Snow days.. are ugh.

I'm trapped in side my apartment, being lazy, waiting to get the motivation to get ahead of all the school work that I have to do. Instead, I window shop online, color fuzzy posters, and dream about what to do with my tax rebate check.

I missed out on a ver cool fundraiser dinner becasue of the snow. My classes are behind two days becasue of the snow. I've found out that I'm a lazy lump when the weather is cold. I really don't want to go to school tomorrow because I don't want ot work. And all this online shopping makes me wish I had money to spend.

Sigh. But it is pretty, we did get a good three inches, and it is beautiful to walk around. And I am planning to go to Chinchilla Nationals to maybe pick up another chinchilla! :)

Teacher Feature

Sundays are never really a part of my weekend. They are the grading, planning, creating power-point presentations, worksheet, and refferals for tardies day. They are the new-seating-chart-because-the-kids-were-squrriely-and-because-the-Scholars-Bowl-team-rearranged-my-room-anyway-day.

The appeal of a 9-5 job is there. The appeal of "I have my masters degree, I could teach at a low quailty community college" idea is there too.

If I didn't have to run to the Evil place for school supplies with money out of my own pocket, that would be cool too.

But students are learning about plate tectonics and Physics...and that is fun. I also get to add "A Female Bill Nye the Science Guy" to my list of compliments too. ;)

The Obama Lama

With everything that's been going on, I'm going to endulge in a little joy before typing about sorrow. OBAMA!!!!! Thank the frick'n lord. I ended up going to two celebrations. One was at a college friends house in St. Peters. We ate chololate fondue, artichoke dip, olive/cheese salad and danced. I played beer pong for the first time :). There was a Bush Pinata, and we killed it by throwing shoes. Much festivites and rejocing as well as crashing at the party place. The morning after was a trip to Denny's with lots of OJ.

The second was a offical democrats of Franklin County Shin-ding. It was so funny to watch. People we really networking and carousing around. From people's behavior, I can guess who is running for what postion in a few years. There is definately a divide between the old house republicans and the new people brounght into the Obama fold. The Old house is still in shock a little. At the first meeting after the election the obama voulnteers were chastize for electioneering for Obama but not for any of the local candidates. A woman was literally in tears because there was a lack of voulteers for the local campaigns, but a surplus for the Obama camp. The way the networkinghouse was set up, the people in charge did not encourage any cross over. So doors were knocked on for Obama, but almost none for Local officals.

The Lady doing the chatizing then looked out at the crowd. Over half of the people their were new, and over half lokked so pissed they were going to walk out. She quickly back tracked. All of this happened in November. It seems that the Obamanites are now controling the show. They organized the Celebration dinner on inaguration day, complete with left-over election materials. Old posters, old door hangers were given away. The food was good, and met union folk. The town I grew up in was small, so I was not exposed to union traditions, it has been interesting to learn more.

My students are slowly recovering from the loss that took place last weekend. The student who died had some issues, and many of his friends who are now coping have even more. My students are dealing with grief in many different ways. Some kids have been more defiant, others a lot quieter. Many have had trouble taking medications routinely. This can make for a basket case of a classroom. Some how I'm supposed to deal with my own grief, and lead others to a healthy way to deal with their feelings. It is just hard.

At the funeral, there were SO many kids. The counselor says that students many students may have not know my student deeply, but that his death reminds them of the death of another loved one. So students are re-living and re-dealing with old grief. Many of my students haven't developed good coping mechanisms because of what has happened in their lives previously, drug abuse, divorce, physical and mental abuse. Many are starting to go down dangerous paths.

The good of it is, I'm hoping that his death with allow students to heal in a healthy way. To safety open up old wounds,and cleanup the infection. I just hope I have the patience to guide them.

One of my students died last night in a car crash. I knew that I would have to deal with this sometime during my career, but certainly not so soon. He was working really hard in my class, and had struggled to pass first semester, but did. This child was living breathing, and talking out of turn in my class on Friday. Now he's gone, he simply dosn't exist any more.

