancer.

I lost my mother's father and my mother's mother to it. I lost a beloved cat to it. Now, the shadow is back. Another pet, a dog we've had for 10 years, has it.

I hate cancer. I hate the stealthiness of it. It's a vicious, backstabbing sort of disease. How horrible that your own body can betray you. How nightmarish that cancer can stroke you with its bony, putrified finger and the future can shrink from years and retirement to day-by-day. I wish with all my soul that I had been given the wisdom and the intelligence to be a part of the fight against it. I see it as a physical presence, a living, sentient thing. I want to take up a sword and hack at it.

One of my biggest fears is that I'll develop it. I don't want to die that way. I had rather whatever happens be quick, a snap of the fingers and a transition from this world to the next. I don't think I'm strong enough to die by inches. I remember watching my grandparents, and they were all so strong. They had time to make their peace with the disease, to say goodbye, and to take care of the things that were most important to them.

They thought I might have cancer once. I had surgery, and once they checked what they removed, they found that it wasn't. Ever since, when I go to the doctor or have a twinge in my side, I think about it. I remember driving home from tests that showed the original problem and the Chris Rice "Time Means So Much" being on the radio. I had to pull to the side of the road. The meaning of the song seemed crafted for that one moment in my life.

Now, as we try to take care of our sick pet, all these issues are coming back again. It may seem trivial to some, but for us, it's another battle with the monster.

The Friend I Lost

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.
Francis Bacon

I had a dream last night about the friend I lost. It was actually not so much about her as it was a bizarre collage of memories and daily trivia. Japan was mixed in, as it almost always is, and a person who was a friend in high school. At the end, the person from high school morphed into my missing friend, and I woke up feeling sad again.

I met her in graduate school. Being in a small department means you have classes with all the same people. We started and finished at the same time and worked together teaching at the university. We discovered an affinity for chili cheese dogs, kitsch, and old movies. I went to Japan and she stayed, but after my first year, she was looking for a job, the Japanese university was looking for a teacher, and she came to Japan. She had the apaato under mine and we had a great time. We'd go shopping at the 100 yen store and enjoy the wonderfully, cheerfully tacky stuff in the shops at the train station.

After Japan, we communicated about twice, and suddenly, all communication stopped. The horrible part is that I don't know why. It's not like we had a big fight. I don't know what happened. I think about it often. Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong? What could it have been? I know I was late sending a birthday present, but would that cause a person to end a friendship?

Maybe I was wrong about the strength of the friendship. Maybe it was one of those things that meant more to me than it did to her. I counted her as one of my very best friends, and trusted her with things very few other people know. She knew not just the public person, but also the flawed, cracked clay pot under the glaze. Maybe, ultimately, the imperfections were more than she could tolerate.

I have tried at least three times to contact her. I've emailed several different people who knew us both, but nobody seems to know anything. I guess I must have somehow done something horrible. I just wish I knew what it was. I keep hoping that one day I'll open my inbox and find a letter from her telling me about her life in the interval, or simply telling me to go to perdition. Anything would be better than the horrible, incomprehensible communication vacuum I'm currently in.

Very simply, I miss my friend. A part of me has been wounded and I don't know why. If ever you read this, my friend, I wish you'd give me the chance to know what it was that I did and a chance to put it right.

The Potential for Evil

Never write a letter while you are angry. ~Chinese Proverb

Something happened this afternoon and I got angry. I don't mean I was hacked off, I mean the red haze came down, the hackles stood on end, the teeth bared, and, had the object of my ire been handy, I probably would have done a considerable deal of damage.

It was no trivial matter. I don't get really angry over trivia. It takes quite a lot to really make me literally see red. Of course, like anyone else, I get irritated, but I learned a long time ago to keep the leash on the starving attack dog of my true anger. Someone I love very much had an injustice committed against them, and if I could rush to this person's defense and do some good, I would.

It has always scared me that something that powerful and dark lives inside. Maybe I come by it honestly. My heritage is Irish and Apache. If you go back to the bizarre genetic race heritage theories, I guess maybe I get my temper and my poetry from them. I don't buy that too much, though.

It passed through me like an evil wind, and now I'm tired beyond description. Where does that darkness come from? Do we carry it around in us all the time like a deep well full of horror movie monsters? How do we kill it off and purify the flow? I don't have all the answers, just more questions and what feels like sandbags beneath my eyes. I think it's time for a shower and bed.

Geekdom

Whatever the reason, being a nerd, a geek, a dork - whatever you want to call the tragically unhip - is becoming a source of pride. BellSouth News

Look, I'm ahead of the curve again. I saw this article today in my lunchtime news browsing, and I had to laugh. How quaint that the feeling I've had all my life of not quite fitting, of seeing things through a different lens, is now the fashion of the day.

I don't know how many of you out there have ever been a geek, but I have never really wanted to be any other thing, at least not seriously. To me, it was never a matter of labeling myself as this or that. I just tried to pursue the things that I liked, and devil take the hindmost. Isn't that supposed to be what life's all about?

And who decides what is cool or worthy of attention anyway? Hasn't it ever struck anyone as odd that the "cool" things are almost always addictive or self-destructive? Why is that?

