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Okay … so Little House went over like a ton of bricks … I’m back in the closet.  Moving on …


Quote of the day:
Ninny Threadgoode: I wouldn’t be afraid of dying if I was you. I’d be more afraid of driving in rush hour traffic.

–from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)


Today
as I was driving home there was a huge accident on the freeway. 
Traffic was horrendous, so I decided to exit the freeway and take
surface streets home.  A half mile before the next exit I began
trying to get into the right hand lane.  Blinker on, waiting for
an opening.  I was next to a huge truck so I slowed to try to move
behind him, but the woman behind him in her SUV kept tailgating him
purposely so I couldn’t get in.  Finally, with the exit now
approaching, I tried to slowly move in hoping that she would get the
point and back off a bit, but NOOOO, she almost ran me over and started
shouting at me.  The man behind her decided that he would be
decent and let me in, but that’s when the devil took over.



I
stayed in my own lane and pulled up beside scary SUV lady. 
Apparently possessed by some unknown evil, I rolled down my
window.  I’m sure I was meaning to say, “Excuse me, Miss, but
would you mind allowing me to exit the freeway?”  However, what
came out was more like, “You bitch!  How am I supposed to get off
the damn freeway?”  Her reply was, “Why should I let you in when
I’ve been in this lane for 20 minutes?  You should go back there
(pointing at the row of cars behind her) and wait like I did.” 



Hello? 
First of all, how am I supposed to “go back there”?  Secondly,
it’s not like my lane was moving zippety quick and I decided to speed
on by until the exit and then cut someone off.  My lane was every
bit as slow as her lane … I had actually been next to her for much of
those 20 minutes.  No devious plot here … just trying to get off
the freeway.  Anyway, there’s nothing like people not being nice
to really piss me off.  Ironic, I know.  So, before I knew
it, I was telling her to f#$% off.  And in all honesty, if I could
have slapped her, I would have.  In fact, I was somewhat tempted
to follow her home and give her a little speech about courtesy. 
Yes, also ironic. 



The
point is, I have never in my life cussed out a stranger. 
Boyfriends once or twice in an extremely heated moment, but never a
stranger.  In fact, my coworkers make fun of me because I’m so
straightlaced and nicey-nice.  Won’t they be so proud?  I am
known for my patience and my “aura of calmness”.  Hey, one blog
ago I was waxing poetic about Little House on the Prairie.  What
the heck happened? 

By the time I got home I was in tears and so angry I was shaking. 
I know that impolite drivers really make me angry (especially since I
always let people in, signal politely, do the smile and wave thing when
giving someone right of way, etc.), but this really took the
cake.  It scared me that I could be so angry … all over a lady
not letting me get off the freeway.  Actually, though, when I
think about it, it was about more than that.  I think what really
got me was the lack of decency, so why, then, did I choose to respond
in such an indecent way?  Aiya! 

Perhaps this should be next on my reading list … “Honku: the Zen Antidote to Road Rage.” 

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Quote of the Day:
I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all. – Laura Ingalls Wilder


Since
I elicited positive comments about Little House with my last post, I
now feel this is a safe environment for my coming out.  Yes, I am
a Little House junkie. 



Little
House is one of the few things Toshi and I actually have in
common.  We own all the seasons on DVD, except for the final
season which comes out in October.  When each season came out, we
tried to pace ourselves to make the shows last until the next release
date, but we’ve never made it yet. 






There’s
something about that show … just hearing the music brings
comfort.  During the time the show was popular, my mom was raising
me by herself and struggling with depression and epilepsy. 
Because of the epilepsy, she was unable to drive so she had to take a
number of buses just to get me to school and herself to work.  As
young as three I had to know how to call the operator and get help if
my mom had a seizure.  I remember one particular occasion when the
fire department had to knock down our door because I was too small to
unlock it.  After calling the operator, I had to call someone to
come pick me up from a list my mom had made for me.  As you could
probably guess, all of this led to a lot of insecurity and worry, not
to mention a heavy feeling of responsibility.  When that Little
House music came on, it signaled the beginning of an hour of escape
into an idyllic world.   It’s funny how  almost 30 years
later it still has the same effect on me.