What do you say? What are you supposed to feel? How in the hell am I going to deal with my students? Most of his friends are at-risk students. They have lost parents to alcohol, drugs, divorce and abuse. They havn't developed the coping mechanisms to deal with this. Many of them are already struggling in school, and I am terrified of what this will do to them.

I am glad that I can say that I was a postive influence in his life, and that he heard praise from me in class before his death.

Oh God, be with us all.

Camp Hope

Early Saturday morning (4:30) I left with a car pool to go up to Camp Hope in Chicago's Drexell Park. Basically it was a vigil to make sure that Barak Obama keeps his campaign promises of progressive reform.

Summary1: It was cold.

Summary 2: It was enlightening.

The people that I went up with were awesome. They included my ex (a theology masters student), a family practice doctor who works at a low-income clinic, and a employee for the piece economy project. I was probably the least liberal person there!
We got there and shivered in the snow, using the signs we were holding as wind blocks. My feet got wet, and I was seriously worried about frostbite!

The group ended up at the vigil for 3.5 hours on a Saturday, and we ended up staying at a Catholic worker house. The building was a converted Friary, where Jesuit Friars used to live. Think beautiful wood working, and lots of rooms, like a three floor college dorm.Now it is a safe house, for people who have just immigrated and need a warm place to stay. The majority of people living there are single moms with their familes.

On Sunday, we were out there till three in the afternoon. it had stopped snowing and I had plastic bags around my shoes, which increased my comfort level a lot. We also has smores and a fire. We also met some international press, as a reporter from Japan took our pictures and some notes.

Meet some very cool people at the vigil, (more mennonites), Social Justice catholics, Humanists, and Athesits. It was some of the most interesting discussion that I've had since college. I've really missed being exposed to that many view points!

Then, we are back to school, and starting the physics semester. I love this subject and I've been working hard to make it interesting to my students!

Artistry

I've been trying to get creative. I'm finding that teaching school gets me into a power-point creation cycle, and not much else. The two main styles that I"m working on are simple pencil sketching and cut paper art.
Keep in mind that my first "C" ever was in art, so it's not coming easy. I'm finding that it is very difficult to draw accurtely. I'm following the advice of my art teacher friend and I'm drawing what I see, not what I think I see, and that's been working okay. I've got some sketches of hands that aren't too bad. But it is clear it is going to take a long time to get good at it.
The other style of art that I'm attempting is cut paper art. This is where you cut geometric desgns and scenes out of contruction paper and layer them. I'm a little bit better at this becasue it is so diberate a process. I'm not doing alot of designs that require a ton of detail yet, so it is hard to mess up. It is really thearputic to simply worry about cutting out a piece of paper right, instead of the rest of the world that assails me.
I'm goign with a car pool to Chicago, for "Camp Hope" a Peace and Justice/Obama forum. Wish me luck!

Guilty pleasures

Everyone is allowed their bad taste in music. My guilty pleasure is techno music. A boyfriend in college would listen to Russian/Ukrainian techno, and it's addictive. When the wind is frigid, and there is no money for a gym, dancing spastically to techno music for 20 minutes does the trick!
Back to school. I actually missed the little darlins'. The poor kids have to take finals week after a break, so it's going to be rough going for them this week. This next semester is all Physics and Energy. It's going to be time to ride my bike inside the school to demonstrate velocity and displacement...wait untill the pricipal hears that there are wheelies taking place inside the school!

The Year of the Chinchilla

I think that 2008 was defined by my aquring large quantites of animals. It was also deeply defined by my profession. I left a job that I was deeply unhappy at and am now in a school that I greatly enjoy. The transistion from miserable to okay has certainly been welcome, and I thank the Almightly that it happened. However, I do want to move from okay to fantatic. I need to do this by taking more risks and being more proactive about pursuing my happiness. I think that I'm at a good point where I'm not overwhelmed with work that I can sit back and plan and scheme.
The major unique goal this year is to go to Spain for two or more weeks.
Other goals include to increase the amount of hiking and biking that I do.