Back to the concept of Geekdom, I have to admit that I'm looking for a geek to date/marry. I could never get serious about someone who allowed the outside world to dictate what he liked. I want a man who knows why Tom Baker was the best Dr. Who EVER. I would love a guy who collects PEZ, likes to spend a long time in bookstores because HE READS, and doesn't mind having bizarre and abstract debates late at night. He may have had a D&D character, even. Unfortunately, my consort, the Geek King, doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight. :(

I was glad to see in the article that perhaps for a short time anyway, teenagers are feeling free to be themselves. I don't know how long it will last, but Viva la Geek!

Nothing to Say

Sorry about last night. There was just nothing I needed to say. I have been so tired lately that all I ever want to do is sleep.

Today was okay. The kids are starting to come out of their comatose states. Some of them are showing signs of life, anyway. The AP kids took their first reading test today. You could practically smell the desperation. Now, the desperation is on my end with the grading.

The afternoon turned into a crap fest, though. We just got an LCD projector for our department. It's going to be my little friend and live in my classroom. It's GREAT...but my classroom computer is so crappy that it won't run it. I'm going to have to figure something out for that. Maybe I can convince somebody to donate one. I am going to write some letters and see what happens.

That in and of itself was merely frustrating. The true crap began when I went to the local Sprint store to try to get a new battery for my phone. Talk about singularly unhelpful. Had they degrees in being not helpful, I don't think they could have done a better job. I waited a good 30 minutes in line only to be told that they couldn't answer any of my questions OR help me get a replacement battery. I was exceedingly pissed. I was given a phone number and dismissed so the person at the desk could continue to flirt.

I called the number on the way home, wrangled with the world's most annoying invention, the automated help line with a smarmy, unctuous voice, and almost had several wrecks before finally getting connected to the sales department. It was so bad it brought out a small church steeple in the other lane (see previous postings). It was the first steeple I'd seen in some time, but as bad as the day had turned, I was also looking over my shoulder for a tank or a load of fire hydrants.

Well, I need to get some stuff done and go to bed. Tomorrow will come early whether I'm prepared or not. Groan....

Taking Care of the Minimum

No quote tonight.

I went to bed very early last night. I was more tired than I had realized and slept for about 12 hours. I felt rested this morning for the first time in weeks.

I spent the day cleaning up messes. I had stuff stacked everywhere, and I couldn't even see my dining table. It was full of paperwork and souvenirs from the trip. I sorted, round-filed, and stored until I had two bags of trash, a clean table, and my office reassembled and functional.

I don't know why it always takes me so long to do this stuff. I already feel better because the space doesn't scream "crap pile" every time I walk through the room. It's horrible to see a big pile of unresolved mess when you come in the door every day.

I did laundry, mowed grass, cleaned up the kitchen...basically, I did what the title says. I took care of the minimum number of things necessary to keep the house from falling in or looking like white trash lives here. There's still a lot to do, but at least I got the stuff that's several months old taken care of. ;) Off to finish cleaning....

Hummingbirds and Hydrogen Bombs

Including those initially listed as missing or who died afterward from a loosely defined set of bomb-related ailments, including cancers, Hiroshima officials now put the total number of the dead in this city alone at 237,062. -- MSNBC 8.5.05

I spent some time this evening sitting on my front porch petting my dog. I am home so little that I don't get to spend much time with him. He's a lap-sized dog, and it was pleasant to sit out in the cool of the evening on my porch in a rocking chair.

While I was out, the hummingbirds were furiously buzzing around the feeder I have in my rose bed. I guess there were about five of them, and they dipped and swirled, fussing at the top of their tiny lungs. One of them had decided that he was the sole ruler of the six-seat feeder, and he wasn't allowing anybody else to have any of the sugar water inside.

I never really knew hummingbirds fought like that. I always think of them as fragile creatures. They seem to be so tiny; they must be almost glass-like, ready to shatter at the slightest blow. The aggressive little birds poked each other with their beaks and became so involved in their combat that they almost crashed to the ground before one of them broke and fled.

Something about that scene was so metaphorical to me. How much of the current strife in the world is caused by someone hoarding plenty? How many times do people destroy in their single-minded goal for possession?

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I did not go to Hiroshima when I was in Japan. It was a conscious choice. Just thinking about the magnitude of pain and death that happened in moments and the suffering that continued and continues for generations makes me weep.

It's just another instance of humanity's seemingly endless well of cruelty and terrible skill at creating new methods of destruction. Like the hummingbird at the feeder, we are so good at pushing away and keeping out when we should be sharing. I can't help but wonder how much longer it's going to be before this spiral of battle and fighting causes us all to crash to the ground.

Deer in the Headlights

Every beginning is weak. -- Celtic Proverb

Today was the first day of a new school year. It was strange to have been there at the beginning and be prepared. The last few years of my teaching life have been start-late-fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants experiences. Today, my room was set up and all the elements were in place. It was nice.

My tenth graders had the distinctive, vacant-eyed, deer in the headlights expression today. They said almost nothing, and hardly even moved. I suppose the shock of a new environment had incapacitated them. Don't worry. It won't last. The new will wear off quickly and then we'll see what they're really made of.

