It’s been so long since I last logged in to my own site that I’d forgotten my password! I’m frustrated with my site because I can’t do much to make it pretty or interesting since I’m using a Mac … apparently I have to use Mozilla. Hmmm … will look into that.

Ok — I realize that compared to tsunamis and blizzards, I have little to complain about, but we sissy Southern Californians are just not used to five straight days of heavy rain. We have had more rain in the past week than in the past few years combined. The once-dry river bed behind my school is now suitable for whitewater rafting, the ceiling in my classroom is falling in, and my students are all suffering a bad case of cabin fever.

These are the days when I just want to leave right after school, come straight home, put on my pajamas, and park myself in front of the TV with a cozy blanket and a cup of chai. In fact, that’s exactly what I did.

Teaching a combination second and third grade class has been difficult … trying to cram two different curricula into the time allowed for one is no easy task, especially when students’ ability levels range from first grade to fifth. But, we are getting by, and I love my students.

I have a new problem that I have yet to encounter in my previous nine years of teaching. I’ve encountered lice, scabies, shingles, ringworm, impetigo, incontinence, depression, child abuse, homelessness, and all manner of learning disability, but this year I have a student who is hearing voices. These voices tell her to do naughty things … of course, and then when she is reprimanded, they laugh at her. She has been hearing these voices since the summer, but mom has been unable to get her help because her Medi-Cal was cancelled. Mom is on disability because she is schizophrenic, and Angie was a crack baby who was in foster care for the first two years of her life. Add to that the fact that she is brilliant to the point that she doesn’t fit in and that she is the only African American in a school that is almost completely Latino and Asian and it becomes plain that it is difficult to be Angie. This week I finally get to meet with the counselor. Hopefully she can tell me how to do battle with these voices. Keeping my fingers crossed!