Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I may have given in to a pretty gross amount of self-pity with that last post. I guess somebody had a case of the Mondays. Today things are going much better. My mom sent me an insulting ecard and my students gave me a couch. How're those for Halloween presents?

Monday, October 30, 2006

When I am an older, better, more experienced teacher and I have something to tell a newer, younger teacher, I must remember that there are at least two ways (and probably many more) to give advice. One is to talk to someone like they are an ignorant, lazy kid who needs sharp words and scary eyes to successfully communicate a message, and the other is to remember that the recipient of my advice is trying to juggle about fifty things at once, all of which she is trying for the first time and admittedly pretty bad at, but she is still doing the best that she can given the circumstances, and address her accordingly. I really don't like being picked on, and when peers talk to me like I am one of their unruly students (ironically, reminding me that I ought to be acting more professional) it kind of ruins my day, because I'm never brave enough to stand up to them and tell them that I deserve to be spoken to more fairly. Instead I come home, (maybe cry a little bit), and pour it all out to this little box, passive through and through.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Right now Emily, Jess, and the boys are driving home and I'm getting ready for a monster nap. Or maybe I'll read until my eyes fall out, since our visit to the bookstore this afternoon once again paid off. (Because I really have time to read the Best American Short Stories of the Century, right?)

Though there was no Indian food on this particular weekend, Peter Uhl made a cameo, along with more Wolfgang's food than I can particularize right now. And that was only on Sunday. Saturday was really our banner day as far as gluttony goes. There were doughnuts, as promised, at the apple orchard, and the only thing better than eating fresh cinnamon-sugar doughnuts and cider on a fall morning is eating fresh cinnamon-sugar doughnuts and cider on a fall morning WITH BATMAN, which we did, because apparently he felt like putting on the suit that morning and mingling with kids and their pumpkins. And posing for pictures with ladies (but not fellows because all of the fellows stayed home to watch the Michigan game that afternoon) and not turning his neck all day long. All part of the official bat-duties - gotta earn that bat-paycheck and pay the bat-rent, you know?

So now Emily and Jess and I have run into people dressed up as Elvis, Zorro, and Batman, all in the most unlikely places. We must have really good karma or something. And speaking of karma (not really, but I need to get back to my story and I can't think of a better segue right now), we made it up to Rockford, fueled by doughnuts, chocolate pretzels, and wine (because not only did this apple orchard offer Batman, it had a winery too, with affordable wine tasting in which we partook) to try on clothes for an hour or two, until our blood-sugar crashed and we crabbed and grumbled our way home, aiming for sandwiches at the Cherry Deli which was tragically closed (tragic not only for us, but for any little children around who had to hear exactly how we felt about it being closed). Ultimately, we barely made it to Wealthy Street Bakery, and good, nutritious food, in time to prevent an epic meltdown in which all of us (but Jessica especially) would have degenerated into cuss-word-spouting, face-punching trolls. But we made it, so we didn't.

Then later (much later...many pitchers and G&Ts later) there were combat carries for everybody, and pizza rolls for some. I think the actual weekend was much funnier than the story I just told; Sunday night lethargy must be tarnishing my usually sparkling wit.

Finally, and on a completely different subject, I just want to say that I love losing daylight savings time. Falling back, and suddenly feeling like I'm sleeping in an extra hour and staying up an hour later, should be the only kind of clock adjustment there is. Let’s fall back in spring too, I say, and just keep falling back until we're all nocturnal. I really think it might be a nice change of pace.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Making Sense is for Weenies

Today was snack day in third hour, my senior writing class, and the designated snack-bringer brought me a Mountain Dew along with chips and doughnuts for the class. So I drank it. It was barely 9:30 in the morning. Then there was a big basket of M&Ms in the teacher workroom, so I grabbed a cupful (mini-dixie-sized cup) and took them back to my room to replace the Wheat Thins and apple I'd brought for lunch. By 6th hour, on a Friday with nothing but Mountain Dew and chocolate in my system, things got pretty wacky. Luckily no one passed out or lost use of any necessary faculties.