The AP classes were another matter altogether. One class is boisterous and the other is more subdued. I think they're both going to be great fun. They, too, were shell-shocked, but not by environment. Course expectations were what struck them between the eyes. I wonder if any of them will bail on the class.

Well, tonight, too will be short. I'm very tired and tomorrow will be another long day. Sigh. Maybe over the weekend I can get the grass mowed and make my house look something like a house again.

The Day Before School

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
Victor Hugo

Today has been a very long day. It started with a meeting at our vocational school, progressed to a horrible test results review, and concluded with me working way too late. Right now, the copier is humming in the background, and I am craving my bed.

Tomorrow will be the first day with kids. I am looking forward to it, but I'm not sure how prepared I am. I never feel prepared for the first day. I could have a script memorized, but I still wouldn't feel adequately prepared.

I've gotten several complements on my classroom, and I am not worried on that account. Mostly, I never know whether or not I have enough stuff for us to do. I hate it when there are 5 or 10 minutes at the end where everybody is just staring at each other. It's also bad if there's too much and something gets left off or rushed. Pacing on the first day is just problematic.

This is going to be very short because I need to prep some more stuff for tomorrow. Suffice it to say, I'm alive and getting ready for tomorrow.

Teeth

Trips to the dentist - I like to postpone that kind of thing.
Johnny Depp


After a long day of preparation for Thursday, I went to the dentist to have my two invisible cavities drilled and filled. This is a fairly new event for me. Until this year, I had no fillings of any kind. I don't know if genetics, diet, or obsessive brushing protected me for so long, but I enjoyed my "perfect record."

My dentist is quite good. The most uncomfortable moment is when he gives me the shots to deaden my gums. I hate needles, and even the sight of one hovering that close to my mouth gets me very, very tense.

It all took less than 30 minutes. It's amazing how fast something like tooth drilling and reconstruction takes now. Granted, these were sort of pre-cavities, so I'm guessing they weren't very deep. However, I seem to remember such things taking a lot longer for other friends and my family who've had cavities in the past.

My dentist also made a point of telling me that these fillings would be white, so if I looked, I probably wouldn't see anything. Hmmm....several centuries of dentistry, and they just now got around to making them white? Why didn't this occur to somebody before?

There's really not much else to tell about today. I have some other stuff that I may get to in another post, but that's it for now. Now, I'm going to bed so I can get up for another day of fun, fun, fun. At least now I'm dentally sound. :)

Old Movies

I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.
Bette Davis

When I got home today, a treat awaited me. I had ordered a used copy of All About Eve from amazon.com (oh, how I love used DVD's) and it arrived. I popped it in and am watching the story unfold. Even though I know how it will end (I've seen it a million times), I am still gripped by the performance.

I love old movies. It seems as if the characters were so much stronger then. I don't know why. Maybe it's because the actors were different somehow. Most of them had such forceful (euphemism, anyone) personality off screen that perhaps their performances were flavored by it. So many of them must have been fascinating to know. Difficult, vain, primadonnas, and real jackasses, but probably fascinating to know.

Some of my favorite movies are All About Eve, Some Like It Hot, Singin' In the Rain, and Sunset Boulevard. Two are silly, and two are serious. I am trying to build a collection of my favorites, but, in truth, I can watch almost any old movie.

Some of my favorites are seasonal. For Halloween, I like Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte or House of Wax (the original, not the crappy new one). Another really scary b/w film is the original The Haunting of Hill House. It's based on a Shirley Jackson story and even though there are no mega special effects, the tension is fifty times greater than that awful remake of a few years ago. I scared myself silly with that one on a summer night when I was staying in the dorm by myself.

When I was in grad school, the film studies department at that university offered a series of free screenings of classic films. I got to see Casablanca from film just as it would have been shown in the theater. They showed a great selection every year. It was great to go in and sit in the dark with people who also liked those great old films and just enjoy.

Another of my favorite old movie memories happened when I was very young. The town near us has one of those enormous, elaborate movie palaces built in the 20's. It has a theater organ that has been restored, and to celebrate the completion of the renovation, they brought in an organist from the state capital and showed the original silent version of The Phantom of the Opera. It was spellbinding. Maybe that's when my love of old films began. There was an intermission with a sing along. They also showed a serial and a news reel. I was captivated. They've never done it again, but every year I hope for the magic to come back.

Those movie palaces were built to transport people away from their normal world. I love that. As you may already know, I am a big proponent of fantasy. Today's theaters don't really transport me anywhere, nor do the films they show. I guess that's one reason why I don't go very often. I'd much rather be in a place like the Orpheum in Memphis watching their organist rise up out of the pit in his white tux with tails and see something truly funny like Some Like It Hot on the big screen. Maybe if I can build up enough of a collection here at home, I can capture some tiny sparks of that feeling to revisit from the comfort of my couch.

Loose Ends and New Beginnings

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.
John Galsworthy

I skipped the reunion. I have very little guilt about this, either. It was raining, tomorrow is work, bright and early, and I had to go buy this month's groceries. There was only one possible circumstance under which I'd have regretted not going, and I don't think that particular event was a possibility.

Tomorrow is the official beginning of the new school year. I've been to the school to work registration and to decrapify (won't spell check have a good time with that word) my room. Tomorrow, though, is the first time everybody will be back together since the bitterness at the end of last year.

