Quote of the day:

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” – John Muir

In the mountain communities that are only about 1 1/2 hours away I
could afford a house for half of what my condo is worth.  I would
then have a house with a tiny mortgage and, hence, less financial
pressure.  I would be away from the hustle, bustle, stress,
artificiality, and smog of LA.   They have a great school
district, so a job wouldn’t be too hard to find. So what’s keeping me
here?

3bd, 2ba home in Big Bear for half of what my 2bd, 2ba condo is worth

For one, my family is about ten minutes away.  If I moved, I
wouldn’t be able to drive over there at the drop of a hat to check out
a sister’s new hairdo, or read their People magazine, or graze in their
kitchen.  I also wouldn’t be able to be there at a moment’s notice
in case of an emergency. 

For my whole life, my greatest fear has been that something will happen
to my mom.  That’s a long story, but the upshot is that’s why I’m
living here in the first place.  Part of me feels that as long as
I’m here, everything will be okay, and, being the “responsible” one in
the family, so far that has been the case.

1bd, 1ba home in my area … costs double what the one above costs

But when a “great starter home”
in my area is half a million bucks (sorry, but I don’t see myself
spending half a million for anything referred to as a “cute doll
cottage”), the temperature is supposed to reach 108 degrees today(only 80 in
the mountains), and traffic is horrendous, it’s hard not to be
tempted.  Maybe I need to convince all my family and friends to
move with me … then we could all be “granola” together!

Quote of the day:

“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.” – Will Rogers

Am I the only one
who finds the proliferation of porn in the country alarming?  For
school I started making these nifty slideshows to help teach vocabulary
words.  Google image search has been a great resource, but almost
every word I search turns up people letting it all hang out, so to
speak.  Even the most innocuous words … like stretch or tiptoe
… bring up less than wholesome images. 

The year before last I told the kids to write on the topic “Three
things I hate about _______.”  One of my boys wrote “Three Things
I Hate About Porn.”  Hello?    Well,
of course I had to delve into this one.  He explained that his
older sister accidentally downloaded a pornographic picture.  As
it was loading, they realized what it was and he covered his eyes and
started screaming, “Turn it off! Make it stop!”  See?  Even
kids are sick of it.   It makes me wonder when the novelty is
gonna wear off for grownups.

I
know I can’t change the world, but I can request to those who “share”
so liberally on the Internet,  “Could you please put your
protuberances away while I’m doing my schoolwork or at least name the
evidence something suitably sleazy?”  Thanks.

Quote of the day: 
    “Never put off until tomorrow what you can put     off indefinitely.”

On
the total body makeover front: I did manage a half hour on the bike
this morning, did eat breakfast, and did make the eating cutoff.  But,
I still haven’t found my weights, so the rest of the program is still
on hold.



I’m taking a group of students
to the nature center tomorrow for a summer field trip.  And, of course,
after a lovely mild first month of summer, we are suddenly having a
heatwave this week.  It is supposed to be 102 degrees tomorrow!  I think the hiking portion of tomorrow’s activities will be very short.

I
went to a friend’s wedding on Saturday.  She is the last of my
high school friends to get married … well, actually, I am the
last.  We’ve been friends for almost 20 years.  Back then she
swore that she would never get married because she wanted to focus on a
career.   Maybe that’s what it takes.  Maybe I should
swear I’ll never get married too! 

Anyway, the wedding
was lovely but loooooonnnnnngggg!  The ceremony lasted about 15
minutes, but the reception was a Chinese banquet and lasted about six
hours.  The first course was a whole roasted suckling pig. 
This was my
fifth Chinese wedding but my first time seeing pig served instead of
duck.  What surprised me was that only the skin from the back was
eaten.  The whole baby pig was sacrificed just for its skin. 
After the pieces of skin were finished, the waiters took the pig away.    It
isn’t that I was looking forward to eating the whole pig, but it all
seemed so wasteful, especially considering that there were 50 tables
and a pig for each table.  Poor pigs…

So, I’m the last one left still single, but I guess it could be worse.  I could be a roasted suckling pig.

Oh … and still on Ch. 2 and back at Week 1 … AGAIN.

Summer is finally here, and
the summer projects have begun.  I learned after nearly losing my
sanity last summer, that a summer of nothing doesn’t work for me. 
I have to have purpose.  So … this summer I am working on
getting my real estate license just to have something to do.  The
class is online and at my own pace, though, and so far, my pace has
been snail-like.  They sent me a huge telephone book sized
textbook.  I eagerly read Ch. 1 which was all about how wonderful
California is and thought, “Hey, this is gonna be a piece of
cake!”  Well, Ch. 2 turned out to be infinitely more difficult
than Ch. 1 so I’ve been taking a big long break. 



Project number two is to
finally actually get less flabby.  I bought Bob Greene’s total
body makeover book used from Amazon, read it in a couple days, and then
put it on my coffee table where it is now gathering dust. 

I actually like the plan
because it doesn’t really involve any convoluted dieting … just five
simple rules that all seem to make good sense.

