Two in a Day! And Two Days in a Row!

I figure the other one doesn't really count, so. . .

It's Wednesday, and this week is officially more than half over. It is Wednesday, right? I lose track. Today I'm staying after school to grade papers, clean my desk, and prepare for tomorrow. . .then (ideally) I won't take anything home. We'll see if it happens that way.

My days are looking up. Most of my classes are falling into line, and I'm feeling more organized and more prepared than I did the first few weeks. I still don't want to get up in the morning, and I still don't want to come to school most days, but it is at least livable (and maybe even enjoyable) once I'm here.

I've come to a new realization this week that what our society has done in allowing women into the mainstream workforce is not only "allowing equal opportunities" or "sharing the work," but quite literally created new and additional chores. It's not as if working women replace the work they would otherwise do at home with a paying job. They add the career on top of the work that is required at home. What logic is there in doubling one person's work load and then being surprised when both spouses (spice?) are stressed and overworked, as is true for many American households today? No wonder people feel like they can't keep up. More money does not equal more time. In fact, it may often equal less. "Time is of the essence" has a whole new meaning in our two-paycheck-family world.

Only 70?

We're not talking about years, but posts. My dashboard says I only have 70 posts. Is that a pitifully low number, considering the length of time this blog has existed? How many posts do YOU have?

To Quiet My Conscience

So I'm feeling guilty. So I haven't posted in. . .how many days? So I got a ShinyStats e-mail yesterday notifying me of faithful would-be readers. So I post.

It's sad, really. I come up with all these great post titles during the day, when I can't post. By the time evening comes around and I can post, I've either forgotten the great titles (and therefore lost my motivation) or am too tired to feel like typing something cheerfully newsy. Last night my great post title was "Hungry Husbands and Weary Wives." Great, because it's alliterative. I wasn't so much weary--although Kevin was hungry--as just tired. Weary implies more long-term tiredness, exhaustion, and apathy fueled by lack of energy. So maybe it wasn't such a great title. But it sounded good.

Today all my classes are taking tests, and it's wonderfully quiet. . .relatively speaking, of course. It gives me time to grade, at least, although I have to leave in about 30 minutes for a workshop having something to do with preparing 10th graders to take the state writing test. Blah. And I could be grading!!! Maybe I'll take it with me. . .I wonder how conspicuous that would be.

Students return from lunch in 1 minute. Gotta go!

Succumbing to Peer Pressure

In response to complaints and wishes for my uninspiring prattle, I blog.

I confess it has been too long since I opened this page. However, the truth is I haven't been enjoying an overly positive outlook on life. That bad week I wrote of before seems to be prolonging itself, indefinitely. School, on the best days, is trying. I consistently feel sapped of energy and enthusiasm, and not just for school. Behavior continues to be a serious problem; a day with only 1 fight in the school is a good day. A day where I only write referrals for students who have too many tardies or don't wear their IDs is a really good day. I have called numerous parents, written too-numerous referrals, and have gone almost completely gray. (Okay, so the last part isn't true. Does it get me any sympathy? I'm only 23!) I keep injuring my fingers, too: a paper cut here, a scraped knuckle there, a burn blister from cutting hot peppers. My AP class tells me I need to slow down. They don't understand why I always have a band-aid somewhere on one of my hands. (Speaking of band-aids, I've almost run out. . .and I don't have kids to use them up!)

Last week started off badly, but was better by the end of the week. Hopefully this week will be the same. Most of it is just stress and an overwhelming number of things to do (which is why laundry is piled high in my closet), combined with lack of energy to prepare any real meals. However, I did pre-cook some meat this weekend, so I can probably start cooking again. K is gone for a business trip to DC for the next 2 days, and I'm hoping to get caught up on grading and cleaning while he's out. Then we go to OKC for him to get his wisdom teeth taken out, and then Amanda is coming to stay with us for a couple nights during her Fall Break. Then I get Fall Break(!!!) and a birthday. In other news, my mom is back home. Brian still doesn't have a mode of transportation; Insurance wants to total his truck. And my class is returning from lunch, so I must go.

Farewell.

The Never-Ending Week

. . .but wait, it's over. So all things DO come to an end, good or not. Let's run over a synopsis of this week. . .

Monday - I stayed home with a hoarse voice and a sore throat. I didn't feel like trying to control my 144 students without a working voice.

Tuesday - My day begins at 3:30 am when Brian calls to say he's run his truck into a tree. For the next 3 hours, I help him get a wrecker, etc. About 6:30 I come home for a fitful 45-minute nap before I get up and go to school. First hour is. . .horrible. My voice is still weak, I'm still coughing a bit, and I'm exhausted. My class is all attitude and talk. I finally resort to calling an administrator down, because they refuse to listen to me at all. The middle of the school day is better, and the last couple of hours are difficult again. I arrive home in time to go get dinner before we attend our weekly small group meeting. My mom calls as I'm about to go to bed around 10, and I finally crash around 11 pm. . .having been awake for almost 20 hours.