I saw one of my teacher friends when I went to fix the paycheck problem earlier in the week. He told me again to focus on how much I am looking forward to teaching the class and forget about the rest of it. I am going to do my level best to do this. I am so excited about the class that I think I can put up with most of the other silliness.

While I was out buying stuff for the month, I bought two large frames for the two Walter Anderson prints I bought at the beginning of the summer. I hung them with another of the same series (his alphabet woodcuts) and now have my initials across the wall of my library/sun room. For some reason, it was important to me to get those hung before the school year started. It feels completed somehow.

Another thing I took care of was getting a copier for the house. I've been wanting one for a long time, but they've been too expensive and I've been too broke. This year, with the help of Mom and Dad, I got a small one. It also does faxes, so now I don't have to run around looking for one whenever paperwork has to go in. I really like that.

This is the ending of summer and the beginning of another school year. For the first time in a long time, I'm looking forward to seeing how this one is going to go. If nothing else, going back to school will undoubtedly get my mind off "the guy"....

HGTV Junkie

"You should see...what's on HGTV" -- commercial tagline, HGTV

As you can tell from the quote, tonight's post will be light and fluffy. I haven't done any light and fluffy in awhile, and even though I am still turning some pretty heavy stuff over in my mental rock tumbler, I am tired of writing about it. Therefore, I have chosen a topic which can't possibly turn into angst: HGTV.

I have an addiction to watching HGTV. I love to watch people transform their houses. My favorite shows are Design Remix, Design on a Dime, and Decorating Cents. There are about a hundred other shows, but I don't really watch them that much.

As I've said in other posts, I live in an old house. The last remodel on it was done in the mid-70s, so I have lots of orangy carpet and light colored pine paneling. Fortunately, my Granny was a lady with vision and taste, and I also have a fairly open floor plan. The original house had lots of tiny little rooms, but she did away with lots of walls so the living space, kitchen, and dining area all flow together.

Also previously pointed out, I teach and therefore have NO money ever. This makes overhauling my house problematic at best. I would like to rip out all the paneling and put up sheet rock. I'd love to have hardwood floors and some carpet that is younger than I am. I really want one of those deep spa jet tubs in my bathroom and something other than the faux marble patterned cabinet tops. I want the ceilings raised and plastered. I have a whole list of things I want to accomplish.

However, since I have no money, no help, and very little experience with construction and power tools, I mostly work on small changes right now. I have repainted my office and am planning to put in some shelves a la Mission Organization. I have used baskets for storage per the advice of Design on a Dime, and, although it's not really an HGTV show, Clean Sweep has inspired me to sort, file, and discard.

The shows give me inspiration. They also help me feel like big changes are possible even if I don't have professional assistance or lots of money. They make me feel that I can continue to make my house more and more my home. I love them for that.
Very few things make me feel as good as finishing one of my little projects and seeing that part of my house come together to reflect my personality and be a welcoming space for others. My house is probably my most important sanctuary.

Working on the house also makes me feel tied to my grandmother. It seemed she was always redoing things. My cousins and I used to move furniture for her all the time. She was always redesigning the front guest bedroom or sewing new drapes. I guess maybe I got this urge to rearrange my nest from her. It makes me feel that she'd approve whenever I finish a project and it comes out well.

For all these reasons, I enjoy HGTV. I may not be able to make my room look as good as they do after an episode of Design Remix, but I always feel inspired. Instead of looking around at my house and seeing limitations and dated furnishings, I see potential and ways to go from 70's blah to "retro". Long live HGTV and their happy, smiling, kind hosts and hostesses. Long live all of us who are trying to make juice with the fruits we've been given. (I won't call my house a lemon, but you know what I mean....)

Competency

"When in panic, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." -- Robert Heinlein

I got up this morning, and it was that most magical of days, "Pay Day." I came to my trusty computer and checked my bank balance to make sure my direct deposit went through. Just routine, right? Oh no. Nothing in my world is ever routine.

The money wasn't there. Few words in the English language will curdle the stomach like those four. I went to the central office to pick up the deposit voucher and I asked about it thinking perhaps I had the day wrong and the deposit wouldn't go through until tonight. No, no. It's supposed to be there.

I looked at my voucher and realized that my bank account number was off by one number. This is month two of my direct deposit, so how did I get my money last month? Apparently, my nice bank had sorted out their end and notified the central office that there was a problem. Our CO, of course, did nothing about it.

The upshot of all this is that my money was found, and the number problem is supposedly fixed, but my question remains. If you were in charge of making sure someone's meager, once-a-month paycheck arrived so they could pay bills, buy rice, or whatever, don't you think you'd try to be a little more on it? Don't you think you'd double check the account numbers, and if the bank sent a letter, don't you think you'd try to fix it?

I don't make very much. I am a teacher in Mississippi. We make less than EVERYBODY. By the time I get my paycheck, I am usually out of groceries and have college loan collection agents breathing down my neck. Forgive me if I get a little stressed out when my money isn't there when I need it. A little competency would go a long, long way towards making life less stressful.

Maintenance Required?

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.
Henri Frederic Amiel

I went to get my hair trimmed today. As I was sitting in the salon, I watched the little dramas unfolding around me. Every time I go, it feels like I've stepped into a Eudora Welty story. It's a great place if you are a person who appreciates the absurd.