        1.  Eat breakfast.

          2.  Abstain from alcohol.

          3.  Drink at least six 8-oz. glasses of water a day.

          4.  Have an eating cutoff time at least two hours before going to bed.

          5.  Be conscious of what you eat and why you are eating it.

Sounds pretty simple, eh?



Well, I’ve got the eating
part down; the hard part is the exercise regime.  It involves six
days a week of cardio and what Bob calls functional exercises and three
days of strength training a week.  Got started all gung ho and
then couldn’t find my weights. 



Of course that meant that I
had to clean my closet.  Cleaning my closet meant getting rid of
lots of old clothes, and getting rid of old clothes led to shopping for
new clothes which, in turn, led to a big mess of shopping bags and
clutter all over the bedroom.  And then, of course, buyer’s
remorse sets in and the vicious cycle of “shopping bulimia”
begins.  Binge and purge … half the new clothes need to be
returned to the store, half of those end up being exchanged for
something else that catches my eye instead of getting returned. 
New purchases are brought home, mulled over, and then returned
again.  And I still haven’t found my weights.



So, I’m back to square one
… or actually week one of the 12-week plan.  In 12 short weeks
I’m supposed to be a whole new me, but apparently Bob Greene may have
bitten off more than he can chew in my case.

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!

I got two interesting pieces of mail yesterday …

First was a letter from one of my former students. She is excited because her family is going to the beach to have a “bomb fire” … should I notify the authorities?

Second was my temporary membership card for the AARP. I do from time to time feel that I am getting old, but, hey, let’s not rush things, folks! As much as I would sometimes like to retire, I am still 18 years from their minimum age of 50.

A few notes on education:

I can understand parents’ frustration with the schools … especially when basic skills aren’t being mastered. But from a teacher’s perspective, I think you might be surprised at some of the things we are expected to teach in 3rd grade. I know for a fact that I did not know anything about obtuse or acute angles, isosceles and scalene triangles, square roots, the periodic table, or alliteration and onomatopoeia in third grade. Nor did I know about the economic and governmental structures of the Native Americans of my region or the adaptations they made to survive in their changing environment. On top of the things we learned in third grade like multiplication, division, handwriting, and the development of reading and writing skills, we are expected to teach so much more. Algebra is creeping into the curriculum, and by the time they leave third grade, my kids even know about narrative, expository, and descriptive writing.

Many of our students come to us in Kindergarten not speaking ANY language fluently and having never been read to … no knowledge of what a book is. And yet our funding is based on test scores being sized up against districts where students have had the advantage of expensive, elite preschools, parents who have the luxury of time and money to lavish on giving them every advantage. From the beginning we are playing a game of catch up, forced to cram as much down these poor kids’ throats as we can so we don’t lose funding and have to be taken over by the state.

I think that, actually, in my school district many of our problems with students could be lessened or resolved by putting back into education everything that has been taken out to accommodate these increasingly unrealistic expectations. If you are not a student who finds your path to success through fundamental academics, you have no other paths open to you. Perhaps you might have been a gifted artist, talent athlete, a whiz on a computer, or a future scientist, but because none of these areas are even tapped by the school anymore, success and self-esteem are based solely on how one performs in the classroom and on “the test.” I once had a student who was newly-arrived from Vietnam. He spoke no English and had, as a result, developed a reputation among his peers as not being smart. One day I took the kids out to PE, and Hai kicked everyone’s butt in hockey. Suddenly, his classmates had a new respect for him, and he had newfound confidence that translated into improved performance in the classroom.

Another student, Edward, was a struggling, but devoted student newly moved out of a severe language disability and aphasia class. When I taught the students about Van Gogh, he became so interested that he begged me to get more information for him. Because of that passion and intrinsic motivation, that little boy spent hours pouring over whatever I was able to scrape up for him … even materials written for adults.

Raul fell in love with Diego Rivera … a love that changed his life. His mom wrote a letter for me to the superintendent (which took her two weeks because she insisted on writing it in English) describing how Raul had always been ashamed of being Mexican and even refused to speak Spanish to her. But, after learning of Diego Rivera, Raul had new pride in his heritage and shared ad nauseam with his family about the famous Mexican painter. Raul also went on that year to develop a love of classical music and begged his mom to buy him a compilation CD from Sam’s Club which later caused great conflict with his brother who wanted to listen to his Men in Black soundtrack. Raul was a messy, sticky kid for whom every little task was a huge chore. Who knew that there was something so special waiting to be awakened in him?

These are some of my favorite memories of teaching. Jonathan Kozol writes that teachers are experts in opening small packages. Opening those packages is what I love most about my job, but in the past five years it has become increasingly difficult to find those opportunities to truly inspire my kids. What I find so frustrating is that I know that kids in neighboring wealthy districts still have those opportunities … in fact, they have double because they often have parents who encourage those discoveries at home. A student I am tutoring from a wealthier area is still doing the art projects, reading the novels, taking music classes, and going on incredible fieldtrips.