Wednesday - I do not want to get up. My throat is no better and is in fact starting to feel worse. However, I make it to school. First hour is not improved. I wind up writing one referral when an angry student threatens me and calling a couple parents of other students with severe attitude problems. The rest of the day is not too bad, although the last 2 hours are, as usual, difficult. I leave quickly after school to take Brian to work, then go to sleep in the living room at 7. At 9, I get up and go to bed. My throat is definitely worse, and my cough syrup (as if it were helping anyway) is almost gone.

Thursday - First hour is a little better today. They're starting to catch on. My throat is killing me, and I'm trying to decide if I can miss school again on Friday. The day progresses with little incident until 6th hour. I'm trying to get my oversized class's attentiont to actually teach when I realize 2 of my students are actually yelling at each other. Trying to calm them down, there is suddenly a sharp pain in my head and a shower of Mountain Dew over the rest of me. Apparently, one of the angry students decided to pelt a pop bottle at the other one and had very unlucky aim. Several other students clean up the mess while I get Security to escort Angry Students out. Class continues, with 2 students telling me how much they now respect me, apparently because I didn't join the fight and start throwing punches when I got. . .baptized. If only I'd known their respect was so easy to earn. . . .
I'm rather in shock from this whole occurrence and don't know quite what to think. I've decided some absurdities are indeed too absurd to even be laughed at. There are already several teachers out on Friday, so I guess I've got one more day to go.

Friday - My voice is almost gone. My head is bruised and sore to the touch. I have to spend my planning period filling out staff injury forms with the nurse. We survive the whole day with me maintaining as much control as possible. Mostly, it's not too bad. Several students are sorry I feel bad, hope I get better, etc., etc. One in 7th hour asks me if I can speak up more. Ha.
Once home, I become mute. Kevin reads my mind amazingly well. . .apprently I don't need to talk much anyway. After dinner, we experiment with a tiramisu recipe. It has to be refrigerated at least 4 hours, so I'll let you know later how it turns out.

That's my week in a nutshell. How many weeks of school do we have left???

Just a Tidbit

Friday is almost half-over. I might make it.

My throat is still rather sore, which makes talking (read: "yelling loud enough to be heard over a roomful of teenagers) painful. I'm also sounding rather hoarse. Only 4 classes left to go.

I'm afraid I have no amusing anecdotes to relate today. However, I will report that Kevin helped me plant my herb garden last night. Now if it will only live. I'll try to post a picture later. . .if I remember.

Please Yield

I was going to spoof a student-made sign I passed in the hall today which contains a large yellow diamond with the letters YIED on it. However, I decided I should not just take my lunchtime opportunity to ridicule people every day. So, on the bright side of things, allow me to share some encouraging news. My AP class today mostly agreed that profanity in public is disrespectful, rude, careless, and indicative of poor vocabulary and widespread poor public education. Hoorah for them!

As for other matters, I have none. My throat is feeling slightly sore, which I hope is from reading aloud to 5 classes yesterday and not from the beginnings of an illness. I have not talked to Brian since the weekend, since he inadvertently got "pushed" into the pool with his active cell phone in his pocket. (He doesn't have a landline, so I guess I'll have to go visit him if I want to know how he is.) Kevin scheduled an appointment for wisdom-teeth extraction in October, so I am set to enjoy my last month of wise wedded bliss. . .after this we'll just be foolish together, I suppose. (Why are they called "wisdom teeth" anyway?) My classes are still completely imbalanced, but there is a ray of light somewhere ahead, and I'm hoping they will be balanced by the end of next week. (That's only 4 weeks into the school year. . .way to safeguard instructional time!) I left for work without my rings this morning and had to go back to get them. (Of course, I wasn't out of the parking garage yet, so it wasn't actually far to "go back.") I'm supposed to start a novel with the AP class tomorrow. . .and haven't chosen one or, obviously, prepared any background notes. Oops. (Shall we go with "Brave New World?") Tonight is date night, so I'm not likely to get much of anything done for school.

Well, I still have 7 minutes of lunchtime quiet left, so I'm going to do something productive. . .like staple $*#%@! profanity assignments together. . .hee hee.

A Lunch Post???

Yes, indeed, I am still here. Perhaps I shall endeavor to post briefly at lunch. . .although today I only have 2 minutes left, so it shall necessarily be short.

I am in the process of making copies of articles that have to do with profanity, free speech, and offensive language. This is my new disciplinary plan for profanity in my classroom: read the article, answer the questions I assign. We'll see how it works. If you come across any articles. . .I'm sure to run out soon!