So many of the women who float through the cloud of hairspray are divas. The whole world turns around them. It's interesting to watch the various orbits collide within the small space.

Watching these high maintenance women clash sent my mind back to a conversation that happened very late during the trip I went on recently. Two of the other adults and I were sitting around and for some reason we started talking about relationships. I don't know why that happened. We were obviously up past that magical time at which the conversation always heads off in weird directions.

The premise put forward was that guys are more attracted to high maintenance women. I don't remember the reason why, exactly. I guess they're all sparkly or something. Today, that flashed back to me, and I wondered again why it's true.

I have a friend whom I dearly love, and who will tell you herself that she is high maintenance. When we were growing up, she charmed and captivated about 90% of the guys we met. When we went to summer camp, she always had more guys interested in her than the rest of us combined. I always wondered how she did it.

I am not a sparkly-high-maintenance kind. I have always been the quiet one in the back of the group. I am vastly uncomfortable in parties where I don't know anybody. I am the world's least accomplished flirt. I am the Queen of Geekdom who was always interested in history, computers, sci-fi, and books. This is not to say that I never had any contact with guys, but by and large, I was blessed with guy friends, not boyfriends.

Part of me kind of regrets this. Not the guy friends, mind you. I was really blessed with some great friendships BECAUSE I was (and still am) Geek Queen. I regret not being a little more sparkly. What would my life have been like if I had decided to be a Diva and not a Geek? Would I have cut a swath through the male population like I've seen some of them do? Would I be happier now?

As the aging divas pranced around today, I looked at my life sort of like one of those old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novels. Would I have chosen differently if I could do it again? To be honest, though, I don't think I'd go back and try to be high maintenance. I can't understand why a guy would want a girl who treats him like crap. (Not that this is a phenomenon solely of the male of the species, but that's a different topic.) I couldn't hurt somebody deliberately and then think they deserved it. People deserve respect. If I like somebody, then I don't want to play stupid games and screw with his head on purpose. Games bore me. They take away from the truth of things, and isn't what's true more important in the end?

On the other hand, maybe we're all high maintenance under the surface. Maybe I am high maintenance, but in a quieter way. After all, I do have very strong preferences for things that I don't mind telling people about. In my old age, I've gotten much more outspoken. I have a temper that is the stuff of legend. It takes a long time and a lot of crap to set it off, but God help the bystanders when it wakes up. I get grumpy and moody and need personal space. Are these high maintenance traits, or just the traits of a poet? Are poets and divas the same thing? Maybe I can be the first Geek Diva. ;) Somehow, I doubt the guys will be lining up for THAT combination....

The Things that Divide

No quote. I'm too lazy to look one up.

I spent most of today reading and relaxing. Tomorrow, I have to get into the school work grind, so today was my "last day of freedom." I should have been cleaning, but I stayed up too late last night, and it threw my whole schedule off.

The news says the British authorities think they've caught one of the people responsible for the recent failed bomb attempts. I hope so. It would be refreshing for a person to be caught for this. I don't mean that as any sort of criticism of the authorities world-wide who are hunting these terrorists. It just seems like they melt into the shadows, and like the rabid vermin that they are, escape through dime-sized holes. Wouldn't it be great if they found all of them? I know that wouldn't solve the problem nor deter future attacks, but those four would be caught.

Also today, Mom stopped by on her way home from her weekly get-together with her group of retired teacher-friends. It made me so happy to see her happy and laughing. She hasn't been this way in years, it seems. School had become a burden for her, I think. I guess it happened slowly. The little things went by the wayside, but now she's rediscovering them.

I see the same thing happening in the my life and the lives of my friends. We are still trying so hard to get together and do things, but gradually, we're becoming so overwhelmed with jobs, kids, and other things that we see very little of each other. It's amazing how much there seems to be to be done during the course of a day. I have to go to work, prep lessons, clean up messes from me and my cats, buy groceries, try to get to the gym, and a million other daily trivialities. All this, and I don't even have kids or a husband added into that mix!

These things are important, but do we have to lose everything else? Is there no way to make space for the friend stuff, too? Is this just the way of the world? Maybe it's a part of growing up. If so, as I have said before, growing up sucks.

Some of the separation also comes because most of my very best friends live at least 90 minutes away from me. However, I hardly ever see the ones who live 5 minutes away, either, so that's not the whole explanation. If it weren't for church, I might never see anybody except the people I work with and my immediate family.

Something has to be done about this. I don't want to have to wait until retirement to rediscover my friends. I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'll try to think of something. One change I know I can make is to try to get our supper club back together. It sort of fell apart during the spring, but now maybe we can revitalize it now that everyone will be back in the school year schedule.

I have to find some balance. That's the trick, though, right?

Little Victories of Organization

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau

I spent today cleaning stuff out of my kitchen. It amazes me how fast things pile up in corners. Clutter seems like it must be a member of the mushroom family, springing up in the dark and growing with stealthy rapidity.

Two more boxes of stuff are ready to go to the local charity store and I feel an almost ridiculous calm. I sorted forks, weeded out old dishes, and forced myself to do something about the vast amounts of plastic storage containers that fall out of the cabinet every time I open the door. I created a drawer near the phone where the phone book can hide. I kicked clutter-butt.

One thing about living here in this old house is that there is always more stuff to go through. There's my stuff, there are the things that were left after my grandmother passed, and there are the things that no one seems to be clear on exactly where they came from. I have been trying to get everything cleaned out for years. I didn't get many of my projects done this summer, but I'm finally getting motivated again. I guess if you watch enough HGTV, sooner or later the subliminal messages sponsored by Lowe's and the Home Depot sink in to the most reluctant of viewers. :)

I have plans to work on my office again soon. I need payday to come and then I want to make it a workable space. Right now, it's a run in and dump space, but I need somewhere that's not my living room where I can have all my school and computer stuff together. I think with some shelves, it will be a lot more functional.

I also want to reclaim the room that's currently being used as a storage room for a guest bedroom. Once I get it done, the entire back of the house can be like a guest suite with its own bathroom and sitting room. It used to be a bedroom, but when I moved in, it turned into a boxroom and I've never gotten everything sorted. I think most of what's in there could be sent away. Maybe I'll get very motivated tomorrow and start the process of going through that room. There's a LOT of stuff back there, though. I wish Clean Sweep would show up. That way, I know I'd get it done.

I know cleaning seems like a stupid thing to blog about, but I have always admired the Thoreau quote above. When I lived in Japan, I fell in love with the clean spaces of traditional Japanese homes. There weren't a lot of knicknacks or piles of stuff around. It made the few pieces that were on display so much more meaningful. I know most Japanese women stay home and maintain the home, so maybe that's how they keep the clutter from overwhelming them, but I want my spaces to be that serene.

Admittedly, I have a lot of stuff. I have a Japanese maneki neko collection of about 50 pieces, not to mention the tons of books around. I don't think I'll ever attain the zen ideals I saw abroad. However, I'm going to keep trying to apply Thoreau's advice to my house and my life in general and see if I can't have a little more sanity with everything.

Oh well, back to it....

This and That

I made the mistake of going to school today. As it turned out, it was actually a good thing I did. After waxing my floors, they had just sort of thrown furniture in and shut the door. Mom had come with me, and after three hours, we got it sorted again. I HATE it when people mess with my little kingdom.

The room is almost ready to go. I still have quite a lot of paperwork to generate and photocopy, but I feel pretty good, all things considered. Of course, this is the point when when things fall out from under the feet....

I took several postcards and some other things I'd bought on the trip to my room today. Looking at them again and placing them really brought back some parts of it. I still can't get over how much we saw and did in those 21 days. A lot of it, whether it's because of stress, jetlag, or causes undiscovered, feels almost dreamlike now, but that always happens after travel.

I still want to go back. Looking at the postcards of Bath, I realized how little time we wound up with there. It looked like such a charming city, but we were on a schedule. I'd like to go and spend a couple of days there. Jane Austen wrote of it frequently, and there's a museum dedicated to her there. I also would like to see the baths themselves again when I wasn't totally distracted and disgusted with behavioral issues. I was so tired and distracted when we went through that it's mostly a blur.

Right now, even though I just got home, I have itchy travel feet again. It's because it's a period of change. Once I get "in harness" for the year, I'll settle down. Right now, though, I feel like I could fly off in any direction. Although I never liked Mary Poppins at all, I sort of envy her that umbrella. It must be nice to unfurl it into a likely breeze and fly away.

I get like this whenever there's something I can't resolve. I'm still turning the unresolved issue of the sweet guy over and over in my mind. You'd think it would round off the sharp edges, kind of like a rock in a tumble polisher. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that way. It just keeps stabbing me at odd moments and making me want to pack camera, "adventure girl" hat, and run off somewhere to take my mind off it.

Soon enough, school will dominate all, and maybe I'll have five minutes of peace from it. In the meantime, I'm going to spend as much time as possible making stuff for school and gathering my resources. I WILL beat this thing. I always have in the past, and I will this time, too. There's no other option when there's no hope of any other conclusion.

A Day of Reading

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main... and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.
Walt Disney


Long quote, short post...probably....

I spent most of the day ripping through the Harry Potter book I mentioned yesterday. I finished it about 30 minutes ago. It was very good, but I can't help but feel sad. Those of you who have read it and give a crap will understand why. Feel free to drop me a line and we can discuss it. I don't want to be one of those irritating people who give away stuff on their website.

I love the sheer indulgence of spending a whole day with a book. During the school year, I don't have time to do it much, but I usually wind up spending a big part of my summers devouring books. I didn't get to do much of that this summer between one thing and another, but I've read several things over the past few days and I feel less deprived. :) There's still a healthy stack of books to be read in my sunroom-cum-library, but I don't know how many more I'll be able to do in the near future.

While I was reading, I listened to my favorite Sunday night radio shows, Echoes and Hearts of Space on NPR. I have listened to those for years. That ambient stuff is good for reading because it doesn't distract. When I was in high school, they played several hours of it every Sunday night. Now, I think they only do about two hours of it. I miss it.

Well, that's all for tonight. Nothing deep or profound. Just a peaceful day with a good book.

Lucidity

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


The haze of medicine is finally lifting, and today, I almost felt like myself. There is still a hint of oddness around the edges, and my endurance is low in the heat, but I guess I must have finally turned a corner. Hallelujah! I don't think I could have taken much more of it.

I've spent most of today preparing syllabi and other documents for the upcoming year. I have gone all out and made a syllabus for my AP class much like one I'd have given my IEP students at Indiana or my Aidai students in Japan. I love the fact that I can return to that very frank style of instruction where I don't have to pull punches (much).

I had been craving salmon for no readily apparent reason, so I went out and bought some. It was my first attempt at cooking it, but I think it came out okay. I made a guestimation marinade and there was enough of everything to give Mom and Dad some for their dinner, too. It was nice.

While I was at the store, I saw a copy of the new Harry Potter, and I splurged. I really don't buy hardbacks that much. In fact, I think the only books I buy in hardback are reference or HP. I know lots of people scorn the entire series, but it's so creative and every book has been getting better and better. I am really looking forward to stealing some time in the next few days to rip through it. People can laugh all they like, but I find it entertaining. After all, isn't that the point of reading? Actually, I may get up on a soapbox about the purpose of reading one evening in the near future, but tonight, I'm kind of wiped out.

One last note, and then off to bed. I can't stop thinking about this one guy that I met recently. Last night when the meds and the moonlight coming through my window were keeping me up (I never sleep well on the nights of the full moon...no, I don't know why), all I could think about was him. It's driving me crazy. I try to be very stern with myself and realistic. It was not a situation that had any possibility of going anywhere. So why can't I just fold it up and put it away? I have to. There's no other option.

It's so hard for me to know what to think about the whole thing. My instincts about guys are notoriously off. I think there might have been another choice once, but when that moment of choice came, I chose to run like hell. Now, I'll never know. Somebody told me recently that it was better to take the chance than to never know. I have never been comfortable taking that risk. I can recite the cliches against it....the worst they can say is no...you never know until you try...but when I thought there might be the slightest chance that the wonderful sweet guy might have been interested, I folded my tents and slipped away.

I'll probably never see him again. All that's left is the debate within me as to whether or not what I did was a wise protection against pain or an unnecessary sacrifice to the gods of insecurity. I wish with all my heart that there was another chance, some other moment of decision, but the kick of it is that those moments don't come twice. "You pays your money, and you takes your choice...."

I'll be teaching my kids "Carpe Diem" as a theme this year. I believe it to the roots of my being...in every area except for anything that risks my heart. I wish that once, just once, I could put aside my fear of being hurt, and step over the side of that proverbial castle wall (see previous posting) and find out if the harness was going to hold me or not.

This got a lot longer than I planned, but I'm going to leave it as it stands. Maybe if I can keep exploring the truth of this, I can find a way to work through it.

Irritated and Embarrassed

The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate.
Douglas Engelbart


I had to watch as my parents cut my grass today. The antibiotics or some of the other crap I'm taking has made me so sun sensitive that my skin reddens even in the 15 minutes it takes me to drive from town to home. Because of this, my yard has been looking derelict in the extreme.

One of my biggest faults is an inability to take help from other people. I always feel so embarrassed that I can't do it myself. I guess it's a form of egotism like anything else. I feel like I should be able to do it all, and I hate the humbling that comes when I realize that I can't. Maybe I never gave up the idea of being Wonder Woman even though I grew out of my Underoos a long, long time ago.

I guess, once in a while, I need to fall on my face just to be reminded that nobody does it all by themselves. It just irritates me and embarrasses me that I have human weaknesses. I expect too much from myself and I have to find some way of learning to take help with fewer feelings of failure. I am so grateful to my parents for helping me out while I'm sick, but I sure do hope that this crap passes soon so I can don my cape again and head back out into the world.

London Again

The news caught up with me in the waiting room of a hospital lab. I was floating in a haze of weariness and medication and waiting for a totally indifferent lab tech to take several vials of blood from me to run some obscure and possibly meaningless test when I realized what the almost inaudible CNN report was saying.

It wasn't a rehash of two weeks ago and the horrible losses. It was a new attack on London. I flashed back immediately to the gentler of the two security men at Gatwick when we were getting ready to leave England the day after the original attacks. We were talking with a familiarity based soley in the fact that both our nations had been attacked by cowards and extremists, and I remember him saying, "It's not over yet. They'll attack again. It's just beginning."

I hate that we live in a world that proved him right. How is it that life has become so appallingly cheap? Why have we lost the ability to look at another human being, no matter what he or she believes or looks like or speaks, and see him or her as an entity of worth? There is some fundamental part of our humanity that seems on the verge of extinction.

How God must weep when he looks at us. The clever brains he gave us get more and more efficient at creating new ways to cleave and rend our brothers and sisters. Our deft fingers fashion new and more horrible tools of destruction. Why? Why do so many chose the path of hatred?

I can't understand how those suicide bombers could get on their chosen targets, be it a London tube or an American 747, look around them at the parents holding the hands of their children, the young people commuting to work or school, the grandparents traveling to see their families, and believe, even for a moment, that their religion or their politics justifies their actions.