(This next part is mostly for me - the list-making, cataloguing part of me. Feel free to skim/skip it)

And then I came home, and worked, and, as of 10 o'clock tonight, I am officially done planning until after Thanksgiving break. The first 11 weeks are completely squared away. In the past three days I've had hardly any grading, so I've managed to reread Macbeth while preparing reading quizzes, vocab worksheets, and daily lessons. Then I planned the mini-unit on Indian poetry for World Lit to get ready for Siddhartha, wrote the assignment sheet for the seniors' next writing project, and made a test for Oedipus Rex. I snuck online and managed to reserve computers for a week, so the seniors can research and write instead of whine and throw paper balls at each other, which is always refreshing.

And now I'm writing a post at 11 on a Friday night because momentum is a tricky and sometimes cruel thing. I can't stop. Except that my body is about to shut me down. The edges of a cold have been encroaching on my throat all week, and if it weren't for the daily doses of multi-vitamins and Sunny D, I'd probably be dead right now. Seriously. And I can't afford to be sick with all the plans Emily and Jess and I have this weekend (and I guess Tim and Aaron will be here too?). Pumpkins and wine and lots of giggling. That's the MO. Oh, and doughnuts. There will also be doughnuts.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Earth Moved

All this week the sunset has started coming through my front windows, and for about twelve minutes every day my walls have been streaked with long grey shadows and the soft kind of orange light that's warm but tired after a shining all day. I wish you were here to see it.

I need to remember to stop and look at things sometimes.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

I think it's kind of funny that here it is the end of October and the secretaries and custodians are just now coming around to ask me about the furniture situation in my classroom - if I have enough, and the right kinds and such. I mean, if I've been getting by for two months and you haven't heard about it, secretaries and custodians, things can't be too bad, right? Still, I scored a new work station and a big curved table for my ever-growing piles of hand-outs, so maybe I shouldn't complain. Wow, does it feel refreshing to be able to say stuff like that again. Please please please, no one tip of The Man (read: the crafty tech guy from school who outted me back at the old site) that this site exists. If I don't have somewhere to dump all this stuff, I'll suffocate.

And another thing - oh shoot, I know there was another thing. Oh yes. The World Lit book I'm expected to use is ridiculous. That's my second job-related beef for today. They devote approximately one hundred fifty pages of their thousandsome page book to all of Chinese and Japanese literature. Now, first of all, these two decidedly distinct cultures should not be lumped together in one place - especially not in a classroom in a school district where acknowledging diversity and celebrating the slightest nuance of uniqueness is always encouraged. And then there's the time span; the editors have chosen to use texts written from 1300 BC to 1800 AD. One hundred fifty pages for more than three thousand years of two different cultures. No accurate picture can be painted with that kind of broad focus (oxymoron, I know...but you know what I mean). I think of U of M where whole semesters are devoted to a fraction of that kind of material, and I sigh longingly. But, because it's all we can really do and because we have to, we'll read some Confucius and some of the Tao te Ching and some Haiku and pack it all into a week or two. I'll do it...but I won't like it!


I'm such a negative Nancy tonight. I'll cut it out and go grade some quizzes - now that I've purged, maybe I'll be a little more generous with the points


Party in Grand Rapids this weekend! Anyone who's cool should come!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Everything's Different and Nothing's Changed

Apparently this is the year for moving into new places like classrooms and apartments, so it seems like an appropriate (and necessary - I was feeling very restrained and claustrophobic back at the old site since many of my students discovered I had a facebook account from which they could find the xanga) time to open a new blog. So here I am, hopefully back to my old candid self. Plus I like the set up here a little better, as far as comments from non-members are concerned.

Meredith came home for the weekend, and I have stories about that - mostly explaining how I probably caught pneumonia yesterday. And Emily and Aaron (and maybe Tim and Jess?!?) are coming next weekend, so there will inevitably be more stories, and probably tons of eating as well. But presently I am going to go grocery shopping while the rain has let up, so hopefully as not to have to haul food from the car to the fridge and get soaked in the process (yikes, I hope the syntax police are off duty today).