Time's up. Tomorrow, perhaps.

For the word lovers. . .

There is a wonderfully entertaining site of international tongue twisters, indexed by language.

On Countdown

In an effort to actually finish the books I'm reading, I'm trying to narrow down my current reading list BEFORE school starts, when I undoubtedly will forget I ever read or was reading anything. To that end, I finished Literary Feuds last night. I have to say that, while I had some difficulty paying attention at times, I am pleasantly surprised with the book as a whole. It's the kind of random, trivial information you only get from being a well-read and educated person. . .not to say that I overly qualify for either of those adjectives. The author seems to write from a moral perspective, sometimes mildly scolding the feuding authors for their below-the-belt digs. He also seems very fair, citing both positive and negative about all authors discussed. Without the knowledge to judge the validity of his points, I would nonetheless say that he appears to have a well-balanced perspective. It's a good "broadening-your-spectrum-of-knowledge" book.

More on School

According to the website of the Oklahoma State Department of Education , Oklahoma is the only state that constitutionally provides for parents to homeschool their kids. There are no regulations or accountability requirements; if the state wants to force you to send your children to school, the burden of proof is on them to prove that no other means of education is being provided or that the provided means of education is not equitable.

Did Puritans really create public schools?

Check out this lovely article on Fox News about a parent who is being a parent. There's a good link at the bottom of the article too, and a link from that page to an article on homeschooling.

Return of the Internet Access

After being without any means of getting online for. . .let's see. . .4 days now, I am happy to report that our DSL is up and running again. I am sitting on the couch in our new apartment staring at a prodigious mess of empty, half-empty, and not-empty boxes. (Note that I prefer to think in terms of empty boxes rather than full boxes. . . .) The kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom are mostly put to rights, but there is clutter and an eclectic scattering of odds and ends everywhere. The living room is just mass chaos. All in all, however, I think the move will be worth it. We have a cute little patio that opens into a picturesque courtyard. I'll post pictures in a couple days. . .when there is a path to the patio door again. We have more room, as well. I am anticipating not feeling "squished" as soon as all the boxes are disposed of. (Speaking of, do you want boxes back, Rachel?)

I should probably get busy, as I only have about 2 hours before Kevin comes home for lunch, and then I'm going to spend the afternoon working in my classroom at school.

If Life were a Movie about ME. . .

the sun would be my own personal spotlight, the rain my scheduled daily shower, and the clouds attenuated to my personal desire for shade.

Obviously, life is not a movie about me.

I think someone should write a poem, if not a book, entitled If Life were a Movie about Me, and the first line should be "the sun would be my own personal spotlight." However, the only books I can think of that might have such a title are silly contemporary novels or almost-equally-questionable inspirational/self-help snippets. Oh well. . .you have to admit it's a catchy title.

Galactic Explorers Be Warned

Apparently, the galaxy is a place overrun with illogical events and ironic British humor. . .at least, so it is portrayed in the infamous The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I finished the book this morning, so now I suppose we can see the movie. I recommend the book for a humorous and easy read; I'm sure there are philosophical musings somewhere within its infinite depths, but I don't care to extricate them.

We returned from OKC this evening; it is good to be home. We had a very busy 3 days of various family gatherings, all of which I survived unscathed. My lack of sociability is really lamentable. Someone should do something about it.
In truth, we enjoyed seeing everyone and catching up. We haven't been to the city since the first weekend in July. . .hmmm, it seems so much longer than that. Please say a prayer for my youngest cousin as she goes back to school this week. Public high schools are scary places, no matter where you live.

Nothing In Particular

I visited an AP camp at another high school this morning. AP students commonly have summer reading assignments, usually consisting of 1 or more novels and some related writing project. AP students commonly do not complete their summer reading assignments. (To be fair, that is not entirely accurate. Many do. Many, however, do not.) To alleviate this common problem, this high school has started a week-long AP camp during the summer. While not required, it provides a structured time for students to come in, get help, and finish their summer assignments before school starts. I think this is a good idea, and perhaps I shall try to implement it next year.

As for my own AP class planning, I am realizing how completely unprepared I am to teach this class. I suppose all AP teachers feel this way at the beginning. There is such a huge volume of information to cover, in addition to the catch-up material some students arrive needing. And to be honest, I am not completely sure that I've ever had formal instruction over all of the material myself. Not that formal instruction is the only, or even the best, way of learning. . .it just makes me feel somewhat at a disadvantage. They start listing different types of essays written for different purposes, and I'm not sure I could explain what each type/purpose is, let alone give examples. Fortunately, they are mostly common-sense and easy-to-figure-out-if-you-just-think-type labels. No doubt this year will prove. . .adventurous.