Of
course I loved the books too.  I read the whole series every
summer growing up.  I also read The Chronicles of Narnia and the
Anne of Green Gables series every summer as well.  (Hence my
desire to pick up and move to Prince Edward Island.  My friend has
just agreed to go with me to be my Diana Barry. )  
The characters in all of these stories were my dear friends, and I
immediately missed them once a book was finished.  These days I
still go back to visit, and I bring along my students to introduce them
to all these wonderful friends who have always been there for me. 

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We
went to the LA County Fair last night.  Even though I was dead
tired from work, I thought it would be better than braving weekend
crowds. 



I
love the fair … especially the fair food.  We ate our way
through the place, starting with the best BBQ beef sandwiches I’ve ever
had, then freshly made chips, then funnel cake, then lemonade, and
finally clam chowder.  Unfortunately, it was too cold for ice
cream, or we would have had that too. 
We abstained from the deep fried Twinkies, but I have to say that the
deep fried avocado and deep fried corn on the cob sounded
intriguing.  I don’t feel too guilty about chowing down because we
were walking for about seven hours. 



Have I mentioned that I love the fair?  
We went to see the animals first and were lucky to see two baby goats
being born.  Amazing!  That was their eighth birth of the day
so babies were everywhere … so, so cute.



Then
we ventured over to the shopping pavilions … all that crazy stuff you
see advertised on infomercials all in one place!  Didn’t buy
anything, but it was fun to see all the gadgets. 

After
that, we looked at all of the kids’ art and science projects, and
finally we went to the home arts exhibit where they have the canned
goods, pies, cakes, quilts, etc.  Made me feel just like I was on
Little House on the Prairie.

We left at midnight exhausted but happy.  It was a great time!

Have I told you that I LOVE the fair?

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This
morning one of my students, Raquel, showed up with a cute new
haircut.  I told her I loved it, and this was her very
matter-of-fact reply.  “You know what’s weird, Miss G.?  I
got my hair cut and suddenly I looked just like Malibu Barbie.” 
Ummm, no.  I would say Raquel is quite a few cup sizes away from
being any kind of Barbie … not to mention the fact that she’s
brunette and shows no sign of being permanently on tiptoe.

Room
10 was meltdown city today.  Sampson, my possibly mildly autistic,
perfectionistic boy, threw an all-out fit when he wasn’t first to
finish his timed test.  Grunting, chewing on his shirt, kicking
the desk, crying … the whole bit.  Keep in mind that there is no
need to be the first one finished on a timed test; it’s a race against
the clock, not a race against one’s classmates.  Of course, there
was no convincing Sampson of this. 

Then once that simmered down, stupid Miss G. decided to play around the world with vocabulary words.  Duh!  Okay, yes, in this game you are
competing against your classmates.  Let’s just say that yelling
out answers is not Sampson’s forte.  Of course his opponent got
the answer out before he did.  Repeat tantrum described above only
add periodic shouting of “I’m the BEST!”  Sheesh, I really feel
for this poor kid.  I tend toward perfectionism myself … but
really, I can’t imagine going through life with that kind of
pressure. 

Well, I’m off to do what I am supposed to be doing tonight … reading the rest of Think and Grow Rich  and a chapter on Sigmund Freud, the nutball.    The train is now pulling out of Procrastination Station …

Quote of the Day:

“They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.”  – Winston Churchill

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Quote of the Day:

If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of
the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers.  ~Edgar W.
Howe

Today one of my colleagues shared this with me … true story.

During the middle of a class activity this afternoon, a student
approaches and says, “Teacher, there is a boy with no pants in the
library.”  My colleague walks over to
the classroom library to discover Nathaniel standing in the library
perusing the bookshelves with his pants around his ankles.  After
the ensuing inquisition, my colleague discovers that apparently he
didn’t know how to wipe himself after using the restroom so he decided
that he just wouldn’t pull up his pants for the rest of the day.   

And that, my friends, is why I don’t teach kindergarten.

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Quote of the day:

“I used to cry because I had no shoes … until I met a man who had no feet.” — unknown

Well, I made it
through a thoroughly exhausting week.  Work all week plus class on
Thursday night and all day on Saturday. 


This is where I wish I were … still on vacation in Big Bear!

Today
was full of chores and errands.  I did laundry, cleaned my
bathroom, read a chapter for one of my classes, did my planning for
school, cleaned my poor fishies who were swimming in sludge, went
grocery shopping (saved 59% with coupons!), went to a new store called
the 99 Cent Depot to buy happy crappy for the “surprise box” in my
classroom, went to Target to buy three more boxes of crayons only to
discover that they didn’t have a single box of crayons in the whole
place (can you believe it?!), and finally went to Office Depot where I
found boxes of 24 crayola crayons for $.49 each and buy two get one
free! 


Perhaps the most momentous task of the day, however, was delivering my
old reptile cage to the family of one of my former students. 
Eight years ago, much to my own surprise, I fell in love with an itty
bitty lizard at the pet store.  I couldn’t get her off my mind, so
a couple of weeks later I returned and became the proud owner of a
Chinese water dragon.  I named her Xiao Mei Long, which means
little beautiful dragon in Chinese … Mei for short. 

Well, six months later, I discovered that my little girl was actually a little boy.  So Mei became May … short for Maynard.  My itty bitty lizard soon grew to be over two feet long. 

I really loved my May.  Although he never came when I called him
and never did any tricks, he was always good company.  Like a
typical lizard and like me, he just liked hanging out.  Last
spring May became sick and passed away.  It still somewhat
surprises me how much I miss him.  Giving away his cage was hard
… it was like admitting after all these months that he really is
gone.    I’ll try to post a picture of my baby next time … Toshi has all the good ones on his computer.

On a lighter note, I think that I need to take a class in foul
language.  In both of my classes this week, the professors used a
litany of four letter words.  My third grade sensibilities were
shocked.    I guess that when
you work with terminal AIDS patients, drug addicts, the homeless, and
schizophrenics, you don’t often say things like “goodness gracious me”
or “for goodness sake”, whereas, in third grade “the ‘s’ word” is
stupid.  I think I’m experiencing culture shock. 

I hope everyone has a great Monday!  (yes, maybe that is an oxymoron )

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Well,
it’s 10:15 and I just got home from my first class for the MFCC
program.  I’m tired, but I enjoyed it.  Many of my classmates
are already working in the mental health field, so there were a lot of
acronyms being thrown around that I’m not familiar with. 

As we were introducing ourselves, one woman said she works as part of
the PART team. Everyone nods their heads knowingly, and  I’m
thinking, “The what?”  Then the instructor asks her what the PART
team is.  Now I’m thinking, “Oh … good.  I’m not the only
one who doesn’t know, and now she’s going to explain it.”  Then
the woman replies, “The PART team is the new name for the PET
team.”  Then the instructor gives a nod of recognition, and that’s
that.  I definitely felt like a gargler (see post below).  Teaching has a billion acronyms, and I’m just getting the hang of those.  Now I get to learn a billion more. 

I had a crier at school today.  This
boy has said about 5 words to me in three days of school.  He
started crying for no readily-apparent reason and continued off and on
at the drop of a hat throughout the day.  He has been referred for
psychological testing with no result.  One thing I do know is that
he is suffering from debilitating perfectionism.  Any tiny
“failure” sends him into a crying fit, albeit a quiet one.  The
only way I could get him to participate in P.E. today was to tell him
that anyone who did not participate would receive an F.  That did
it … he shot up out of his chair.  I guess the fear of getting
an F outweighed the fear of potentially doing something incorrectly
during P.E.  Aiya! 

On a more serious note, one of my coworkers, Alicia, experienced a
horrible personal tragedy this week.  She left two weeks ago to go
on an African safari with her grandson and was due to return last
night.  Yesterday morning we received a call at school from
Alicia’s daughter telling us that her longtime live-in boyfriend had
passed away.  Apparently he died in their bed and nobody found him
for five days until the neighbors called the police to report a
suspicious odor.  Alicia’s daughter said that the mattress was
soaked with blood and even after some work by a biohazard crew, the
house still smelled horribly.  They found out that the boyfriend
had been terminally ill but had never told Alicia.  If she had
known, I know she wouldn’t have taken the trip.  I just can’t
imagine coming home to that news.  When her daughter called us,
Alicia was still on her way home from Africa and they’d had no way of
notifying her.  I just feel so awful for her.  There just are
no words …

Too tired for cutesy pictures today … maybe tomorrow.  Hope all are well….

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Quote of the day:
“Some people drink at the fountain of knowledge … and others just gargle.” — unknown

I survived!  Actually, today went
by in a flash.  Because I taught a second/third grade combination
class last year, I got to keep my second graders this year as third
graders.  That means that half of my students aren’t new to
me.  It was great to see all of them, but familiarity breeds
naughtiness.  No honeymoon period this year.  They fell right
back into old habits.   Two names on the board already!

I
was probably most excited to see that my former second grade student,
Moses, returned again this year.  Moses is my little Jeff
Spicoli.    “Teacher, what’s that little line thing?  A minus?  Oh, I don’t do minus.” 

Moses is one of those boys who drives everyone crazy, but I just love
the kid.  He’s a handsome boy … very athletic and charming but
naughty and a few crayons short of a box.  Every once in a while
he just announces out of nowhere, ” I love school!”  You’ve gotta
love a kid like that. 

I spent some time yesterday trying to figure out some way that my
students could help Hurricane Katrina victims, and I finally came up
with a plan.  For every point students earn in the next two weeks
on Accelerated Reader (a computer program that tests students’
comprehension of books that they read ) I will donate $1.  My mom
has also offered to donate $1 for every point.  I then plan to
give the final donation to Best Buy where they are offering to match
any donation.  That means that the students can “earn” $4 for
every point in Accelerated Reader.  The students seem really
excited about being able to do something to help.  I’ll keep you
posted on their progress. 

Hey,
I just realized that ten years ago this week I was arriving at Harvard
for my master’s program.  Do you know what that means?  Only
one more year of student loan payments!  Woohoo!  Don’t get
me wrong … just the experience living in Cambridge was worth every
penny, but it sure will be nice to put that $300 a month into savings
instead of writing that big fat check.

Ok — off to finish preparing for tomorrow.  Thanks for the first day wishes and for keeping those fingers crossed!

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Where did the summer go?  Here I am the night before the first day of school planning at the last minute. 

I
spent the weekend running errands in preparation for tomorrow.  I
dragged Toshi to Target, Lakeshore (a teacher store), Big Lots, the
bookstore, and, of course, the 99 Cent Store … a.k.a. a
teacher’s paradise.   A couple hundred dollars later, I think I’m set to go. 



We managed to catch a movie too.  We saw Grizzly Man.

 I’m
still not quite sure what I thought of it, except that I know for sure
the guy was a wacko … well-intentioned but still a wacko.  The
rest is still sinking in …



This
promises to be a busy week.  School everyday and classes on
Thursday night and all day Saturday.  I hope I haven’t bitten off
more than I can chew.  We shall see, eh?


I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! 



P.S. Cross your fingers for me in hopes that everyone in Room 10 brings their thinking caps this year. 

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It’s
amazing how tired one can get just sitting all day.  We had a
district meeting all day … a crummy, insulting-to-one’s-intelligence
meeting.  Yuck! 



After work I had to go to an orientation program for my MFCC (masters
in marriage, family, and child counseling) program, which starts next
week.  The orientation was great; the other students were
wonderful.  Even though everyone is coming from different
experiences and backgrounds, we all seem to have the same passion for
helping others and for learning from others as well.  I am nervous
about handling the stress of work and school, but, at the same time, I
am excited about this new adventure.

As part of our requirements for the program, we have to complete 36
hours of counseling as a client.  I have to investigate what my
insurance will cover and find a provider.  I got a headstart on
this requirement last summer when I went through my little identity
crisis, but my therapist is not a provider on my new insurance and I
don’t think I want to pay out of pocket for 36 hours x $65.

I’m off to reward myself for a day spent sitting on my butt.  One
ice cream cone coming right up! To even things out, I’m taking a second
pass at my textbook for my first theories course. 

And, as a postscript, after seeing all of the suffering going on in the
wake of Katrina, everything else seems so petty.  I am reminded
how blessed I am to have a home, food, a  job, and my loved ones
near me; my heart goes out to those who have suffered such unimaginable
loss.