I am so fortunate to have colleagues who are intelligent, committed people and share my sense of desperation as well as my desire to do the best that I can do for my students despite the system. I don’t think I could continue getting up and going to work everyday if I had to do it with colleagues who didn’t care as much as I do about our kids. But, there’s only so much we can do. Bush has created a system whereby more than 90% of schools may be labeled “failing” by 2012 so the Republicans can push their voucher agenda. But that is a story for another day.

Last night while semi-watching the news I heard this, “Coming up … what’s causing millions of animals to flee the mountains.” What? Millions of animals are fleeing the mountains? I live in the foothills so I think perhaps I’d better see this story. I wait … and wait … and wait through stories about Mary Kay, the newest weightloss strategy, where to find the best hotdogs, etc. I REALLY need to know why wildlife are apparently making a mass exodus to my backyard. Finally, the very last story … all of one or two sentences. Turns out that because of the drought (which has been going on for most of my life) animals are venturing out of their normal habitats in search of water. WHAT? That’s not news. That happens all the time! “Millions of animals fleeing the mountains” … puhleeeze!

Irate that I’ve been suckered into watching a full hour of inane “news”, I turn off the TV and leave with my boyfriend for our evening walk. And turning the corner on Wildrose Lane we almost run headlong into a coyote making his way down the hill. Had he been watching the news too? Yikes! Now I’m thinking, “We’d better hurry because his millions of buddies might not be far behind.”

And that, my friends, is how the news media (with a little help from the wildlife community) creates a culture of fear in America.

For more than two years I have been coming here, posting only when I was extremely bored or needed to vent. But I have been here almost daily to read others’ blogs. I’ve been reluctant to write because I think, “Who would be interested in the mundane details of my life?” That’s funny because it is the mundane details of other peoples’ lives that keep me coming back here. Somehow I got wrapped up in the lives of perfect strangers. Some have gotten married, some have moved, some have changed careers, some have had babies, some have lost loved ones, and I have watched it all from the outside, feeling for these “friends” who don’t even know me. I wonder why I am interested in what someone I don’t even know had for dinner, or did for the weekend, or watched on TV.

Before I start to sound creepy, I guess I’d better make some kind of a point. I think after observing for all this time, it became awkward to suddenly appear and act as though I don’t know that a year ago you got married or had meatloaf for dinner or tried tai chi. It is time to get over my Xanga shyness and make my debut.

So, here I am … and I know what you had for dinner!

And just to be fair, I had chicken.

In other news:
I have a cute banner … really … and someday I may actually be able to get it on my page!

The love of my life got married on January 16th. Nope, not to me. While the rational, grown-up side of me is very happy for him, the rest of me felt physical pain when I read the news. My heart actually hurt. His new wife is six months pregnant, and he is reading up on how to take care of an infant and how to raise a smart child. They have felt the baby move and are making room for a nursery.

The door is officially closed. It took ten years, but now it’s over. I think it would have been easier if I were the one who closed it.

When I met Yang I believed that love could conquer all things. Perhaps that would be true if we went through life only loving one person at a time. But I also love my family, and my mother is the most important person in my world. When I was little there was a time when she didn’t want to live. She stayed alive for me. She made so many sacrifices for me. I guess that Yang is the sacrifice I have made in return. She had such a hard time when I was gone for just a year that I couldn’t bear the thought of telling her I was going to build a life on the other side of the world.

The irony is that when I left for Taiwan, her one piece of advice to me was not to fall for a Taiwanese native because they would probably only be using me to get a greencard. Why was it then that I had to choose the one guy in Taiwan who had no interest in coming to the US? Actually, I wouldn’t have it any other way because one of the things I loved most about Yang was that he cared for his family as deeply as I care for mine. On top of that, he is culturally bound and obligated as the only son to take care of them for the rest of his life.

Even though they spoke no English and no Chinese, and I spoke no Taiwanese, his parents did truly care for me, as I did for them. His mother, who only had one year of formal schooling, even dictated a letter to me welcoming me to their family. When Yang made his first trip off the island to visit me in the US, my parents also embraced him.

But in the end, we always came up against the same wall. While I have missed him all these years, it has been tolerable because, however irrational, the possibility of us somehow one day finding a way was still there. Now that the possibility is gone, I feel such emptiness.

The hardest thing is knowing that he still feels the same way. I know he loves his new wife, but not in the way he loved me. I know that I will always have a place in his heart. In our last phone conversation a couple of months ago he reminded me of the Chinese story of two lovers separated from one another. They had to wait sixteen years before the gods allowed them to meet again. He said that he used to think that sixteen years was such a long time, but then he realized that ten years had gone by for us already. He is Buddhist and hopes that in our next lives we will meet again. While I am not Buddhist, there is a part of me that believes that this wasn’t our first meeting. I don’t know if you have ever had this experience, but when I first laid eyes on him, I felt as though I had known him forever. Since then, boyfriends have come and gone … and I loved them all. But never before and never since have I felt that kind of exquisite magic.

When I left Taiwan for the last time in March of 1995, I gave Yang a card that had an ancient Chinese idiom written inside … “Until the mountains crumble and the seas dry up” … the words and the sentiment are as true today as they were all those years ago.