Monthly Archives: May 2007

Not the best day ever.

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I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I think I woke up so god-awful-early because I was anxious about Noah leaving. My beloved is on his way to Texas. There he will have a less than fun conversation with his parents about the level of involvement (none) they will be allowed to have with our kids. Given that everytime they call his father asks three or four times, “So! Any big news?” I think they anticipate kidlets about as soon as we do. And uhhh yeah. Unfortunately they won’t be involved and we think it is best that they know that before they find out I am pregnant. Because telling them over the phone, “Yeah–we’re pregnant! Oh, and by the way, my mother is abusive and she isn’t allowed to meet my children” would really suck. I don’t envy him this trip. My mother has already been told that she is not likely to be allowed any contact and if there is any at all it will always be supervised heavily.

This stuff is depressing to think about.

I had to sit in the sun for an hour at a teachers appreciation rally. I now have a nasty headache. Ick.

I am home teaching today from 4:30-7. It’s not exactly my idea of a good time though I guess it could be worse. The kid is ok and I’m enjoying what we are doing for history and English. I even feel smart cause I understand the geometry! 🙂

So it’s not the best day ever. It’s also nowhere near the worst day ever so I’m not *really* complaining. 🙂 As much as I already miss Noah, he is coming back on Monday. He loves me and is doing something that is about us building a life together. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.

AND my Julia is going to be here this weekend. I get to spend time with her. It’s always so wonderful to see her. Maybe this time I can manage to not be a freakin spazz. Sometimes it is hard loving someone when things aren’t equal.

Assignment

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We are reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the junior class. I’m trying to get them to understand the general cruelty of the nurses and the orderlies so I went searching on the internet for something that would be applicable. I discovered the Milgram Experiment (google it if you like, I’m not cool enough to imbed URLs from the web client) and thought A Ha! So I found many websites with interesting information and I tried to figure out how to present the data to the kids.

What I had them do was fill out a questionnaire on how much cruelty they believe they would be willing to mete out, then how much they believe other people would mete out. Does it matter if an authority tells you to? Why would someone do as they were told? And a few other questions I can’t remember.

Then I handed them the reports about the Milgram Experiment, but see…. I was sneaky. Before I printed the information I formatted it to have big gaps between paragraphs. Then when I printed it I cut them out into strips. Then I mixed the strips up. The kids have to put the paragraphs together in order so that they can read the reports. So not only are they getting nifty information but they have to do problem solving and work in a group for collaborative learning. Then once they have it all together they have to respond to the information and we are discussing it. Sweet.

The kids are doing fabulously well. Of course they are whining about working–but they are working. 🙂

Just so it’s been said.

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May 26th we’ll be grading the writers workshop papers. Grading them is easy and actually kind of fun because we mock the children. Last batch we came up with: “But why Ryoko, why?” I mean… what could be better than that? To sweeten the deal: I will supply food and booze. 🙂 It’s actually kind of fun doing it with people and it goes relatively quickly. And just think, you will be saving me a significant amount of time. 😉 You don’t have to be an English major to grade these you just need to follow a rubric and be able to spot gross grammar mistakes.

Edited to reflect the Saturday date. Oops.

Student poem

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Procrastination

Well it is 1:00 Monday morning and here I am writing my
poems why must I always procrastinate
it only leads to bad things I can’t stand it
and yet time and time again I always am here
doing my stuff last minute
I guess you can compare procrastination
to masturbation
it is awesome until you realize you
screwed yourself.

I busted out laughing in class. It’s awesome.

State of the bedside table

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I realized the other day that I was reading quite a variety of books… simultaneously.
(* indicates a re-read)

Undefended Love – still slowly working my way through it. It’s a very hard read for me and I can only sometimes handle the intensity.
The Courage to Heal – also slowly working through it. I’m still trying to make progress, but it is interesting how I notice that I have only so much emotional energy on a given day so I can deal with my job or my personal shit. I think this will come to the front of the pile again when school is over.
*Walk in My Soul – I’m reading Noah one of my favorite books. It’s a neat experience because this book was one of my favorite x’s40 books growing up and I have never shared it with anyone before. I’ve also never really read to anyone before. It’s really good.
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – have to read along with the kidlets and make reading quizzes and study questions cause the ones I made last year were only so-so.
*I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – technically a reread, but it has been more than a decade. I’m doing this book with the kid I’m home teaching partially because he is a serious racist and I’m trying to get him to look at some of his opinions.
The Hobbit – I’ve never read this book. I’ve never wanted to. Comp and Lit picked it over Go Ask Alice. *sigh*
Freakonomics – I am really loving this book. It is awesome and amazing. I’m devouring chapters whenever I get a chance. Thank you Kevin!!
Radical Ecstasy – also slowly working my way through this one. It’s really interesting and it is inspiring me to feel like I want to be playing more even though I don’t have much time or energy. This summer, I am going to be wearing Noah out. Yay! Thank you Janet. I think you two did a marvelous job with this one. 🙂
I have also picked up and finished several Anne Rice books* in the past 3-4 weeks. 🙂

I forgot what it was like to love to read and to do it all the time. I am so happy that I got it back. Getting a degree in English killed my love of books for several years and I was worried that it would stay killed.

Much yay

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Today I get to go in three hours late without having to bend the rules because I am an honest and straightforward person. So screw you to all of my dishonest colleagues. (Rant maybe forthcoming on that one.)

This morning I got all of the prep work done for the next few days that has been making me nervous. Sweet.

Today, I checked the bank account and saw what would have been once upon a time a staggering amount of money. At this point it isn’t staggering, but it is certainly plenty so that my darling husband could be out of work for months before I would worry even one iota about him finding a job. My salary is enough to keep us afloat and we have a beautiful cushion for just about any “just in case.” Oh, and the only debt we have left is the mortgage and my student loans due to me masterfully managing our money and paying off a rather large amount of debt in the past six months. Go me.

Yesterday I got to see my lovely Sarah, though only briefly, and she presented me with the baby clothes she has acquired so far. The fact that I am not the only one joyfully anticipating me getting pregnant lets me feel a sense of family and attachment I wouldn’t have believed I would get. Thank you Sarah; thank you for being my family. Eight more weeks until I stop taking birth control. The days are flying by…

Including today I have 31 more days of educational opportunity remaining with my kidlets. But that includes finals and weird schedules and I don’t see any of the individual classes that many times. Really I only have 22 more days with each individual class. Eeeek! Must get through this book! But I have a good solid unit plan in front of me and I am confident that I will get through it and my babies will do well.

Life is really good.

Cue panic attack

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I have been working on cleaning my desk. This is an eternal process. But today I start home teaching a kid who is at home for medical reasons. And uhhhh I have to have some paperwork for this.

Paperwork? You mean like the kind that sits on my desk randomly in piles? Like the kind that I was industrious and I cleaned up? ….

Oh.

My.

God.

It took about 15 minutes of freaking out and making a big mess but I finally found it stuck in the middle of some random binder where I take attendence. What in the motherfuck is it doing in there?!

Thank you God for not hating me today. This was almost bad. Mostly because I don’t have any other access to the kid’s address…