On an unrelated subject, it is utterly ridiculous how we (or at least, I) make ourselves miserable over things we cannot control and cannot change. How ironic that selfish behavior tends only to make the self (who, of course, is supposed to be the prime beneficiary of said behavior) more miserable and more conscious of its "wrongs" than otherwise. I am ashamed to admit it has taken me 2 days to admit this. To subdue my massively chaotic mental ravings, I finally scrawled them all out in random and spontaneous order. I am not sure what I think about this method of therapy. While writing is unquestionably therapeutic, spewing out childish whining is not much better (if any) in ink than by voice. On the other hand, it is easily recognizable as childish whining when spelled out on paper, and at least no one else has to put up with it.

I believe I should now be getting ready for our trip to the city this weekend. The kitchen needs to be cleaned up, my school paraphenelia (of which there is an over-abundance) straightened, and a suitcase packed if we plan on wearing clean clothes--which we do. In addition to that, I need to make 2 phone calls, pay the bills, balance the budget, and wash a load of clothes. Oh, and I have chicken thawing that must be cooked before we leave. Yes, my afternoon work should keep me busy. Some music will be helpful.

Reading Results

I've finished both the book on the hip-hop generation and the one on home educating. While I definitely recommend the Boyer book to those who are interested in a bit of background philosophy and a few tips on home education (he dislikes the term "homeschool"), I'd recommend the hip-hop book only with a couple grains of salt. The facts are interesting, but the interpretation is decidedly liberal. There is, of course, some truth what she says; there is always a bit of truth on both sides of the fence. Personally, I think it was worth reading to see the dilemma facing young black Americans as many of them see it.

Giant Zucchini and Purple Peppers

Last week, I didn't make it to the Farmer's Market until 10 o'clock. Since they open at 7 and close at 11, the prime produce is mostly gone by 10. However, I still came home with plenty, including peaches and a watermelon. This week, I made the effort and got out of bed at 8. However, I then discovered I had to do a little prep work for lunch if we wanted to eat before 3, so I didn't make it to the Market until 9. They were MORE sold-out than last week at 10!

Although I am disappointed that I didn't make it in time to get any fruit, I did come home with potatoes, tomatoes, fresh garlic, green bell pepper, and, my two prize purchases, a giant zucchini and a dark purple bell pepper. I have seen large zucchini before, but this one might take the cake. (Or bread, as that is what it will be used for. . .) It is almost a foot long and 4-5 inches in diameter at the biggest part. As for the purple bell pepper, I've never seen such a thing. The proprietor assures me they are somewhat sweet; I must confess I'm more excited about the aesthetic value. Imagine the added appeal to stir-fry or baked vegetables with purple thrown in!

Do you think getting up early on Saturday to go buy fresh produce counts as "bringing food from afar"? (Excuse my British punctuation. . .it just makes so much more sense!)

O Realist of the Fantastic!

. . .Joseph Conrad's moniker for H.G. Wells.

I've finished The War of the Worlds. I must confess that I don't particularly like it. . .just not my type of reading, I suppose. Neither do I particularly like his writing style. I'm sure I should be better able to articulate a reason for that statement, but suffice to say I think it redundant and bogged down with theorizing. Thick with social commentary, I'm not quite sure if that or the story is really the main point. Nor am I sure if my previous comment on Wells' theology are correct. The Christian overtones I cited at the end of the movie do indeed come from the book. . .word for word, if my memory serves. Yet he is clearly an evolutionist, both scientifically and socially. I am confused as to whether the process of "survival of the fittest" or the predestination of God saved Earth from the Martians. In truth, I do not particularly care and shall not trouble my head about it any more. I have more interesting things to read, including a book on writing that my aunt sent me today. I really want to start it, but I think I will force myself to finish one other book before I do. . .my progress has lagged this week, with the workshop I've been in for 6 hours every day, and is likely to remain slow next week. Not that I'm complaining, as both workshops are practical, not politically correct doggerel (not a new word, but a new context for me. . .Wells uses it as a "dumb or silly rhyme." Hurrah for ever-expanding vocabulary!).

I believe it is near my bedtime, so farewell to all.

Art Deco Tour

We took a guided tour of downtown Tulsa in my teacher workshop today, looking at all the art deco buildings built with oil money in the teens and 20's. Here's some of what we saw.
A piece of an elevator door in the 320 South Boston building, formerly the National Bank of Tulsa:

The 320 South Boston building as seen from the 15th floor terrace of the Mid-Continental building, formerly the Cosden building, built in 1918 by an oilman, renovated in 1984 (Note the stonework of the Mid-Continental building, seen in the corner):

The top of the Philtower, so named for Waite Phillips, oilman of the famed Phillips oil company:

The tower of what used to be the local grocery store: