A Good Weekend

Yesterday, my best friend and I went to the Prairie Arts Festival in West Point. It was a great trip. She and I don't get to do much together. She lives near Jackson, and her life as a teacher with a family of husband and three small children pretty much keeps her running all the time. My life is notoriously hectic as well, so we only see each other a few times a year despite the fact that we really don't live that far apart in the global scheme of things.

We decided that despite the impending Gustav-madness, we were going to load up and go see the Prairie Arts Festival. It was an easy drive, only a couple of hours, and we were certainly both familiar with the area from our college days. Driving up, though, was like taking a trip back in time. The closer we got to the Golden Triangle area, the more it felt like we were back in college again.

We shopped and enjoyed the wonderful artists' works at the Festival, and we decided to go to Starkville when we left. I hadn't been to Starkville in a very long time, and I wanted to go see how the campus had changed. Just being there again and seeing how much has been totally removed was surreal. The university I went to is basically no longer there except in ghost images hidden under or behind other buildings. It's not that it's a bad change, but seeing huge gaping holes or new construction where all the dorms of my college experience once stood was a little weird.

The best part of our trip was just the talking. We talked about all kinds of things, some of which went all the way back to college. Old memories, good and bad, floated up, and it was a pleasure to walk through them together. We ate at Lil Dooeys as the capstone on the day and came home.

Even though the trip took the whole day, I feel refreshed. I think we're going to make it an annual thing. Maybe next year we can even get up there in time for the Howlin' Wolf Blues Festival portion of the weekend. Even if we don't get to do it again, though, it was great this year.

Waiting for Gustav

Over one million people have left the New Orleans area and the Gulf Coast. They've already shut down I-59 South and reversed it. All traffic south of Hattiesburg is now northbound. Once again, we're in that weird waiting phase where everything seems to be holding its breath.

I spent most of today preparing the house for whatever of Gustav we're going to get here in Central MS. Supposedly, we're in for heavy rains and some wind, but Katrina is too fresh in my mind, like the minds of so many others. I have everything stripped down from outside, and I bought bottled water, canned foods, and batteries. It may be nothing but a lot of water falling from the sky, but the memories of fourteen days with no electricity are vivid still.

Cruising around Wal-Mart Friday, I noticed that people were in that state of controlled panic. Carts were full of Vienna sausages and crackers. Bottled water and toilet tissue were gone from the shelves as were C and D cell batteries. Flashlights were completely sold out. Fortunately, I had bought most of my "disaster kit" a long time ago. I just needed a few AAA batteries, and I wanted a clip booklight. I remembered that one of the worst parts of Katrina was trying to read by kerosene lantern.

Today, Dad did some small repairs on my roof, and I mowed my grass. I took down all my windchimes and birdfeeders. I tucked my big lawn chair under a secure porch. When I came home, I put the PT Cruiser under my car shed. My banners are down from the mailbox and the big pole in my yard. Except for a few things on the side of my house, I think I'm about as battened down as I can get. All that's left now is to continue to pray.

Self-Reflection

I've been thinking a lot lately about my teaching, about who I am as a teacher and what it means to be one. I've been thinking about what I do and how I do it. This year is a year of great change for my school and my district, so I guess all the snow in the snowglobe has been shaken up thoroughly.

Lately, I have found so much to think about. New approaches, new ideas, new processes seem to surround me this year. It's profoundly hard to go outside my comfort zone so often, but I think it's going to be a good thing for both my students and me in the end. Things that I have done for years in a certain way I now call into question. Are those practices sound? Are they serving my students to the best of my ability?

Today our district brought Ron Clark to speak to us. I hadn't wanted to see him at all. I was expecting something totally unrealistic, someone with his head totally in the clouds, but what I found instead was that he was funny and realistic. I didn't expect that. While I won't be dancing on tables any time soon, I did take some ideas and inspiration from him. It was a good presentation.

This whole year has been like that, crazy and unpredictable. I wonder what we're all going to be like when it's done. If we can survive it, I hope we're going to be better than what we were when it began.

At Last....

...I got to hear my wonderfully-talented friend's recital. He played at the Kennedy Center, so it was broadcast and archived online. I, not having any form of network TV and no local channels through my little satellite, missed the actual broadcast, but I did just sit down and watch it online through the Kennedy Center's website. You can watch it yourself if you want to by clicking here.

I've known this friend since I was in graduate school at Indiana, and his abilities never cease to amaze me. One of my favorite things during my time there was to hear him play anything. I often said that I would have been happy living in a shoebox under his piano, even if all he ever played was "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." This recital is one he'd told me about a long time ago, and trust me, it's well worth your time to listen to it. It, like everything else he does, is truly fabulous.

I wish I lived closer to where he is so I could go hear him live. I love to watch him play. He plays with such passion. It's expressed in every aspect of his expression and his body. In a way, though, this medium had things to recommend it, too, because the camera followed his hands so much.

The music he played in this recital is all Brazilian. It was lovely, and there are a few pieces that I wish I had recordings of, or at least had recording of his performances of, anyway. I can't exactly describe what it is about those particular pieces that drew me; probably it was the melancholy nature he talked about. I tend to gravitate toward minor keys and that thread of sadness and longing in music, anyway. It is what draws me toward the blues and to many of the artists whose music I buy repeatedly, so likely it's what I find compelling here as well.

He lectured some between the pieces and gave their history and interpretation, which added a lot to the performance, but also made me smile since I haven't seen him or talked to him in any way other than by email or FaceBook in a very long time. It was good to hear his voice and see him again, even if it was just a one-way thing. I'm glad he's doing so well. More than just about anybody I know, he deserves it.

Maybe This Is The Problem With Committees

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton

Interesting Distinction

A nerd is someone whose life revolves around computers and technology. A geek is someone whose life revolves around computers and technology, and likes it!
-- as seen on a Crackberry.com post signature

I am such a geek. I always have been. Not just by this definition, either, although I do fit this one. I even have a pair of tiny studs that say geek. I found them in some accessory shop somewhere, and they are one of my prized possessions. I think they're too small for anybody to read unless they're way, way too far into my personal space for my comfort, but I get a kick out of wearing them.

An example of my geekdom came today. I spent several very happy hours this afternoon cruising blueroomsolutions.com and nancydrewthemes.com getting some very savage new themes for my beloved BlackBerry (who I have named Onesimus, meaning "Useful" and hoping it's not sacrilegious since it's a biblical name) as well as finding old friends on FaceBook and playing a new hellishly-addictive game on there called Scramble. Technology is fun. :) I don't mind being a geek. I figure everybody has to have fun somehow, and this at least keeps me off the streets and out of jail....

Machine Curse

This title comes from an old game "back in the day." I can't even remember which one. It was something you could do to another player to make everything in his army turn to absolute crap. Well, I think somebody has done it to me. I am having a run of the worst luck imaginable. I am almost afraid to go outside.

Early in the week, I found out that several things at school had gone to crap unexpectedly. I think they can be fixed fairly easily, but they were the sort of little twists that were just unlucky.

When the insurance adjuster came out to look at my roof Thursday, it turns out that the people who put it on three years ago either didn't know or didn't care what they were doing. Therefore, I have no insurance coverage for the damages inside, and I'm also going to have to have a roofer come out and redo part of the roof to prevent the problem from recurring. I just wanted to sit down and cry. Why is that so many people in this world seem dedicated to no other proposition than "take the money and run?" (No offense to Steve Miller or his band...)

The rest of Thursday was a crapfest of lost items precious to me, jamming copying machines, and pin pricks small and great. Yesterday, I mostly hid here at home in hopes that the Machine Curse would leave me alone. I went to Red Field to relax, and Mom and Dad were going to come up and bring food so we could enjoy the unseasonably cool weather with a dinner before school gets rolling. The next thing I knew, they were calling to tell me that they'd had a major tireshredding blowout on their way up. The tires were brand new. My Machine Curse is spreading. It's scary.

This morning, I got up and let Roux out for her early morning bathroom break, and as I was leading her around the backyard on her leash, I glanced toward my dilapidated barn only to see that it has finally fallen down. I don't know if the Machine Curse gets the credit for that one. The Machine Curse really wouldn't have had to work very hard for that one; one good push would have brought it down.

I am hoping that all this bad luck is cycling out or at least is getting ready for something big and good on the horizon. I keep thinking that we've got to be getting to the end of of this particular tunnel soon. Since I'm going to have to go to the bank and refinance a mortgage to take care of it, the Machine Curse should be propitiated by that. That is, after all, the modern day version of a blood sacrifice, is it not? It will be for me, anyway....

Life Rafts and Tidal Waves

I worked registration the past two days, and it never ceases to amaze me how rude people can be to others over things that are nothing. I got "cussed at" more times than I can count because our district now requires two forms of proof for residency verification or because a student was on a list for old fees and could not therefore start registration until the proof of residency was shown or the fee was cleared. For this, people were willing to be obscene. I didn't do it. I didn't make the policy. I didn't even want to have to be the one to tell them, but they surely too it out on me. I hate that.

These were parents of juniors and seniors who have all had students at our school for years. That means that the process of registration is well-known to them, except of course for the new residency requirements. They know that getting through the entire process from Old Fees to Book Pick-Up and final form sign-off can take as long as two hours at peak times. However, every year, we have parents who come in and act as though they should be able to sail through in fifteen minutes. They act as though we have a personal vendetta against them and are trying to deprive them of their livelihood because we can't forward them to the front of a line of three hundred or so other people who have all been waiting in the heat just as they have. They get angry when we tell them that they have to be with their student to complete the forms, that they can't just kick their kid out of the car with a blank check and go. If it were the first time around, I could understand, but if your child has been with us three years.....

It's over for me now, thank God. I only work seniors and juniors. I leave the sophomores, who are coming in for the first time, and the new students and makeup day to cooler heads than my own. I need the rest of this last precious week to recover and rest up. Next week starts our staff development, and then we'll be back in harness for the long haul of our new year with all our new plans and designs in place. I'm excited to see how it goes and am hoping for a great good year.

One good thing from yesterday was seeing my friend. He'd been on a trip to see some of his girlfriend's family in California, and he brought me a gift. It was so sweet of him to think of me, and although I didn't really get to talk to him much in between the unending onslaught of people coming in the door to curse me, just seeing him and knowing that somebody in this world didn't wish me ill was a big boost. Since I've also been trying to wrangle with the insurance issues of getting someone down to look at the roof and my ceilings lately, I have been feeling very overwhelmed. It was like a little life raft put out there for me in very choppy seas. I needed it a lot, but then, he's good at that. It's nice how God works that out.

Well, I'm off to do as much nothing as I can for the rest of this afternoon. This is the last day of it, so I have to make it count.

It's Almost Time

Since that most wonderful of days, Pay Day, arrived at last, I went to do my pre-school blowout buy. As I wandered through the aisles of school supplies, I actually felt a little spring enter my step. I know that settles the Geek Queen crown ever more firmly on my head, but there you have it. There is something about the sight of piles of clean, new notebooks, boxes of unbroken, sharp-pointed crayons, and packages of bright yellow pencils that cheer my soul. It has always been so.

As I walked through the Wal-Mart aisles and watched the little children with their parents, I knew that the little ones understood this, too. Their parents, for the most part, were simply trying to navigate the sea of carts, peering confusedly at the blurry photocopied lists while pondering the relative merits of the glue stick and liquid glue. The children, though, knew. They understood the magic inherent in the crisp new folder, the necessity of purchasing Crayola crayons, and the satisfaction of finding just the right pencil pouch to hold all one's personal treasures. Their happiness was infectious.

Perhaps it is that all these things, all these tools of the education trade in their unused state, represent a kind of potential. There is a hopefulness in the clean serenity of the first blank page of a legal pad, and a great deal of satisfaction in putting the pen to the page. Anything might come from that action. Any work of greatness or triviality might spring from it.

As I left that section of the store for other supplies, I took the little lift with me. It almost made me wish I'd put a box of sharp-pointed Crayolas of my own in with the copy paper and other grown-up stuff I'd thrown in the cart just in celebration.

Walk the Line

I watched Walk the Line at long last yesterday. I've had it sitting on the top of my TV from Netflix for a month, but something kept coming up or I wasn't in the mood to sit down and pay attention to something for two hours. I'm glad I did, though. It was great.

I have always liked Johnny Cash, but I didn't really know more than the tiniest bit about his life. The movie filled in some of the big blanks and made me want to know more. I'll order his autobiography and put it on the shelf for future reading. He and his life interest me. That whole period of music history interests me, those musicians who started there at Sun Studios and became the foundation of so much that came later.

The performances in the film were amazing. Joaquin Phoenix was so compelling. I thought he managed a perfect mix of someone who was constantly fighting for the raw edges of daily control and someone who had found the one thing they wanted most. There was tremendous strength in him, but always there, just below the surface, was a great fragility in the eyes, especially when he was with June. There were scenes, especially the scenes between Cash and his father, that moved me to tears.

Reese Witherspoon was also perfect in her role. I always like her in everything I see her in. She always seems to chose roles that are "real" people, and that may be part of why I respect her so much. Her performance in this film made it clear that the love June had wasn't an easy thing and also showed her strength. It was a very complex portrayal and powerful for that reason.

I wound up watching the film twice. I may eventually buy it. I am still thinking about it. The love portrayed on the screen between Johnny and June was not an easy or a comfortable kind, but it was so true. I keep thinking about the scene at the end of the movie where he proposed for the final time and she accepted. He told her that she was his best friend amongst other things, and I think that's probably the truest secret of their love. They were the other half of each other. How else could they have survived everything else that happened? That's what I hope to find someday, my other half, my best friend. I hope it's out there for me like it was for them.

Repairs Needed

The recent rains here in Podunk have revealed a couple of problems with my roof. Dad fixed them today, but they left their mark. It looks like I'm going to have to have major repairs done on my ceilings.

Right now, my ceilings are this sort of horrible Celotex stuff from the 1970s. Since the leaks opened up, the tiles have discolored, sagged, and are in the process of falling down. I have been too embarrassed to have anyone in the house for a long time because of how ugly they are. I didn't have enough money in the big renovation done several years ago to have them done at that time, and now I'm glad. I can't wait any more, though, so now is the time.

I think insurance is going to cover the damaged parts, and really, my bedroom and my kitchen are the only two rooms without water damage of some kind because of the leaking. I will probably borrow the money to get those two rooms done, too. It's time I don't have to be embarrassed over that anymore, and I think it's better if it all gets done at the same time. Here we go with construction again...

Missippiority Complex

Today, I was talking with someone about his job. He works in a nationally-known technology company with branches in several states. The company is currently losing its "best-and-brightest" from its Mississippi location because of worker dissatisfaction. The number one complaint? A worker here in MS makes as much as three times less than a worker with equal skills, qualifications, and seniority as a worker in another part of the country. This inequity is maintained even when workers from other plants are transferred to the MS plant. The company can't understand why this is a problem or why the workers hired here in MS prefer to find other jobs. As I was talking this situation over, I thought this was just a perfect example of a larger problem here in Mississippi, a strange belief held by outsider and native alike that everything here is just a little less valuable somehow because it's from Mississippi.

Outsiders do it all the time. Mississippi, poor backwards, Southern, redneck, racist, illiterate child of the past. Mississippi, dressed in hoop skirts or bib overalls, living in shotgun shacks or decaying antebellum mansions, playing banjo or blues guitar, these elements, these fragments of a larger whole are the caricatures that seem to blind those who don't know her to the truth of a much larger, much broader whole. We're last or next to last on most of the national polls, after all, and stereotypes are comfortable and familiar.

What started to disturb me today was the fact that it seems that too often our own folks believe it, too. When I start to think of the tremendous number of writers and musicians our state has produced, I can't help but wonder why so little has been done to commemorate, honor, and stand up for that. I can name a quick handful of names that alone would be worth a state puffing out its chest in pride, Elvis, Faulkner, Welty, Wright, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmie Rodgers, Tennessee Williams, and that's barely even starting to touch the surface.

While there are efforts honor these talents folks, most Mississippians, just sort of go around shuffling their feet in the dust with their heads down as though we've never produced anything of value. What's wrong with what we make, with what we do? What's wrong with Shearwater Pottery, what's wrong with a Walter Anderson print? What's wrong with a Viking range in the kitchen or a La-Z-Boy chair? What's wrong with a Peavy amp or guitar? Why do we constantly seem to be apologizing for something?

I can't say that we don't have any problems. It would be a lie to say that poverty doesn't exist here, that we don't face education issues, that we aren't trying to find our way in the modern world. But here's the million-dollar question: Who isn't? What state isn't facing poverty, education reform, and questions about how to go forward in a confusing mess of modern political crap? I wish my state would cast off its shy Southern self-deprecation and stand a little taller. I don't care if we're ever like all our sisters and neighbors. We are different, and that's okay. I just want us to be comfortable in that difference and proud of all the good things that we have here.

The Details

I'm sewing my life together with the details. I know that sounds strange, and explaining why I need to do that right now would be too complex to go into here, and quite frankly, not something I'm sure I want to do. That in and of itself is odd, because I used to come to this blog as an outlet for everything that I needed to think through. I think this somehow became too public last year when some students found it, and now each time I sit down to write about the things that are closest to me, I find that I can't do it anymore here. It doesn't really bother me for my friends to read me, but somehow, what happened last year makes me feel like someone is spying in the windows of my house with a telephoto lens waiting to catch something compromising or ridiculous.

So, without going into details, I feel hollow lately. To combat it, I am frantically filling the time and the emptiness with work. I have spent long hours in my new classroom getting in ready, torn down the old bulletin board in the hall outside my room and mostly redone it, made a million lists of things still to be purchased or done before school begins, and fiddled endlessly with other preschool details such as handouts. I have tweaked and retweaked my BlackBerry to the point that it is radically different almost every day, and I have been on the verge of upgrading its OS to a beta version of 4.5 numerous times until the fear of bricking my Berry stopped me.

The creeping empty can be held back with furious activity. I can hold it back with tv and good books, too, sometimes. As long as the gears in my mind spin on idle, as long as they don't engage, things are okay. I wish I could purge it. I wish I could run out in the yard, throw back my head, howl at the moon, dance in the wet grass, and feel the empty go away, but instead, I fold another load of clothes. Instead of just heading my car off into the horizon and driving until I'm somewhere else, I come back up the driveway and mow the grass, endless circles going nowhere leaving ordered paths behind me.

I feel like a shadow of who I used to be, and I hate that feeling. I look at photos of myself from when I was in graduate school or overseas, and it's like I'm staring into the eyes of another person. I really miss her, too. I wish I knew what to do to get that feeling of wholeness and confidence back. I'm tired of having to fabricate things to keep my mind off the dark corners. I'd rather throw some light into them and drive the shadows away for good.

BlackBerry Addict

I love my BlackBerry more and more every day. It's really kind of sad. I have been a Gadget Geek for years, and there are so many different ways to customize my Curve and so many things it will do that it is an endless source of fun for me. Yesterday, I actually found a Hello Kitty theme for mine, and I managed to combine childhood and high tech. It was great.

I'm going to put a side panel of some of my favorite BlackBerry stuff on the blog so if any of you are also CrackBerry addicts, you can check it out. I'm also going to put in a video from YouTube (if I can figure out how to do it) because it made me laugh.

Nashville Parthenon

 
While I was in Nashville for the conference, I had a chance to go see the Nashville Parthenon. That was one of my favorite parts of the trip. According to the museum in the base, the structure was built as a part of the Tennessee Centennial celebration and is a to-scale reconstruction of the real Parthenon in Athens. While one never knows how accurate reconstructions of ancient buildings are, this was pretty amazing.

Inside, a statue of Athena was installed sometime in the late 90s. Standing there and looking up at the gilded goddess, I could see how impressive she might have been to ancient travelers who might have come to seek her favor. I've often thought that had I been an ancient Greek, I would have been a devotee of Athena. I admire what she stands for, intelligence, and I've always loved the story of her birth, Zeus and the literally-splitting headache.

Casts of the fragments of what remains of the original border the main hall along with descriptions about where each piece has wound up and what god or goddess each is thought to represent. The inside of the structure was quiet, and it was raining heavily outside. Everyone who came in spoke quietly, and except for the squish of wet shoes and whispers, there was no sound.

All that was destroyed when a stroller came up the elevator. A family of five got off and the youngest, probably only three, was fascinated not with any of the statues or even the big gold thing in the middle of the room, but only with the sound of his shrieking voice echoing off the ceiling. Ack. So much for atmosphere.

While I was downstairs, I bought a small sterling-silver owl pendant. Owls are going to be the symbol for our new small learning community, and since that choice originally goes back to their being a symbol of wisdom associated with Athena, it seemed appropriate to get one at the Parthenon. Whenever I wear it, I can think of my trip and the quiet sanctuary from the rain before the invasion of toddler kind.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

I had this on my shelf for about a year before I took the plunge and read it. There was something about the 800+ page length that just kept putting me off, but I'm glad that I read it. It was great. It wasn't a speedy read, but it was a really richly built world with well-developed characters. In fact, it felt to me like the first of many books. I really hope that the author will continue the adventures.

My favorite character was actually one who did not appear in the pages of the book. I want to know what happened with the Raven King. Bits and pieces of his story were told in the footnotes. In fact, it often seemed at though the book were two or three books put together by the time the ancient magicians appeared in the footnotes. The Raven King fascinated me, though, and his story was far too sparsely detailed.

The whole alternate universe feel of JS/MN was part of the enjoyment for me. I am a die-hard Jane Austen fan, so to have a world that is basically her world, only with magic as a common-place addition, was a wonderful treat. The addition of Lord Byron and other historical heavy-hitters was also delightful.

Admittedly, this book isn't for readers who want what I think of as "flash/bang" fiction. You are going to have to be patient for it. However, I think JS/MN is rich enough and deep enough to reward readers who wade in and swim out into the wonderful world that has been created.

Thieves Again

Our community is walking on pins and needles. Apparently, a gang of thieves has moved in to Podunk. We're rural, and our Sheriff has limited resources for a large county, so it is difficult to catch a small group of people. Since my parents were robbed, many more houses have been burgled. They continue the same pattern of quick break-ins to isolated homes taking small portable items.

There are reports of vehicles the thieves may or may not be using, so now every car that passes the house is subjected to intense scrutiny. As will happen, rumors about this particular person or group are being bandied about, and suspicion shifts. Everyone is jumpy. If this keeps up, someone is going to get killed.

This has always been a pretty safe community. Sure, we have our bizarre Southern rural stuff, some of which is pretty much Flannery O'Connor-esque, but by and large, it's a hold-over from another time. Now, suddenly, we have this bunch of people smashing their way into our homes. One of the worst violations to me was the recent robbery of my pastor's new home. While he and his family were making trips back and forth moving him in, the crooks took the chance to come in and take what they could. My pastor and his wife weren't even completely living there yet, and already they have to deal with that loss of sanctuary. It's not right.

Even though I'm a Christian, I still believe in a form of karma. These people are sowing fear, distress, and pain in our small community. I have to believe that sooner or later it's going to catch up with them. This can't go on forever.

Live from Nashville

I'm in Nashville for a conference. The drive up yesterday was a bit taxing. Most of it was not bad, but right outside of Nashville, I think every highway in the entire nation dumps in to one square mile of interstate, and at about 5:45 p.m., that was not a good place to be. My teacher friend and I made it to our hotel, ate some fairly good Mexican food and crashed. Today, we're going to see some sights in Nashville before going to the "big show" at the convention center. I'm optimistic that this conference is going to be really useful. Everybody I've heard talk about it says that it is. I need a refresher before the year begins.

Sick Days

I haven't felt well the past two days. In fact, I pretty much just lost yesterday completely. I hate that. I staggered around the house and took care of Roux, but other than that, I just read and slept. So much for a happy Fourth of July.

The animals have all been pleased with my inactivity, though. Cats have been piled up hither, thither, and yon, and the dogs have been sacked out, too. One bit of light comedy has been a cushion I bought for Roux to have for her recovery since she can't get up on the couch in the living room right now. It's cute and soft, but she hasn't shown the first bit of interest in it at all. Dillon and Yoda, however, have a running battle going over it. It's way too big for a single cat, but I guess that makes it ultra-posh for them. Yoda was the first to discover it, but now, if she gets up for any reason, Dillon swipes it. Yoda comes back from getting a snack to find a small ball of stripy fur in the middle of the cushion, much to her eternal disgust.

Tomorrow, I'll have to play for church, so I hope the remnants of this will be gone. I also need to get my car cleaned out and go buy some groceries today. I guess I'll try to fight off the last of the sick lethargy and actually get some stuff done.

A Good Tired

I've spent the last two days moving into my new room. I have entirely too much stuff. It's amazing how much too much stuff I have. I have shuffled, stacked, combined, hung, filed, and thrown away for two straight days, and when I left today, it finally looked like a classroom as opposed to some sort of nuclear site. I'm starting to feel good about it. I'm going to have a lot more space in this room, for one thing, so I will actually be able to group my students and have them move their desks without all of us hurting one another in the process. That's nice. It's also nice to think that I might even have room to put in a small table for tutoring, conferences, and group work. I've certainly never had space for that before.

The best aspect of this new space is that is has windows everywhere. There is so much natural light. I love it. I think the plants will love it, too. There's not a lot of wall space for display in this room because of all the windows, but it's a decent trade-off, I think.

I still have a lot to do. I have to put up bulletin boards and finish up cleaning up all the loose ends, but the very nice gentleman from technology set up the student computer on the desk I brought from home today, and he completely gutted and reloaded my laptop, too, so except for replacing some missing equipment in the room, I'm ready to go. The laptop is working better than it ever has, so I am so grateful for the reload! It's needed it since at least January.

I guess that's all the news, and it's not really news to anyone but me. It's nice to be settled, though.