The response to this is going to be the tired and rather convenient old cliche, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Doesn't that just make everything okay? Isn't that just the perfect justification? "In my world view, it's okay for me to kill, so everybody should just get over it." It's crap. The most valuable thing in the whole world is life. It's the one thing we can't simulate or synthesize in the lab. Additionally, how in the world does killing commuters on a London subway forward the cause of liberty or statehood? After all, the whole world backs, nay cherishes, those who randomly, rabidly kill anyone who is handy. Everybody jumps on board to champion, support, and aid those whose goal is to spread terror and hate.

I know I'm an idealist. I claim it and the evitable disappointment that comes with it. I have to believe that we as a species are capable of more. I have to believe that someday we will want more. I have to believe that the majority of the world DOES want more right now. If I don't believe that, I don't think I can go on. I have to believe that the darkness won't win. The day I begin to believe that it will, that there is no way for the dreams of peace and sanity to prevail, is the day that I will become, at least tacitly, a part of the problem.

I'm not a Pollyana. Realistically, I know that I live in an age that will probably see acts much more heinous than those of New York, Madrid, or London. I don't know what the solution is. God didn't give me that wisdom. All I can do is try my best to always "see" the people around me and encourage people in whatever impossibly small way I can to do the same.

Setting the Progression

No quote tonight. I have been asleep off and on during the evening, and don't have the mental acuity to look one up and trust it to be apt.

Another day in the salt mines of registration. I saw many of last year's students getting their stuff together for their junior year. It was pleasant in some cases, not so much in others, about like I expected it to be.

I finally got the progression of works to be studied ironed out, and I was having a good time adding poems to the major works, but I may have taken a larger selection of those than is actually feasible. It's hard for me to pick poems. Give me a good anthology, and I grab greedy fistfuls of them.

I don't know if it's actually possible to have too many of them, but it's probably likely that we won't be able to hack our way through all of them in the course of a year. If you were given a bag full of gems, though, how could you possibly say this flawless stone was worth more than any of the others?

I wish I could teach a class of nothing but poems. How lovely it would be to surround myself with them for an hour everyday and share them, teach others to love their facets and colors. Maybe someday I can do that. Maybe I need to go back to school for a literary PhD and just quit fooling with this other crap. Of course I'd be in the "publish or perish" pool then, and I'm sure that would get old, too. Maybe I just need to go find a tiny house in Costa Rica, Ireland, or Japan, live in abject poverty, write and read.

I'm still on the meds, and I'm still not terribly lucid, so if this doesn't flow, excuse me. I can't wait to finish these darn things. They're making it very hard for me to focus my attention. It's almost like I've been up too long and have drunk too much caffeine. I hate that feeling, especially at this time of the year when I need all my mental faculties around me.

Grow Frickin Up

I had promised myself that tonight would be a one-post, slice-of-life type of night, but after having dinner with some people and finding out some stuff, I was driven to the computer again.

When I was given the AP English position at the end of last year, I knew that some people were surprised, others were angry, and at least one was downright hostile about it. I was very much surprised myself. I never expected to get it so soon after coming to the high school. However, I thought all this was contained within our department and that it would have blown over by now. Apparently not.

I had underestimated what a frickin fishbowl I live in. It seems that it's all over the school how angry certain factions are over this. I've become the center of a stupid melodrama. I am NOT doing this for even a week. Even if I have to take the bull by the horns and talk it out, I just cannot stand this kind of silliness.

Part two of the drama comes from the students who are buzzing about how hard the class might be under me. I'm tired before I've begun. Granted, part of this is just me being sick right now. I got up at 5:00 and I'm ragged out. However, I did not need this today.

I can do this. I really believe I can be a good AP teacher. I am just in a place where I have crap pulling at me before I've even begun. Advice anybody?

Test Results

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. ~Attributed to both Andy McIntyre and Derek Bok

Nothing philosophical tonight, just a slice of life.

I got my test results back for last year's English II exam takers. It was better than I was afraid of, but not as good as I'd dreamed. The scores seemed to bear out the observations I'd made in class. The scores also roughly correlated to the pass/fails in my class which made me feel good. That means my curriculum was pretty well adjusted to the material tested. Overall, even though I see lots of room for improvement, it went okay for my first year.

One small petty note...my worst attitude problem from last year failed every section of the test. I guess I was right. :)

I worked at registration today and met some of my future AP kids. I also got a chance to talk with another first-time AP teacher who's going to be doing AP Chemistry. It was good to compare notes and fears. I have a lot of work to do, but I feel pretty confident about the whole thing. Of course, I think that's the point at which the floor usually falls out from under you, right?

After registration, I went up to my classroom to piddle and get some work done. Imagine my surprise when I found that I couldn't get to my room from 2 of the 4 staircases. They'd removed everything and blocked the stairs in preparation to strip and reseal my floors. Apparently, I have a lot of crap in my room. I guess I won't be able to go up tomorrow, either. I don't know how long it takes to do stuff like that, but I'm guessing it's an all day event.

I really need to get in there, too. I have a lot of work to do, and I can't get much of it done here at home. There are too many distractions here...cats, TV, books I don't have to read for a class, my blog, a soft, sleep-inducing couch.... Maybe I can go in Thursday morning and get stuff squared away.

Well, nothing Pulitzer-worthy tonight. If you tuned in for deep thoughts, you'll have to look elsewhere, ace.