You're getting very sleepy ...

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 04:58:46 GMT

My student teacher rocks

Teaching teenagers is the most fun I've ever had while being paid. A close second is working with a student teacher. Elizabeth is going to be great, a brainy, fun, caring teacher. Watching her get her teaching feet wet is such a pleasure. I think the student teaching experience is inherently a form a hell, and while I try to soften the stark edges of the profession when possible, I'm sure she's much less enthusiastic about her labor. But I'm having a kick, and after all, that's what's important in my classroom .... I'm having a good time.

Kids: Whoever took my "correct answer" bell will suffer. There will be singing. And I'm talking show tunes.

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 00:55:59 GMT

Stay tuned ...

Tonight, I'm hosting a home show for Creative Memories. If all goes well, which - let's face it people - it probably won't, I may try to be a Creative Memories consultant. With all my free time, what with a full-time job, mothering, wifery, etc.

Who knows?

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 04:48:31 GMT

The Slumber Party Hangover

I feel sooo hungover, thanks to four 9-year-olds and a newly minted 10-year-old. Ten years ago, my girl weighed four pounds and kept me awake less than she did last night. It was the same combination of screaming and drama, only multiplied by four friends. Maybe next weekend I'll be hungover from actual alcohol.

I wish I had more time to write. And I wish this sleep-deprived headache would go away ...

Mon, 19 Jan 2004 05:56:14 GMT

You wake up, and time has slipped away ...

I'm just hours home from my mother's house. She is moving on Wednesday to a senior apartment, and my job was to lighten the load by taking memorabilia, family heirlooms, etc. I now own three more pieces of art (?), about a dozen glass objects, three purses, a Chinese doll, and a dusty box full of photos.

The box, smoky and smelly and mostly untouched, was a treasure trove of old playbills from my father's attempt at stage acting, pictures and playbills from my actress great-grandmother - Claire MacDowell - and incongruously, snapshots from my childhood. All the letters I sent my parents from Italy were there, as were my parents' wedding pictures. My mom even gave me her wedding dress, which she had planned to sell. This is truly the dawn of a new era. I'm looking forward to watching my mom blossom as she emerges from under the weight of the house, the silence, and the new life forced upon her when my dad died.

Now, I'm excited about putting my childhood photos into a scrapbook for my daughter. I think this is really cool. You know, I imagine my daughter treasuring the pictures and stories of her mom's girlhood, delicately carrying it from her dorm to her apartment to her first home. She and my husband are much less turned on by this idea. Who wouldn't give a mint to have something like that from their parents or grandparents?

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 05:00:43 GMT

Oh yeah. I work. Part II

On a "Mad TV" rerun, the spoof Public School House Rock hit a little close to the bone. It starts: "When you walk into class/you have no place to sit your ass."

Coincidentally, today marks the first since August that all students in my fourth-period American Literature class had a desk in which to sit. That's mainly because three students transferred from my college-prep class into the remedial class. Hmmmm. So rarely do I believe they actually need remediation. But, there they go ... and with them goes any chance of meeting A-G requirements for university acceptance.

Honestly, I'm not burned out. Not even close. Toward the end of last semester, I was getting a little crispy around the edges. But I'm good for the next 18 weeks.

But dang, my students are smart enough to subvert every attempt I make to have them actually learn something. And yet, they consider themselves too dense to do college-prep work. Now, that burns me.

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 05:40:54 GMT

Hmm? Do I work?

9:32 p.m. Sunday. My daughter is showered, blow-dried, and put to bed. Laundry is folded and put away. A video tape sits on my passenger seat, waiting for my first-period class tomorrow. Lesson plans are written in my book. Apparently, I'm working tomorrow.

What a fantastic way to spend three weeks, though. The swirl of Christmas activity, the putting away of Christmas things. Visits and shopping and reading and movies. By this time tomorrow, I'll be back in labor mode, where I'll stay for another five months.

Am I the only one who thinks "Peter Pan" is plain weird? The new movie is simply beautiful, but the story just freaks me out. Lost children, violent adults. The whole thing gives me the heebies. But my daughter and her girlfriend liked it, no doubt overlooking the freakish, psychological undercurrent.

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:51:20 GMT

P.S.

Much thanks to Grumpy Girl for explaining links. I'll give it a try.

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:22:37 GMT

Today, I don't work

My last day of quiet leisure. Boy, when I'm off, I'm really off. Sure, my thoughts have casually wandered to my students and my lesson plans, but in no way the same fashion as when school is in session. I love thinking about nothing. Mindless unstructured nothing. I'll be back to this state on about June 10.

It's funny to me that people resent teachers for the time off. It's not as though we're getting paid, people. "You get all this vacation time," folks say. But vacation implies that we are being paid for the time. Back in my newspaper days, I'd get a week or two of paid vacation. Now, when I have 180 days off a year, I am paid for exactly none of them. But I'm not complaining. This is heaven.

When people make such comments, my response is usually along these lines: If anything attracts you to teaching - even if it's only the time off - for god's sake, give it a whirl. Going into this profession, I had no idea how much I would love it. And we need teachers who love working with kids. Take a semester and try it. If you love it, get a credential and spend the summer after next musing with me, sipping margaritas poolside, about the wonderful life teaching affords.

Tonight, scrapbooking with the homies. This weekend, laundry and other random fiddlings. Monday, room 706 and some knee-slapping stories of students' Winter Break adventures. If any were arrested, I would have heard about it by now ...